Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I'm Putting Out An APB For Ideas

So anyone know what those items in the picture are? Okay, done waiting for you to guess. Those are lights that were taken out of the traffic signals in Olympia when they moved to LED signals. I threw my flip flop in to give you an idea how big those bad boys are. And I wear a size 10 if that helps.

So why do I have these? A friend picked them up at the State Surplus Store (which is a wonderful place by the way)- for $1 each!! Now we have ten of them in our possession. Problem is, we're not sure what to do with them. So maybe you can help. Got any ideas for them? Maybe some modern art installation or making them into a chandelier or sculpture. I'm open to any suggestions you may have. They need to be rewired to make them light up but I don't think that will be too hard.

The winning idea gets a shout out here. And some SRTC letterhead, since that's the only item we have with our logo on it. Hey, we're a government agency, we can't afford all those fun promotional items that everyone else gives away.

By the way, no, we weren't going for a Christmas theme with these lights, they just didn't have any yellows available to purchase for some reason.

4 comments:

Melissa said...

Well don't hold out on us, tell us where the fabulous State Surplus Store is located! That place could help me maintain my reputation as Queen of Gifts You Did Not Expect.

SRTC Staff said...

That's the bad part Melissa- it's in Olympia. But it would almost be worth the drive. I bought eye patches there for 25 cents each, my friend got a file cabinet for $10 that had a huge Grateful Dead sticker on it (thought these items were previously owned by the government??) and we debated for a long time over whether or not to buy a massage table for $50. We decided against it as we couldn't figure out how to get it in the car. My major coup though? A garbage can marked with biohazard stickers all over it for my recycling.

vanillajane said...

There's one in Auburn, too. Sadly, no where near Spokane. They have a website showing photos of some of their wares.

Here's a link from the General Administration Site: http://www.ga.wa.gov/Surplus/feature.htm

Oh yeah... I need to make this about transportation...
Hmmm....
If you want to go to both stores, taking the Auburn cut-off to see the first one, then continuing South on that highway until the cut-off that goes through the I5 junction to I5 will save you boatloads of time.

Any time you come to Oly, the Auburn cut-off saves quite a few miles and usually about a half hour of travel time.

SRTC Staff said...

Thanks for that very relevant tip about the Auburn cutoff Holly. I use it all the time.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.