The Dirty Gig takes PingWi-Fi to some unlikely places … some exotic places … some isolated places … and sometimes to the same place. It was only a year ago that The DG — “The Dirty Gig” — the disaster work that funds this road trip — stopped in Houston for flooding. We’re back!
In the aftermath of the most recent Houston flooding, for a week, Ping was spread thin over several jobs, cleaning up muck, cutting out drywall, hauling away mush, boxing books, taking moisture readings in walls, setting drying equipment and such …
Then I was reassigned at a huge computer manufacturing facility (that will remain unnamed). The computer company is a very high quality outfit, and for me, their name brings back great memories. For my first blog — the 18,000-mile trek to 47 major cities in four months, as “The Wi-Fi Guy” — it was one of their laptops that got me 3/4 of the way through the road trip. That laptop took a lickin … but sadly, sustained one drop too many.
Anywho, now a few years later through unlikely circumstances, I find myself behind their security gates. As usual on the Dirty Gig, the hours are long and one must find comic relief, human interest and social stuff wherever possible. Typically, that source of enjoyment for me is the characters I meet among the laborers on the job. They have earned their keep on this one. We’re talking 7 days a week, hot-hot humid conditions. People are falling by the wayside with heat exhaustion, and we are subsisting on Subway sandwiches (and we all know what those did to Jared … I digress).
But there is fun to be had, despite the hard work. Some of the workers said they think I am a clown, because I joke with them when the situation allows levity. LOL … but then after one worker nearly stepped in from of my forklift the other day (threatening their own safety), yelling ensued. Now they are calling me “hombre malo” … 🙂
But any who … in getting to know the workers, one never knows when there might be “a diamond in the rough.” … A story idea … a friend … Like the other day, on one of the first jobs I worked in Houston, before the computer plant … there was this female laborer with a noticeably coarse voice, who I noticed puffed hard on a cigarette at every opportunity. (I ain’t hatin, smokers. It’s just that I’m allergic to the poisons in the stuff smokers are choosing for their slow demise … I digress … )
So … my anti-smoking tendencies sort of wrote her off. But it didn’t take long for her to show me the light and win me over again. The woman was one of the hardest working people on the crew, outperforming most of the men, whether it was chipping up floor tile, or toting bags of debris to the dumpster, or whatever. She was all in. “Kickin butt and taking names” as some coach used to say. I was so impressed, I stopped her to compliment her on her work ethic.
I learned she was from Cuba, and now on American soil by way of Central America … and in broken English, she told me that she was out of work and that was why she was doing this hard physical labor. As I am assuming you are as you read … I too was curious to what profession she might belong. Get this! In Cuba, she was trained as a ballerina. Among the hundreds, if not thousands, of laborers I have met in the last six years on The Dirty Gig, I have met shysters and lawyers (is that redundant?), preachers, carpenters, engineers, salesman, out-of-work computer programmers, mechanics, truck drivers … but no, never any classically trained dancers.
Kind of cool I thought … perhaps even BW — blogworthy.
I am jotting down this dance story on my first, quick day off since hitting Houston three weeks ago. It’s Mothers Day, in fact … OH … Happy Mothers Day! … Tomorrow, we will be back to the computer plant, where I am helping to oversee 150 laborers from Guatemala, Cuba, Texas, Mexico and Lord only knows where. I bet there are some more stories in there somewhere. You know … maybe we should all take the time to peer through the smoke, from time to time, and learn about the person on the other side …
So far, my Wi-Fi consumption has been way below the recommended intake levels … I took a quick sample one night, up northeast of the airport … in (H)umble in the (H)ouston vernacular that is so fond of the phantom “H.” (H)umble beginnings you might say. The Wi-Fi was good, but the Bux was a drive thru … hate those. No soul. No community … BUT the baristas did mention the biggest Starbucks in Texas is located in downtown Houston. (Yes, I said the H to myself as I wrote that … refusing to conform.) This tweet was my first impression of the Starbucks grande, in the Hilton Americas-Houston, super swank hotel (below):
#Hilton Americas Houston – “Biggest Starbucks in Texas” or understaffed bar in hotel lobby, w/ longest line in TX this side of Franklin’s:)
— PingWiFi (@PingWiFi) May 8, 2016
The third Starbucks on my radar, was listed as one of the “Top Five Starbucks” cofeeshops in Houston, by some writer. In his defense, he did mention it “was his” Starbucks in his hood, and that was why he liked it. The shop was okay. But very much a drive thru … and he should have put more emphasis on hood in his review. As he put it, the area is “going through a revitalization.” “From what?,“ I asked as I drove through the area to get to the Bux on West 43rd … the crack apocalypse?
Yes, as he mentioned, the Starbucks had helped to usher in some other nice retailers … and their were lots of nice, redesigned homes and other signs of regentrification … but just a few blocks away .. it was a pretty rough area.
Sadly, I passed some incoherent man at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, stumbling along in the middle of a busy road, dragging his feet … looking very much like an extra in just about any episode of “The Walking Dead.” Several cars drove around him … pretty much never interrupting whatever oblivion he was still enjoying from the night before. Dang it … ending on such a sad note. More (H)ouston a(H)ead …
Know what I sayin?
