2006-08-08

What a mess!


If you have been following this blog, you know they blew up the old Logicon building next to us this past weekend. (read about it few posts down if you missed it.) Anyway, now they have a big mess of scrap to clean up. The newspaper reported that they would have it cleaned up in two weeks. Well, looking out my window on day two, I have to wonder if that will really happen. I guess we will know in 12 more days.

Right now there is a big pile of broken building laying on it’s side. Surprisingly, large sections of the building are still relatively in tact. (see picture taken from our parking structure) So the crew needs to dismantle the remaining pieces and haul it away. Conceptually, this is easy to understand – to watch the process in work is completely different. They don’t just use a big machine to grab junks of building and dump into trucks and haul it away. The building is carefully taken part and separated into different types of materials, presumably for recycling. All the concrete is broken up and the massive pieces of rebar are separated into another pile. Then there are different types of steel and metal that each go into their own piles. The big pieces need to be broken and cut into small pieces. It’s really quite an operation to watch, the big machinery working in concert with guys with torches to reduce the mighty building into bite size pieces. It actually makes an impossible looking task look – well, possible.

How many times in our lives to do we have something that looks impossible? We’d like to lose weight, or quit some habit, or whatever. You usually can’t get rid of it in one fell swoop. You can’t loose 50 lbs in one week. It’s difficult to stop smoking (or some other habit) cold turkey. Usually small changes that are sustainable and doable, make an impossible task look possible. Kind of like cutting up the big building into small pieces.

If we want to get rid of something in our lives, start getting rid of it piece by piece. I read once that if you do something 11 times in a row (I have no idea why 11 is the magic number), that you are well on your way to making that a habit. This is pretty good news for us. If you are trying to cut down on your coffee intake, for example. If you could limit yourself to 1 cup a morning, instead of 2 or 3, for 11 days in a row, you’d be well on your way to making that change. 11 times only. That seems doable.

Hey, maybe you can have something in your life changed about the same time the guys next door have old Logicon building all cleared away.

Ponderings_,

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