Trinidad project a GO!

Today was another busy one as we welded, wired and painted various components up at Cultus Lake. The last ride control booth was delivered today and I breathed a sign of relief. Each time we loaded and tied one of them on the trailer I worried all the way up to the lake, watching the top heavy loads carefully in my mirrors as they swayed with every bump and turn in the road. All six booths made it without a scratch. 

The big news of the day was from Trinidad. The Skallywag Bay Adventure Park project recieved the OFFICIAL GREEN LIGHT! Now we go through the engineering and final planning phase. In the next days rides will be ordered, contracts awarded and many others will begin their work. Actual onsite construction is to proceed soon. My job will be to coordinate all of the pieces with the contractors and suppliers from across Canada, the USA, the Carribean and Europe. Once built, all of the pieces get shipped to arrive and assembled into a world class project quite unlike any other.

It is all VERY exciting to say the least! Stay tuned for project reports as this unfolds...

-grampa dan

Colorful and busy maze

As I looked through the pictures I took today I thought this one particularly summed up my day. It's in the shop, looking towards my studio door. There are many pieces in various stages of completion. Most have two or thre coats of paint on them and await just a little more before they are complete. There's no clear path through the jumble of pieces and looking over them there is no clear theme evident nor can you easily imagine how they will all fit together. But we know there is a plan and that it somehow will all work out.

My day was like that. It was busy from start to finish,  At the end of it I knew I had accomplished much but I would be hard pressed to show you what I had done. Just the same it was a good day and somehow contributed greatly in the scheme of things...  I hope. Thankfully, my crew did their work with little direction from me and lots was accomplished in our time in the shop and on the site today.

Tomorrow promises to be a productive day. Stay tuned for the report...

-grampa dan

More honors

It is always a cool thing to be honored by my peers in the industry. Each year we enter our very best work in various national and international contests. The grand daddy of all the contests is the international sign contest put on by Signs of the Times magazine based in Cincinatti, Ohio. The contest attracts many hundreds of sign project entries from around the world. Back when I first started in this business I would druel over the awesome work I saw in the annual contest issue. I still have those magazines on my shelf dating back to 1981. I promised myself back then that some day, some how, my work would be good enough to appear there. A quarter century later (in 2006) I entered some of our work for the first time and did very well. Since then we have been honored many times in various categories.

This year I entered two of our projects into the international competition. The first was the WhistlePunk Hollow Adventure Golf in the 'sign systems' category. The signs we built for that project garnered a second place award.

The second project I entered this year was The Institute for the Study of Mechanical Marine Life - a self-promotional piece. It was entered in the 'unusual' category. it garnered a first place finish.

-grampa dan