Ace-Garageguy

By the way...does anybody know what's really going on?

Yes. There are multiple massive steel castings, sometimes joined by very special welding processes. The building of these fantastic machines is fascinating, if you're into that kind of thing. Note the size of the rest of the machine relative to the size of the bucket in the OP's post (lower right, photo below). Remember...this thing could move to different work sites under its own power

It makes me sad to see fantastic machines like this dismantled and sold for scrap, with the remains exhibited as curiosities. EDIT: Particularly because this country, the US of A, pretty much no longer has the industrial capability to make anything like them. China has DOUBLE the industrial output of the US today, and America's output is primarily motor vehicles, aircraft and aerospace products, and other relatively small things...plus, we buy in a large percentage of materials and parts and subassemblies rather than making the stuff here. Sure, massive machines may not be useful today for any number or reasons (not all of them rational), but we're in danger of forgetting our heavy-industrial heritage in an age where the perception is increasingly becoming that past generations were backwards and incompetent, and that anything that can't be done from a phone app isn't worth doing. These industrial artifacts are every bit as worthy of "historical preservation" as any piece of great art or architecture. A society that has no understanding of its past is likely to fumble its future. The last 2 (of about 80 built) Hulett ore unloaders, once slated for reassembly and preservation, have been cut up for scrap as well. Designed in the late 1800s, they worked continuously from 1912 up through 1992...and without them (or something similar that made rapid unloading and transfer of huge quantities of iron and other ore possible), much of America as we knew it, the America whose unmatched industrial capacity was largely responsible for saving the rest of the free world in two major global wars, might never have developed.

I saw this up close at Saturday's ACME meeting, and it is absolutely staggering. Work of this caliber represents a whole new level of excellence in scale-modeling. It's the ultimate combination of state-of-the-art "technology" with every "traditional" model-building skill. While few of us can hope to ever achieve results like this, every one of us should be inspired to do the best we can with what we have, and never stop improving.

Whole lotta stuff on YouTube. Search "miniature figure painting" in the YT header for many more vids.

I saw this in person at Saturday's ACME meeting, and if anything it looks better up close. Great concept, well executed.

Toes growing out of your nose make it tricky to picket.

"About time" said little Johnnie's teacher, as he handed in the reeking, reconstructed pages of his homework that the dog ate.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That's the way I took it, sir. "Be careful what you wish for" is always good advice.

Prophet-seekers might want someone to predict the best way to make piles of money.

I wish I had known at 18 what I know now about human nature.

A citation from the county code enforcement. Seems an anonymous Karen has nothing better to do than to count the cars in my driveway, and complain. First time in 10 years there's been an issue, and it's not like there's an HOA, or like this is a particularly "nice" neighborhood, or like I'm the only one within a block who's in multiple code violations too. Not hard to comply, no big deal...but it's just one more reason for me moving to a part of the country where neighbors are far away and mind their own business. My property out West is zoned commercial including being grandfathered in for mechanical and body/paint on cars, and it's where a man's home is still pretty much his castle anyway, and he can do what he dammmm well pleases on his own land.

Factory options are where car manufacturers make a lot of their profit.

Free Willy.

Achieve long-term goals by doing a little every day, and remember that doing anything, no matter how small or trivial seeming, is much better than doing nothing.

Climate change...

Day to day responsibilities should be balanced with progress towards long-term goals.

Man...country fried steak and a hot buttered biscuit is a pretty satisfying breakfast on a cold crisp morning at the farm.

Desert Desserts would be a good name for a sweet-shop in the Southwest.

Never put off til tomorrow what you can just not do at all.

Don't feed the bears.

Think for yourself.

"Vary" sounds like "very".

Puppets abound, because when one has no use for independent reasoning, dancing to the whims of the string-pullers is the result.