TIMBER!

 Just in time for hurricane and severe storm season in Texas!  "Timber - the yell from loggers as a tree is felled".  It was an industrial sized exercise in safely removing the huge 110' water oak tree from my backyard.  The tree had a good life and was here long before I walked the face of this earth.  However, all good things must come to an end and the tree was riddled with structural weakness.  Although the tree had weathered many a storm and I'm sure kids of this house grew up playing hide-an-go-seek around the trunk and families enjoyed the shade as a respite from the brutal Texas summers, alas she is no more.

Many thanks to my friends and neighbors who pitched in and hauled off all of the sawdust.  Oak makes really good mulch.  It was back breaking work to haul it all off then to haul in some dirt to level it all back out.  Whew.  Glad that is behind me.  My next door neighbors hauled off two full truck loads of the stuff.

The tree service that took down the tree was most outstanding and I was very impressed with their professionalism and commitment to safety.  Like any good company, customer service is what it is all about.  At Synchro32, the global Synchro32 team is committed to legendary platinum level customer service that exceeds all expectations.  Period.   

As illustrated in the final pictures of Doc Holliday the MinPin - as a foundry person you can rest well at night knowing that Synchro32 is hard at work and that you are using the the best metalcasting specific software.

As you are looking at the following pictures that animate the tree removal process, look at all of the heavy duty metalcastings that went into the manufacturing of these awesome machines. I'm a boy and like Bob Vila, I like big boy toys. That crane had some stout castings on it and check out the teeth of the stump grinder. I would really have liked to take that crane for a ride. I worked seismic survey in the Louisiana , Krotz Springs, Opelousas, and Port Barie area of the Atchafalya Basin, during my college years and I got to drive many cool off-road vehicles. Nothing like being knee deep in an alligator and water moccasin infested swamp by 7am!

Until next time, see you on down the road... 

Back from Wisconsin...

Hello from blazing hot Texas!  The green text at least makes me feel cooler!  It's been a scorcher already this year and officially, Summer has just commenced.  

Chris Collins, MD/CEO, of Synchro32 and I met up in Wisconsin for the AFS Wisconsin Regional 2010.  By the way, MD refers to Managing Director and not Medical Doctor.  First time I met up with Chris during the hiring/interview/ phase, I had no idea as to what an MD truly was - I really thought he was a medical doctor!  Seemed like a strange combination of being a sawbones and involved with the metalcasting industry. 

Although one would say that the regional conference was anything but a stellar success, Synchro32 still firmly stands behind and supports the AFS Wisconsin Chapter.  For whatever reason, the attendance was shall I say dismal.  The venue location was changed to Oconomowoc at the Olympia Resort and Spa from the Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.  The event was also shifted from bitterly cold and totally unpredictable February to comfortable and more predictable late Spring. 

Synchro32 has absolutely no doubt that the AFS Wisconsin Chapter will pull it all together and make the necessary changes to have the next expo/meeting a resounding success.

However, there were many positive things that came out of this regional conference.  Chris and I got to spend a lot of time together and discuss the entire company, our operations, growth projections, what we are doing right and what we need to do moving forward.  Additionally, Chris, Phil Laney of B&L, and Steve Hoppe of Guardian Software all got together over dinner to discuss the state of the industry and to get to know each other.  Furthermore, Synchro32 met up with a lot of our vendor friends and also made new industry friends.  These are all hugely important components of an expo and is immeasurable.  One can not always judge the success of an expo based on the number of sales leads obtained and converted.

Well, I've put my traveling cases in storage for a while.  Next up, and not until October, is the Investment Casting show in Dearborn Michigan!  http://www.investmentcasting.org/events.asp  Leland Martin and the team at the ICI always do a bang up job each year.  I've already got my flight booked!  Hope to see all of you investment casters there!

Till next time, see you on down the road.

Say Yah to Da Up eh?

Its Not To Late!

I can assure you, that the 2010 release of the AFS Wisconsin Regional will NOT be ground to a halt, at least not due to blizzard conditions!

It's not too late to make your plans and head on over to Wisconsin for the AFS Regional Conference! I will be meeting up with the Synchro32 CEO/Managing Director Chris Collins next week. If you are in attendance at this important show, be sure to make plans to attend the presentation by Chris and Tom on Wed morning at 9am sharp!

The weather looks great for next week, if you place much stock in weather forecasting! One thing is for sure, the temperatures should be a lot more moderate than what we are currently experiencing here in Texas. As I look at my thermometer, it is a pleasant 98.9f (37.2c) outside right now. Temps in Wisconsin should only reach the 70's!

For more information on the AFS Wisconsin Regional at the new venue of the Olympia Resort - please see http://www.olympiaresort.com/ and http://www.wisconsinafs.org/1006/1006.html

In advance, the entire global Synchro32 team wants to thank Donna Nagy, Tom Schell, and everyone else involved for bringing this all together. It is no small feat in pulling this important conference off year after year. Synchro32 also wants everyone to know that we give three thumbs up to having this Conference at a new location that is less expensive, easier parking, no bottlenecks at elevators (theory of constraints), and in a more relaxed atmosphere. Synchro32 also wants to say that we really appreciate and approve of rescheduling the event to a, shall I say, more favorable time of the year. Synchro32 is a very cost conscious company and the "blizzard" of Feb 2008 made the AFS Wisconsin show a very expensive endeavor for us as we received only one lead and I was a full day late in arriving due to airport closures.  As illustrated by the opening photo of this blog entry, I saved the newspaper from 2008.  

Please be sure to visit Synchro32 in booth #28. The show kicks off on Wednesday and finishes up on Thursday.

Till next time, see you on down the road...

Shane