2/19/2008 Blazin' Furious

Every day last week I awoke at the crack of dawn to make it to Pigeon Forge to work at Dollywood. Normally I reluctantly wake up around 7:45 or 8:00am so waking at 6:00am was traumatic, plus it was colder than a witches titty in a brass bra.
Wednesday was particularly painful. When the bastard alarm rang I noticed that it was raining really hard, but when I looked outside I saw that it was sleet. I dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen to make coffee. My in-laws were staying over to keep Fox so I was trying to be super quiet. I took two of the huge couch pillows to sandwich the coffee grinder to buffer it's horrible noise, and stood by the kettle so it never had a chance to whistle.
I finally made it out the door into the dark gray morning and noticed the ice collecting on the porch at the exact moment that I began slipping on the stairs. Luckily I had five layers of clothing on and suffered no early morning abrasions. Driving down 441 was sketchy. The digital bank signs in Knoxville said that it was 30 degrees, but by the time I got 40 miles down the road to Sevierville it was just 26 degrees, and it didn't get above freezing on the jobsite till 3:00pm.
That day Paul and I worked on a 40' JLG lift to "age" the building which houses a historic roller coaster called "BLAZING FURY". This roller coaster is 30 years old and mimics the terror of a house fire. We had to walk through the interior of the ride to access water and power and you know, piddle around some. I understand that the ride is "vintage", or "historic" or whatever but it is SOOOOOUUUUUPPPPPEEERRR sucky.
I guess the idea is that you climb on a coal car and bump around through a maze of funky dioramas. One was a plow leaning up against a butter turn, and the next one I saw was a porch edifice with two figures sitting in rocking chairs. They were "mamaw" and "papaw" dummy/characters surrounded by washboards, jugs, pipes, whirigigs, jimmy-jons and what not. Despite the threat of fire they seemed to be relaxing and semi reclined. As I got closer to the figures I realized their faces were all brown and wrinkled like an old fashioned apple doll. They were absolutely horrible. Their faces looked just like mummy's skin, but I guess they were meant to look like real folks; 30 years ago. They did the best they could. It might not have been the original artist/designer's intention but they made the ride seem like a psychological nightmare comparable to the Shining if you ask me. Everything about that ride is just awful.



Anyway, Paul and I had to work on the exterior of BLAZING FURY painting the wood to look "aged". The park recently expanded to include areas which were previously inaccessible to the visitors, so we were painting the new wood and surfaces to give them a moldy, water damaged appeal. This process included painting the surfaces with a roller, then using a Hudson deck type sprayer to create a wash to run down the length of the boards. This is a really wet job with lots of pooling water and over spray. In subfreezing temperatures. On a really high lift.



It was so cold I could hardly grip anything and the metal grate of the platform was covered in ice. Our sprayers had to be wacked against the rail to free them from ice before each use. We worked faster than ever before, and after each section we ran into the break room to drink coffee. Really bad.

Luckily working with Paul is worth all that. He is an all around fun guy who can make even the shittiest circumstances kinda, sorta fun in a sick way. Even while working outside in the snow at Dollywood.



Oh yeah, and then
on Friday Paul and I were doing the same process on a workshop way up on top of the mountain above the newer section of the park and we had to ask the people there if we could use their water. The place was a steel building where the river ride boats were made. These boats were made out of multiple layers of foam glued onto a rigid form, then shaved into a smooth shape, then covered with industrial polymer. The operation was messy and it stunk to high heaven. I walked in to ask the workers if there was a water source we could use and the smell of solvents almost knocked me down. There were two men folk working away and I made a noise out of shock of the smell, and said "whoa! It smells really good", one of the dudes replied "it feels really good!".
I asked if there was a hose or work sink or some way for us to fill up our sprayers and the two guys looked at each other with crinkled up noses and one of them stepped forth. I asked about the water again and he said that we could use the sink freely. When he spoke to me he closed his eyes. It seems like someone who can't look at the person they are addressing wouldn't want to talk much, but not this guy. He was chatty. He also said that we could use the toilets; eyes closed, that there was a spigot without a hose, eyes closed, and that they were leaving for two hours but would return later, eyes closed. I don't know if he was just like that or if he was asphyxiatedly high. Either way it was weird. The boats looked like death traps. They were all spongy and covered with slimy crappious crap and they didn't look like they would float for shiz.