Edit: lol yeah, I deserve this, I teed it up rather magnificently.
Your mom!
But seriously, a pyramid at Giza. Pretty warm in there after 3500 years in the sun.
OP’s mom.
The Cologne Cathedral.
It took 500 years to build it.
That is so many generations. Imagine you are just the 4. architect. Your great grandfather has started it, but you did not know this man. Somehow the plans have been passed down to you, but of course there were changes… Somebody after you is going to finish it. You do not know how it’s going to look in the end, because there will be more changes later. If they will be able to finish it at all…
Must be kinda frustrating to be the second generation or something. You didn’t start it, and you’ll never see it to be finished, not even close. You’re just kinda there.
Back in the late 90s, in the CA East Bay, one of my family’s neighbors was a big shot (director or something, can’t recall) at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (at the time, it was still called the NOVA laser, I think). My dad got this guy to give us a behind the scenes tour (including clean suit sections) of the complex, including the target chamber where they did inertial confinement fusion experiments (read: shot really fucking powerful lasers with support machinery the size of several contiguous Costcos smashed together at a tiny little gold cylinder with tritium suspended in it), and I got to stick my head in the inspection port.
It was super awesome, and one of the things I credit for making me go down the STEM track in the first place. Also, this was pre-9/11, and in the “peace dividend” era, and I’m fairly certain there’s precisely zero chance a random neighbor kid would be allowed backstage like that in such a sensitive (technically, as well as national security) area these days.
Also, I got to wave at the normie tour group from the other side of the tour glass while in part of the laser hall with our clean suits lol
That’s like beyond super duper cool!
I mean just to put on a clean suit would be rad, but to then go behind the scenes to places no one else goes!? FUCK YEAH!
Then holy crab on a crutch you saw normies behind glass? Just where those poor, unconnected plebes belong! 😬
I’d have been shocked if you mentioned, “…and then I worked at McDonald’s for three decades,” instead of the tour inspiring you to go STEM!
How Could It Not!?
Thanks for sharing. ❤️
There’s not much left of the Mer de Glace glacier, but every year they still carve a giant ice tunnel into it so you can walk into a glacier. Pretty fascinating
