This blog is about religion. No, not Rick Santorum. Nothing about Judaism or Islam. I’m talking about the Cub religion, which I’ve practiced since I was three. Chicago is a town where you are either born Cubs or Sox. You really can’t be both, though some mixed marriages have survived – I’ve been told. My lineage is Cub, primarily through my Mother, who grew up near Wrigley Field and used to walk to the games during high school. Her father, Sam Kassel, was a Cub fan from a young age. His parents owned a small grocery store on Chicago’s West side…
Author: Lloyd Graff
A friend of mine was trying to help an acquaintance of hers get a new job. She sent me her résumé for my suggestions, or better yet, to see if I might want to hire her. I read the short résumé of the 50-year-old lady and cringed. She claimed at the top of the document that she increased corporate sales by 11.7% and cash flow by 3.4%. As a boss I read those numbers and the word “bogus” flashed before my eyes. A person in an estimating job like this woman had, should not boast that she raised sales or…
I received a fascinating phone call after the last blog on titanium wedding bands from a gentleman named Roger Turnley. Roger has spent many years in the jewelry game and before that he sold Citizen CNCs for Methods Machinery in Los Angeles. He is acutely aware of the intersection of machine tools and wedding bands. In recent years he has developed his own CNC machine under the name RingTech aimed at the jewelry makers all over the world. According to Roger Turnley, 80 million rings are produced in the U.S. annually (shipped worldwide). I was highly skeptical of the number…
I was shooting the breeze with a fellow machine tool peddler and he threw out the comment that he had an inquiry from a Chassidic jeweler in Manhattan who was interested in buying a M32 Citizen to run titanium wedding bands. This intrigued me because I had never heard of a wedding band made of such material, but he told me it was the hot new thing in jewelry. “How much would it cost to make one?” I asked. He said he had already priced it and figured a ring would cost $6 max for material, plus polishing costs. My…
Memories are elusive wisps of mental energy. I jumpstart mine with photos on my refrigerator and a ceiling length picture board, also in the kitchen. The photo that I have been drawn to lately is one of my father Leonard and my son Ari. Ari was 10 years old at the time and my Dad was 71. It was taken at Gulfstream Race Track, north of Miami Beach. Dad had the Daily Racing Form in his hand and he was trying to explain horse race betting to Ari. I’ve been wondering why this picture has such a hold on me.…
Costa Rica is the hot spot these days for the medical machining business. With the free trade agreement with Central America, medical companies are ignoring Puerto Rico, which has become increasingly uncomfortable with crime, and heading to the beautiful little country with two ocean coasts. San Jose is an easy plane ride from Miami or Dallas and the political climate is benign. On medical or dental products the airfreight is tiny versus the value added. ***** I’m such a sucker for underdog sports stories; I think I have a Rudy complex. But Jeremy Lin – you gotta love it. Because…
It was one of those “Oh no” moments. I received a call from a former employee saying a mutual friend, Al, who I had had a falling out with, had suffered a “major stroke.” I had not spoken to Al for almost five years, but when I heard the news of the stroke I felt awful. “What if he dies or cannot speak?” I thought to myself. The annoyance about our past business disagreement evaporated in the anguish of the moment of realization that an old friend was suffering. I texted Al’s cell phone to tell him I cared about him…
Pitney Bowes, the postal management company, is a hated name at my office, and probably yours too, if like us you are stuck with a machine and a contract you no longer need. And trust me, you are stuck if you have signed a contract with this fat old company that has a mighty big problem. Their business, their wonderful cash cow of a business, is rapidly going down the drain. They share the Eastman Kodak problem; the U.S. Postal Service problem. What do you do if the market for your core business is shrinking? We’ve seen this story in…
The New York Giants won the Super Bowl on Sunday and certainly enhanced the NFL brand and the Eli Manning brand. But the real marketing coup goes to Forrest Lucas, who owns the privately held Lucas Oil Products Inc., the name on the stadium where the game was held. The stadium also hosted the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament Finals. In an advertising contest where huge companies spend tens of millions of dollars, a shrewd guy with a relatively small company – around $150 million in sales – got enormous name recognition by piggybacking on America’s high holiday of football –…
Emily Halgrimson, Today’s Machining World’s Managing Editor, was invited to join 11 other journalists from the U.S. and Canada (six in the automotive sector and six in the food industry sector) by the government of Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) on a four-day media tour to promote Thailand’s industry around Bangkok and the Southeastern seaboard. Saturday, January 14th 10 a.m. – Left Chicago’s O’Hare International for Thailand on American Airlines. It’s not comforting to fly a bankrupt airline’s 757 over the Pacific. The distance is a drawback to North Americans doing business in Southeast Asia – 15 hours to Shanghai and another six to…