Cornhole boards

Ok, so you know how in my first blog I mentioned I burned up our drill making cornhole boards, by popular demand here is the story of the cornhole boards:

The beginning:
So I have always had this certain kind of obsessive affinity for playing the game of cornhole. To put it short, I am good at many things and cornhole is not one of them. Therefore, I take it as a challenge and I will beat this game, damn it! This made me want to have my own cornhole boards so I can play more often and of course get better. (Oh P.S, I don't think I have even won a game of cornhole, many of my partners can attest to this.) I started researching them on craigslist and I couldn't find any for under $100. So of course I thought I could make them myself, no problem! I talked my buddy Drunko Downs into making them with me and a few days later she comes over to help make some. For those that don't know Drunko Downs is Lily and she has well deserved that nickname, just ask her.

The body:
So, I went to Home Depot to get all the wood and materials we would need. I drag Hays along and at Home Depot a very nice man helped us and even cut the wood! I take the College Hunks Hauling Junk truck down there so we could fit the plywood and everything into the truck, as this stuff would not be fitting in my little Scion xD.

All the wood and materials, check, this is going to be so easy, or so I thought. Lily comes over and we start putting everything together. We are screwing the frames together and everything is going great! Now comes time to make the holes in the board. I totally thought this wouldn't be a problem and we could use our Sawzall to do this. Little did I know that the sawzall has more kick than a shot gun and there is no way we could control this thing. If we would have used the sawzall, you would have seen the must ghetto circles of your life. They would have been squares for sure. Lily brought over this crazy drill tool her brother-in-law uses to cut circles in wood, perfect just what we need, right??? Wrong... too bad the drill we have at our house is made to drill screws into dry wall!!! So, I still attempt to use our drill with this tool and it seems like it was going great but it only made it half way and the drill died. We have come to the realization this isn't going to work and give up on the cornhole boards for the night.

Of course the next week I tear up my ankle sliding into to 2nd base at our softball game and all I can think about now is how am I going to walk, not making the cornhole boards. So, a few weeks later our buddy Pat says he can saw the circles with a jigsaw he has and it won't be a problem. We bring them over there and I swear he busts out all the circles in 10mins. I literally spent an hour and could only make half a circle!! Pat is the handiest man in the world I tell ya!! Pat pretty much finishes up the boards for us and Jeray and Hays sand out the boards, now all we have to do is paint!

I am always branding for the company so it made total sense that we would make them College Hunks Hauling Junk cornhole boards. Hays got our paint codes so we could match the colors to College Hunks colors, went down and tried to buy some paint with them and they pretty much had no idea and told her they needed more information. So we took down one of the door hangers to Lowe's and they were able to make us some paint that matched perfectly! We started painting the boards and everyone at the house helped out, Hays, Court and myself. We painted them up and then I applied some company logos without a problem, then sealed them and wah-la! They are done and look great.

The conclusion
It only took me over a month, but hey, I got them done! Now I will become a master at cornhole and you will all have to bow down to me! We are having a tailgate at the ASU homecoming football game this weekend against Washington State at 12:30pm in LOT 59. Come down and check out the cornhole boards and you can even enter into a cornhole tournament with prizes for the winners. We will have plenty of signs and balloons so you won't miss us!

This is us trying to use the sawzall





Stay classy my friends,

Shannon Perkins
College Hunks Hauling Junk, Owner
shannon.perkins@1800junkusa.com
http://www.1800junkusa.com/

Recycling Partnership

The College Hunks Hauling Junk of Phoenix is taking their mission of promoting sustainable living to the community, partnering with the Arizona Academy of Science charter school in Downtown Phoenix. We were contacted by the academy because they are interested in teaching the kids about recycling, sustainability, and reducing their carbon footprint. Further, the academy is taking this project on in order to apply for the "Disney Planet Challenge" which is meant to "inspire students to think differently about their roles as environmental stewards and members of society." This project could help the Arizona Academy of Science win a $20,000 grant to continue their project and extend their dreams past the boundaries of their school and in to the greater Phoenix area.

The plan is for the College Hunks to "donate" their big orange container to collect the recyclables from the school. We will then pick up the filled container once per month to recycle all that was collected. The students are hoping to get some community members (for example, they share a parking lot with the Phoenix Art Museum and a community church) involved as well. The College Hunks will do what they can to help the Academy achieve their goal to use less, and recycle what they use!

This is only one piece of the project that the students are engaging in. They have started a beautiful garden, multiple compost piles, and are cutting down on paper use. Hopefully over the next few months the students and community members will be able to make enough changes to win the Disney Planet Challenge! Good luck to the Academy and Whooo Hunk!

Composting: Day 5

I want to start off by saying how excited I am to be starting a compost pile!  Ever since we started College Hunks Hauling Junk here in Phoenix I’ve felt the need to live a ‘greener’ lifestyle.  One of the aspects of College Hunks I like best is that it is a green company and recycles or donates at least 60% of everything we take.  While out networking or just talking about our business the fact that it is green is one of the first things that comes out of my mouth.  So, all this talking about being green has inspired me to live a much greener lifestyle.  Don’t get me wrong, we have been recycling for many years.  I would say we’ve recycled just like most families by doing the ‘easy’ stuff (recycling boxes, empty food/beverage containers, paper ,etc.) but we can do better which is why we’ve made a few changes in our activities, which leads me back to the topic at hand: Composting!

Today is the day I am going to beef up our compost pile.  So far it only has a potato in it : (  I spent quite a bit of time today trying to figure out how this whole composting stuff works, it can be quite simple and complicated all at the same time!  It is simple if you just try to think of everything as either green or brown.  Green items are (you guessed it) GREEN and are things like grass clippings, vegetable scraps, and fruit peels.  Brown items are much to nobody’s surprise, BROWN and are things like hay, paper, and dried garden debris.  You want to have a 1.5:1 ratio of browns: greens.   That is about as simple as it can get.  On the more complicated side you want to have an appropriate mix of carbon and nitrogen.  Too much carbon – your pile is too dry and too much nitrogen – your pile is too moist.  In an effort to minimize how overwhelmed I’m feeling I am going to go for the simple route…not too much brown or green matter.  (Go to earth911.com for many different articles on what you can compost.)  I had read earlier that weeds were something good to put in your compost pile.  Boy oh boy was that exciting since we have our fair share of weeds around the house.  Plus this project would be a good reason to go pull them.  We’ve been dreading those darn weeds but knowing now that they will be used for something good makes it less daunting to get my behind out there and pick them.  These were my thoughts until I started to dig deeper into what you do and don’t compost.  Weeds were kind of in the middle.  You aren’t supposed to compost weeds that are beginning to seed or that are pernicious.  Now, as your standard human being I haven’t the slightest clue if my weeds are seeding or if they are pernicious so…I guess I will be leaving them out of my compost pile for now.  If you put them in your pile while they are seeding or if they are pernicious they may sprout in your compost pile making MORE WEEDS or the seeds may stay in your compost so if you use it on your grass you have simply spread weed seeds ALL OVER YOUR YARD!!!  Needless to say I’m sure the weeds in my yard will be hanging out for a little bit longer before I come up with the motivation to tackle the back breaking activity that is pulling weeds.  Ok, back to composting.  Another exciting compostable item I read about is pet hair!  I have 2 fabulous dogs named Jayden and Abby…they are like my children.  Jayden is a 3 year old black lab mix and Abby is a 10 year old Yellow lab/greyhound/many other things mix and if there is one thing they are great at it is SHEDDING!!  I don’t know how these two dogs still have any hair left on ‘em because they never stop shedding excessively.  Now, I have something I can do with all this pet hair!  It is time for me to go compost pile hunting in and around my house.  Shannon mowed the lawn (in her boot : ) ) last week and there were some grass clippings left that I am going to add.  We don’t have too many “brown” items around here so I’ll have to go scavenging around the house for some.  I know they are out there!  OK, I am off to “shop” around the house for our compost pile : )  I will post a few pictures so you can see what everything looks like!

Kristen Hays

This is the container after I drilled all the holes

This is what it looks like now

These are the dogs!!!

Going Green, Compost Pile - Day 1

First off, let's begin with how we decided to start a compost pile. Kristen Hays, one of the owner's of College Hunks Hauling Junk PHX, was surfing the web and read an article and it mentioned something about a compost pile. So she decided it would be a really good idea for us to get one and thus here we are today writing a blog about it, go figure!

So the first thing Hays did was start looking online for what compost binds cost. She quickly found out that they were far too expensive for our taste. Next she researched how to make a homemade one and sure enough, about.com had a nice little how-to article(About.com never fails!) on how to make a compost bind. Then, next thing I know, we are at Target getting a 20 gal storage bind with a lid. We were able to get this completed super fast due to Target's jimmy-rigged motorized cart that goes 25 miles an hour, no joke! For those that do not know, I am in a boot and cannot walk long distances. Tore up some ligaments in my ankle sliding into 2nd base, long story don't ask. :)

Ok back to the compost pile, Oh Kristen wants me to say how excited she is to do this and be green, it means a lot to her, etc. So really back to the compost pile, for real this time I swear, so we got back to the house and Kristen was quickly getting the electric drill out of the garage. Next, Hays started measuring out and marking every inch, up, down, left, right. She has a little problem with numbers and perfection if you know what I mean. She sets her alarm clock for only even numbers because she doesn't like odd numbers(Ya, number crazy!) So, every mark is where she will have to drill a little hole so the pile can get oxygen to help accelerate the compost process. Hays started drilling the holes with the smallest drill bit we had and our drill sounded like some pathetic animal dying slowly! Oh damn! I burnt out the drill motor making cornhole boards the other week! She is now very angry and we must go get a new drill ASAP!

We go get the drill at Lowe's and found a little hidden gem for a great price. We made sure and got the lithium battery per Patrick(he's the handiest man ever!). So Kristen started drilling and I look over to see how it's going and she is wearing a head lamp and the drill has a automatic light that comes on when you drill. It is actually hilarious and I got a picture but she will die if I post it.. Black mail much! So she busts out all the holes and wah-la, we have a compost bind!! It was totally easy and anyone can do it! Here's the link to the how-to article if you are interested: http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/ht/storagecompost.htm

Stay classy my friends,

Shannon Perkins

College Hunks Hauling Junk, Owner

shannon.perkins@1800junkusa.com

http://www.1800junkusa.com/

http://www.collegehunks.com/