COMMENTERRY--

File this one under rotting infrastructure:

I found myself  searching for a geocache under this bridge on Grove Road, a township road in Morrow County, Ohio recently and was startled to come face-to-face with its deteriorating condition.  Hefty steel I beams on approximate 3 foot centers seemed robust but the sub-surface decking was in significant decay as were the "x" shaped bracings seen in the upper foreground and lower center.

The decking and its overlay of asphalt are what keeps your car's tires from plunging through the surface.   The bracings give vertical stability to the steel beams which themselves are the "backbone" of the structure.

I am, by no measure, an engineer and am confident the Morrow County Engineer's office has this bridge under regular review.  In their defense, Morrow County is known to be tax poor.   Anyone can see that just by paying attention to the condition of their county and township roads.  

In an October 2012 article in Roads and Bridges it was pointed out, "...24% of Ohio’s bridges (6,381) are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

That's nearly 1/4 of all our state's bridges.

Infrastructure is often out of sight and consequently out of mind.  Taxpayers usually cannot see the inside of our sanitary and storm sewers and our water lines.  It's a rare driver who pays attention to the condition of the bridge structures he or she can see.

Our continuing to ignore necessary repair of our infrastructure will be done at significant peril.

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I ordered milk with my Arby's Beef and Cheddar sandwich lunch September 23rd and the milk had a "Best By" date of November 28, 2013.

Can you imagine the nuclear-powered preservatives that milk must have contained?

As I held my nose and quenched my thirst I couldn't suppress my visions of embalming fluid.

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This one appears to have gone viral recently:

“When questioned by a Pravda reporter about his talks with Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin (Russia’s President) answered:

Negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon.  The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and then struts around like it won the game.”

Truthorfiction.com has been unable to validate the source, but Fogeyisms opines it is astoundingly perceptive in spite of who the author might have been.