09:23 – The Christmas rush has started. We’ve shipped six kits so far this morning, and we’re likely to remain busy right up through Monday the 23rd. USPS does an all-out push for Christmas. They treat Priority Mail 2- and 3-day packages like Express Mail if that’s what it takes to get them delivered by Christmas. They even deliver anything that looks like it may be a gift on Christmas morning if necessary.
We’re going to be pressed to keep up, not just with getting kits shipped, but with getting more built to meet demand. I went through our component inventory yesterday and had Barbara labeling and filling bottles of stuff we were very short on. We now have enough of everything in stock to build another two dozen each of the biology and chemistry kits, in addition to what’s already in finished-goods inventory. We will have enough components to build another dozen or so forensic science kits once the polarizing filters arrive. But I’m going to be busier than the proverbial one-armed violinist.
16:26 – Wow. The first seven days of the month were pretty slow, but today was hectic. Put it this way: if we ship as many kits per day for the next two days as we did today, we’ll exceed total December 2012 kit sales–units and revenue–in only three days. That’s assuming that we can build enough kits fast enough to meet demand.
Had a first with USPS last night (Sunday night). The doorbell rang at 10 pm and I saw a USPS delivery jeep driving off through door window. There was a package on my front porch. 10 pm on a Sunday night!
It has been bitterly cold down here in the Land of Sugar. We bounced off 33 F a couple of times this weekend and the pool freeze detector went off and ran the pool pump all Friday night. 46 F and raining now but headed back into the 30s tonight.
West Texas really sucks, they were below 0 F with a couple of inches of ice. Been there, done that, hopefully not ever again.
Well, I ordered three more copies of Windows 7 Professional for the office PCs still running Windows XP last Friday. I am surprised that Microsoft is taking it off the market:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9244593/Microsoft_ends_Windows_7_retail_sales
We’re at 34 right now here with strong wind gusts off the lake, steel-gray water beyond the shore ice and whitecaps and snow squall fog. Temps going down into single digits by the end of the week with more snow flurries and squalls. New chimney liner and insulation coming here Saturday and hooking up the new woodstove. Insulation going up also on doors and windows and at some point in the attic.
Friends in Alberta report temps of 40 below zero and dropping.
Mrs. OFD in Morristown, NJ for the week and capping off a three-month stretch of being mostly gone from here. Now she’ll have nearly a month off over the holidays, badly overdue. And the last of my Fed background check paperwork was sent off last night to the Fed background checkers. Again. Now I sit and wait.
OK, just swapped a toilet roll and noticed that the inner cardboard diameter is huge. 1 and 5/8th inches. 1.625 inches. 4.23 cm. Is it just me or have they increased the inner diameter of the toilet rolls? This is Charmin ultrasoft.
“West Texas really sucks, they were below 0 F with a couple of inches of ice. Been there, done that, hopefully not ever again.”
Out in the West Texas town of El Paso I fell in love with a Mexican Girl…..
http://www.amazon.com/El-Paso/dp/B00136JCOA/ref=dm_att_trk2
Always in my Jeep’s CD changer!!!
Marty Robbins got his break originally from Little Jimmie Dickens, who is still alive and well, and at 90, the oldest living person in the Grand Ol’ Opry and who still performs. At 4’11”, “Willie Nelson after taxes.”
I dig country music done before 1975. And West Texas chili.
Here she is….. well, 1/4 Mexican, anyway:
http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?id=997725
Actually, I fell in love with her in the Southern California town of Costa Mesa 11 1/2 years ago!
TP rolls have been that diameter since the 60s. Pretty much the size as Estes BT-60 body tubes.
Looks like Mr Barkley aims at becoming a basketball star:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/992nnqpwvvksqkl/1503948_10151800904677826_1790583992_n.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nizp8yg8b3bc58s/1454654_10151800905362826_1397423443_n.jpg
It is to be expected if his name is Barkley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Barkley
Overnight low of 14°F/-10C. Originally, I was supposed to be off for the rest of the year, then this week got scheduled full, then yesterday this week was postponed because of weather. Not sure what weather, as it is going to be clear and below freezing with no snow for the rest of the week. I am pretty sure they are thinking ‘next month’, but Jan and Feb are our worst months for weather. Oh, well. I need this downtime to catch up on personal stuff that has been ignored due to the recent heavy schedule and my hour-long commutes to work.
On the TP front, I have noticed that it was just about overnight that all the other brands narrowed their rolls after P&G started that trend. I sure would not put it past them to be increasing the diameter of of the cardboard center roll.
BBC says this morning that Obama shook Raul Castro’s hand on his way up to the lectern at Mandela’s funeral. Wonder how that is going to go down in Florida?
As someone who follows American history and a fan of Harry Truman this is the Barkley I think of when the name comes up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alben_W._Barkley
You clearly know more about American History than I do.
By some miracle I got an “A” for American History in my university entrance exams. I still wonder if my scrip was mixed up with someone else’s… 🙂
I wonder how many Americans could get an A in Australian History. I’d probably struggle to pass. I’m reasonably conversant with US and British history, less so with Canadian, and even less so with Australian.
In Year 12 in 1975 at my school there were three classes of Australian History, two of American, and one of Modern European (about 1500 onwards). I would have loved to have done Medieval History but it wasn’t offered at my school.
In subjects with over 500 students state wide the top 10% of those passing got an A, and so on. In small subjects it was done ad hoc. There were about 320 of us doing American History state wide, and when I saw that I’d got an A I was hoping to be mentioned in the honours list (the top students in each subject, and the top 50 or so overall were published in the paper.) It turns out that 32 of us got As, and I didn’t get on the list – but one of my classmates did. I attribute my success to reading beyond the pathetic text that was provided – an American book that was more civics than history. I bought my own copy of *The National Experience* by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., et al. and a small paperback of basic documents in American history.
Even though I’m an Aussie I’ve never been much interested in Australian history. US, modern European, Indian and Medieval have been much more attractive to me. In Year 11 I was taught Modern History by a thoroughly horrible woman and got a “4”, the lowest passing grade. In Year 12 I was lucky to have a pleasant, quietly spoken young woman as teacher and it really helped.
I think if you’d done Australian history, or Chinese history, or just about anything else you’d have got an A.
Oh, I’m sure I’d have gotten an A if I studied it. What I meant was that I’d probably have trouble even passing based just on what I know now.
Of course the bar is pretty low nowadays. Remember the room full of history grad students, not one of whom had any clue who George C. Marshall was? When I mentioned it to Barbara, she said something like “You mean the WWII General who did the Marshall Plan?” That’s the level I’d expect of any US citizen who’d graduated 8th grade, let alone history Ph.D. candidates.
I like Marshall, my favourite story about him is how he rebuffed FDR’s attempt to call him by his first name. He expected even FDR to call him “General Marshall”.
It’s not like he’s important. Is he dead? Check. White? Check. Male? Check. QED.