hmmm, yeahh......

edwin will continue to roll along, just at a fraction the size as before. I have learned that it is really hard to make enough to feed yourself, pay a mortgage and cover all of the daily expenses with the margins that come from being a full time bike maker.
Upon returning to the mill, I will focus on just titanium bikes, and won't attempt to make more than a few a month. The rest of that time, will be focused on doing something that I haven't done in five years....enjoy my life and where I live! life is too fruitin' short to be angry anymore.
In the interim...its off to work work work work.....and to stop messing around in cyber space,
later all!

small boinger

holly's new midmountain...16" frame...barely enough room for the shock for crying out loud.

stainless.....hmmmmmmmmmm

pre clear..

more goodness...

hmmm, glue..

today was a nutty day...started off with the usual early hours of paperwork followed by hitting the shop floor to complete the first half of the 300 chaintensioners for one customer, while simutaneously welding up the rest of the stay bridges and gluing up the cable guides on the carbon prototype..yes..that is right, carbon...don't get excited, its a mix of steel and carbon, quite sexy and with all the waterjet cut embellishments (e's) one could dream of having. Isn't 'e' a great thing? I cannot help but think of kermit the frog when I see the font...odd huh? also managed to get the road trip from hell wrapped up, salt lake to pick up frame annealing compounds, then to provo to pick up the new edwin bottle openers...sooooo sexy! 3.00 each by the way, and they go to support my sam adams habit..so ante up! (6061 T6 alluminum)

This pic is a close up...can you tell what it is? remember those annoying pics in that kids magazine of which I cannot remember the name of that did this?

okay, time for work stuff....

taxes...

so this morning I was going thru the piles of mail that I intentionally don't touch in the evenings to save me from sleep loss..well, I open the one from the Utah State Tax Commission and discover its been a banner sales period for Edwin! We owed 15,159.24 in sales tax revenues! of course, no one told me that was the case, where is the money exactly? ha ha..clearly a clerical errror..so I suppressed my anger and called to find out what was up.

I am amazed to find that a guy actually answered the phone there at a little past 7:30AM, and he was super helpful. Apparently the computer they use will calculate an average figure if you fail to mail in a tax report for that quarter...ouch, that thing is an optimist for sure huh?

Anyhow, here I sit, with a pile of quarterly tax reports to file...and still need to get my arse to working on the shop floor. Let the minutia begin!

On a shiny note, the new carbon rear ends will be done soon...

what day is it?

another fun day ahead, its saturday, and I feel like its mid week still. Had one hell of a week, found a great new location in park city to move the shop to; price was good too. landlords were bummed about us leaving, but no fuss was made, so I started tearing down a wall in the new shop, coordinating the move of the equipment, and dealing with the licensing, etc. Well, after a marathon day that included moving the first trailer load, I got approached by the new landlord and told that the shop wasn't zoned light industrial...this was bad. Then, one of the original landlords called and told me he expected me to pay rent on the original shop until it was rented...yeah, sure, I will pay rent, my business will go down, and you will be motivated to find a new renter when half of the shops in that area are already moved or closed for good? Needless to say I said fuck it, and spent another two days moving back in (reinstalling cabinets, etc.) and now I get to fix the wall I tore down..because its the right thing to do (at my cost of course).
Lesson learned? none.

f(*&^^% china

okay, just a quick update, and pardon the clearly masked explative on the title, but I am po'ed. I am frantically trying to meet the needs of a USA based company that needs a run of parts going that could mean jobs and work for americans. Instead, their business has already made inquires with Chineese makers to do their stuff, convinced that americans cannot and will not do their product at a cost that will be competitive with other stuff out there. Does anyone get it? are we going to be swallowed up by our insatiable thirst for stuff in quantities that lure us in by "per unit cost" ? how many fucking 40 foot shipping containers of crap does a manufacturer really need before they realize they are trying to sell off the remains at a lower cost later in the year and wondering why their product isn't worth a damn? fuck you nixon for helping pave the way for what is now the prostitution of our country's manufacturing capacity. And to the coroporate mucky mucks, a much deserved up yours...roll up your collective sleeves america...lets make having dirt under your nails a badge of honor once again...
okay, I am done...rants feel gooooooooodddddd!

what is it I "do" here...?

so its a monday and I cannot help but think about the movie office space when they talked about 'someone's having a case of the mondays' ahh, yes, what a great movie huh? anyhow, I spend monday playing office whipping boy, at the risk of my fingertips becoming soft, and the dirt dissipating under my nails, but someone's gotta do it right? anyhow, its not really work...yet somehow I feel exhausted at the end of the day. I would kill to just be building bikes and making chips..help! new website has yet to launch, so I killed myself to get the current one polished so it looks at least somewhat better...no laughing. Side note: I got asked by a person from Specialized to consider being a framebuilder for them....hmmmmmmmm.....

http://vimeo.com/5765805