2012-Spring project

I have an old tube framed tarp covered carport I had to replace. It has seen its better day. I managed to get three years of service out of it, but the wind had tore it to shreds. I started pricing the metal carports. For a 12' x 20'x 9 foot tall with a back and a cheap door they wanted $3300. I decided to go ahead and design and build my own. I started drafting late February and by the end of March I had us complete set of construction drawings and a materials list. Total cost- with the wooden front-double doors is $1600. I decided to use 2.5" x 2.5" square tubing with the wall thickness of .093 for the trusses and the walls. These will be strategically welded to a 3" x 3" square tubing with the wall thickness of .188 , 20 feet long. This 3 inch tubing would be the base that sets on the ground. Because I was doing this by myself I had to build a jig table for fabricating the trusses. To make the job easier, I built a jig square-true 90° that would hold the wall trusses on centerline. It made it a lot easier to clamp the already made wall trusses to the base tube on line, then weld in place. Next, taking all the parts lists, cutting every part I needed to fabricate the framework. Double checking all lenghts and angles and making sure all the parts are there at hand. The weather held out while I was cutting all the structural steel. Using the forklift to handle the structural steel on the saw has to be done outside. This part of the job is bust ass. Now I can move the jig table in the shop and fabricate the wall trusses. Kickback time, take my time, drink my tea listen to my rock 'n roll. Good thing now because the weather really sucks outside. Because this was going to be an all welded joint tubular structure it had to be fabricated level. So I fabricated a large legged angle iron framework as to set the base in and on centerline. Before I know it the framework was done and waiting for the metal sheeting. I chose a 36 inch deep Delta rib 20 foot lengths. This took a little long to do because at that time the wind was an issue. I left the metal sheeting off the bottom on both sides so we could tie to the structure to Drag it in place. Linda got recruited as the navigator. Good teamwork, it went well.

Well I'll be damned.  I can hardly believe this.  I couldn't get on the blog after they changed over their format with the old computer or the lap top, no matter what I did. After the HP went tit's up I went to the thrift store and bought an OLD 10 dollar computer with windows XP on it and and it has Chrome. I tried this thing and even though it took 8 minutes to load the blog, it worked.  Who knows for how long or how good but maybe now I can communicate again. I don't have any pictures loaded on it yet so don't know how many things it will support. Has plenty of ram but not a whole lot of virtual memory .  Any way we'll see.
Granny.

Whoops! I got the blogs mixed up

When Grandma started the "This and That" I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread (and sliced bread it pretty cool in my book). Anyway, I was inspired to start my own blog with my snowboarding buddies. When I was typing up my last blog post I accidentally clicked on Grandma's blog rather than my snowboarding blog. The snowboarding blog is PG and there isn't anything on their that I wouldn't show my Grandma (if you can't show it to your Grandma, you best keep it to your self). So at first I cringed, and then thought "what the heck maybe I'll make dual posts?" So here is a post of the 'helmet cam' videos I mentioned in the earlier posts.

This past week was insane! It was the week before spring break (students coming into my office every 10 minutes wanting to know what their grade is) and I was trying to get a revised paper out the 'digital door' to Thin Solid Films, which is a journal that a lot of my fellow physics nerds publish in. So fun stuff like video editing had to take a back seat to getting work done. These videos are from my outing last week. Now that I'm on spring break, as Fred would say "yabadabadooooo!" I'm hoping to get some more pics and footy as I will be on a plane in a few hours bound for Oregon. I'm hoping to get some slope time in with my best man Woods and my Sis. Stay tuned for more posts. First run Barriers Headwaters

Tuning problems solved

Hey y'all how are things out in the shred-o-sphere?  I'm doing okay, I haven't been up to the hill for a while so I'm due for some snow therapy.  I went up last a couple weekends ago and ran into one of my fellow faculty members.  It was a pretty cool to do a few turns with a fellow shred enthusiast.  Ironically I haven't ran into any of my students on any of my snowboard outings.  

I don't know if y'all watched the X Games, but it was kind of a bummer.  A lot of competitors opted out because they didn't want to get hurt before the olympics.  That kind of sucked but I figured the games in Sochi were going to be awesome.  Well my "stars and strips" pride took a hit when Senior Blanco didn't even medal and neither did Nate Holland or Lindsey Jacobellis.  I guess Europe has caught up with us.  It was a trip to see two Japanese dudes take home medals in the SBHP competition.  

It pains me to say it but I was a bit more into the two plankers sweeping the half pipe podium, USA baby!  What I didn't like were all the insane nasty crashes!  My jaw dropped and I just stared at the screen when I saw Sarka Pancochova hit the deck.  I've known some tough women, but this lady is tough as nails.  If you haven't seen the carnage, here is a news clip with some gnarly pictures of Sarka's helmet.

Are you kidding me? 

I've taken some slams but nothing that would crack my helmet.  She waved off the medical staff after her crash because she wanted to make it down on her own.  Damn!  Well, I guess that is why she is in the olympics, some like Sarka send it....   and others (like me) think "um.... yeah..... I think I'll pass.  One broken bone is enough for me."

In other news my waxing table finally arrived and now I can make a mess in the garage if I need to tune my board.  If you look to the left end of the picture you will see what looks like a bag of PVC pipes.  That is "lawn golf" which was a wedding present by Dr. Chris Borstad.  It is a badass game that has been busted out at many a picnic and summer gathering.  

Well I had better get some sleep, it could be a sick pow day tomorrow.  I'm thinking about taking the helmet cam and getting some footy.

Good show.

You got to check this out. It's the coolest.

https://twistedsifter.com/2014/01/randall-rosenthal-carves-wood-block-into-box-of-money/





That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

Having fun in the snow!

Currently we are freezing our buns here in central Montana, but 7 days ago it wasn't single digits or negative values on the Fahrenheit temperature scale.  Last Tuesday we got dumped on with snow.  I was fortunate enough to re-arrange my schedule so that I could get some snow-sliding in.  Granted the rest of the week was hell as I pushed all my work around that snow sliding but when mother nature hands you an opportunity, you have to jump on it.

I'm glad I went up when I did because right after the storm that dumped all that wonderful fresh snow a cold air mass moved over central Montana and we haven't had temps above zero degrees Fahrenheit for 5 days.  I don't mind cold but -14 deg. F is ridiculous.

This week is finals week and my big class doesn't have finals until Friday.  I'm hoping to sneak up to the hill at least once sometime before Friday.  In the meantime enjoy these vids from snowy and cold Montana.

Getting out and doing some exploring

How's it going folks!  The snowboarding season has not started yet and I'm chomping at the bit!  I guess I got spoiled in Colorado when a lot of places opened up before Halloween.  Here in Montana I have to wait until after Thanksgiving.  

Well in order to pass the time.  I got my butt off of the couch and did some hiking and exploring yesterday.  I went into the Pryor Mountains south of Billings.  The landscape was wild.  During my trip I saw multi-colored quasi-desert areas.  I saw deep canyon lands and even some area that reminded me of my native Idaho.

Driving into the Pryors from the south west is interesting because of the abrupt transition from grassland to mountains.

Once I left the flat grassy areas, the topography of the land became a bit more interesting.

The first road I drove on was designated as a 4 wheel drive road.  I didn't feel like beating up my truck too much so I parked it and walked up the ridge.  I wanted to get some exercise anyway.

As a bonus I could really check out stuff with the binoculars and camera.  You cover more area driving but you miss a lot of stuff that you can easily investigate by walking.

Here is a picture of Red Lodge Mountain from near the top of Big Pryor Mt.  I think this picture was taken facing west (maybe a smidge north).

After my walk I did some more driving.  It kind of sucked because there were some more features I wanted to investigate but I wanted to "loop" the Pryors and was running out of daylight.  However, I couldn't resist pulling off the road and snapping a few pictures though.