It was a cold, rainy May morning outside the IBEW Local 26 training center in Lanham, Maryland. But inside, Romuel Buenio put on a pair of goggles and was transported to a jobsite littered with hazards, problems and potentially deadly electrical issues. The first-year apprentice never left the classroom. But with cameras from the television show “Innovations” on hand, he and others saw where electrical training continues to head. With the help of a new computer simulator called Oculus Rift, Buenio felt like he was standing on an overhang without a railing while being asked to diagnose a variety of problems at the jobsite. “Oh man, it felt like I was there,” he said. “It’s very realistic. It actually put me in the room.” Click here for the complete report. “I want (you) to go behind the scenes, show people how special it is, how lucky we are to be here, all the pride we have,” says former Kennedy Center stagehand -- and former IATSE 22 member -- Mickey Berra in the Washington Post profile of the retiring vice president of production. photo: (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) Over 4500 tickets have been sold for this year's Labor Night at the Nats, Friday, July 22. Tickets are just $10, available from [email protected]. "Although they are all in upper tiers, we all have fun up there," promises Community Services Agency Executive Director Kathleen McKirchy. TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER AT RIGHT, JUST RIGHT-CLICK ON IT AND SAVE IT. “I’d never worked in my life. I loved the look of welding, the smell of it… You’d look through really dark glass and all you’d see was the glow. You moved the welding rod in tiny, circular motions, making half-crescents. If you did it right, it was beautiful. It was like embroidery.”
Gould, a welder at the Richmond, California Kaiser shipyard Number 2 during World War Two |