D9G Site Cleanup - Brownsville - August 12, 2001

The last act of every Brownsville show is site cleanup. The biggest available CAT, or sometimes 2 of them, go out and knock down the piles, fill in the holes, and grade out the digging area to prevent ponding, and to provide a good start for the next show.

This D9G was very comfortable doing the job, as it had been part of a large spread that worked in mine reclamation. Combined with this experienced operator, it was a sight to see. I wonder if the operator had worked in reclamation, he had his plan and executed it efficiently.

This was the August, 2001 show, just 1 month before 9-11.

It's interesting to compare the small number of machines present in 2001 with the several times larger present show. Even back then, it was a wonderful show, now it's world class. Similarly, the digging areas have been expanded to accommodate the large number of operating machines.

The original video format is 720 x 480. The video will look crisp at that viewing size.

This video was shot with a Sony Handycam in Digital 8. This format used 2 hour Hi-8 analog videotapes, running at 2x speed, to produce high quality 1 hour digital video. It was a revolutionary format at the time, and was used extensively by news media for field news gathering, such as in Iraq. A bit of image quality is lost in the MS moviemaker editor, losing some of the striking immediacy of the format. Note that it is interlaced, and sized for broadcast televisions of the time.

This video is from a large box full of 75(!) of these 1 hour tapes, that WurliTzer153Duplex is gradually converting via FireWire. These were shot by both of us, with several cameras, and it's interesting to figure out who did what.

A large percentage of the 75 videotapes are labeled as Silver Spade...!

There is some cool stuff in there.

National Pike Show
Brownsville PA
August 12, 2001

Sony Handycam Digital 8

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20010812e D9G Cleanup Brownsville