For the last several years I have been among the folks sounding the alarm on the goings on at NFRC. Sadly the new program is here and we all have to deal with it, but at last week’s meetings stark reminders came out on who drives the bus and who makes the cash… so get ready, the hands are still out and waiting for all of you to pay. It’s bad enough that professionals dealing with professionals, with legal contracts are not good enough, but now coming soon, prepare to pay up even more. At last week’s meeting one of the labs, with support of the other testing labs made moves to have the database, which is like not even 6 months old or even close to being populated, regulated for shelf life. Basically, the labs, figuring that once everyone gets their materials into CMA, a part of their gravy train will be finished, so they now have come out and said “we need to test every couple years” you know to ensure the products are still performing the same way or are still viable…. Or in plain terms, we need to keep our cash flow going! And while you’re at it, let’s also include testing Spandrel in our little adventure… even though the brain surgeons making that call have no idea what Pandora ’s Box they are opening there. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. And judging from the outright confusion and frustration of the people that are being forced into this mess, it’s surely going to be an ugly road ahead.
Elsewhere…
-- I did laugh when I saw in one of the many press releases from NFRC last week that they raised a whole $420 for New Orleans during the meeting. Considering the windfall that NFRC and the labs and others stand to make from this mess, it sure seems pathetic doesn’t it? Especially when you factor in how expensive it is to even go to one day of meetings… $420? Really?
-- Switching gears… Congrats to Brad Austin on his new gig as President of Harmon. Brad is a tremendously talented guy and also a very strong industry person (a key player in the success of GANA among other things). No doubt that switching to the “other side” will be a challenge, but I am confident Brad will do very well.
-- Got a lot of good feedback to my e mail on the LEED and Frank Gehry stuff from last week. The key always has to be that energy efficiency and performance need to be the drivers and not certifications. Hopefully that catches on.
-- What is it with our industry and MIT lately? Last month Don McCann of Viracon spoke at MIT and now, I get wind of an awesome Sun Shade project that Doralco along with Karas and Karas did there. ( I am guessing you’ll see it under “Great Glazing on E Weekly one of these weeks) Sun Shades are one of those really cool products that continue to grow in popularity and it’s nice to see the folks designing at and for MIT get it. Kudos to friend of the blog Tom O’Malley and his gang on a job well done.
-- Cool blog alert! The Chicago Window Expert… you can find it HERE. Has some really cool interviews with real diverse characters. Doesn’t update it very often but when he does its quality stuff.
-- I am embarrassed to say I don’t know a ton about this ongoing lead and EPA issue, but the stuff I am reading is pretty frightening. The release from the NGA was very powerful and hopefully some action will be coming to right the wrongs. Obviously the main scary point for me is NFRC started this way, hitting more from a residential side before seeing the money stream and coming to commercial….
-- Last this week, the New York Times had an interesting piece over the weekend that basically said that the economy is ready to roar again… my gosh this would surely be a time to get a story right eh? Anyway it does paint a rosy picture and if you want to see for yourself, the story can be found HERE.
Off to the Links!
-- Interesting read on Facebook being the next big competitor to Google….And since I’m not a Facebook guy I guess I’ll never know what the fuss is about.
-- If you missed it, the world’s newest millionaire thanks to Powerball… and he worked at the store that sold the ticket!
-- I love Twitter but this is crazy… it’s now being used as a dating site… No doubt trying to get dates on Twitter is below the bar scene…
Video of the Week:
Back to baseball with this amazing play from the college ranks… basically the third baserunner does his best “Superman” imitation and goes high above to score the run… very cool stuff…
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