Friday, April 12, 2013

Excerpt from: A novice's guide to row hog operations.

 The driver usually sat ahead and a little above the front wheels; directly behind the operator was the battery,motor, and hydrostatic pump/transmission that comprised the cab.  Connecting the cab to the thorax is the first hydro ball joint buried under tubes,cables, and wiring; the thorax is where the main body of agro-bots (row hogs) are housed, four rows of twenty stacked two on top of two.  The second joint attaches the tail tower; after the row hogs have been off loaded, inspected and arranged in the start position, the operator rides the unfolding tower seventy five feet up; then performs all the necessary tasks involved in deploying the weed destroying field hogs








Thursday, April 11, 2013

Scrumdiddlyumptious mochi prevents early morning disaster.

    Sat down in the wet grass opened his sandwich bag, Ted gave him a look, Lucky was like "wut ?" Ted pointed no where in particular and... "you know if you'd get here earlier you wouldn't have'ta be out in that heat."  Lucky took a bite of his delicious egg sandwich, chewed, and slurped his iced tea.  "Look at Garcia, he gets here so early he's usually gone before ya even leave your apartment."  Lucky looked in his bag for a treat, the egg sandwich came with a treat.  Ted shouts down to Garcia  "Garcia what time cha get here." "Early" Garcia shouts back walking down the side of the shed to his first call.  Ted looked up at pyramid five, the irrigation was shutting off from the top terrace to the bottom terraces in sequence - a mildly interesting event.  The last bit shut off and he assumed an unfocused, and slightly over dramatic pose, " you've always been like this, so I should get used to it.  If it doesn't bug you - it should't bug me."  Lucky had to finish his yummy raspberry mochi and fully recover from it's effects before he could answer - "Yep... I'm fine with it, it's not as good as second shift, but it's less hectic than driving that rig around in the morning rush."  He sat there for hour or more moving down the side of the grass covered shed just enough to keep out of the sun,  going in to hang out on the dock after the shade ran completely out, thankfully Ted was called up, and finally he was the only one left.  Just as he was getting hungry, and about to break into his lunch, he was called up.











Monday, April 8, 2013

Morning rush at the agropolis.

  A warm wind blew through the wall of open, over head, glass doors and through lobby, bringing with it the smell of thousands of people going about their early morning habituation;  the red sun lurking over the misty horizon, sending a beam through the short strait street he was heading for; an early pod of over head seeders lumbering out of a shed, humming and clicking down the street into that misty sun beam -  he stepped over the thresh hold, and a warm dank morning tried pinning him down with that widening beam of stellar light, the premonition of heat, a hypnotic fulcrum, probing.  It wasn't a long walk, and he was soon at his building.  He checked with the dispatcher, threw his lunch box and thermos in his rig, and left before his maintenance technician could give him the business over his alleged mistreatment of the equipment.  Four little shops infest the front of his shed, and one of them was a decent place for breakfast, there's always a line at the window, and a wait for one of the ten stools is out of the question.  He bought his egg sandwich and ice tea and walked up the grassy side of the shed to sit on the roof with the rest of the operators.