Masonry Magazine October 1995 Page. 7
FROM THE PRESIDENT
By L. C. PARDUE, JR.
President, Mason Contractors Association of America
# Get the Net Out
HOW MANY of you have been on the net lately? No, I'm not talking about a tennis net, hair net or fishing net. I'm talking about the Internet. It is the coming thing, even in our little corner of the world of masonry.
Sure you say, after a hard day laying brick, block or stone I'm going to lock myself away in the back room and take off cruising the Internet. Well some of the brave souls in our industry have already given it a whirl. The other day I logged on, called up Yahoo (no I haven't been drinking) and told it to search "Masonry." Yahoo is one of several on-line directories which, by the use of indexes or searching using key words, locates subjects of interest.
Bingo, first try "AEC InfoCenter's Building Product Library-Provides access to industry suppliers in Sitework, Paving, Landscape, Concrete, Rebar, Masonry, Steel, Joist, Metal, Wood, Plastic, Etc."
Point and punch the old mouse button and up pop's the AEC home page on masonry. Listings include:
4100-Mortar
TEC Inc., Palatine, IL
4200-Unit Masonry
Bradstone, Toronto, Canada
Brampton Brick, Brampton, Canada
4400-Stone
Cold Spring Granite Company, Cold Spring, MN
LaMar Diamant, Seattle, WA
4700-Simulated Masonry and Stone
Stone Products Inc., Napa, CA
Not an overabundance of entries, but at least some representation. Each is there not only promoting their product but above all else representing our industry.
They even had a listing of architectural associations and institutes. Listed were the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the AIA, CSI, NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) and ASHRAE.
Through "Lycos," another on-line directory service I came across "The Masonry Fireplace" by Buckley Rumford. Even though the directory had it listed the page would not come up. The net is not an exacting science. I even tried the "Playboy Magazine" home page (just to read the articles of course) but could not get through to Buckley Rumford.
I even tried "Brick" as a key word and came up with "One Brick Shy" which is a weekly cartoon as this column is becoming.
The most outstanding masonry home page was that of Allan Block Retaining Walls. It contained their home address in Tukwila, Washington, their phone number, fax number, cellular number, specifications of each unit, product overview, design guidelines, installation guidelines, system options, specifications, warranty, construction details and dozens of pictures of finished projects. If that wasn't enough they state at the beginning that this web site was under construction. In my opinion this site ranks right up there with some of the big corporations I have seen on the web.
This is just the beginning of many exciting things to come on the Internet. By the way did I mention the Playboy home page (http://www.playboy.com/J?-Lenny Pardue, President
MASONRY-SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER, 1995 7