I love construction and digging equipment. I also like tractors, harvesters, and fire and rescue vehicles. I'm like a little boy, that way. I love to see complex machines out on the street where I can examine them and sometimes watch them in action. They look great and are often painted in bright colors. If I am in the right place, and have my sketchbook with me, I can even draw a portrait of a piece of heavy equipment. I drew this crane from the warm, safe vantage point of a Starbucks coffeehouse.

I have often wished that there were "construction fun parks" for adults, devoted not to slides and rides but for people who wanted to work with heavy equipment such as backhoes and cranes. For a fee and some basic training, you would be able to put on a hard hat, sit in the cab, and guide the big mechanical arm or scoop to move loads of dirt in a grown-up-size sandbox. You could even have a mock "project" to complete, as if you were really building something. If this existed, I would sign up immediately.

This February 1 marks the fourth anniversary of ELECTRON BLUE. That's right, four years of persistence in blogging. And, as I was when I started the Electron, I am still working on trigonometry, this time in review, now that I know enough calculus to see the trigonometric functions in terms of limits and derivatives. Trigonometry is the heavy construction equipment of mathematics.

Posted at 3:57 am | link