Month: August 2014

08:27 – We ended up getting 20 kit orders yesterday–including one custom order for 30 sets of six chemicals that aren’t stock items–and shipping 14 kits. We’ll ship three of the outstanding six orders today, plus whatever orders come in today that we have in stock, but the others will have to wait until Tuesday.

We’re down to two each of the CK01A and CK01B chemistry kits and the FK01A forensic kits, one of the FK01C forensic kits, and zero of the FK01B forensic kits. Fortunately, we still have 30 or so BK01 biology kits in stock. At least we have the next three days available to build up stocks before Tuesday.

We probably won’t quite match August 2013 revenues this month, but even so we’re running well over last year’s YTD revenues through August. As of now, we’re only a few thousand dollars short of matching total 2013 revenues, with a full third of the year remaining.

11:15 – This is the time of year when our usually-reliable inventory system descends into OMGWO! (OH MY GOD WE’RE OUT!).

The most recent incident took place a few minutes ago when I went down to get a bunch of 24-well reaction plates. I thought we had 10 or 15 10-packs left in stock, but the shelf was bare. OMGWO! Fortunately, after my pulse fell back into the double figures, I noticed the large box at my feet that I’d almost tripped over. Turns out it contains 15 10-packs of the reaction plates. I’d put the box there when the shelf space for the reaction plates was full so that I’d remember I had more. So much for remembering.

So I just issued an $1,800 PO to one of our vendors for stuff we’re running short of. They’ll get it Tuesday and probably ship Wednesday or Thursday, which means I should have the stuff by early the following week.

Oh, I forgot to mention. When we were at Costco last Sunday, one of the attorneys from Barbara’s firm saw us in the parking lot. She asked Barbara if those were our kids with us. Barbara told her that they were our friends, Mary and Paul. I told Barbara she missed an opportunity. I would have said something like, “That was our son Paul and our daughter-in-law Mary. Or was it our daughter Mary and our son-in-law Paul?”

Paul and Mary are half a generation younger than we are, so I suppose it’s remotely possible that I could be their parents, assuming I’d started fathering children when I was in my mid-teens. But the one Barbara and I still laugh about happened soon after Barbara and I were married. I was 31 years old. We were out to dinner with our friend Vicky Epley, who was 27 years old. Barbara ordered a glass of wine, as did Vicky. The waiter turned to me and asked if it was okay to serve Vicky. Mistaken at age 31 for the father of a 27-year-old woman. Geez.

08:36 – I called the local Costco yesterday morning to tell them they’d overcharged us by 41 4-packs of Coke. She corrected the charge and is mailing us a receipt. She did seem annoyed at the checker at the door, who should have noticed that we had only four 4-packs instead of 45 of them.

Last night, I tried on the Kirkland Signature jeans I picked up Sunday. The waist was nominally 38 inches. I didn’t actually measure it, but the waist fit me properly. The only issue is that this line of jeans is “relaxed fit”, which means it allows extra room in the seat of the pants that I don’t really need. I’d prefer standard fit, but they’re not really baggy on me.

The Costco/Kirkland jeans are made in Mexico. I’d prefer US-made but Mexico is okay. At $14, they’re less than a third the price of the US-made jeans I bought at All American Clothing or jeans from LL Bean or Lands’ End, which are made in places like Turkey and Syria and Pakistan. Barbara’s only comment was that if I’m going to keep buying new jeans she thinks I should start purging our closet of some of the old ones.

I’m filling bottles today for a new batch of chemistry kits, and I think I’m going to try something new. For hazardous chemicals, USPS shipping regulations require that “Each inner receptacle must be securely sealed with wire, tape, or other positive means.” Until now, Barbara has been taping the caps on hazardous chemical bottles, which is time-consuming. For example, 10 of the 40-odd chemicals in a chemistry kit are defined as hazardous for shipping purposes, so that’s 10 bottles per kit she needs to tape the caps of.

As a possible alternative, I just ordered a box of 500 shrink bags from Amazon. I already have a heat sealer and a heat gun. There are six 15 mL bottles and four 30 mL per kit that need their caps secured, so I’m going to try making up two blocks in heat-shrink bags: one block of six 15 mL bottles and a second of four 30 mL bottles. The heat shrink bag meets the requirement to secure the caps, and also eliminates one bagging step because the heat shrink bag itself counts as the inner bag. We’ll still need to use an outer bag with absorbent to contain the two heat-shrink bag blocks, but overall that should cut down on the total steps and total time needed. Also, having the bottles neatly blocked will cut down on cubic, which is always a good thing.

09:04 – Barbara and I are doing the usual Sunday stuff. After Barbara finishes cleaning house and ironing, we’ll get back to building more science kits.

I’ve been saving the dehumidifier water in new 5-gallon (19 liter) buckets. Chemically, it’s as pure as distilled/deionized water from the supermarket, so it’s fine for making up solutions for kits and we don’t have to buy it. It’s not potable, of course, because it contains bacteria, mold spores, etc. that the filter doesn’t catch. I’m running out of new 5-gallon buckets, so I’m going to start transferring it to labeled 2-liter soda bottles that I’ll store for use later in the year when we’re no longer running the dehumidifier.

10:04 – The guys who poured our new sidewalk sprinkled what I thought was grass seed along the edges of the walk. I’m not sure what it was, but what’s growing doesn’t look like any lawn grass I’ve ever seen. More like baby marijuana plants. So Barbara is out there now with a spade and her edger digging up the baby plants and putting down actual grass seed.

We’re in pretty good shape on science kit inventory, but mainly because sales have slowed down considerably. Until Wednesday, we were shipping anything from four to nine kits per day. Thursday, we shipped only two, yesterday one, and so far today one. But that’s the way it goes this time of year. We could end up selling 50 or 100 kits in the next week. Things go in spurts.