We Came, We Saw, We Conquered…and Then We Went Home Sore
by Dan Bowman
UDRI's Aerospace Mechanics division participated in the United Way Community Day of Caring event in June 2005. Dan Bowman’s e-mail thanking his volunteers (below) does a great job of capturing the hard work — and fun — that went into the division project.
I want to thank all of the people who helped with the Aerospace Mechanics Community Care Day project. In affiliation with the Greene County United Way, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 2-4, we built a wheelchair ramp for a (Greene County) man who has a broken back. Overall, we donated on the order of 200 person hours of labor.
Day 1: Kevin Roach, Herb Stumph, Geoff Frank, Bill Braisted, Dan Bowman, Lynn Bowman, Yana Permana, Dave Kancler, Michael Craft, Mike Bouchard and John Stalter worked on Thursday to dig post holes and initiate placing the posts. Beavercreek Rental came through for us by renting us a 12-inch power auger for four hours for only $15. This was a major discount (like 75 percent). The auger helped, but not as much as we would have hoped. We overcame tree roots (did I say tree roots? These suckers were huge), rocks (also huge), bushes, old carpet (don’t ask), and other obstacles. We dug 14 holes 12 inches in diameter and 38 inches deep. While this may not sound like a big deal, it was. For example, two holes had to be moved as boulders roughly the size of elephants were hit about 24 inches down. Dave Kancler and Michael Craft dug two holes by the porch that took hours each because of the large number of unusual archaeological items they unearthed. Bill Braisted fell in a hole with only minor bruising of his pride and other unmentionables, and Herb Stumph tried to commit suicide a number of times by walking through the swing path of people using axes. Mike Bouchard set down his sandwich for a few minutes, only to discover one of the dozen cats on the site dragging it off.
Day 2: Herb Stumph, Bob Brockman, Bill Braisted, Tony Bergman, Tom Held, Dan Bowman, Allen Revels, Dave Kancler, Mike Bouchard, John Stalter and Pamela Gregg worked on Friday placing the posts (fighting more roots, rocks, and etc.), framing the deck, placing decking, and initiating the railing. Bob got in some anger management therapy killing tree roots (anyone need something chopped down, Bob is available and trust me, he loves to chop things down). A team consisting of three Ph.Ds and a mere B.S.M.E. (all of whom shall remain nameless, or is it blameless?) took a short few hours to optimize the design of the last four feet of the ramp where it met the driveway. They took their ribbing with good nature (or they were too tired to fight back). Bill Braisted was responsible for taking the initiative to add the decorative and functional angle cut on the spindles. They turned out looking great. Upon completion of the decking, Dan Bowman was chagrined to discover that he had ordered a little bit too much deck wood (roughly enough to build 10 or 20 more decks). Right before we quit for the night, Mike Bouchard measured a section of top rail once and cut twice or something like that...anyway, it ended up an inch short and it was our last 2x6. So...he went home, laid awake all night stewing, got up early, drove to the lumber yard, and showed up with another 2x6 as he “just couldn't stand it the way it was.” Must have been an ISO 9001 thing.
Day 3: Laura Millitelo, Servane Altman, Aaron Altman, Alex Bowman, Dan Bowman, Lynn Bowman, Mike Bouchard, John Stalter, Laurie Quill, Madeline Quill, Michael Quill, Mary Wesler, Dave Wesler, and Kevin Poormon finished the railing, hung all the spindles, sanded all the rough edges, and cleaned up the site. Mike Bouchard finally measured six times and cut once to finish the top railing. Aaron and Servane Altman and Laura Millitello spent half an hour with crayons and napkins working out a complex formula involving partial differential equations and human factors experiments for spacing the spindles. This was later abandoned in favor of pencil marks on a stick. Michael Quill spent 20 minutes learning how to chuck a drill and then proceeded to pre-drill the spindles at an amazing rate of 4 per hour (meanwhile Laurie Quill was spotted muttering something about how slow the men in her life were). Dave and Julie Kancler
and their children stopped by just in time for our lunch cookout prior to everyone leaving. Pamela Gregg stopped by in the morning to provide the crew with cookies (we grudgingly gave her the day off as she came up with some fantastic, improbable story about it being her birthday or some such pucky). A special thanks to Laurie Quill for supplying pastries and coffee and to Mary’s husband Dave for cooking out Saturday and feeding us. We finished up by noon and Mr. Faulknor took a ceremonial first ride up and down the ramp. A number of other people were slated to work Saturday afternoon, but we managed to finish up early and they were not needed. (Note to self — always volunteer for the last few hours of a project, a miracle may occur and they may finish early...did I say that out loud?)
A special thanks to John Stalter who helped even though he is not part of Aerospace Mechanics, and a special thanks to spouses and children who came to help as well. The project went very well with only minimal mishaps. For those of you who did not see the final product, it is impressive and very well built. We worked very hard, but also enjoyed ourselves.
I want to personally thank all those who volunteered their time, their talents, their tools, and their money. A number of people acquired new skills along with their blisters and sore backs, and went outside of their comfort zone. It says a lot when people will give up their free time (or even take vacation) to volunteer for the community. This project made me proud to be a part of UDRI.
June 2005
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