Stuff I learned in school...

 

We've all said it: "Why do we need to learn this stuff?  I'll never use it once I'm out of school."

On our way home from Phoenix, the closet rod I hung in the cargo trailer (about a decade ago) came apart.  Well, to be fair, it was the home-made wall brackets that failed, not the closet rod;  OK, only one of the wall brackets failed.  The roads going through San Antonio were too much for it... probably didn't help that we have a lot of heavy motorcycle gear hanging on that rod.  I had additionally supported it with a 1x4 piece of lumber to the floor, notched to fit the rod.  I think while packing things in there, we may have bumped that support, which led to more stress on one side of the rod compared to the other side.  Frankly, I am impressed that it held up this long.

I could just make another bracket, but we decided to look for something purpose-made for the task.  Not as easy as it sounds, since the rod goes across the V-nose part of the trailer... so, a typical closet rod set up won't work.  We looked for flanges made for hanging a closet rod in a corner - those exist.  Of course, they assume you are working with a 90º angle on the two walls.  Without a giant protractor, we went out to the cargo trailer to measure what might fit... and discovered that the V-nose isn't 90º... I had to use trigonometry to figure out the angles.  This may be the second time since I was out of school that I had a real-world use for trig.  I'm sure there is some kind of a calculator online that would allow one to determine those angles.  I just solved for the unknowns.  In my world, there are a lot of unknowns.  ;-)

Another warm, humid, and windy day here.  Also known as late spring.  After my bicycle ride this morning, I was determined to get out on the CTX.  I rolled out of the driveway before 8:00.  Yep: warm, humid, and windy.  Still felt great to be out on the bike.  I did put a 360 camera on the bike, not sure what I'll do with the footage.  On the bright side: no one blew through a red light or otherwise tried to take me out.  One in a row.  ;-)