Day 15: Almost Death, Cahos, and Progress

March 21, 2009 We all came back for another build day (Dan and Dylan) this time to try to add the next runway piece. I was hoping to have another builder assist Dylan today but we figured we get started while waiting on Rhett to come by a few hours later. There was a large storm system that was suppose to be rolling in again this evening and the clouds were a prominent reminder of that.

We started the day talking about getting the ramp lined up… see it’s been having this problem as you see from the pic above. We ended up disconnecting the flat-bottom so we could rotate the bottom transition piece. Mainly when we first started assembling the ramp back on day 9 and 10 the structure wasn’t completely lined up with the ramp and flat-bottom. So after much hustling and shoving pieces from the left to the right and the right to the left we got it into the right position. Thank God we didn’t concrete that section in yet! We also had a small offset with the last runway piece we installed last time and quickly resolved that issue.
Next on the agenda was getting that beastly runway section up the ramp. Good thing Rhett showed up…he wasn’t even really planning on being here to build today. So with his butt on the ramp we got started. I felt like we were playing football. Rhett and Dylan were in the back going to lift the runway piece over the support legs I was positioned upfront doing the finesse work and lining up the mounting bolts while Dan was walking the piece up the ramp. Dylan and Rhett were tripping out and they had good reason too. They only had a few 2x4s to stand on and I even added another one for them to help them feel more comfortable. This is defiantly one of the most difficult and dangerous times of the project.

After muscling it up and getting it rested in place we started adjusting the legs to the correct height. Me and Dylan butted heads quite a bit today. Both of us were bickering over how the legs were to be mounted to the support frame. After wasting time, I decided to let it go and go his way to prove my point. It was a valid idea/point he was making and it wouldn’t hurt to do it. Maybe I was just too set in my ways.

We did have a very scary moment while leveling out the piece, Dylan almost had a tragic fall back 10 feet. It was the most hilarious moment at the same time also. Cause he was sitting down and lifting up one of the legs of the runway with his foot helping me adjust it so it was leveled. An as he was leaning back, I quote! “Man I can hold this position for days.” Whoosh! The 2x4 came out! It was not screwed down and it slipped out! His foot flew up and his body flew back with his arms above his head. Luckily and I don’t know how, but his arms caught another 2x4 that was about 3ft behind him. It was a miracle literally… I tried to re-enact it and that 2x4 behind him was extremely hard to catch.

Anyways got that out of the way and finished installing the piece. There was just a few for the cross braces, we didn’t get in. Anyways a good day everyone had to leave somewhat early and well. We ran out of tape we had to conserve through the day because I lost the other blank tapes we had. So sadly we didn’t get Dylan falling on video…sigh… it happens.

Till next time!