Confession time, although I think it's abundantly clear by nature of my location: I'm a closet gearhead. Not in an "I love cars" kind of way, and not that I'm engineering-inclined in any way, shape or form. But living 10 minutes from three different steel mills and one good-sized refinery kinda has a hand in cultivating one's taste for massive, rusty structures with fire coming out of them -- like last year when I got to watch the blast furnaces get blown up. That was some seriously cool shit.

So today, on a day when I didn't have my camera (and I bought a bigger purse last week, so I really have no excuse not to have it with me at all times), my first assignment of the day was watching a water tower extension, wherein a group of union welders blowtorched off the sphere, or head, of the water tower, lifted it up 70 feet off the ground by three giNORmous cranes and left it hanging there in mid air while another crane hoisted a new 35-foot section onto the tower's base. Lemme tell you, driving along and looking up to see this giant white bulbous thing suspended in mid air was rather disturbing. If it were the Cal City water tower, it would've been totally worse.

Know what's also disconcerting? That Amalah is now the proud ownerparent of this particular babalah. Would you get a load of the size of that guy? If you've ever seen Amalah, you know what I'm saying. He's HUGE! But perfect. Go wish them lots of joy and love.