TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Thursday, March 9, 2006

8:59 AM
Posted by jodi rose

digital bridge music

last night was hilarious. started at the korean bbq with very delicious tasty pickles, kimchi, spring onion pancake, noodle salad and lethal korean vodka that tasted like water but had a hidden kick. we only noticed once we got into the ice bar (upstairs at titanium) and suddenly everyone went insane, four engineers and three film/media/sound artists whooping and screaming - yeah, make some noise.
the cold was fantastic after all day on a hot dusty building site, strange flavoured finlandia vodka - licorice, strawberry - then we went back downstairs where lisa and mari started the conga line... it was that kind of night. The all-girl band in the bar were fantastic, playing cute danceable pop songs.

It's an extraordinary week, the chief cable engineer has given us access to everything, and assigned his vibration analysis specialist to look after and spend time with us - even stopping tensioning of the cables so I could record them. Pelle had a great time up there, playing along to the jimi hendrix bridge - we used his guitar amp for the c-ducers. today I will try them with some heavy metal distortion on the next cable. In the car, Lisa said 'art meets engineering' and he replied, no, engineering NEEDS art!!

Yesterday we had a breakthrough on the back cables of the gantry being used to life the 500 tonne section of roadway into place from a barge - it's the third -last section but we won't be here to see the bridge meet in th middle. I had asked to go back down for a while, as it took an hour to get the barge in place, and needed some cool air and maybe to record another stay cable in the meantime. But of course nothing happens quickly, so we just chatted in the office with Rasheed, and ended up taking him back up with us. Which was definitely a good plan, as he came to listen to the cables on the gantry and suddenly got very excited as he realised that what Pelle wants to do is actually possible. 'I was a bit septic before', he told us in his charming french accent (sceptic). Don't ask me the details, its all going in the report that I'm sure I won't understand, but as he explained it, it made sense.

This is a very very cool moment for me, because I just want to hear the bridges sing, but these people can find a way to apply that in an engineering process. Of course the art aspect is completely valid on it's own terms, but its pretty exciting to have an impact on some hard-core rational mathematical bridge building as well!!

Happy International Women's Day!
we showed our grit when Catur told us that it is 'easier for men' to go up in 'the bucket'. Oh really? Why? asked three feisty faces - then we proved them wrong as the discovery channel crew had been too scared to go up except for one of them, and we all braved it and had a great time.