My Fantastic Tent

So Dad came up this weekend and helped me do a bunch of chores. In addition to helping me install a programmable thermostat and fix my garage door opener (luxury is coming home on a miserable, rainy day and being able to park in the garage and walk into a warm house!) he helped me set up my tent for the first time.

I finally figured out how to handle the ridgepole. You see, my tent is like a giant pup tent. Really, really giant. It's 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall and 15 feet long, though it doesn't feel that huge when it's set up. The problem is that I drive a Prius, so 15 foot long pieces of lumber are not exactly going to fit in the car. I bought the world's cutest trailer, but it's rather less than 15 feet long inside, so the problem remains. The problem is how to join wood together so that it is both extremely rigid and easy to disassemble for travel. I used some more 2 inch thick poles (the same as on my beds) as the two uprights -- I just got some round pipe from a local muffler shop to use as a joint. However, the 2 inch poles were too saggy to make a good ridgepole -- I needed to use 2x4, turned on its side. The problem is that you can't get metal sleeves for 2x4 without paying a lot of money. However, you *can* purchase this neat angle iron stuff, that has lots of holes for mounting. So I picked two opposite corners of the 2x4 and screwed this angle iron onto it, making a sheath for the mating 2x4. It worked pretty well, until the first time we set up the tent. You see, it's impossible to believe how tall this tent is before you've set it up. So the first time we tried setting it up under a tree, and broke the joint on a low hanging branch. Damn. Back to the drawing board -- the angle bracket needed to be attached with bolts rather than screws (the screws had torn out and split the wood). But since I didn't want hex heads chafing against the canvas of my tent, we used carriage bolts. They worked great :) I will probably go back and replace the bracket material later -- they had some that was longer on one side so it will probably do a better job of holding my ridgepole steady. Not really an issue until it's windy, and then it's *THE* issue :)

The second time we set up the tent was much better. We hiked around the Seawood campus and found a different site out in the open. This time the setup was much smoother, and I have lots of photos :)

As you can see, I ended up beside a neighbor's apartment. (Which was too bad -- I spent the night in the tent and they woke me up at 1am dismembering a body. Or something completely innocent that just happened to involve a sledgehammer...)

It doesn't look that big until I get a photo of Dad standing in the doorway.

Then I had to get some shots of the interior, including our beds :)

The only problem came when it was time to pack the beds & tent into my trailer.

As you can see, it's a little overfull. I can't just tie the trailer shut, cause I'll make the hinges tear out from the plastic body :( I hope the mattresses on the bottom will settle and everything will fit. I'll probably end up resewing the mattresses (maybe this summer) so they're only 4 inches thick instead of 6 -- after a certain point what's important isn't how much straw is in the mattress, but how tightly packed it is. I think a 4 inch mattress very tightly packed would be more comfortable than a 6 inch thick mattress loosely packed, and it would be easier to manage (the mattresses are *heavy*!).

Dan Meyer on Teaching Math

"Can I ask you to please recall a time when you really loved something...a movie, an album, a song or a book and you recommended it whole heartedly to someone you really also really liked and you anticipate the reaction and you waited for it and it came back and the person hated it...so by way of introduction, that is the exact same state in which I spend every working day for the last six years. I teach high school math. I sell a product to a market that doesn't want it, but is forced by law to buy it. It is just a losing proposition." - Dan Meyer

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Click on the video to watch the rest of his inspiring talk:

Neat Video on Education

This lady is pretty eloquently describing the state of affairs in American education today, and why we need to change the status quo. I'm glad to hear that Canada is considered a top nation as far as education is concerned -- that reinforces my desire to teach there :)

Fancy Free

Haley got an invitation to spend the night at a friend's house, so I had a night to myself. I dropped her off a bit before 3, and when I pulled away from the friend's house, I noticed a sign showing that the road continued to Stout Oak Grove. I've been meaning to go hiking there for years, so even though it was threatening rain I turned away from home and headed up the hill. The asphalt petered out, and the road became 1 1/2 lanes of dirt and gravel.

In French, the word for pothole is "nid de poule" or "chicken's nest". I now need to look up the word for ostrich in order to be able to translate the magnitude of these potholes. Wow, they weren't kidding when the sign said "rough road".

It was only 6 miles to Stout Oak Grove, but it took me more than 20 minutes. Maybe even half an hour -- I didn't start looking at the clock until I thought, gee, I've been driving for a *long* time! It was worth the drive, however :) The signs described Stout Oak Grove as the heart of the local state forestland, and it was very pretty. In the summer, there's a bridge across the river from the Jedadiah Smith campground and campers can cross the river to hike. We might spend a couple nights there this summer for the hiking :)

The nice thing about hiking by yourself is the quiet. You get to focus on the sounds of nature, and if you're really desperate for conversation, you can always talk to yourself :) Plus you get to hike as fast (or as slowly) as you like, and nobody announces that they have to go pee *right now*! Yeah, can you tell I've done most of my hiking lately with a kid? I really had a fun time pretending that I was a feckless college student, and not a responsible adult.

Luckily I was almost back to the parking lot when it began to rain. The signs indicated that it would be shorter to keep going to 199 rather than retracing my path. Not only was it shorter, but the road was in better condition in that direction too :) I hit WalMart and CostCo on my way back home, and then topped off my irresponsible behavior by eating ramen and cheetoes for dinner. (I hope Haley doesn't read this post!)