Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
It was an odd sort of day for me on Monday… I got up with much excitement and determination prepared for a day of accomplishing things… I’ve been procrastinating on getting work done on a show that I’ll be debuting at the Pacific National Exhibition in August and have very deliberately set this week aside to start moving forward with prop buying/building/construction, etc. Some of the big decisions have been made which should hopefully allow the smaller stuff to fall into place. Still things never quite go as expected…
First Stop on the day… My favorite fabric store where I was sure I was going to come up with exactly the right piece of material for a part of the costume I still need to build… I get to the store, I walk each aisle feeling assured that just around the next bend there’ll be THE bolt of fabric I was looking for, but no dice. Nothing… I’ve got a couple more options to check out today and may resort to internet shopping if I have to, but we’ll see how it goes… I honestly didn’t expect it to be so hard to find some Orange and White striped fabric.
Next stop… Canada Spring to ask a couple of questions… Stunt #2 in the show is a little ditty where my partner in the show does a high dive into a can of beans… The stop at Canada Spring, an industrial spring builder/installer, was to get some ideas on what spring might be just right for my purposes for the High Diving board… Now because my partner in crime in this new show is a stuffed toy I don’t need to really deal with very much in the way of weight or launch thrust, but I thought that if anyone might know springs, these guys might… Turns out they do, but not for my particular applications… Stop number two of the day turns up bubcus!
Stop number three for me was via the grocery store where I picked up six one litre bottles of carbonated flavored water. Less for the contents than the actual bottles themselves was the purpose of this stop. Stunt #1 of the show involves an act of sheer strength the likes rarely seen in the world of Nature. The launch of a high pressure water rocket will be head back by an act of sheer strength… The one litre bottles are key to the construction of the rocket. Two litre bottles can also be used, but for what ever reason I wanted to try out the lone litre size to see how it goes… The unexpected surprise at the grocery story was to see silver plastic one litre bottles that would make a most excellent rocket… I’ll build the prototype from the clear bottles, see how it goes an may return for the silver ones… Hmmm… Silver ones…
Headed home for a bit after that first round of less than fruitful stops, but then quickly gathered my wits and headed to another mall to look for other bits and pieces…
It was while wandering around the dollar store that I came across the kitchen clips pictured above… I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but when I saw them something clicked… They are activated by a spring… Not a huge spring, but enough of a spring to perhaps activate a high diving board if I can figure out a proper configuration and mounting procedure. There’s something there… I just know it. I spent another hour or so wandering around the mall looking for other inspiration to strike and although nothing as good as the kitchen clips did, I came home satisfied that I had spent a productive day researching options for the show.
Weird when all I brought back was a bunch of one litre bottles and a couple of kitchen clips to consider the day a success, but I find I learn as much from what I don’t find sometimes as I do from what I do. It is after all about the journey. Adapt, adopt and go with the flow…
