Venomous Insects of North Carolina

The people I’m going to meet along the way are one of the big reasons I’m taking this trip. I haven’t even left yet and I’ve been lucky enough to meet the Genes, gotten to know Mary at City Cycle, the KLR community, and most importantly, by reaching out to my family and circle of friends for support I’ve been reminded of how amazing they are. This week I had the chance to meet two more really great folks. I’ve been working in the same plant with them for four years, but our paths didn’t cross until Tuesday when I went down to the machine shop to talk through a problem.

As you diligent readers know, I put new sprockets and a new chain on the bike last weekend. Since these are parts that wear out, I thought it would be a good idea to carry an extra set with me. The front sprocket is small and can go in my spares kit, everyone’s told me that chains are easy to be had all along my rout, so that leaves stashing the big rear sprocket somewhere on the bike. It’s about 12 inches across and if I put it in the wrong place it has points that could tear me up in an accident, so getting it right is very important to me.

After a lot of fiddling around and looking at the bike it became obvious that there was only one place it could go. I have three pieces of luggage, two that attach to the sides and one that sits on top behind the seat. The top case mounts on a metal plate and under that plate there’s about an inch of room. If I can bolt it down there I won’t have to give it another thought till I need it. I could drill trough the mounting plate and bolt it straight on, but I’d rather not have to try and work a wrench onto a nut in that tight little space. (I’m getting tired of struggling with wrenches) So I went down to the machine shop at work to see if those folks had any suggestions.

In my position, I don’t have much call to go down there, so I don’t really know those folks. I walked in at the end of the day and two guys were in the shop leaning on some equipment talking. I told them what I was trying to accomplish and they dove right in. They called it Gov’ment work and this was the sort of stuff they lived for. I just kind of stood back and let ‘em run with it. The solution they came up with was to put threads in two existing holes on the sprocket so I didn’t need a nut for the bolt at all – the sprocket was the nut. A simple, elegant solution to my problem.

mounted sprocket

While I was glad to have the spare rear sprocket tucked safely away, my favorite part of solving the problem was meeting the the machine shop crew. Two really nice guys that seemed to have known each other since they were kids, they couldn’t have been more helpful or funnier. One, the straight man, setting the other up for stories and one-liners, the other with a wit as focused as a chicken that’d gotten into the corn from the still. while we were talking, I noticed they had a collection of big insects stuck to the wall behind the lathe. I had to ask, and after being told they all had been found around the plant, I got this story -
Lathe with bugs

The company we work for is European and there’s always a group from somewhere else training on our machines. In an ordinary day you might hear Finish, Spanish, Polish, French or Mandarin while walking around the coating hall. One of the workers here from Europe with a group training for a few weeks asked about the bugs on the wall. Without missing a beat, J told him that he had had been collecting them so that visitors to the factory would be able to identify some of the local poisonous insects. Euro got all wide eyed and asked “Really?” When it was confirmed by our straight man, Euro hurried out to the hall and brought his whole crew in to see. He started pointing and chattering away and the crews eyes kept getting bigger and bigger. Then they shuffled out shaking their heads, ready to duck at the slightest buzzing sound.

As far as we know the rest of their visit they never ventured outside…

helger