Homo Landfill

For those who know me only as a nerdy model builder-slash-electrical engineer type, I present this photograph of a Caterpillar D6C, which is almost identical to the machine I operated at the landfill when I was going to college. Add trash guards to the engine cowling, a large trash blade attachment to the top of the blade, and a two-shank ripper in place of the drawbar and it would be identical to the machine I operated.

I come by my love of heavy equipment honestly. My dad ran a dozer for most of his working life, and my grampa was a dozer operator from as far back as World War Two (though he never called himself a "dozer operator"; he preferred the term "catskinner"). Though my landfill job didn't pay terribly well and exposed me to extreme heat, noise, stink, dust and other hazards (like getting rotted mattresses bound up in the tracks) I still look back on this as the most satisfying job I ever had. I never, not even once, woke up and said "Oh crap, I have to go to work." Instead I literally bounded out of bed and said "Hot dog! I get to go run a dozer and crush stuff!"