What Kind Of Contraption Is This ?

As part of my 'flight to Cleveland' experience this past week, I enjoyed the obligatory wait around the baggage carousel time period.  The time was lengthened as a result of rain and lightning, which I was informed by a neighboring fan of the rotating luggage, is due to regulations that say baggage handlers are not allowed to continue moving luggage if there is a risk of lightning.  The more you know, right?!

While awaiting my green, hard-cover, old school, actually-was-my-wife's-in-college, suitcase to come crashing onto the mechanical snake, I spied a curious contraption that I could not easily identify.  The individual parts of it were common items: a rubber garden hose, a plastic tarp, some wire hooks, string, and a multi-gallon bucket perched on a stand or platform.  But it's purpose was debatable.  Is it some form of modern art?  Or a specially designed delivery system with connections to the business of baggage delivery?

After closer inspection, I found its true purpose, which led to a whole host of other questions.  As you can see on the right, this is apparently a leaking water collection apparatus, specifically engineered to keep clearly dirty water from dripping or otherwise spilling onto passengers or their luggage.  Rather than being a long-term solution, this marvel of man-genuity (SIDEBAR:  I'm trying to add a new word to our vocabulary - ingenuity is well known, but man-genuity is more like a Macgyver solution ... duct tape and spare parts that temporarily, or arguably poorly, correct a problem) is clearly not intended for permanent use.  And yet, judging by the stains in the ceiling tiles, there is little urgency to finalize the remedy to this drainage problem.

I found myself marveling at the presence of this make-shift mechanism in such a high profile, public locale.  In my own garage and throughout my home are likely dozens of examples of my own man-genuity ... but those are privately held and certainly not something I would ever accept in a professional place.


Song Of The Day:
I've chosen the song "Four Five Seconds" by Rihanna, Paul McCartney and an artist I won't feature anymore in this blog for this post, in typical fashion for TWO reasons: First, that is approximately the length of time that any man-genuity project should survive - anything longer and you should use ingenuity; Second, the song itself is an example of another aspect of man-genuity: incompleteness.  Instead of the polished version of a radio song, this back-of-a-crowded-car feeling tune seems thrown together, comprised of parts that normally don't interact (what is SIR Paul McCartney doing among this group?) but the result is oddly somewhat satisfying, at least initially.

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