Thursday, July 30, 2009

Proof of Age

A school burned down near me today and I thought "That is terrible."
Posted by Substance McGravitas at 5:39 PM

11 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

inexplicably, all the cars in your neighborhood were playing "I'm Eighteen"

kids today can't get NOTHIN right. hmpf.

And also offa my lawn.

July 30, 2009 at 6:09 PM
mikey said...

Glory, glory hallelujah, the school is burning down!

July 30, 2009 at 6:10 PM
Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

I dunno how off topic this is, but this rteminds me of something from this book about two guys who build a catapult. First, this pre-dates Scrapheap Challenge by seven years.

Anyways, when they go looking for the shaft (heh heh) of the ginormous rock slinging crossbow they're building, they talk to this guy who does demolition and salvage of buildings. Apparently one of the jobs he got was to demolish his old high school.

Holy moly, there's the fucking American Dream right there.

Wow, that was pretty random.

July 30, 2009 at 6:34 PM
Substance McGravitas said...

I did get to help gut a school building once; a new building was being built and anything that was modestly valuable or could be sold for scrap had to come out. Tearing that place to pieces was the best summer job ever.

Someone else got to knock down the walls, god damn it.

July 30, 2009 at 6:38 PM
zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I'm gonna come down on the other side.

I once was part of a team who was trying to convince a small town to turn over the old high school to our developer to be converted to moderate income apartments. It was an old WPA era school, four stories, built like a frickin bunker. We had done similar projects before, and they work very nicely. Plus, it's kind of cool to live in a converted building...

It was right downtown, near the river, plenty of parking. Wouldn't cost the city anything, the developer just wanted to be able to pay a small, but reasonable price for it.

the alternative was to tear it down and sell the site for standard strip development. Another Blockbuster or something, what the hell. They told us they had gotten a demo bid and the contractor told them the building was ready to fall over. We let them know that our review indicated no structural issues, all the demo guy could point to was some cosmetic deterioration. His demo bid was laughable, half what it should have been...

The committee sat there like stones. Nothing could convince them. Later we suspected that they had an unhappy school career and really, really wanted to tear it down.

Later, we heard the demo guy went broke trying to tear it down for the price he quoted.

July 30, 2009 at 8:05 PM
mikey said...

Umm. I pulled a bunch of cat 5 ethernet cable at a junior high school in oakland on net day.

It was old, rotting, and full of all sorts of creepies from rats to roaches.

Yeesh...

July 31, 2009 at 9:08 AM
zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Zombie High?

July 31, 2009 at 11:37 AM
Substance McGravitas said...

Zombie Wasted?

July 31, 2009 at 11:39 AM
zombie rotten mcdonald said...

SOMEONE"S got to supply you with straight lines...

July 31, 2009 at 1:43 PM
mikey said...

Alice and Carlos didn't have NEAR that level of problem at Raccoon City High...

July 31, 2009 at 5:18 PM
herr doktor bimler said...

Here in the UK, I've been seeing posters of Iggy Pop advertising car insurance.
That makes me feel old.

August 1, 2009 at 10:36 AM

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