The Throwback Blog

Last Friday I was lucky enough to go ton 80’s themed NBA game featuring Debbie Gibson as the halftime performance.  So I was already in the “throwback” mode when the e-mail came in from an industry friend with a crazy piece of news from an old nemesis of mine.  Yes, the NFRC has returned to the radar like it was 2005 again.  Now this little tidbit is nothing like what I battled over for years and I have moved on, being too much of a fan of Tom Herron (NFRC’s excellent Senior Manager of Communication & Marketing) to even pick on anything else now that the major battles had passed.  But that said this one was too much not to make a comment on here.  NFRC sent an e-mail to their membership that had chosen to be partners in an ENERGY STAR program.  After thanking them for doing this and mentioning how wise and wonderful the decision was, the next paragraph dropped the doozy:

“As an ENERGY STAR Partner, you have the option to participate in a verification program. However, failure to enroll for verification testing or to respond to requests for products or information in a timely manner will require the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) to inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”

Yep, so you have the “option” to participate but if you DON’T do so, we’re turning in you in to the authorities!  Ummm that means actually you DON’T have the option if you don’t want some muckety muck from the EPA on you.  So why not just spell it out- it’s not an option, it’s a requirement.  Plain and simple right?  I swear it’s like old times again as it was loose, inconsistent language like this that started the whole fight.  I guess it is true that everything old can come back and be new again.  I can go on and on, but if I start ranting on NFRC again, I’ll become that crazy outlier blog no one will want to read.

Elsewhere…

--  But wait… another one of my old staples is China and that too hit my radar this week.  Legendary technical consultant Greg Carney dropped me a note with a link on a story of the growing amount of vacant skyscrapers in China.  The scary part as Greg correctly noted is if this issue causes the Chinese government to stop investing in real estate and the glass guys there (and there’s more than you can ever realize) run out of places to supply… well the dumping that could take place in North America will off the charts.  Here’s the link and it is one story to watch.

--  Almost back to 2013, but before I do, just a heads up on a movie coming out that is based on an incredible, true story from 1994.  The movie is called Pain & Gain and it stars The Rock and Marky Mark Wahlberg.  It will surely be made with a Hollywood spin and be a buddy film sort of thing (based what I saw on the trailer).  However the true story is so unreal, so amazing, and filled with just mind-blowing twists, it’s a shame it won’t be covered accurately.  The story is covered here on this link- it’s three parts long but worth it when you get a moment.

--  And last from the past a word of congrats to a former co-worker of mine Howard Holesapple on his new gig as VP of Sales at Consolidated Glass in New Castle, PA.  Howard is riot, and glad he left his band “Howard and the Holesapples” to stay in the glass industry.

--  Before I end, we’ll come to the present for the last item of the week.  The news that Grey Mountain’s Consolidated Glass Holdings named a new President & CEO broke on GlassMagazine.com late in the week.  I will say the same thing here as I said on my blog when the new CEO at Trulite was announced, I wish them the best of luck as there’s a bunch of excellent people in the organization and no doubt it will surely be interesting to watch how this progresses. 

LINKS of the WEEK

--  Interesting piece onbranding and the actor Ron Howard. 

--  Great “food for thought” story… the original Karate Kid is now as old in real life as his teacher.  Wow, time flies.

--  I don’t think anyone could say they had a worse week than this guy?

VIDEO of the WEEK

This is more for my readers in Canada but also for serious Hockey fans… tribute to Stompin Tom Connors who passed away this week.