Concrete Blog

Not long ago I received an email from Katie. She had read the piece I wrote several months back on “Concrete that Changes the World”. After mentioning that she enjoyed reading about how concrete helps in the area of handicap accessibility and our camping adventures, she drew my attention to another website: WWW.ConcreteThinker.com . I must say I was immediately intrigued by the name of the site. I like to think of myself as a bit of a “thinker”.

Anyway, I located the site and started to do a little digging through it. First of all… one CAN’T miss the “Sim City” demo on the home page. A great little click- on window that highlights concrete and it’s many environmental benefits. The entire site is dedicated to the challenge for us to think of concrete as a “sustainable resource”. I had to go to my Merriam-Webster tab to look up the word “sustainable” and found this:

1: capable of being sustained2 a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture> b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>

Concrete Thinker is an enjoyable website. In addition to lots of information on how people are looking at and using concrete in today’s “green sensitive” world, there are real case studies and stories of buildings and structures that are up and alive.

Here is their opening invite to explore the rest of the site:

Welcome to the Concrete Thinker web site, a resource to help design professionals make sustainable design a reality through the durability, versatility and energy performance of concrete. I like it! Love it, Live it, Think about it!

An interesting note:  I just checked our “stats” for our web site, www.toolsbytom.com.  It seems that concrete-types were online yesterday!  Maybe you guys wrestled the computer away from your wives.  The media thinks that the Monday after Thanksgiving is the big day for cyber shopping…. but our stats YESTERDAY jumped two fold! 

Maybe the weather is getting colder, maybe it just that time of year to look for new equipment, maybe it was simply your turn on the computer.  Who knows! 

On a related note… I have pictures that I have been meaning to add to the site… I guess it’s time.  Also seems that you all like to pa-ruse the pic’s along with your turkey leftovers!

Our little company is swimming in the big pool! Companies that supply specialty tools for companies and individuals who build the world are up against all kinds of “big box” people. Something as simple as ordering engines in the good old USA can be a bit tricky for a small company.

We recently completed another run of our concrete tool, the TTI Screedright Pro. Steel parts come from a shop in Fort Collins Colorado, nuts and bolts are ordered from various manufacturers, the “owners manual” is printed at our local print shop, and the whole thing is assembled at our shop.

All except the engines… engines are not made in America anymore. After waiting and waiting for the “slow boat from China” to FINALLY get here, our next run of screeds are boxed and ready to go… just in time for the winter season.�