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Back Bumpers – Quality Ranch Hand Product

Yesterday, my truck was a victim of a rear-end collision in a congested construction zone on an expressway heading north on my trip to Moose River Plains.

Once my truck is rebuilt, I am thinking of having the rear bumpere replaced with an off-road bumper, because the factory Chevy bumpers are magnets for dings and dents -- and the shiny chrome looks awful with the smallest amount of damage. I know most of the oil and gas company trucks in Pennsylvania have those hefty off-road bumpers and the black bumpers hide routine low-speed damage caused by working in heavy construction.

Any suggestions on what brand of off-road (rear) bumper to buy? I'm willing to pay for something durable. I might eventually do a front-bumper too, but that's a few years off. I generally do not run into things in woods. I will be also putting a six-inch suspension lift on my truck next month, although after the accident, I am damn sure I will never do a body lift on a pickup ...

Weathering steel – Steelconstruction.info

I am supposed to be a fan of COR-TEN steel. But 30 years, NY State went and replaced all of it's guardrails in scenic locations with COR-TEN steel. It of course rusted out prematurely, and now is being replaced with stainless steel. But now, they are building bridges with COR-TEN in New York. What could go wrong?

Americans Will Burn Less Oil 25 Years From Now

Americans Will Burn Less Oil 25 Years From Now | FiveThirtyEight

That's actually not surprising, as per capita oil use has been dropping in recent decades, and places with a stable or modestly growing population have seen oil use decline.

NY State, as a whole, uses less oil than it did in 1970. Not because New York stopped driving cars, but because our state's population has only grown modestly since then, while we moved away from oil as a fuel for industrial plants and power generation.

Natural gas, especially in the past 10 years, has largely replaced oil use in NY, for generators that have the option to switch between the two.

Good Morning! Bright and Sunny Morning.

It’s a Thursday, which is often is commonly known as just another weekday that is sandwiched between the weekends. The junk of a time between the good times. One more day closer to spring – actually 28 days to be exact.

Deer Ridge

Warm enough today to merit just wearing my Carhartt vest to work. Maybe it will be a bit chilly by evening, but so be it. I would rather pretend that it’s spring out, and just hide inside buildings until a minute before my bus comes. I am tired of wearing heavy coats and sweater vests to work.

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The sun looks deceivingly warm out there. Certainly if I planned on staying outside for a while, I would have dressed in layers. The sun probably will really warm you up, working outside, but if you stand still, the cold snow will rapidly cool you off, especially if a bit of a breeze picks up by afternoon.

Today is a pretty nice day, warm and sunny. Almost spring-like compared to this winter's harsh weather.

Challenges to Tearing Down I-787

It is a popular thing nowadays to want to tear down urban highways and reconnect cities with their waterfronts. Our rivers have never been cleaner in centuries, and as gas prices have increased, the demand for recreation and beauty in our communities has grown larger and larger. It almost seems like a no-brainer to tear down I-787 and “reconnect” Albany to it’s waterfront.

rentny

Yet, it’s not as easy as it first seems.

1) There is a critical set of railroad tracks that runs from the Port of Albany to the mainline, to all points west, up through Tivoli Hollow, and eventually follows along the Mohawk Valley. These tracks haul all kinds of materials to and from the port, including petroleum products, grain, cement, and other basic materials for our economy. Some of the cargo is hazardous and explosive, so burying the tracks would be risky and expensive. If you don’t bury or remove these railroad tracks, then access would be continue to be limited to the Hudson River.

2) The Dunn Memorial Bridge was elevated to it’s current high level over the Hudson River during the highway reconstruction in the mid-1960. It’s predecessor was a much lower, “pedestrian-friendly” bridge, which looking back we had warm and fuzzy memories about, but it was a traffic nightmare, every time the bridge had to lift to allow all but the smallest vessels to proceed up the river. While many of the biggest boats no longer go north of Winter Dock, many still require the freight bridge to the North to be opened — which if the vehicle traffic bridge was lowered — would cause significant delays.