Heavy Lifting
Well today was pretty eventful. At about noon, Jen picks me up and, after lunch, head over to the museum to unload their brand new exhibit! It looks fantastic, and is a mighty big exhibit — for the museum at least. I’ve heard that the exhibit cost something like $200,000 when it was new 10 years ago, and has spent the time since travelling from museum to museum. But then the company that owns it decided to sell it, because now they are only interested in the large exhibits. I’d love to know what constitutes a large exhibit! This one, which apparently wasn’t large, still came in it’s own 18 wheeler, in thirteen crates, about a half-ton each. Very impressive. So I was there with another 10 or so heavy-lifting volunteers and, with the help of a fork lift and a hand-jack dolly, got the crates off the truck and unloaded them all. The museum itself is in an old elementary school, and the exhibit was unloaded into the gym area. So imagine school gym — the unpacked exhibit took up half of it. Definately a good sized exhibit, even if the company doesn’t consider it large.
But then the truck just drove off! Leaving us with all the crates, which were supposed to be taken to a storage facility. So until the truck comes back on Monday, the museum is also housing the great big crates. Which are filling up the other half of the gym, and the space under the museum’s front awning. (but since the museum uses the school’s back entrance as the main entrance, the crates are only blocking unused doors, so not a problem)
The exhibit is called Hands Can and the museum was able to buy it thanks to a massive grant that Jen applied for and won! Yay Jen! It’s a very attractive exhibit, and is all about what hands can do. Sign language, construction, weaving, braille, etc. For instance, one of the biggest and heaviest single pieces is a box, probably 6′ tall, by 8′ long, by 5′ wide. In it is a carousel animal. The box shows three carousel animals, and has a bunch of holes on the sides, covered in little cloth curtains so the kids can’t look in. And they have to reach their hands in and feel the animal inside and decide which one it is by touch alone. Very cool.