Snow Parks
In 2011, some neighbor kids brought a metal trashcan to a hill down the street and were jibbing on this thing. That’s where it all started. Years 2012-2016 I built epic terrain parks in our backyard with appx 12 vertical feet of slope and a 150 foot run, this provided us park rats with just enough slope and run for some sweet features, we often wheeled in snow from all across the yard depositing it on the ski slope to extend the backyard shred season. Features over the years included stolen traffic cones and corrugated pipes, home made boxes, rails, pole jams, wall rides, etc. The favorite feature was the 16 foot handrail that was used for multiple seasons, pvc pipe atop 2×4 strips was the move for rail making.
Snow making at Home
On top of the rail yard, one year for a Birthday present, my father Bill and I embarked on a at home snow making project. We ordered the external mix nozzle kit from snowathome.com and hired a local hydraulics business to assemble the nozzles across a galvanized plate. The air compressor component needed to be belt driven (we purchased this on craigslist) and the pressure washer needed to be ranked for continual use, we ended up purchasing an AR Blue Clean AR 383 Electric Pressure washer rated for 1900 PSI at 1.7 GPM. We made lots of snow over the course of a few years, our typical output was appx 1-2 inches per hour over a 25×25 area. A few mistakes as follows:
- Went through two pressure washers, maybe consider a gas powered system with a higher GPM rating
- ALWAYS make sure to blow out your lines and disconnect the hose post use, we did
- Use a hose filter, clogged snow making nozzles were always a pain to unplug
- We insulated the airline because moisture was getting into the line and causing issues
- I’d like to fire up the system again for Christmas decorations, but to achieve this, we will need to clear some build up in the lines.
- Cold water coupled with low humidity is always ideal, high humidity led to lots of evaporation.
Woodworks
Built a variety of crafts, I have two high school carpentry classes worth of experience although I learned most carpentry skills through random projects including the construction of 3’8” x 8’ mini ramp with a roll in extension and a fort built into the other side of the mini ramp. I also had a phase where I constructed and sold over 50+ planter boxes during COVID spring, The planter boxes were built with old red cedar fence panels, lined with grain pile covers, restructured with all thread running across to prevent bowing, and stained with paints found from the Omaha chemical recycle facility, the overall cost basis per planter was around $5. I sold these planters at $50 each. Dappled with some other carpentry projects from rail building and enjoyed lots of side projects working with Ipe/Brazilian walnut.
Boys Town Oak
Applied Underwriters purchased a large sum of land from Boys Town Farms sometime around 2015. To prep this land for future mixed use development, Applied Underwriters subbed out an excavation group to prep the raw land for the future roads and buildings. Through this process of clearing the land, there was an old street lined with 80-year-old oak trees that was wiped out. All the trees were in a large pile and were going to be chipped later that month. I came in at the right time, was granted the timber rights from the developer, and hauled off 8 large veneer oak logs to be milled which yielded over 3,000 board feet. This oak was cured in a Barn outside David City Nebraska for nearly 4 years and was sold to different companies who developed on that property.
Pond Building
My Grandparents own a farm in Northeast Nebraska, on this farm we have 5 pasture dams that are seasonally full for cattle. One of these dams we carved out to 12+ feet deep and reinforced the dam with the cut. We lined the pond with grain pile cover that was donated by a local co-op. We seamed and patched the holes with rubber cement and gorilla tape. After patching all holes and seams we laid this across the pond and brought in 6 inches of cut dirt to lay over the top. We also imported 2 truckloads of pea gravel for a beach, installed an electrical from a quarter mile away along with a fresh well water line. Additionally, we added a bubbler in the center of the pond to oxygenate the water and stocked the pond with small/largemouth bass,
Squirrel Tail
Squirrel Tail was a project where Daniel prototyped a way to hang marketing materials on trees and developed a business model around this attempting to service and sell tree marketing hardware. This was just a concept and was never successfully brought to market.
Idea Elaboration
A continuously updated spreadsheet of ideas generated since Highschool. Pending.