Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Panama Canal, on steroids

This is topic Panama Canal, on steroids in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

This is kinda non-topic, but it's cool, and it might give you an idea for a story (there's the tie-in, Kathleen

This is what I grew up watching as a boy. My bedroom window overlooked one of these sets of locks, at Miraflores, in the Panama Canal Zone.

You need a fast connection to watch the video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9040875966564826702&pr=goog-sl

Mike
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Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

How cool! It's fun to watch. Having high-speed broadband is extra nice when someone tosses a clip like this my way.

Watching the ships go through the locks reminds me of an experience I had. I live along the Columbia River which is rife with dams that generate a lot of hydroelectric power and feed it to the Western United States and Canada. (The availability of power is why GOOGLE is setting up a facility here.) Within 45 minutes either way, we have the Bonneville Dam, The Dalles Dam, and the John Day Dam. A friend of mine works at the John Day Dam, and he gave me a "behind the scenes" tour that you can't get as a normal tourist. We went down into the bowels of the dam (is it just me who freaks out to find they have several places where water is spewing INTO the dam?? They consider it normal.) Anyhow, when we got to the locks, there happened to be a tugboat in the locks. I got to see the high-tec method they exchange paperwork... the guy operating the locks took out a fishing pole with a clothes-pin on it, unreeled the line, the tug operator clipped his paperwork to the clothes-pin and the locks operator reeled it back up.

All that technology--useless when it comes to the mundane things that have to be done. It impressed me.