March Madness

It’s March Madness and that really does count for one of the great times of the year. And while the tournament will keep many people’s attention (my picks are below) the other “Madness” that of the shameful 30/30 provision continues to make news daily. This week, AGC jumped into the fray and a local congressperson from their territory pulled some of the covers back on the issue. First off, kudos to the folks at AGC, I know none of them read this blog (because if they did they’d come to BEC) but regardless it’s nice to see the passion! And they are not the only ones, basically I have been hearing from a ton of people who are not “connected” to the company that drove this measure that they will be jumping in as well. Who knows what will happen but it sure is nice that there’s logic in our world.

Elsewhere…

-- Also on the 30/30 last week another website had a story on this and they included a quote from a pretty big window guy. The quote was basically this… that anyone “could” meet this 30/30 provision if they would so choose. Amazing… so my comment back is.. hey… Mr. Window Big Shot, what if the government slipped in a provision that every window had to be 120 x 120. Surely everyone “could” make that too if they choose… you know if they change out equipment, change manufacturing etc and spend tons of tons of money. I also “could” eat my young if I wanted to- but I don’t because it’s stupid. And my kids would probably not taste good. Just a patently ignorant comment that was typically self serving. Anyway the point is anyone “could” do anything but when something is so incredibly wrong like having a bogus and un-thought-out provision “slipped” into a huge bill like this, there’s more reasons on why it’s not being done other than “we can’t”…. See and its crap like this that the DOE looks at and assumes things like the moronic “the industry doesn’t like making Low E” argument.

-- Man can you imagine if I made windows how crazed I’d be? And again its the fact that this country does not have the same climates all over so why in the world would we try and jam the square peg into the round hole?

-- As noted on my previous post the passing of Bill Davidson was a tough one to swallow. No doubt our industry is weaker for it, but the one thing missed in all of this was that Guardian (in my opinion, and many will call me biased) still has by far one of the most talented groups of people working there in our industry. (I’ve written about Brian Craft as one, but they are seriously loaded all over) And it’s because of that fact that Mr. D’s legacy will live on- by hiring and growing good people that will carry on the concepts and culture that he started. Anyway the man will be missed but his lessons will carry on for many many years.

-- OK on to the original March Madness… as most of you know my nickname is “Mush” and that’s because whomever I pick usually plays like mush and loses. So sorry in advance to fans of these teams I am about to tell you about…. I have UConn winning the whole thing beating UNC. Sleeper teams are WVU and VCU…

-- By the way speaking of betting… how about the fall of Las Vegas? Everything there is down across the board pretty dramatically and now news reports are talking about MGM looking to sell properties. Simply amazing as I don’t think anyone expected that joyride to end but it sure looks that way. Still I think eventually that city will right size and they’ll have to live within themselves instead of always trying to be more excessive. Best part is some really, really nice hotel rooms can be had for cheap. That I like.

-- If you did not see Megan Headley’s blog on her trip to Dlubak, please check it out. (it’s here). I’ve known those folks for many years and I thought Megan did a great job of catching the aura there.

Off to the Links…

It’s funny both myself and the “Link Chick” had the same idea this week… let’s try and hit some good news instead of the normal mix of bizarre and depressing…

-- A tremendous story of unselfishness.. classy people thinking of others.

-- A cool story about the USA Baseball team and a soldier. Again more class.

-- A hero who deserves publicity that’s wasted on things like the “OctoMom”… this guy saved a life and went on with his business.

Video of the week:

From my friend Angela… a great stand up performer on the ills of flying… and watching this I know many of you feel the same way.. in fact I thought of Bob Lang since he and I had a nice long talk at Glassweek about the pure misery that is flying…