Stuff I Saw

Border Crossers

While I was Installing the piece at the border we were right next to where all the traffic from Canada was coming through. When it was quiet we could even hear the conversations between the inspection agents and the motorists. Usually it was just a constant flow of ordinary traffic passing through, but every once and a while you would see something that made everyone stop working and stare. Here are a few incidents that I remember.

There was a woman, older, larger, woman, who crossed the border what seemed like every day on roller blades.

There was a motor-home hauling a small car behind on a trailer, only the ball on the motor-home was too tall for the trailer, so the back end of the trailer dragged on the ground. He spent a long time at inspection and I could kind of overhear questions about it but he must have convinced them it was alright because they let him go through. As he was passing through the temporary paved road with a speed bump, there were secondary officers there which stopped him and probably questioning him again because he was making a hell of a lot of noise. Again they let him go and he sped off up the on ramp to I-5 dragging his trailer the whole way. I wonder how far he got.

We saw on multiple times US border patrol agents on the north bound I-5 stretch randomly stopping and searching cars headed to Canada. Why? Who knows.

There were often helicopters paroling the border, some would just be following the border east to west, some would hover for a while looking at something. One day there was an unmarked lear type jet that approached from the east, made very sharp tight turns right over the border station and headed back east. The strangest thing was that it was only a few hundred feel off the ground but it was nearly silent.

I would often see very strange or odd looking cars passing by. One of the strangest was one I saw on the first day. At first it looked like a Smart car, but at second look it was half the width of a smart car.

With a little searching I found that its a Tango. I wonder how many times he parks his car only to come back and find it tipped over by hooligans or a small breeze.

It reminded me of this.

Look At This

Install Pictures

Here are pictures I took during the install that were not apart of the time lapse. Throughout the day my camera was tied up so these pictures were usually from early in the morning or near sunset when we quit for the day. I'm going up there again on Thursday so hopefully I will get some better shots of it completed. We actually finished the last day after the sun set which was also the last day we had the condo so we had to leave for Seattle that night. It was a bit strange not having more time to be around the piece once it was finished.

Watch This

Border Install

Well we finished up the border install last week and since then I have been stairing at my screen putting together the time lapse that I took of the two week install. I'll probably finish it today or Wednesday, but until then I have a rough clip of the last day.

You can see another picture as well as a description of this piece here.

I also have a to of pictures I will post probably this week once I'm done with the video. There is also a huge backlog of things I want to post about so over the next few weeks I'll be posting about my stay up near the border which may or may not include such things as late night photo shoot near the refinery, trips up to Vancouver for Korean food and the elusive Japadog, trips to Tony's, an attempted trip to find a bar in Lynden, sneaking across the border to buy booze, bike rides in Blaine, the little red caboose, the magical powers of the orange vest, pull tabs, joining the american legion, watching geriatrics dance at the american legion, Arnold Schwarzenegger, hobo scaffolding, having front row seats to see the dead hookers live in Bellingham, and much much more.

Update

Border Install

Well I've been up here in Blaine a little more then a week installing LPS border project. Were on path and everything is going as planned, no major problems yet. The site we are working on is really busy with lots of construction on the new border crossing. Some days it seems like we make huge progress on the piece when we put a new large section on, then there are days which we spend just filling in sections and stepping back and looking  it feels like we haven't done anything at all. There will be a lot of little welding things at the end which will make a huge difference in the piece but actually seem close up like nothing is happening. I'm constantly finding myself having to step back to get a better look at the piece as a whole and away from looking at the individual rods up close.

It's been interesting staying up here for so long when it's not actually for vacation. I've worked every day I've been up here so we do most of out exploring at night. We have scoured the local landscape for bars or general places of interest. Not much here. Last Friday we ventured up to Vancouver for some good Guu which was nice even though I was somewhat blinded from welding all day. In all its been pretty nice staying up here, the views across the water are always amazing, but I am missing Seattle.

Here is an article about the project I'm helping to install.

Here are some random pictures of the site.

In this pictures you can see the first layer in stalled as well as the partially constructed border crossing and the Peace Arch through that. Also there is my chair and barbecue up on the scaffolding where I take my breaks. 

 Here you can see one side installed and the second side on the ground waiting to be hauled up.

Looking at the side view.

 

Installing one of the side sections, you can see the wedge that we have to fill in order to blend the two sections and to make sure we have a strong connection between the two. 

We will probably have the whole thing installed by this weekend. I have a bunch more pictures as well as time lapse of some stages of the install. Well, I'll try and post some more soon but right now I'm stealing someones internet so I've got to go.

Watch This

Loading

I helped load up the pieces for the border project today, the three main pieces will be placed tomorrow and we will start welding it together on Thursday. I took a quick time lapse of us loading the last piece into the truck. If you look towards the end I take a pretty nasty fall but I wasn't hurt to bad and moon walked it off, then a tornado struck and I was swept away.

What I'll Be Up To

Installing The Border Project

Today I drove up to the border crossing at Blaine to drop off a bunch of scaffolding at the site. Last week they poured the foundation and bolted down some angle we will attach the piece to. The entire border crossing is still under construction and it's actually a huge project going on up there and we will be in the center of it all putting the piece together.

Here are the pieces.



Here is the site. you can see the partially constructed border crossing as well as the Peach Arch and Canada in the back ground. This is actually the view that I'll take a time lapse from. The piece will be installed on top of that mound of dirt.



Here is the view of the slab.



I'll be heading up there probably Monday night and be staying up there for around 2 weeks, so if you need me I'll be staying a the Cabana Club in Birch Bay.

Somethink I Saw Today

Lair

I was up in Birch Bay today looking for places to stay while we are installing the border project. We happened to see a sign for a hostel and decided to check it out. The hostel is on an old air force base and while we were there we saw this.

Looking at the picture is may not seem too impressive but coming up on this thing is a bit surprising. There is nothing around but empty fields and hidden behind these trees is this six story block. The woman at the hostel gave a quick back story on it. It use to be a massive radar instillation with a huge spinning dish on top.

Here are some old pictures of it.

After it was decommissioned the building went up for sale. Some man bought it and he lives inside of it, by himself. Daniel and I were pretty curious about it and thought of trying to talk to him and maybe get a tour but he had no trespassing signs posted all over the place and the woman at the hostel said he pretty much keeps to himself. I can only imagine the grand world domination schemes this guy is plotting deep inside his lair.

O.W.T.O.I.W.T.N.

Welding Helmet

I'm getting ready to head up to Blaine to install the border piece. There will be a lot of welding to do up there stitching all the pieces together and I guess LPS felt my old beat up welding helmet wasn't up to the task, so they bought me a new one. I've had my old helmet for around 4 years and I've done a hell of a lot of welding with it, and it does show it, but it still works.

Have a loot at old trusty.

No, the glass is not suppose to look like that. Yes, that is tape. Yes the solar panel is cracked, a lot. It still charges, you can still sort of see through the glass, if anything it offers more protection from the light. The tape is covering holes where pieces of hot metal melted through, but it's pretty good tape and hasn't caught fire yet.

So here is a look at my new helmet.

Pretty fancy eh?

I gave it some eye balls for some extra vision, and  when I lower my hood to take naps people will still think I'm awake.

I put some ninjas on there for some extra protection.

I put some reflective warning stickers on each side just in case I happen to be welding in the street at night where there are aligators and/or tractors, I'll be covered.

In all its a great helmet, looking through the glass on this compared to my old one is kind of like when I put on my glasses for the first time. I can actually see what I'm welding now, which I'm a little worried about, what if not seeing is what made me such a good welder in the first place? Hopefully it will last as long as my old helmet did.