2005-05-30 - 12:03 a.m.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for that last entry. I dunno what came over me, and I promise that i'll do my best to keep it from happening again.
So, yesterday was a work day down at the Ren Faire site. Yes, I'm doing the Faire again, though this year I'm gonna be a lot more free about giving myself time off if'n I need it.
Yesterday, though, was a very important work day. See, the Guilde of St. Michael has been moved from it's traditional spot down by the lake to a new spot up near the jousting area, all the way over on the other side of the Faire grounds. Yesterday was the big day to move all our crap over there as best we could. We emptied the trailer that sits backstage serving as our storage shed, and some dudes with a flatbed trailer with a hydraulic winch came to hoist it up and haul it to its new resting place. I gotta admit, seeing the winch in action was kinda cool. I kinda want one of those for my own.
Then we had to deal with the Deck, a 30'x30'(ish) wooden platform. We took down all the overhead crosspieces, and jacked it up (no mean feat, as the damn thing weighs more than half a ton) to remove the middle support beams, which had been bolted in with 18 bolts per beam using an impact wrench. The only thing we had to remove the bolts were a couple of ratchets. Three hours later (or so it seemed) we were ready to implement Tom's master plan for moving the deck without having to completely break it down and reassemble it (not a feasible option, because the damn thing wasn't meant to be moved EVER, so Tom designed it to be strong enough to withstand tornadoes, earthquakes, and nuclear attacks without breaking.)
Tom- Well, we have to take it at least partway apart anyway, because right now it's too big to travel up any of the roads onsite or fit through any of the gates, even if we did have a way to haul it. But I have an idea.
The five biggest guys in the group (which included me) were assigned to be Tom's helpermonkeys while everyone else went to load all our other crap back into lockup once it got to its new resting place.
Tom's plan?
1. Saw the deck in half lengthwise.
2. Put the first half onto his single-axle trailer.
3. Find some way to balance the load.
4. Use Tom's truck to drive the half up the backroads of the site to where it's going to sit at the new campsite.
5. Carry it off the trailer and set it down in place.
6. Repeat 2-5 for the second half of the Deck.
BRILIANT!!!
Seeing as the jack wasn't tall enough, the plan for the loading of the halfDeck was to have four of us pick the front end up while Tom and Mike inserted posts as supports, then push the trailer under the damn thing, remove the posts, back the truck up, have the four move to the other end and lift that and push to get the halfDeck as well into position as it's going to be.
Problem- "Tom, the tires are rated to carry this much weight, right?" "No, but I'm sure it'll be ok. The axle, too."
Problem- with so much of the back end still hanging off the end of the trailer, there's gonna be a lot of drag, especially since the route is up a couple steep slopes and back down them.
Solution- Have the five guys not driving the truck ride on the front end of the halfDeck to put enough weight on it to lift the back end up. And we'll just have to lean extra hard going uphill.
It was around the time we started up the first slope that it occured to us what a monumentally stupid idea this was. The structural integrity of the Deck itself was never in question, but so much could go wrong. The trailer could break and spill us all out. We could fall off, given as there was nothing to hang onto back there. The trailer could jackknife going down a slope and just spill everything.
This was, in short, a pretty dangerous operation, and that point was hammered home when we started hitting potholes and the whole rig started bouncing up and down.
"We are so going to die on this thing."
"Yeah, and if we do, we're gonna get a Darwin Award, cause this is one stupid way to die."
"This is like an amusement park of death. All the adrenaline of a rollercoaster. Not as much fast paced riding and sharp turns, but that's made up for by the very real danger."
In truth, our perception of the danger was probably exaggerated, but it still wasn't the smart way to go about doing things, and once we realized how not smart it was it was hard to think about much else.
After we survived the first trip up to the new site, the adrenaline (and testosterone) were pouring and suddenly the heavy halfDeck seemed a lot lighter. Once we got it into position (also tricky, since, like idiots, we'd taken the front half over first, meaning we had to leave clearance for the back half to slide inbetween the front and the river bank.
The second trip, we slaughtered a pine tree, but otherwise it passed without incident, and we felt like old hands at this. The only casualty of the day was Tom's truck, which was pouring smoke by the time we got the second half unloaded. His reverse gear bitched at him the entire time we were backing the second half up and into position to unload.
After the operation, Rick christened the six of us The Death Squad, as we "had faced certain death together unflinchingly." I guess t-shirts are being made. I think I'm gonna slip Tom a couple bucks to help pay for the new transmission he's gonna need, cause I have no problems paying for a ride that fun.
Drink a toast to the stupidity of men trying to think and be macho at the same time. We are huge!
Ken
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