Complete Fulfillment

It is amazing sometimes what will drive traffic on a blog. I originally put my post about this play structure up so that my dad could show pictures of what we did to friends back home. To my surprise this gets about 20 hits a day on the blog. So I thought I would give a few more tips and tricks to the assembly.

Tip #1

If you don’t have an air compressor and a impact wrench get one. If you have to rent one or just break down and buy one it is worth it. There are a lot of bolts that will make your arm fall off if you do it the old fashion way. We bought a small Porter Cable one with the wrench for about $200.

Tip #2

Have two people. This would be tough to get started by yourself. It is not impossible – I put tried putting some of the initial pieces together without my Dad and it sucked. It was very inefficient and hard. Once you get the basic framework up you can do a lot of it alone but two people is way more efficient.

Tip #3

Have 2 electric drills with at least 2 batteries. We used multiple drills. My trustworthy Black and Decker that I have had forever started smoking by the end. It was only 14v and was getting a workout. I used a neighbor’s Dewalt 18v drill and it was a champ. When my Black and Decker finally bites the dust that is what will be replacing it. Make sure you have at least 2 batteries for each drill. Having two drills lets both people be productive. Most of the holes are predrilled which is great. That made assembly easy. There are a zillion screws to this thing - easy but a lot.

Tip #4

Don’t stress out about anchoring it. When you get this whole thing together it is very solid. You should put it on as level of ground as you can but we had it on a slight slope and it was ok. We had to put some cement 1” blocks under the swing set side to level it but it is very steady and has been getting lots of play. When you are done it comes with a bunch of 18” rebarb with some big washers welded on the side. You pound that into the ground and drive some lag bolts into the structure and it really won’t move.

If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask - I will be happy to answer them if I know.

A friend of mine in Portland has a little record label that just released this album.  It got over to the folks at iTunes and now it is the free single of the week.  Everyone should check this out it is a great album.  You can download the entire album on iTunes now.   It is getting great reviews.  I purchased a copy today and concur it is some great stuff.

For anyone that has followed this blog regularly or by chance will notice that my postings have been sporadic at best. Last Friday was my last deliverable for my MBA program I am completing, which I have been doing along with work and two little kids. So needless to say I have not had much free time. I found a pattern last summer when we had a few months off after the first year. I spent the first month catching up on all the reading I had not done for 9 months - along with other things like family, movies and blogs. I am now going through all of the magazines that I need to catch up on. I am reading about 40 blogs a day, eWeek, Infoweek, CFO, Fast Company and Inc. The biggest backlog is with Fast Company and Inc. As I work through those they usually will drive some interesting thoughts. If you don't read these you should start. They are run by the same company and get joint marketed - so you can usually get a great deal on the subscription for both. Anyways... more thoughts to come on the readings.

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One of the blogs that I read is Jason Graham-Nye over at g-Diapers. I met Jason when he came to speak in an MBA class I was in. Jason and I have yet to connect but we have many items in common and one is an affinity for gadgets. Jason has a new Flip video camera he just picked up. This is something I need to have not necessarily for me but my wife will love this and use it to death. She currently takes video of our kids on the old digital camera but it has really poor quality. We have a nice hard drive video camera but she won't use it because it is to hard.(?) The Flip is amazing because it is inexpensive, small, and very easy to use. The video quality seems good - especially considering you will probably watch it on your computer and not a hi def tv. You can see an example on Jason's blog and another over on Gizmodo. The one on Gizmodo is the new Mino which is smaller and has a rechargable battery. I'm not sure what model Jason got but it is probably the Ultra because the Mino just came out last week. The only bad thing it seems about the Mino is that the batter takes forever to charge. This will be a purchase in the near future.

A set of custom stairs on the back.  We have a two year old that is too little for the set as designed.  We had to find a better way for her to get into the clubhouse.  She has a four year old sister that she is going to follow.  We wanted to make that possible and safe.