locks and locks

this is what has been keeping me busy lately.

Casting, Striking, Punching, Soldering, Chain-making, Sampling, Approving, Comparing to Drawings-ing, and Approving

Sometimes the rivets are struck/stamped into the little pieces of sterling silver or gold just as details. and sometimes they are all hand assembled. I like the ones that are hand assembled.

Last week I was up in our Rhode Island manufacturing facility and also visited our raw materials supplier. It feels great to know that not only does our raw precast bars and grain come from a supplier in the US, but that all of our manufacturing is done here and some in Europe. I love being able to visit the vendors in a day and sit down with the model makers and discuss changes that need to be made and then see the changes happen.

from above the clouds to flying through them

look at that view.....that was what we got to see all day Saturday up at Timberline on Mt. Hood. It was a gorgeous sunny and warm (30 degrees f) day and we head a good crew on the mountain. Just look how happy my lovely wife looks in that picture! It's an amazing thing driving up the mountain through what seems to be a cloudy day and then having it clear up as you park, only to get on the chairlift and turnaround to see that you are ABOVE the cloud line.....forget above the treeline

and now......back to work

after a great little Thanksgiving holiday filled with micro brews and tons of food along with some snurf action at Mt. Hood, I'm back in Taiwan for a few weeks worth of grinding....

In this first week, I'll be pushing to approve preproduction samples one by one of all the goods while trying to get the full quantities of the sample order by this weekend when our little trade show starts.

Then next week, it'll be finishing up what couldn't get done this week and then dialing in packaging and starting some tooling on the next bunch of projects.

a REAL concern at work

upon our new candidate for the open accounting position's departure from the office I noticed that she was good looking. I'm not being weird about that, she was blonde, pretty, tall, whatever, I guess kinda the standard so-cal looking chick. (and everyone knows I'm into redheads anyways...)

BUT then the phone rang at Carl's desk. It was our head of accounting calling Carl from her desk upstairs. Here is the conversation in a nutshell.

S - "so Carl, did you see the last candidate that I just interviewed?"

Carl - "ummmm, yeah...why"

S - "well....she's really qualified, one of the best we've met with. and she has a great personality and I think she would be a great fit"

Carl - "ok, she was really pretty so you should just hire her then...(laughing) just kidding, what's up?"

S - "that's my concern. Is she too good looking? Will she be a distraction here in the office?"

Carl - "uhhhhh, what? i've never really thought about that....."

followed by a moment of silence....

Kinda weird right?

I wonder if they had the same conversation after I left my interview...