It was a beautiful young woman that was surrounded by a few friends. She asked me (in English) something I could not really understand since my primary foreign language was German. She persisted and pointed at my sweatshirt and said in a very broken French "Ou as tu trouve ce sweatshirt? (where did you get this sweatshirt?). Ah ! I got it now.... I answered that I bought on clearance at a small clothing store in the town where I lived. What was interesting about the sweatshirt was that a work colleague told me about the sale at the store, so I went and found it cool because of a logo with some English words I did not understand. Later on, I learned it was a cheap reproduction of the Penn State Nittany Lion logo and the person that tapped on my shoulder was a foreign exchange student from the main campus ! To be continued..........

Today at the shop:

Well quite a few things have happened since my last posting (I know I've been slacking a little). The first one is that the storing rack for sheet material is complete and loaded, and boy does it make a difference. Now the heavy PVC or MDO panels glide at the push of a finger ! What ...yes, We equipped the bottom of the racks with inexpensive roller skate wheel (12 for $10, not bad) The whole rack structure is made with 2x4 and can hold 5 sheets which is more than enough. We do not want to hold to much inventory especially when our main supplier delivers 24 hours after our order is placed.
This little project took the equivalent of about a week to complete from beginning to end but was well worth it (I'll post a few pics shortly).
Another thing that was accomplished was the fabrication of a mobile work table to process larger custom signs. The shop is small and when we work on larger projects, it gets very difficult to maneuver long pieces of materials. The new table is 7ft long and 4 ft wide and all made out of 8020 aluminum extrusion (what an amazing product to work with....check their website !) and has casters on each leg. we can freely move the table wherever there is space (even go outside) and free up space for the next project without lifting anything.
What is also very cool about 8020 is that the extrusion allows infinite possibilities in connecting and expending existing assemblies (pics to come).