Eljay's AMA

Gravityhurts123 · July 16, 2016, 7:07am

On the topic of swimming, it’s
1: Extremely relaxing
2: Great Exercise
3: If you have a bad back, it really alleviates it. (I know from experience, most of the time I’m fine, but occasionally my lower back hurts like mad and swimming really helps.)
Now back on topic.
Eljay, what exactly did your your job in irrigation entail? As in, what did a normal day look like for you?

Calebmar12 · July 16, 2016, 9:36am

If i beat this AMA on legandry do i get to see you’re face eljay?

Like halo 4s ending

Eljay · July 16, 2016, 9:54am

I dunno if athletic is the right word. In my prime (before the heart thing), then yeah, absolutely. Afterwards… I can’t even run for very long.

Lemme go find a post I made earlier explaining it…

Eljay:

The irrigation that I did was essentially to put massive amounts of water onto around 40 acres of plants, standard hay and alfalfa. How we went about doing this varied depending on pipe type, however the general idea remained the same. Regardless of the type, you had to hook up the pipes to a valve which controlled the flow of the water, which was connected to an underground pipe system which connected to a water pump down the street. My job was to rotate which length of pipe would have water going through it at any given moment. Throughout the day I would have to switch water to different pipes to cover a different portion of the two fields. I’ll go ahead and explain the differences between the pipes and what problems each caused.

I only really focused on handling two types of pipelines, so I can only speak from the experience of those two types.

The first one would be 3 acres of pipes that were on the ground and immobile. These pipes would connect directly into the control valve. On this field (which was the standard hay), there were six pipelines of varying lengths due to the odd shape of the field. This type of pipeline was arguably the more annoying of the two because the field was often the home of cows, usually between 3 and 16 at any time. Because of this, the cows would walk over the pipes lying on the ground and unhook them. On these pipes, they were connected by hooks going one direction, and the pressure of the water (which was immense) would lock them fully into place. However, they would be shaken loose by the cows knocking up against them. This was horribly frustrating because we’d then have to unhook one section of the pipes and work our way up or down in order to fit them back into place. Depending on the pipeline(s), this could take easily an hour or more. I tried looking for a picture online of these pipes but I couldn’t find a good one, so here is one I have with our German Shepard. The tires are at the base of the risers (the pipes with sprinklers on top) to assist with balance and the unhooking/rehooking of the lines.

The second kind of pipe I worked with were the wheeled lines. These were thicker pipes that ran through large metal wheels. We had three that expanded over around 36 or so acres of alfalfa. While I’d take these over ground lines any day, they were still annoying. Aside from size, they connected via a long rubber hose which connected to the valve. They were also moved thanks to a powerful motor in the approximate middle of the lines. These lines also had a lot of issues. For starters, they had to be moved to the next valve every 12 to 24 hours, most normally being moved every 24. This means going out in the morning, driving down to the pump and shutting it off, disconnected each of the valves (because there were only three actually switches over an approximate 12 - 14 or so valve openings) as well as disconnect every hose, then wait around 15 - 30 minutes for all three lines to drain so they don’t drag and break, and then drive to each motor engine, try starting them, and move them the direction you want about… 50 or so feet? Never really counted. Rinse and repeat until all three are moved to the next valve, then reconnect them, restart the pump, and slowly start each and every individual line. Then, you’d need to travel up and down the lines and poke the sprinkler heads because they’d occasionally get clogged with sticks, mud, or wasps. That’d take around another 15 - 30 minutes, sometimes longer if it’s especially bad. Then you’d do the same thing 24 hours later. Here’s a picture from Wikipedia that shows what the lines looked like.

And that’s if everything goes right. And I mean absolutely perfectly. Occasionally, you’ll encounter issues such as the water pressure suddenly vanishing, meaning you’ll have water, but there might be a broken pipe or an issue with the pump. Or one of the engines won’t work and you can’t move one of the lines. Or a pipe actually broke. That’s the worst, because then you’re out of commission on that line for a while, and a pipe fix is $100 per pipe. Any of these issues might cause a delay of a few hours, or even a few days.

Toward the end, I managed to get it down to a science. I eventually out-did my younger brother and our landlord at being the best at irrigation due to how much time I spent on it and how efficiently I was able to be. I held the record for getting it done in the shortest amount of time for both types (around an hour for the wheeled lines and around 30 minutes for the ground lines) and cause the least amount of breaks in pipelines.

And again, this is all the best case scenario. Sometimes the weather is pretty bad. It’s worst dealing with irrigation when it’s cold, because you’re dealing with water. You’ll get sunburned during summer and the metal pipes will burn your hands, but at least it’s better than the cold. Sometimes you’ll have mechanical malfunctions, and even sometimes having the neighbors threaten to call the cops on you. For unintentionally watering their really cruddy mailbox.

Yeah. That was fun.

I’m leaving out a lot of details, but that’s the gist of it. If I can clear anything up, please lemme know.

Nope.

Ketros · July 16, 2016, 2:14pm

Water levels must be the worst for you. :3

What was the first video game you remember playing?

If lost in another country which TTV member would you most want to have with you?

PotatoAlien · July 16, 2016, 4:18pm

What’s your opinion on the Akaku?

Sammythekat · July 16, 2016, 5:32pm

Do you see love to be canon in bionicle?

Toby_Echozap · July 16, 2016, 7:33pm

@Eljay i have a question for you ( sorry if it been asked before but reading 2186 messages takes time i dont have ) now you have all the sets do you plan on getting all the collectable e.g. krana, kratta, mask , disk est. this way you will have an even better full collection.

Mrblackpants · July 16, 2016, 10:18pm

Why didn’t I win? ;_;

Kidnapped_Sock · July 17, 2016, 7:12am

If you do like Suicide Squad, could you see yourself starting to look a little more into DC or at least going to see Suicide Squad 2?

Related to that, which Suicide Squad character are you most interested in based on the trailers?

Glad that Daredevil’s finally coming to Blu-ray?

Eljay · July 17, 2016, 5:43pm

I think either space invaders or digdug.
Depends on the country.

It’s alright, although not my cup of tea.

In the Matoran Universe? No. Among the Bara Magna inhabitants? Yes. In Okoto? Yes.

No worries, I haven’t actually been asked this before! Honestly, I doubt I will. I got all the Toa Mata masks (OG colors, silver and gold) and I’m pretty happy with just that. I have no real interest in any of the other collectables.

Posts showed up at different times for people, and we didn’t see yours as first. =P

Possibly seeing a SS 2, but not liking DC as a whole.
I don’t know their names aside from Harley, so I’ll go with her.
Certainly, although I doubt I’ll be picking it up.

Mrblackpants · July 17, 2016, 7:18pm

Oh well
Next year I guess

Kidnapped_Sock · July 17, 2016, 7:46pm

Well, that’s fine. Most of them will probably be dead by the end, anyway.

Really you’ll just have to remember Harley, Deadshot, and Boomerang.

Hutere · July 17, 2016, 10:55pm

When you do your reviews, where is the camera in relation to you?
Also, of all the 01 Miru colours, how does each rank in your book?

MavezIgnikari · July 18, 2016, 2:55pm

I missed most of makutafest, what do the shirts look like?

Eljay · July 19, 2016, 4:49am

It’s directly in front of me.
I like green, then gold, then everything after that.

You’ll have to wait and see.

Also, livestream next Tuesday - anyone down for that?

Xeros610 · July 19, 2016, 4:50am

Oh yeah!

Calebmar12 · July 19, 2016, 6:09am

Same time as normal or earlier

Kidnapped_Sock · July 19, 2016, 7:48am

sure, but what time and what time zone?

Eljay · July 19, 2016, 7:51am

Maybe around 7:00 PM EST.

Kidnapped_Sock · July 19, 2016, 7:56am

Thank you for using EST, much easier for me to set my calendar.
Since I’m assuming you live in the continental U.S., are you seriously answering questions in between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM?