Hello all!

It's been a busy month or two since the last update. Mary and I attended the Monolithic Dome Builders Conference in Fort Worth, TX from the 22-24th of Feb. That's a long way to drive from Yuma but we managed it safely. We actually left several days early in order to gain a few days of relaxation before the conference. We spent a portion of that preparing my presentation for the conference. I had a good time telling people about our project... both successes and problems challenges. Of course I ran over my 50 minutes... hard to believe considering how I hate to talk!  8-)
Before Mary and I left for the conference we all worked on getting the structural walls up on the second floor that were needed for the truss guy (Gecko Steel Truss) to take his measurements so he could start working on the 3rd floor support trusses. Previously to that point we have managed to lay out the steel decking for the second floor, place about 1.5 tons of rebar as slab reinforcement, and pour the second floor using 30 yards of concrete. We also successfully placed the second of the large curved steel beams that support the trusses over the kitchen. That was fun! 400-500 pounds of steel hanging by hand cranked lifted 22' off the floor!
The conference itself was terrific as it was the last time we attended 2 years ago. I would have been there last year but I don't think it would have been wise to go while the rest of the family was spraying shotcrete on the dome. Ah well, sometimes there are priorities higher than hob-nobbing and chatting! I was especially happy to attend two presentations by school superintendants about their dome schools and how to approach the school board about using domes for schools. I truly believe that we need to be building Yuma schools in domes. Between our climate and the threat of earthquakes it makes too much sense to do otherwise.
 
 
 
 
 

At the convention we had the very first meetings of the new Monolithic Dome Builders Association. At the convention I was elected to serve as secretary to the organization. We will be a non-profit group whose purpose is to promote Monolithic Domes as a preferred method of building and to support domebuilders in whatever way we can.  Our initial push is to get ourselves organized to be able to communicate among members and then to set up a website that will serve as a clearing house of information.