Rigging Interlude

There's a thing to taking a job in entertainment; it is that you never really stop working, that you never really just go to a show again. I am getting better at it, meaning I am more and more able to enjoy myself. Sometimes though there's really nothing you can do.

Case in point: The Newseum.

The other day while taking in the sites of the Newseum I saw this:

It's a replica communication satellite that they have hung in their atrium. Now really there's probably nothing here that's altogether dangerous in a life-threatening kind of way. There are however a few issues.

Let's begin with the hanging hardware at the bottom connection. The piece is hung with quicklinks. This piece of hardware is nearly never rated for overhead lifting, usually isn't drop forged, doesn't have any tracking capability, and can't be moused off in any way. Just the wrong piece of gear for the job. Along with the quicklinks you should notice that they've formed their eye using press sleeves - three of them. The manufacturer only requires one sleeve. Properly installed it retains over 90% of the strength of the cable. I've worked with a lot of people that want to do two for piece of mind. Three is overkill. Sometimes people use the extra press to clean up the running end of the cable so it doesn't stick out. That isn't what they've done here.

All things being equal though, if the thing really is scenery and therefore much lighter than it looks, the quicklinks and this press application are probably ok, just, you know, wrong.

Then there's the next item up for bids:

From the first photo you can probably see that the piece is hung from four points. Here's another angle...

What should be clearer here is that one of the four picks is slack and therefore really doing absolutely nothing. Again, if the weight is low, then three picks of .125" GAC ought to be enough, but once again just sorta wrong.

And then the capper...

We often discuss in my rigging class how to properly use turnbuckles in theatre installations. One point in my career while discussing the thought with an every day rigger I was told that really you just shouldn't use them. The argument is that turnbuckles are only good in direct tension and cannot handle any side load whatsoever, they also tend to get bent and munged up and are generally annoying. I tend to be a turnbuckle advocate, they're really good for what they are for, but I do concede you do have to pay attention. Pay attention more than this anyway...

It might be a little difficult to see what's going on, here's a closeup:

What you are looking at is a large diameter eye-bolt dropping out of the ceiling, transitioning to a piece of hanging/mating hardware I can't really identify, mated to a turnbuckle with a clevis on the top and a kind of terminal threaded stud on the bottom.

It's a curious combination of very clean (the terminal) and very odd (everything else).

So, usually these hex body turnbuckles are something you buy at the hardware store and are often aluminum - and not rated for overhead. Because of the kinds of ends, I am going to make the assumption that this is some kind of really sexy marine turnbuckle and is therefore probably stainless steel and rated, but I still wonder.

The thing that is distressing here, if you're the type of person that gets distressed over such things is the fleet angle of the cable coming off the stud. With all the joints in the assembly only really having one degree of freedom, this installation is pulling on the terminal stud in a way it shouldn't be, and more importantly it is bending the turnbuckle. If you look at the other photos you'll see that this is the case on all the picks (this was just the one I could get closest to).

Now, if the thing is light and the turnbuckle is something sexy, then this is probably ok, but, you know, just sloppy. If the turnbuckle isn't sexy or the thing isn't light, this is, well, unfortunate.

Probably the fleet issue could be solved by rotating the eyebolts to allow the hangar/turnbuckle assembly to pivot inline with the load. If it were my Newseum I would definitely do that (and replace the quicklinks with shackles and be sure the turnbuckles were rated).

So here's my question: If I had asked to see the manager to relate these things would I have been a dork? Should I send them an email? The way I read my ETCP certification I think I am sorta required to. What would you do?

Some DC Pics

Just a few pics to go with the last few posts. Melissa pics (yes - I have pics) will have to wait for... developing (how 1990?). I'll have more to say about all of this, but this should tide you over some.

On Thursday we went to the Newseum. They had a chunk of the Berlin Wall, the largest on display outside of Berlin (or so they say).

The top floor of the Newseum has an outdoor patio with a really nice view of the Capitol building.

One of the Newseum exhibits is a 9/11 tribute. Still a little hard for me.

Friday we started out with a short walk on the surface of the sun - I mean the National Mall.

Then we went to the air-conditioned but over-run by walking birth control Air & Space Museum.

After Air & Space we went to the National Portrait Gallery. They have a really cool atrium.

That's all for now.

Air & Space Museum

And the National Portrait Gallery. More later.

Who Said That?

OpenCongress - Congress Gossip Blog: "“Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals,” according to Gheit. “Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.”"

Newseum!

They have like 20' of the Berlin Wall - too cool - more later.

Until then, this:

MELISSA!!!

DAR Constitution Hall - Front Row!!! More later.

Well, She Said it Was Too Short...

Boevers Personal Statement 08 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Boevers Personal Statement 08

Bummer

So George Carlin passed away. If you follow stories on the web then you have probably already seen like nine tributes. I thought about just letting it go at that, but really this is someone I am personally going to miss, so I am going to say more.

First, one of the right wingish radio stations here in town is running a promo featuring George Carlin and out of respect for him I think they really ought to pull it. They run a snippet of his piece on plastic, you know the one that ends "the planet will be fine" and they tag it with "Not saving the planet for 50 years" or some such thing as if they are clever. Nice little dig at who they perceive to be lefty tree-huggers. The problem is that the whole line is "the PEOPLE are fucked, but the planet will be fine." Folks at WPGB, Carlin wasn't saying environmentalism is wrong, he was saying the rhetoric of environmentalism is pompous. You should pull that promo.

I first heard George Carlin in the basement on a battleship of an industrial cassette player my father had liberated from Niles West at some time (we were probably just storing it). Dad had "AM&FM" and I think "Occupation Foole" maybe "Class Clown" too. "Occupation Foole" has Filthy Words on it and really that's all it took, I was hooked.

I think the first TV spot I saw was on Johnny Carson. I would have been sitting on the floor in my parents' room avoiding going to bed. Carlin did Baseball and Football. "In football the objective is to penetrate enemy territory using short pinpoint strikes and long bombs..." His kind of analysis and language use probably has as much to do with who I am today as many of my early teachers.

First time I saw a full show was at my Aunt's house in New York, they had cable, we didn't. My mom and I watched "Carlin on Campus." Baseball and Football was back, and this time I also got to hear A Place for My Stuff. This one also finishes with the omnibus edition of Filthy Words where he opines how there are many more terms for male acts than for female ("making soup" and "yodelling in the gully"). I remember thinking maybe my mother wasn't the right person to watch this with. But maybe it was fine afterall.

I saw George Carlin live a bunch of times. I think the first was with a bunch of high school friends at a theatre on the Northwestern Campus. This was at the begining of the People I can Do Without period - if comics have periods. Buried in a closet someplace there is probably a t-shirt from that show that will not fit. The last time I saw him live was with my family at Bally's in Las Vegas, must have been 1999ish. I can remember thinking then how little he seemed to be enjoying performing. The life had gone out of it and he really just seemed mad, real bitter about everything. There must be a very fine line between ascerbic and angry that he'd walked his entire life. Recently I'd noticed that the act wasn't quite as pointy even thought the edge was still sharp. I guess he'd managed whatever was bugging him and had gotten back to the fun part.

So all day we've been hearing about the seven words you can't say on television, and I admit that's a swell routine but it isn't the one that usually lives closest to my mind. While I've been thinking about this piece one joke keeps coming back to me, it's about the perfect crime, something like "What if one guy picked up a guy and murdered another guy with him? To the police it would look like a tragic pedestrian accident." Recently the bit I find myself quoting the most is from the I Used to be an Irish Catholic thing where he talks about how none of the kids in his neighborhood got polio because "we swam in raw sewage - you know, to cool off." At the Bally's show he'd worked that into a rant about parents being child worshipers and germaphobes. There's probably a lot of good insight there.

Thankfully the latest generation of comics spent the last decade thanking George Carlin, so hopefully he left us knowing the impression he'd made. And more still thankfully we can all continue to enjoy his wit from recordings of his performances. I am sure I will ruin some kids language with one of those albums soon (Debi, maybe best not to leave your kids with me).

I wonder, just before he went, did he hear in his head: (ping) Two minute warning. Get your shit together!

Thoughts on a Salad

I don't so much partake of salad, but Mrs. TANBI has a request for those of you that might run restaurants out there. Today at Red Robin she got a salad which appeared to be a bowl of lettuce, cheese, and tortilla strips.

Upon further examination some of what looked like cheese was actually carrot shavings.

And yes, we know about the whole tomato thing - although in all fairness there are still plenty of tomatoes available.

Back in the day when she was a vegan we once went to Applebee's only to find that there wasn't a single thing on the whole menu she could order, including a salad.

So here's the request: If you run a restaurant, and you are going to have salad on the menu, and there is anything in the salad that isn't a fruit or a vegetable, then please indicate those items on the menu.

And Red Robin, why not send someone across the street for a cucumber and maybe some mandarin oranges. It's really embarrassing to have to pay $5 for a bowl of lettuce (and should be even more so to make someone else do it).

Opus Comics, by Bloom County's Berkeley Breathed

Salon