Blade Edge

The 28th was the first day up on 101 where the visibility was greater than 10 miles. Wow! It feels like you can see the whole country, and this is only the 66th floor!

I’m on a 6-hour work break right now so I can rest up to return to 101 and work the night shift at 9pm, which will have me up until ~2 in the morning, if I’m lucky 🙂 We have 14 faces to go as of this morning and need to get up 8 faces today, and when I left we were halfway through the 4th. We got 6 faces up yesterday, although it took us until 12am to finish. However today the last face that we did before I left I was told went up in just over an hour, which is a new record – we managed to shave a good 30 minutes off our previous best install time. This doesn’t mean that each face onward will take an hour, unfortunately. For example, last night we had some twisted cable, and spent a huge chunk of time fixing that on props that had already been raised up. Other rigging problems have held us up as well. For us installers, I’m still finding problems on almost every prop I go to mount – fortunately I’ve gotten better at spotting them before we begin to lift, but generally this happens right after we finish the last face, so I’m forced to correct them during the install, along with all the other lift teams. In short, each face is a new face and there’s no guarantee we can always hit that 1 hour best time (so far) install. That would be nice though!

OMG I forgot they made these. Soooo good. I need to ask my Grandma to pick me up a big bag on her next trip to Fort Lee

Today we got hit hard with some really bad news though – it turns out the rigging company has been stringing us along since the beginning. For reasons that were not made clear to me (because I didn’t really feel like asking) they have been telling us for the past few days they can get enough winches for us to do two faces simultaneously, which is something we’ve been trying to do for three days now. Well we finally checked in on them and found that they had been lying about what they said they were capable of, and that’s left us with having to run night shifts to make sure we can lift all the remaining faces in time – one at a time. In good news, I hear the Dajia site is actually ahead of schedule now, and we have all the props done for 101 that now just have to be installed.

As the day wore on things turned hazy again, but it made the mountains look so cool as they rolled off into the distance. Also – sun rays FTMFW

Yesterday I got my lift team back together, I guess Tatsumi had a good time with us the day before because he was back again (and again today – the guy is a trooper!). So PJ, Tatsumi and I ran a few faces until I had to give up Tatsumi to handle a short-staffed position. Then PJ’s friend Harry came along to help on my post. PJ taught me some more Chinese and I some English to him. Interesting fact: the Chinese word for “snow” is pretty close to “shit”. I like that!! 😉 Turns out his birthday is on the 30th so I told him after the show we’d hit the club and I’d buy him a drink since he can’t do that until he’s 21. I kept mentioning the club by making beatbox sounds, hahaha. Half the fun in talking with PJ is figuring out (going both ways) what we’re trying to communicate to each other when having an actual conversation. Work is pretty easy, because I can usually show him what I’m trying to tell him, but just having a chat is more challenging. Sometimes we both just shrug and I call over a translator if I see one nearby not busy.

I tried my best, but unfortunately this picture does not do the sunset justice – taken from the 58th floor

As I said before, yesterday we put up 6 faces, which means we polished off the 66th floor and got two faces done on the 58th floor. We started the day with breakfast at 6:30am (I didn’t roll downstairs until more like 7) and took a bus at 7:15 to 101 and were lifting somewhere around 9am, which was an hour later than we wanted – again issues with the building locking doors on us that we needed open, rigging, etc. We managed to get two faces up before lunch, two before dinner, and then the last two before we left around 11pm, which meant that after packing up we didn’t get back to the hotel until around 12. Another problem was the riggers and Giant Show people automatically took an hour for lunch and dinner, when we wanted to just eat and get back out there. Then it wasn’t like at the end of the hour we were lifting again – we had to wait for everyone to trickle back and setup.

One of the giant red lantern lights perched atop the building corners on the lower floors (the higher ones have white strobes). These glow in and out about every 3 seconds.

Today(which saw me up at 6:45am) our Site Captain was riding hard on the Giant Show and rigger guys to take only a half hour lunch, and we were told when installing to keep pressure on the riggers to hoist the props up and keep things moving along. They must have finally started to get the idea during the 1-hour face install we managed to pull off today. Unfortunately PJ wasn’t around today for some reason – maybe he’ll be on the night crew as well – so I had a new guy Tom (this, by the way is like calling an Andres an Andrew – it’s not his real Chinese name) and by new I mean new to my post. Everyone does their installs a little differently, so I had to correct him on some procedures Tatsumi and I have down but eventually we got into the flow. I found my props going up a bit slower than most of everyone else’s, but that’s mainly because the more experienced technicians can understandably fix prop problems faster than I can. Usually I have to call over one of the Captains to check on my work. If we all had perfect props, we’d all be throwing them on and raising them up in 5 minutes or less like a Nascar pit crew as I mentioned before. However, to continue the analogy, most of the time its like a car pulls into to pit row and you go to gas it up and find there’s no gas feed, or the lug nuts on the tires don’t come off, or you go to fit on a new tire and the alignment is all wrong. Gah!

The weather today was just as beautiful as yesterday and had us working in short sleeves again, even on the windy side. Getting closer to civilization though – this shot is from the 50th floor.

Anyways I left halfway into the second face 50th floor installation, so by the time I get back to 101 we should (should) just be getting down to the 42nd floor, which is the worst floor of all because it’s a window washing floor and there is a metal beam track running along the inside of the terrace floor that the window washing hoist and winch is mounted on. Right next to that is the scaffolding, which means we literally have to stand on this beam or between it and the scaffolding or building wall (which is impossible to do unless you’re turned parallel to the wall) while we work on installing these props. That will certainly make things more interesting.

Holy hell are there really only two days left to Show Day?? I don’t even imagine how we are getting this all finished up – thankfully that is not for me to even worry about! All I know is I will be doing my part to get everything done, whatever that may be. We have more people out here now and things are kicked into the highest gear possible. People’s minds will be blown on New Year’s Eve, that’s all I’m going to say with absolute certainty – because those minds will either be the populace of Taipei or the literal remains of ours!! 🙂

I’ve generally been keeping sane by narrowing my focus to my tasks, gazing out over Taipei during the down times (so relaxing), and enjoying the great weather when it comes around and being thankful I’m not home dealing with this shit. I mean Xuě 🙂

My car under what appears to be a foot or more of snow. Screw that!!

Another silly translation

Today was another halfer – that is to say half was spent at the 101 building and the other half at the Dajia site along the river. We cabbed it over to Taipei 101 in the morning after breakfast and split into two groups – half of us ran the rest of the cable through the building while the other half (including me) went down to the bottom garage level (B5) and got started working on the cable that would wind up the observation level to the spire to finish off the dragon effect. The only problem was we got down there to find no cable, although there was an area roped off for us to work in. After some calls around we found the cable was up on floor 90, so we started to go up when it was decided we would stay down in B5 and just run the wire that would be attached to the cable. This wire would hook into the fireworks (gerbs, specifically) strung out along the cable at intervals. After some more wrangling with diagrams to get the process right, we finally started to lay out and number wires with the help of some of the Big Show guys and wrapped up just after lunchtime at noon.

The atrium of the Taipei 101 mall under and beside the building itself

Kevin drinking some Black Tea. Yes there’s a joke there

After lunch we all headed back to the Dajia site and spent the afternoon sorting cake boxes. These are collections of smaller firework effects wrapped together (rather than large single-shot shells in mortars) and they needed to be labeled and gathered into the groups that would later in the show prep process be taken out into the field and installed. This is just one of the many pyrotech aspects that can have people grumbling but are ultimately necessary for a successful show.

As usual we ended the day at 5pm, although how much longer that will last is now in question as there are only 10 days left until it’s showtime. Thankfully the physical toll today was minimal compared to yesterday and I’ve had time to recover and haven’t fallen asleep over my keyboard yet. It’s almost 8pm and I passed out last night around 8:30. Hopefully I will still have time these next few nights to go out again and try some hot pot – which is like fondue where you throw meat into a central pot at the table to cook it. Yum!!

Some drummers get ready to welcome some VIPs to Taipei 101 this morning – we didn’t stick around to see who they were though

Today was the first day I spent completely over at Taipei 101, although it was the less-glamorous side of pyro work that had us climbing through the bowels of the building and running cable down several dozen stories to/from our 58th floor staging area. From that level, every 8 floors up and down is another evacuation area, and these evacuation areas open out onto the terraces surrounding the building from which our prop work is staged. So every 8 floors from 34 to 91 need to have 4-5 data cables run down or up the staircase (what we started doing yesterday) to the 58th floor command center. Going from 91 to 58 and 58 to 34 of course required the most people since we were spaced every 5 floors to help guide the wire down so it wouldn’t swing too much (there is a weight attached to it) and then to tie it off to keep the load on the wire light.

Several data wires running down the stairwell (tie-offs not shown)

Unfortunately things went slower than we would have liked thanks to logistics with the building management still not being fully worked out. Several of the floors we were supposed to have access to from the elevators were closed and locked, which meant we had to walk up/down several flights to get where we needed to go. For example Chris and I were on 42 and tried to exit to the elevators and found the door locked, so we hiked it down the stairs to 34 only to find that door, which had been open before, was now closed and thus locked (that was actually the fault of someone on our team). So then we had to climb all the way back up to 58 in order to finally access the elevators. And then it can take up to 5-10 minutes for 1 of the 3 elevators to arrive. All this when we were supposed to be eating lunch! But we still got time after finally making it down to the food court to eat.

Some of the corridors we have to clamber through to reach the evacuation rooms from the elevators

Another interesting fact is that these evacuation rooms are designed to be accessed by the stairwells. To get to them from the elevators, we actually have to clamber through some duct rooms, most with extremely low clearances and a few that has you crawling on all fours. I can only imagine what the Big Show people had to go through to get all the scaffolding equipment through these. I finally stood up a little too soon and smacked my forehead on a duct today – there are pads on them but I managed to completely miss them. Luckily it was a wide, flat edge that didn’t gash me open (again) so it just gave me a dull ache for a few minutes. I guess I could have been wearing my hard hat, but I wasn’t in and around the duct rooms often.

So after a day of running wire we still have two floors (42 and 50) to run wire to tomorrow and then we begin to work on the dragon cable, which will wrap up around the building and produce the effect of a dragon spiraling up the building and then shooting flame off the spire (can’t wait to help rig that part!). We also tested the props we hung last week and found all systems still functional, which is a good sign after being exposed to the elements up there. I also got to spend a few minutes during downtime walking around the outside of the building when the evacuation room doors happened to be unlocked. It was another beautiful day out in the upper 60’s with partly cloudy skies.

Needless to say, my legs are pretty worn out from stair climbing/descending  all day, and I have work to catch up on so no night-time adventures this day.

My newest ID badge, this one from Big Show, to get me into Taipei 101

So today was another mish-mosh of activities. Breakfast was, as usual, at 6am although realistically most people don’t show up until closer to 7. At 7:30 we all piled into the big bus and headed down to the river site. Halfway there we came across a marathon that was running right along the road we use to access the staging area, so we had to take a little detour and then cross the road (on foot) while avoiding the mass of runners.

The bus that takes us in the mornings

Driving alongside the marathon runners

Some crazy protesters or activists or something!

At the staging area, looking back at the long line of runners

So the morning was spent finishing up what we were doing at the end of the day yesterday, which was tying in wires. So the shells are loaded in the mortars by the Taiwanese crew from Big Show and we come along and take the wires attached to the shells and splice them into the wires running back to the firing panels. We had about 25 of these racks left to do and the seven of us (five when we started) managed to finish up just before lunch. The second-half of the morning I was supposed to be at the 101 building with a few others, but that never happened. What did happen was half an hour into wiring I was using my knife to split two wires so I could strip and splice and wasn’t paying attention so ran the knife back towards my hand (what they teach you not to do in Boy Scouts) and ended up with a decent slice in my left index finger. Lacking any sort of tissue or paper towels and dripping blood, I folded some masking tape on itself, pressed that on the wound then wound masking tape around it. Trish still made me go a quarter of a mile back to the staging area for the first aid kit tho 😛 Luckily a truck was coming by at the time so I ran a quick errand with it and got dropped off at the tent to clean and bandage the finger, then it was right back out – luckily the bandage didn’t get in the way.

4 of our many interpreters – Tina, Vicki, Orophin and Joshua

After lunch my roommate Kevin and I were tasked with assisting my old friend Justin working on the set piece he is in charge of, which is a massive 140’x140′ set piece that will be lifted up by two cranes during the Floral Expo show. We had to take some of the sections of the set piece, which is made up of wire grid pieces, and link them together with metal quicklinks. While we were doing this a little old lady walked by, stopped and watched us, and then just came over and began to help! I had no idea what to do and we had no interpreters handy but she spoke a little English – enough to understand what needed to be done (which wasn’t complicated in and of itself) – none of us wanted to be rude and tell her to leave but at the same time we were wondering if we were taking advantage of her since we wouldn’t be giving her anything in return – but she seemed to just be happy to help out so we just smiled and said “xièxiè” (she-eh she-eh) a lot, which means “thanks”.

Just three of about two dozen rows laid out, you can see others accordion folded in the background

After about two hours or so of working on the set piece we got the call that finally we would be heading over to 101, so we said “xièxiè” one last time to the little old lady and piled into the bed of the truck they sent for us. Then eight of us plus interpreters Tina and Orophin piled into cabs and headed over to Taipei 101. Because we’re still working logistics out with the Big Show crew there and the building security to meet our needs, there was a delay getting into the section of the building we needed to be in, so it wasn’t until almost 4pm that we were finally able to start the task we were sent there to do, which was running wire down the length of the building.

Looking up from the 69th floor staircase

So we had to run wire down from the 90th floor to our staging area on the 59th floor. So we stationed people every 6 or so flights of stairs down from 90 to 59, taped the end of the wire to a water bottle from customwater.com and lowered it down the center of the stairwell. Once it was all the way down each of us took some slack and tied the wire off to the railing. This is because if we let the wire hang all 41 stories it would end up weighing several pounds, which would stretch it out. By tying it off every few floors, we reduce that problem. We only had time to pass down two wires before 5pm rolled around and we had to call it a day.

Sunset from the 59th floor of Taipei 101

After getting back to the hotel I was able to rest and catch up on some stuff for a few hours and then at 8:30pm we all gathered down in the lobby with the four translators. The original plan was to go out to some restaurant or bar where they served snake and eat some snake, or drink some snake blood or something, but that fell through for some reason (I wasn’t really paying attention to details just was going to follow people wherever they went) so we all decided to hit up the Night Market instead.

We walked a few blocks down to the metro station and bought our single-ride tokens, which I thought you’d slot in the turnstyle but they are actually electronic chips you place against a pad to unlock the gates. Once you exit the system, then you deposit them to open the gates. Just like Japan, these metro stations are very clean. We got off the train right at the marketplace and started to walk around. It’s a section of the city with narrow streets lined with shops and stalls, and where it spills out onto the main thoroughfare the sidewalk is overflowing with food stands and market stalls and game booths. As you can imagine it’s pretty packed.

I tried my hand at some airsoft gun target practice where you shoot out balloons, and this neat little game where you have to stand a few inches in front of a platform tilted back on which is resting an empty 40 liquor bottle. There’s a stick with a rope attached to a ring. You hook the ring over the neck of the bottle and have to stand the bottle up without it tipping over. The proprietor of course gave a demonstration, but even after 4 tries I couldn’t get it to stand up – although I did get it close.

Aside from some exotic Taiwanese/Chinese foods which I didn’t indulge in all that much (except for some yummy pastries) there are clothing, jewelery, accessories, toys, electronics, restaurants – it’s a pretty crazy place! We wandered around aimlessly just seeing what there was to be seen and our translators were awesome, showing us what was what and answering our questions about stuff. And the end of the night we were all tired but had experienced and learned a lot.

Coming home Justin, Trish, Sam, Dan and I decided to take a cab rather than the metro, so our translator Tina told the driver where to go and off we went in a little minivan taxi. Sam was (slightly more than) a little drunk and as the cab whipped around the turn he pantomimed turning a steering wheel and went “screeeeech!” because the cabbie didn’t speak English. I said “Sam, don’t encourage him!” and no less then a minute later you hear the little 4-cyclinder engine go “vvvrrrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” as we race towards the red light like 600 feet away! 🙂 yea we all puckered for that one but then clapped and cheered as we blew through the empty intersection. Then there was an Audi A6 up ahead and of course the cabbie had to run up to his rear bumper then hop into the next lane and blow by. Okay okay I’ll say it – he drove like me. There you all happy now?!?

But we made it back safe to the hotel (and in record time) Sam took the cabbie’s card (heaven help us) and now it’s past time for bed – up at 6am once again for breakfast and another day of show setup. We’ll be finishing our job at the 101 building – hopefully first thing in the morning but – we’ll see…

The metro single-ride token (and my bandaged sliced finger)

A Taipei Metro station

Dan and Justin, both with Mr. Brown coffee/Vodka mix. Apparently if they catch you drinking beer on the metro it’s a hefty fine. Both Justin and Dan too sips, of course 😛 You can carry, but don’t drink!

A shot of the Night Market where it borders the main thoroughfare

The game stall owner demonstrates (successfully of course) the lifting of the bottle

Here is more in the center of the marketplace

Justin tries on a new hat. I think he shoulda bought it

This is the taxi cab that zipped us back to the hotel

Today started off with breakfast at 6am (hee hee, hash brawns) and then we all piled onto a 40-person bus (which was a nice step up from a dinky 20-person bus) and headed back to the river site, where people began to disperse on various activities for the morning. I ended up at loose ends for about an hour and spent the time with some other techs chatting it up with the cute translator girls. One of them Orafin, took her name from a character in Lord of the Rings. Yes, she is awesome.

As I was finally getting ready to head out on an errand Chris came by and snagged Andrew, myself and Kevin and piled us into a cab with two translators (Orafin and Kris) and we headed off to the Taipei 101 building. Sweet! I didn’t think I would get up there so soon the way the higher-ups were talking.

We took the freight elevators up to the 82nd floor, which is the second-to-last tier base before the very top, they ascend very fast – you can feel yourself being squashed towards the floor. I don’t have a problem with pressure changes (except diving underwater) so popping my ears on the way up is easy. We exited out onto the terrace and met the Big Show Productions people at work up there, which is the Taiwanese company we are liaising with to produce these shows here (and hence the need for the translators). They’ve been setting up the rigging and scaffolding that we’ll be using to mount our set pieces and product.

The terraces themselves aren’t all that daunting to walk around on, because they are almost completely enclosed by a high wall – there are small gaps that are protected by railings along the sides and in the corners. Up on the walls it’s still about a meter of width before you reach the edge, but we have no reason to go up there anyways. It can be nice and calm up there, but most times a howling wind can come blowing through at a steady 15mph out of the southeast. I’ve been very fortunate with weather conditions so far, but sooner or later it will be cold and wet and windy all together – luckily I brought the gear needed to keep me warm!

So again, this is the the bottom of the last segment of the tower’s bamboo-like structure, which means there’s also a top, after which is the observation deck and the spire. I’ll be going up several more floors to the top of the last segment, but right now I’m not required to climb up the spire – although of course you know I will if given the opportunity. So if there’s some time to do it, then I’ll be able to. Fingers crossed!

We spent the morning up there testing out the mounting and rigging of the set pieces that we will be using to light up every face of the 101 building in a rainbow of colors (see the image on my ID Badge in the last post). This is the tricky part of show production – finding out if what was planned in the office really works in the field. So now that we have two test set pieces up, we’re going to check on them each day to see how they hold up to the elements and carry out our plans accordingly.

After lunch we all went back to the river site to help out where needed. I had a bit of downtime while waiting for an assignment so I had Orafin write my (full) name in Chinese on the side of my hard hat (top picture) and “Taipei 101” on the other side (bottom picture). I had another translator girl write my name in the morning, but it had started to rub off so this time I placed clear tape over the lettering so it wouldn’t wear. My hard hat is starting to get some character 🙂

The afternoon was spent along the riverside with several fellow techs wiring in product that was loaded by the Taiwanese crew ahead of us. My fingers are pretty raw from splitting and twisting wires! 5pm rolled around and it was quitting time once more, so back to the hotel we all went in cabs with a translator to make sure we got back okay. Several family members like to spend their nights on the town but I’m still too tired after being out working all day. Soon though I will have to get out and check out the city around our hotel. One thing I’ve already found in common with the states – 7-Elevens are everywhere 🙂

We’re still not broken up into our discrete show tasks, which means I have no idea if I’ll be spending time at the river site or the 101 building tomorrow or a bit of both. Eventually I’ll just be on 101, but for now assets (us techs) are still being shuffled around to where someone is needed.