I am cross-posting this from my LiveJournal, because the general internet brain trust isn't working for me, and the empeg brain trust is often quite helpful:

Hereoes episode 17, "Company Man", aired Monday Feb 26, 2007. Several scenes prominently feature a bridge. A single arch concrete span with two lanes.

When viewing the episode, I was certain it was the Foresthill bridge near Auburn, CA, which was used at the beginning of the Vin Diesel movie "XXX". It seems my personal memory of the Foresthill bridge was wrong, because the Foresthill bridge is actually all steel with split lanes.

A bunch of obsessive and unhealthy googling followed.

I see that the bridge looks architecturally the most like the Bixby Creek Bridge on CA highway 1. However, the countryside doesn't exactly match what's seen in the episode (although it's close).

If you freezeframe the episode in highdef, you can read a roadsign near the bridge which reads "Odessa 40 Midland 55 Big Spring 225". I assumed they faked the sign because they wanted you to think the bridge was really in Texas. Also, if you look at a map of Odessa, you see that Big Spring is quite close to Odessa, and there's no way it could be that far off on any highway sign.

No resolution yet. Anyone got an idea of which bridge was used in the episode? This is a completely odd and unhealthy obsession that I've got going here, and I need closure.

I'm seeing what I can do, Tony. I just wanted to reply and mention that it was a great episode. Normally, in this show, I'm not at all engrossed in these characters on a personal level, but that episode was an exception.

No answer but more pics

http://heroeswiki.com/The_bridge

Definitely not bixby creek. The railing is wrong, the arch isn't tall enough, and it doesn't have the larger support towers on either side. After growing up in the area, I can't help but notice every time it turns up in a car commercial, which tends to happen every other year or so.

Support towers

railing

It's closer to the Rocky Creek Bridge, but that's still not it...

Matthew

Thanks for joining in my obession, guys.

I'm tempted to add a deliberately incorrect entry about its real location to the Wiki just to spur others to make a correction and thus find out which bridge it really was.

Tony, I believe this is your bridge. I believe it's called the Big Tujunga Narrows Bridge, and it apparently spans part of the "Big Tujunga Canyon" on the Angeles Forest Highway.

The only problem I have is that the Google Maps shot doesn't seem to match the images I was able to find here and here. The images seem to show the road curving much more sharply at either end of the bridge.

But that's all I was able to find.

Yup, great find!

...Original

Tujunga



from http://www.scvresources.com/general/big_tujunga_canyon_road.htm

Dignan, you nailed it. You are amazing. Someone go add it to the Heroes Wiki (I've got too much work to do today).

How'd you find it?

Here's the one that you linked to on the google map.


http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&a...p;scene=6689983

but I was wondering if this isn't it.


http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&a...p;scene=6704044

The road curves the right way and you can see where they would have setup the crane shot.

Dignan: Awesome. During my search, I noticed that NBC has commentary for some of the shows on their web site, and I thought possibly that it would be in there, but didn't have time to check.

Bitt: Thanks.

You folks are awesome.

Back to work with me.

I assume you can't post a screen cap of the road sign showing the mileages to Odessa, Midland and Big Spring... or can you?

http://heroeswiki.com/Image:Bridge_sign.jpg

After all this, I'm actually going to have to watch the show.

Some interesting things about that mileage sign:

- It's probably only readable in the high definition broadcast of the show. Standard def would have been too low-rez I think. The framegrab at the wiki is from the high def version.

- It's readable for exactly one frame. All other frames were too blurred when I was going frame-by-frame on my Tivo.

- It's definitely faked because that road really isn't in Texas (as we now know for sure).

- It's obviously faked because there's no way that those mileages could work. Look at a map of those three towns and see how far apart they are. The distance between Odessa and Midland is plausible, but Big Spring is way too close to both Odess and Midland for it to come out to 225. Unless the road takes a significant detour.

Wow. That's strange. I find the all the TiVo resolutions other than best quality unwatchable.

My premise is that storage is cheap. There's no reason not to drop a 500 gig drive in there and watch everything with as good quality as possible (unless your TiVo is still under warranty.)

Also, both of my last two cable providers offer a lineup that they do not advertise, nor do they list it in any of their lineup lists. Last I had it, they called it "Broadcast Basic." It's basically just the first 20 channels of their lineup, analog only. It's $13 with TimeWarner in our area and I think it was only $11 with Adelphia before the switch. You might want to check to see if your cable provider offers something similar.

To limit your channels, they simply screw a little adapter on the cable up at the pole that limits the frequency range on your drop.

IM comments by GF when shown this thread:

lord above.
It's like a magic trick!
'Is this your bridge?'

My response:
The Empeg BBS is like that.
Insert question, out comes correct answer.

You guys are awesome.

For me it's gotten to the point where, if my fiancee or parents have a question that they've given up trying to find the answer to, they'll tell me to post it here That's why I started those question threads. I feel bad about posting so many questions, so at the very least I try to keep the simpler ones all in one thread

SWMBO comes home with a new vacuum. I take one look at it and say "No, no, not that brand you want a Dyson."

Her: "How would you know?"

Me: "Guys on the Empeg BBS said so."

Vacuum went back.

Damn these threads tread into all sorts of subjects...

As an aside, Dyson released two new vacuums recently. So far one of them is only available in Canada and the other in Canada and the UK. Both will be available in the US soon.

The DC21 is a new cylinder (canister) very similar to the DC8 but with a new motorized brush bar.

The DC18 is a new slim upright with similar technology to the DC15 Ball.

The US got their own upright model, the DC17, a few months ago that isn't available anywhere else - not really sure why it's needed in the current range.

Canada has also now (finally) been upgraded to the 5 year warranty plan. Doesn't help me with my US-bought DC11 though. Its two year warranty has already lapsed.

Bruno

Same SWMBO as in France? Erin?

(Hi Alvin! Long time since last contact)

That post was from ages ago...

Right. Should have noticed. I wonder why the thread showed up as "recently posted to?"

Maybe you followed the link in this post Tony made yesterday.