Sunday, May 01, 2011

Pay attention to what matters

This past week really showed the mix up of our priorities as violent weather racked the south while a majority of the country was either paying attention to the bogus birth certificate issue or a royal wedding. The tornadoes that hit the south were nothing short of catastrophic for so many. So really it should be time to properly pay attention and send our thoughts and prayers to the people that need them. Our industry was touched by these storms with one of the production buildings of Coral Industries being flattened. Thankfully and amazingly no one was hurt as the folks at Coral heeded the warnings and were cleared out of the structure before the storm rolled through. I have exchanged a few e mails with Coral’s Lewis McCallister and he, his family, and the folks at Coral are back at work and throwing themselves into the needs of their customers and community. Their undamaged building is up and running and the diversion of work is probably a good thing to keep their minds off of what just happened. The ownership at Coral is amongst the “good people” in our industry, so there’s no doubt that they will emerge from this better than ever. All positive wishes and support towards those guys and the entire affected region (which spreads over several states) is really necessary and appreciated.

Coral has started a Twitter feed with updates and items that you can provide to help and that can be accessed HERE.

Also for the entire effort to help the folks in Tuscaloosa, the website is able to be found by clicking this link.

Elsewhere…

-- Wild timing as last week AAMA released a voluntary Tornado specification. I think after seeing the video and destruction, there really isn’t anything we can put in to stop that fury. It’s like an old co worker used to tell me about hurricane material- the system may be tested to deal with a category 5, but the rest of the building won’t be.

-- Funny that I have been blogging since 2005 and with her effort last week, Jenni Chase may have stirred up more of a tempest than I ever have. The interesting part of Jenni’s blog were the comments, both public and privately to me. (both on e mail and to my blog ironically)They ran all across the board, including some nasty ones (sent anonymously, of course) that really curdled and boggled the brain. But there is no doubt that this is a very volatile issue and time in our world and the next few months will undoubtedly be very interesting. Especially as truth is separated from rumor and fact from innuendo.

-- The Kentucky Derby is this coming Saturday and as some of you may remember my daughter actually picked the Triple Crown correctly last year. So we will see if she can do it again. The post positions and odds come out mid week, and after she picks I’ll post it at my blog’s home site- which can be found HERE. If she does it again, we will move to Vegas this time.

-- The excellent Glazing Executive Forum announced its keynote speaker this year is the CEO of Serious Materials Kevin Surace. Just hearing his version of the work at the Empire State Building will be worth attending. Seriously the entire event is a tremendous deal and if you are coming to GlassBuild America (which I am sure all intelligent people are) then doing this event is a no brainer. Mark the calendar for September 12th and I am sure you will be seeing a ton more on this and the show in the coming months.

-- Last this week… I have run stories in the past on passwords and how some people just use things like “123456” and “QWERTY” but I had to share in the main part of the blog this amazing story. Do you realize that a hacker can figure out a 6 character, no number/letter mix, no uppercase password in 10 minutes? That is just wild. The quick blurb, which blew my feeble mind is HERE.

LINKS of the WEEK

-- I have told my kids over and over that if you want to be great at something you have to practice. Even the book Outliers explains it. Now one man is putting the theory to test. Should be wild to see if it works!

-- Really interesting story here on the man who volunteered as Lt Governor of New York, passed up pay but really struggled in the goofy world of government and as a parting gift still go hit with a tax bill! Man we are a mess.

-- And yet another great story for the travelers out there. The pet peeves etc. I see so many of these in my travels- at least I am not alone in utter frustration.

VIDEO of the WEEK

Well my pick of the Nuggets failed, but they did win one thing… a spot on the VIDEO of the WEEK with this awesome throw for a hoop by JR Smith. This is just epic.

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