The Beginning

Yesterday, a good friend of mine sent me a link to her recently created weblog. Sure, I had seen them before, and there is one that I check out now and again that is done by a friend of a friend, but I had never thought about doing one of my own... What the hell, maybe this will give me a chance to get some of that stuff that is always rattling around in my head out and into space.

So where did a572mike come from? I use this as my email address, and have for several years now. Many of my friends have asked me where it came from. My first job out of college found me working for a steel erection and heavy industrial contractor in a god-for-saken place known as Indiana. Being a field engineer for this company wasn't easy, it helped to be an active hands on type of guy, not afraid to be out in the middle of things, not to be afraid of not being challenged, not scared of... of high places... I was scared of heights, didn't like them one bit... One day, there was a problem with some mis-fitting steel in this tower that we were setting some stainless steel tanks in, and it just happened to be up about 140 feet above the ground... The other engineer, who usually took care of problems with this type of thing, somehow conveniently was on the other side of the project. So, I put on my harness, grabbed a tape measure, and I was off... At first I was scared to death, but my 100% fall protection kinda put me at ease, and after a moment, I discovered what kind of a rush it was to be up there. From that day forward, I went up into the high iron (as the ironworkers call it) when ever I could, it added some zest and excitement to otherwise mundane existence. One of the other engineers that I worked with started calling me Iron Mike, and it soon caught on with just about everyone else we worked with, the ironworkers, the foreman, hell, even several of the owner's representatives called me Iron Mike. Naturally, Iron Mike is a very, very popular username, and it's not easy to get your hands on. I came up with a creative engineer's type solution for this. Structural Steel, as ironworkers call it, is not iron of course, but a steel alloy, and the most common grade used in modern steel structures is ASTM A572 Grade 50 50ksi steel. So, you guessed it, I took the A572 and put it ahead of my name. Problem solved. And, now you know...