What's He Building in There?
As mentioned previously, the Gren Clan traveled to Minneapolis over the extended Memorial Day weekend to spend some time with our pals Taltap and Elsa. We dropped the Little Lutine off with the grandparents in Iowa and then continued northward the next day.
The weekend was wonderful. We watched some Pirates, drank some scotch, shivered through a Minnesota Thunder game, and Taltap and I wandered about pretending to know what we were doing with our cameras while the ladies shopped for a wedding dress. Some of these photos will probably be displayed here before too long so as to be subjected to rightly deserved public mockery.
But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today.
See, we headed north from Moonshot’s folks’ place on Highway 218 and needed to jog slightly west to the parallel I-35 that would take us all the way to our destination. There are several ways to do this westward jog, but we opted to go with the trusty Highway 3 out of Waverly. Moonshot went to college there and it seems as good a landmark to signal a turn as any. Plus, it has the added advantage of taking us through the small town of Hampton…home town of the legendary Kum and Go chain of convenience stores that offered so many hours of juvenile wordplay during my own college years.
Anyway, on this particular trip, I noticed a…thing? Still under construction, the odd tower was massive. Even the enormous crane atop the structure looked like a toy in comparison. I stared for a few long moments…trying to figure out what it could be. Some new version of a silo? Some military tower of some sort? By the time the construction slipped behind a tree line, I realized I was totally confused and dying to know what it could be. I pulled the car over and hiked back along the highway to capture an image of it, hoping Taltap might offer some wisdom. Since no wisdom was found there…I’m turning to the imaginations of my webby friends.
What do ya figure this thing could be?
(click image for detail)
18 comments:
I think you just made this up in Photoshop...
You watched Pirates baseball or Pirates as in Mark watching Pirates? If the latter, how much of a coincidence is that ???
I can't believe they actually named a store Kum & Go. :-Þ
Good luck with this, Mokker. I'm sure you'll get an answer but not from me. I don't have this kind of imagination. And it's not even aesthetically pleasing, so I'm more interested in the fact that I didn't get here last. Of course it had to be on a clueless day like today.
There's some jumbled piping on the ground to the right of the structure. Is there anything else out of frame that would have indicated this was part of some larger complex? Or was this strange monstrosity sitting by its lonesome in the field like that?
This is going to bug me.
I am speechless and I am not sure of you know this about me....I dont get speechless...
I have no idea what that is!
Well it started out as the world's ugliest grain silo. The farmer's wife got involved and said you got to paint it. The county planner's said that thing is so ugly you have to hid it and the federal government gave him the money to do it.
Beats me....
My incredibly smart hubby says it's a water tower not yet done. The bottom brown part will be craned up on top when the rest of the structure is complete.
Sounds ligit to me. Either that or it's pop up thing like on a turkey. All this global warming the Earth must be done. Stick fork in her!
Wink - Nothing so coincidental. Just Johnny Depp and friends. Although there were several folks at the theater in full costume...if that counts as a coincidence.
Simon - That's all there is. That's exactly why I didn't crop this shot. Good catch on the pipes. I didn't catch that. However...it makes perfect sense with Hokey's explanation.
Anna - Since I've seen your inability to post a truly Wordless Wednesday...I am honored to have brought on such a state.
Mike - I'll tell ya..until I read the comment after yours...I was totally convinced ;)
Hokey - I think we have a winner! Tell "J" I'm very impressed. Either he's seen a water tower being buit before or he figured that out logically...in which case I'm even more impressed. I would have never guessed it...but once I knew what i was looking at, it makes perfect sense.
And the turkey timer theory is hilarious. Were I more motivated, I'd try to photoshop it into an anti-global warming poster.
Thanks everybody for playing along. This worked better than I expected. And though I think Hokey's hubby nailed this one...I'm open to alternate theories. I mean...the most logical explanation is only usually the right one. It could still be a big metal dome to cover the world's ugliest grain silo.
Boy, I sure am late to this one.
I'm in for a water tower, too.
Send some of it our way. We're already on water use restrictions from now until the end of October.
Alternate Theory #1:
George W. Bush, in a fit of patriotic fervor, commissioned the DoD to construct, in his own words, "A really big nucular missile. You know, like one that's big enough to see from 500 miles away as it's coming down to go boom on your stupid Al-Quaida head."
The test flight didn't go so well, due to design flaws, the missile landing nose-first in a field. Harold Hackney, lead engineer on the ICBM design team, ascribed the majority of the faulty flight to the 'performance enhancements' that Dubya insisted on penciling into the blue prints himself. "You know," Mr. Bush was quoted as saying, "to make it look more intimidating."
The test flight was delayed by a week after the President was finally convinced it would not be a good idea to make the inaugural test flight with a live "nuclear" warhead. Mr. Bush was indignant right up until giving permission to test fly a dud. "I don't see what the big deal is about a live test. It's only Minnesota."
Well, it is so obvious what that is. It is Siloicon, an Autobot sent by Optimus Prime to spy on the Decepticons. Geez.
Funny how the short, simple claims seem to regularly trump the complex narratives, eh?
Mark - Hadn't realized things were so dry down there for ya. I'd send some of our recent rain down to you if I could.
Si - I had thought about a missile as well...but couldn't come up with a way to make a huge missile funny. The solution, of course, was to blame Bush. Well done.
It was Iowa, actually...but the sentiment remains valid. Actually...Minnesota would have made more sense for a live test. Not that I don't love MN...it's just that from there, those uppity Canucks to the north could have seen the cloud and trembled appropriately. Maybe start sending poor Mark some of that water you guys horde up there. ;)
And I, for one, love your rediculously long narratives. I still have fond memories of Mark saving his family from attacking dinosaurs.
Jet - Very observant. Must be a close cousin to Omega Supreme. And the marketing could be brilliant, have a little cannon that fires kernels of corn.
And in the spirit of joining in my own fun. I contend it's the world's largets ice cream maker. Ice and salt in the outer ring and spin that bad boy by having the crane up top swing a weight in a circle.
I reiterate: Jet, you rock. :) Were any Dinobots seen in the vicinity? "Me Grimlock no like corn! Me Grimlock not nice dino! Me Bash Brains!"
Well thank you Mouse for the kind words the past few days!
Another idea is that it is a wind up spinning top for a large large Giant. You know the ones that you pull the string and it spins around for a while.
Also, in a perverted manor, an upside down phallic symbol. Either way you go; both provide for hours of entertainment.
On our water shortage -- we've had about three inches of rain per week for the past three weeks, so some of us are wondering just how much rain we need in order to have the restrictions lifted.
hmmm... not so sure on the water tower thing. The ones we have here are on long legs, kind of like the martian things in War of the Worlds.
There is at least one water tower in this area that could have been built using this method.
Back home, though, they usually look like a big onion atop a long shaft.
I will endeavour to contribute more long, rambling narratives as both time and degree of senselessness allow. The less sense there is in making such a contribution, the more like one is to appear. Assuming, of course, the time factor allows for such grandiloquence.
I agree with Hokey.
Also, can't believe Mark wrote, "...they usually look like a big onion atop a long shaft."
LOL
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