web analytics

Okay, then. How about this?

I tried to dabble a toe back into politics today, now that the holidays are pretty much past. Read a few headlines, browse a few articles.

No. No no no. No, sorry. No.

So, screw that noise. Let’s do something else. Again.

I give you — the largest coffee pot and coffee cup in the world. From Stanton, Iowa — “the White City” (I didn’t ask why it’s called that; it didn’t seem right). They are, of course, cleverly disguised water towers.

The pot is 36 feet high and 20 feet wide. It holds 640,000 cups or 40,000 gallons. The cup is 96 feet tall, holds 2,400,000 cups of coffee or 150,000 gallons.

In 2001, the cup tower was entered in the trade association’s national “Tank of the Year” competition and won first place. The makers of the cup, Phoenix Fabricators and Erectors, Inc., had entered the contest every year since the beginning — that’s fifteen years! — and this was their first win.

If I told you they were a Swedish coffee pot and cup, would that give the game away? Of course it would! Stanton, Iowa is the birthplace of Virginia Christine — but you know her as Mrs Olson!

So join me in hoping everyone in DC dies horribly in a fire and goes straight to hell!

Comments


Comment from Janna
Time: January 2, 2013, 10:59 pm

Thank you. You have the nicest pictures.
I’ve decided to totally disengage from politics,
I am firmly in the ‘Let It Burn’ camp.
They voted for it, and I hope they get it. Good and Hard.
I’m doing stained glass and looking longingly through gardening catalogs. Winter was fun and everything, I’ve really enjoyed it, but I’ve had enough, now.
C’mon Spring!!


Comment from Sigivald
Time: January 2, 2013, 11:48 pm

Wikipedia claims “Stanton was known as the Little White City when everyone’s house was white.”


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: January 3, 2013, 12:10 am

Amen to that, Janna!

Just starting to see the Spring bulbs emerge here. Can’t come too soon.


Comment from JeffS
Time: January 3, 2013, 12:50 am

Methinks that “Let it Burn!” has been an integral feature all along.

No matter ….. I’m thinking about starting a garden in the backyard next spring, for food & exercise. This will be a major challenge for me, as I have a black thumb. Even grass dies on me.


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: January 3, 2013, 1:58 am

I look forward to seeing more of Stoaty’s artwork and tales of the 4 chickens of the a-peck-alypse.

A “Let It Burn” bumper sticker would be lovely


Comment from naleta
Time: January 3, 2013, 2:15 am

I’ve been sick since last Saturday. Woke up about 4am shivering violently, and found I was running a fever. I should have had my husband take me to the ER because I wasn’t able to drink enough fluids to keep from dehydrating, and after I saw my dr today, I spent a couple hours sitting in the hospital today with an IV drip. I don’t have a fever any more and I feel much better, but I’m still exhausted. So the end and beginning of my year(s) were total crap. It’s got nowhere to go but up, at least physically.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: January 3, 2013, 2:16 am

I second that…I’d love a ‘Let It Burn’ coffee cup.


Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: January 3, 2013, 3:41 am

My boyfriend hopes everyone in DC gets “cancer of the asshole,” and I can’t but agree with the sentiment. Plus side: Chavez has that. I hope Captain Collectivism enjoys his painful demise at the hands of Venezuela’s socialized medicine.


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: January 3, 2013, 3:44 am

I’ll drink to that!


Comment from JeffS
Time: January 3, 2013, 6:30 am

So will I!


Comment from Oceania
Time: January 3, 2013, 10:11 am

Go Kim Dot Kom!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8140658/US-govt-accused-of-deception-over-Megaupload


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 3, 2013, 11:23 am

Now, those are cool towers, Weas’! Wish we had one here locally dressed up like that.


Comment from Deborah
Time: January 3, 2013, 1:20 pm

Oh, I like the teapot. You’d have to smile every time you saw it. One of my favorites is the water tower in Luling, Texas, where they grow tons of watermelons. http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldslargestthings/5742915433/

But there is a water tower not far from where I live that looks like an “alien spaceship” when the cloud conditions are just right. It seriously freaked me out the first time I saw it hovering on the horizon.

Gardening catalogs: I’ve been lusting over daylilies, and my ground is three inches of patchy dirt over rock rock rock. Sigh.


Comment from Redd
Time: January 3, 2013, 4:03 pm

If only it were filled with real hot coffee. I’d have a water tower size cup of it.

Stoaty, even though you attract a “mature” readership, I’m not sure people remember Mrs. Olson.


Comment from mojo
Time: January 3, 2013, 4:19 pm

“Dat’s Ersatz Brothers coffee, ya! The REAL one!”


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: January 3, 2013, 5:11 pm

Let it burn!

Something we can all agree on.


Comment from rustbucket
Time: January 3, 2013, 8:04 pm

McGoo!!! Happy New Year!!
“Let It Burn” coffee mugs…SWeas, get someone in the art department on that, stat!
What? YOU are the art department? Good, less cost for the company.
Carry on.


Comment from Oh Hell
Time: January 3, 2013, 10:31 pm

Burn, baby, burn!!!
Love the water towers – out on our eastern plains every town has at least one emblazoned with the town name. But most of them are pretty mundane.


Comment from Oldcat
Time: January 3, 2013, 11:03 pm

Not remember Mrs Olsen?! Mountain Grown Folgers is ‘Da Lichest Kind’ of coffee!!

Apparently the “Little White City” name because railroad people passing by saw how clean and tidy it was


Comment from kilroy182
Time: January 4, 2013, 4:49 pm

Don’t forget about the Sapp Bros. coffee pots.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/6738
Always a good thing to see for a truck driver in need of a hot cup and a meal. It says that the pot used to light up and steam, but I can’t say I ever saw it do that.


Comment from Veeshir
Time: January 5, 2013, 3:21 pm

I can actually pay attention to politics again.

How did I do it?
I gave up.

Sure I’ve known we were doomed for a while now, but I still had hope.

There is freedom in despair.


Comment from Razorbacker
Time: January 12, 2013, 12:07 am

Barlesville, OK, has two water towers. One is labeled ‘hot’, the other is labeled (of course) ‘cold’.

The wife and I always got a smile from that. I wish that I’d thought to photograph it.

Write a comment

(as if I cared)

(yeah. I'm going to write)

(oooo! you have a website?)


Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.


<< carry me back to ol' virginny