The Man Lift

I often wonder whether I've run out of things to blog about -- but something noteworthy usually comes up amidst the impenetrable blandness [blindness?] of my days. Last Saturday I joined my church's Men's Ministry work crew. At left is the late-afternoon money shot -- too bad all that gossamer structure will have to disappear under walls and roof. Reminds me of the balsa gliders of my youth.

My highlight was operating the manlift pictured here for most of the morning. Gotta love the name; though there's nothing "manly" about operating it -- a joystick rotates the boom horizontally and vertically, and a toggle switch telescopes you in & out. So it's like a 3D video game (at a snail's pace). In my groggy Saturday-morning state of mind I found myself wondering what combinations of longitude, latitude, and radius adjustments would let me move parallel to the x, y, and z axes relative to the ground. Fortunately I kept this powerful conversation killer to myself. Just call me Mr. Cross-Cultural.