Taking it to a new level

When times get tougher it sometimes forces people to ratchet up the rhetoric. In our industry that rhetoric usually comes in advertisements. And usually the ads intimate differences between brand “a” and brand “b” but rarely do they go into full scale mudslinging specifics. But in the past few weeks that bridge was crossed when TRACO took on Peerless Window with an attack in a newsletter. It was amazing stuff seeing one company just blatantly calling another one out. Peerless answered the bell and returned fire, with class, in my opinion. Still when it gets down to taking a massive potshot like TRACO took, you wonder why they did it and what they expected to gain. Hey we all do it from time to time, but this was a blatant blast that really came off as sour grapes. And yes I admit I am biased. I like the folks from Peerless. And I don’t really care for the TRACO group, pretty much based on their blind love and affection for the disaster of the NFRC CMA program that they pretty much endorsed cluelessly (and pushed) from day 1. Still end of the day, this was a wild event and even crazier is I heard rumblings that something very similar to this is also going down on the primary glass manufacturer level. However I have not gotten anything on paper yet… when I do, I’ll pass along.

And yep I know people will say “wow that’s the pot calling the kettle” when it comes to me and what I do, but this attack was different because of the tone and tact it took. And I give Peerless credit for being classy in the face of this insanity.

EDIT/ADD: Because I am already being asked... Basically TRACO is saying that Peerless is making false claims about some of their products performances. This is actually right from the NFRC playbook... comical.

Elsewhere…

-- By the way… as a special re run…. Because some people “in the know” missed it. The fantastic article from Dr. Helen Sanders of Sage for the GANA Energy committee is HERE. Good stuff.

-- The good ole DOE was back in the news this week. Guess which department wasted tons of energy last year? Yep the Department of ENERGY! Classic “do as we SAY, not as we DO” angle. An audit released last week showed that the DOE lost 11.5 MILLION dollars in wasted energy costs last year. The New York Times wrote about it in more detail here. These guys kill me, maybe they should stop giving money to NFRC and anyone who asks (without justification or legit need) and start to clean up their own house some. Hypocrites of the highest regard.

-- By the way the White House announced that many cabinet secretaries made cost cutting measures to save 104 million next year. Missing from the list…. The DOE.

-- Big weekend coming up… 7-11 is coming out with WWE wresting related souvenir cups…. And my son being the insane fan, will probably be stalking the local 7-11 until he collects em all…

-- For those of you “24” fans out there, the plot for next year has been released. Evidently its Jack trying to stop an assassination. That’s an “old school” plot since that was season 1. I swear they could have Jack Bauer stock shelves at a supermarket and I’d watch.

-- Did you catch the story on USGNN on the ABC’s construction backlog report? I am pretty dense, most of you know that… but I could not for the life of me follow what that index is all about…. Anyway I am an ABI guy… Architectural Billings Index… and that’s been depressing too… maybe I shouldn’t read anything.

-- Last this week… what is a “Green” job? Evidently some controversy is popping up after Newsweek ran a piece (click here) that questioned if any “green” jobs have been created yet… Can you have such a thing as “green job-washing?”

Off to the LINKS…

Link Chick back at it with a vengeance this week…

-- People with the same First and Last names getting married…. Yes its true… what a wild cool rare thing.

-- An Earthquake moves New Zealand… seriously….

-- Very cool list... the top 100 things your kids may never know about. And I can tell you #83 happened to me once. I said to my son, “you wanna go to Kentucky Fried Chicken” and he said “ no way”… I was stunned because I knew he loved it. Well when we passed it, he said “Dad, why not KFC?” And I said “that’s what I offered” to which he replied “No you didn’t, you offered Kentucky Fried Chicken!”

Video of the Week:

A few weeks ago I posted one of those “literal” videos and just could not resist doing it again. This one is a classic Journey tune… and now made even better with this video!!! Just funny stuff….