Industry
There's a twelve foot high metal cube out in the front yard right now, and I can't figure out what to do with it.
I need to disassemble it, pack it into my van, and drive it to Texas. I just can't figure out how to do that.
The cube is a tree containment device, and it is of my own design. I've been years cooking this thing up, addressing challenges we have selling Christmas trees in Texas, and the structure out in the yard right now is my prototype. I've gotta build ten more when I get to Austin.
I need the prototype - it contains all the intelligence: measurements, hole diameters, pole lengths, etc. It's the model from which the others will be built. I just gotta fot it into a Toyota van.
The Christmas tree selling thing ends up being a bunch of people rolling into town and selling trees on a vacant lot somewhere. We get a huge circus temt erected for us, park a trailor next to it, build a few display stands for various stuff, and hang out a shingle. We store extra trees outside the tent in a sort of tree corral: wood posts sunk into the ground, connected by 2x4s, trees leaned against them.
That was all well and good until we started setting up on pavement, and on sites that had been graded for construction and had earth pack down to such a degree that no shovel or jack hammer could penetrate it.
I came up with a temporary solution a few years ago, a free standing structure built of wood that kinda looked like a huge swing set.It was time to upgrade to something permanent, something metal.
The cube was one of those things that came to me all at once. I had it sketched out in less than an hour, and a few days leter had the bugs worked out. It's just what we need: free standing and self-supporting, disassemle-able, reusuable. It's a giant step forward and will end up saving us lots of time and money, if only I can get it halfway across the country on four cylinders.
The seats are out of the van, and most of the poles fit in, kinda diagonally and wedged up against the passenger door, but they fit in. A few other poles fit in straight lengthwise - not too much clearance above the gear shift, but, well, I think it will be alright. The rest will have to go on the roof rack, and should be fine given copious amounts of duct tape, but still I harbor the fear they will go scattering all over the highway, perhaps in heavy traffic in Nashville or as I cross the Mississippi or somewhere in North Texas, just me and the Herefords.
But I might just get there.
Stay tuned.
I need to disassemble it, pack it into my van, and drive it to Texas. I just can't figure out how to do that.
The cube is a tree containment device, and it is of my own design. I've been years cooking this thing up, addressing challenges we have selling Christmas trees in Texas, and the structure out in the yard right now is my prototype. I've gotta build ten more when I get to Austin.
I need the prototype - it contains all the intelligence: measurements, hole diameters, pole lengths, etc. It's the model from which the others will be built. I just gotta fot it into a Toyota van.
The Christmas tree selling thing ends up being a bunch of people rolling into town and selling trees on a vacant lot somewhere. We get a huge circus temt erected for us, park a trailor next to it, build a few display stands for various stuff, and hang out a shingle. We store extra trees outside the tent in a sort of tree corral: wood posts sunk into the ground, connected by 2x4s, trees leaned against them.
That was all well and good until we started setting up on pavement, and on sites that had been graded for construction and had earth pack down to such a degree that no shovel or jack hammer could penetrate it.
I came up with a temporary solution a few years ago, a free standing structure built of wood that kinda looked like a huge swing set.It was time to upgrade to something permanent, something metal.
The cube was one of those things that came to me all at once. I had it sketched out in less than an hour, and a few days leter had the bugs worked out. It's just what we need: free standing and self-supporting, disassemle-able, reusuable. It's a giant step forward and will end up saving us lots of time and money, if only I can get it halfway across the country on four cylinders.
The seats are out of the van, and most of the poles fit in, kinda diagonally and wedged up against the passenger door, but they fit in. A few other poles fit in straight lengthwise - not too much clearance above the gear shift, but, well, I think it will be alright. The rest will have to go on the roof rack, and should be fine given copious amounts of duct tape, but still I harbor the fear they will go scattering all over the highway, perhaps in heavy traffic in Nashville or as I cross the Mississippi or somewhere in North Texas, just me and the Herefords.
But I might just get there.
Stay tuned.
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