dirtylibrarian

When one is driving Eastbound on the West Seattle bridge, or better yet if one is a passenger in a such a car, if you look down to your right before crossing over the river, you sometimes can see glowing orange bands of steel coming out of a plant. It took me ages to notice this, and once I did, I was fascinated. I became curious as to what was going on down there, and kept thinking of those old Sesame Street short films about how things are made. And then I thought how cool it would be to take a tour of the steel mill. But didn't get much past that idea.

Then one night, we are out to dinner with a big crowd of people, including the fellows from my band. Somehow the topic of the steel mill comes up, and my obsession with touring it, and Collin, our lead guitarist announces that he works there! It turns out he is one of the IT guys for the very place I've been dying to tour! He said it would be no problem to set up a tour, and we discussed best days to go, and after months of talking about it...finally

technogreek and I made it down for a tour!

We had a really great time. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring our cameras past the front office. But we did get to wear bright orange coats, helmets, safety goggles, guest badges and earplugs! It was really exciting walking around and seeing everything up close. We saw giant magnets picking up huge piles of scrap metal. We saw the huge pots in which things are melted. We got to go into the control rooms for the different process. Unfortunately, we did not see the metal being poured, as the crane for the section had just broken before we arrived. But we did see giant steaming fresh pieces of metal, which we then saw heated up to glowing orange hot, and then worked down into re-bar. It was awesome!

Later

technogreek's brother asked us what we had learned. I'm embarrassed to say not much came to mind. Basically, it was this:

1) this particular steel plant is all about RECYCLING (hooray!)
2) this company is the biggest recycler in the country!
3) chemicals can be added to make melted metal right for rebar
4) melting steel involves both heat and electricity
5) there is always demand for rebar
6) giant magnets are very cool
7) glowing orange metal is incredibly hot
8) anyone who asks can tour a steel mill
9)

technogreek is an excellent date for all sorts of dorky adventures

Sounds like fun, eh? Well if you want to go someday, let me know. We plan to go back when the pouring part is working someday!