Today was an exciting and extremely busy day as we carefully pulled the heavy features from six containers. We then gingerly moved them across the two and a half care site to place them in their final homes. My job was to direct two large machines and eight people and also ensure the exact placement of the pieces. The day was a gorgeous thirty-one degrees and I logged just over seventeen and a half kilometres. I now have a great start on this summer's tan! Having overseen the placement of the features into the containers I had a good plan of how to take each gigantic piece out. Some of the features weighed as much as eight thousand pounds. A whole day ahead of schedule, by the end of the work day every piece we had planned for was in it's place perfectly. I'll be posting more pictures in coming days. Tomorrow we lay out the work to get ready for my next trip down to supervise the emptying of more containers. I can hardly wait!
Multi-year dream coming true.
Some dreams take a while to come true. Almost seven years ago I first talked with a client about a future project in Trinidad. Four years ago I did the concept drawings and watched the small dream of a mini golf grow into something much larger. Two and a half years ago we began construction of the features in our studio. A year and a half ago we began transport of the first of fourteen shipping containers of completed features to Trinidad. As we worked in our studio crews began the infrastructure work in Trinidad. Today, with the on-site work nearing completion we removed the first features from the containers at long last. In the next couple of days I'll be closely monitoring the placement of four or five containers of features into their permanent homes. It was gratifying to see each feature hooked up to the all terrain forklift and slowly dragged from the containers. Tomorrow we'll be assisted by a large crane as we place them on their footings around the worksite. The long held dream is now becoming very real and very colourful!
Variety is the spice of life!
The hardest question I get asked is 'What kinds f things can we design and build?' The answer is 'Just about anything we can imagine!' Spanning through the last forty years, the variety of projects that we designed is vast. Each time the giant shop doors open something cool is bound to come out. Even longer, is the list of projects we have designed for others to build. I was going through some old photos this past week and came across two projects we designed back when we lived in Chemainus in the 1980's. The little town is famous for it's historical murals. A friend decided to open a mural tour service and asked me to design a horse drawn wagon. Things went so well they soon needed a second tour vehicle, this time self propelled. We converted a tractor into an English train. Both were built on a tight budget but turned out great!
