SpaceAce

Edit: Holy shit, GFY fucked up my ladder graphics! SOne of a bitch, now you won't have any idea what I mean.

Edit 2: Let me see if I can fix the illustrations.

How is he an idiot? When you've got a job to do, you've got a job to do. My first full time job as a youngster was working for a sign company. We had to do shit like that all the time to hang signs. We did other crazy shit, too. For instance, to work on larger signs where you couldn't reach every part of the sign from one position we'd set up two a-frame ladders and put a "pick" between them. The pick was basically an 8-inch wide piece of metal we laid on the top rung of the ladders. Then, 20 feet off the ground, you walk back and forth on this narrow piece of metal doing your job.

We also had a ladder called the "little giant" which has to be the most dangerous ladder in all of history. It looks like this:

**************//\\
*************//**\\
************//****\\
***********//******\\
**********//********\\
*********//**********\\
********//************\\

The second set of lines on the inside of the "drawing" are a second a-frame ladder on the inside of the first that can be pulled out like this:

********************/\
*******************/**\
******************/****\
*****************/******\
****************/********\
***************/**********\
**************/************\
*************/**************\
************/****************\
**********//******************\\
*********//********************\\
********//**********************\\
*******/*************************\
******/***************************\
*****/*****************************\
****/*******************************\
***/*********************************\

In orer to keep it compact, the feet on either side of the bottom of the ladder were <B>as narrow as the rest of the ladder</B>. Real fucking safe, but it gets even better. The little giant has a hinge at the top of the "A" so it can be extended longways to make a regular lean-to ladder like this.

********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|
********|---|

When fully extended, that ladder was TALL and very, very narrow. We used to work on the outside of buildings, inside of buildings and, on one memorable occasion, inside a giant empty clock tower outside a mall. That fucking ladder threw me at least twice, one time leaving me dangling out of a hole over a strip mall sidewalk until my partner noticed and put the ladder back.


Anyway, he's not an idiot. He's just doing his job.

SpaceAce