You're so metal....

You may or may not know this about my husband, but he gets a little OCD when it comes to building things. This is a good thing. It's just a little shocking to me, the woman who has to collect the empty glasses intermixed with the piles of comic books around his bedside table.

I'm not saying I'm particularly organized. My desk at work regularly looks like it has been blessed by the Paper Fairy- she's a bitch by the way. She's the fairy who drops piles of equivocal lab work on a doctors desk right before that doctor is supposed to leave for the day. I would happily perform any number of arcane rituals to keep her away.  Anyway, I digress... as I wandered by our kitchen table this morning I found a spread sheet. A spread sheet generated by my husband with types and styles of metal, lengths and gauges, amounts and weights. It wouldn't be out of place in a factory setting. Sitting next to the two day old cheese tray left since our weekly dinner party on Sunday it seemed a bit out of place.

I was too shocked to photograph the spreadsheet. I will endeavor to do so tonight.

We had a big debate this weekend amongst the build team. Steel vs aluminum vs. plastic. There are very valid concerns about weight. We are not athletes, and riding a bike on the playa when you are just hauling your own body weight around can be a workout, much less 100lbs of art. We are going to try some plastic panels in place of some of the internal bits and we're sourcing a tandem bike to double the pulling power. I've been pleasantly surprised at the cost of a new tandem on amazon (about $300.00) and equally horrified at the price of a used one in the Bay area (about $1500). Before a fixie wielding fanatic attacks me, I will state that I'm sure there is a difference in quality, blah blah blah. But this is a playa bike. It's going to get destroyed. I hate to even pay $300 for it, but realistically I don't think we'll find a used one for cheaper than that. I'm willing to be proven wrong though, so if you know of one let me know.

Suffice to say, we are ordering the metal today:

1 20' piece of steel square tube 0.75"

1 20' piece of angle steel 0.75"

2 4'x8' sheets of 26 guage steel

Chris and I probably need to start working out on a bike... that means outdoors and exercise, so I may need to bring some animal tranqs home for Chris.... hmm....