Sept 17, 2023

Dear Friends,

Yesterday (Saturday), James and I left bright and early to drive to Tyler for a longarm machine install.  We were well prepared by asking the girls (Donna, Penny, Kim), “did you pack the leaders?”  “Did you pack the owner tools?”  “Did you pack the carriage rails?  Did you include the paperwork . . . etc?”  So clearly James and I had done our work in prepping for the install.

So we have two issues to discuss for this e-mail, one being the aggravation that Google maps can sometimes cause, and the other being that we failed to ask the girls if they included a specific item in prepping for our trip.  

I had experienced the Google maps aggravation before, some years back.  Had to get to the Tyler bus station.  Google ran me through all sorts of turns and traffic lights, and successfully did it’s best to get me totally disoriented.  Next time, I looked at a paper map before leaving and found that, once you enter Tyler, it took only a single turn to get to the bus station.  So, yesterday was similar.  All around Robinson’s barn to get to where we were going.  But on the way back, James knew Tyler enough that it took only two turns to get out of Tyler on the road headed back to the shop.  Clearly Google never did learn it’s way around Tyler.

Issue number two: James and I together know exactly how to put a longarm frame together, put the carriage rails in place, put the blue gear track in place as needed for Pro-Stitcher.  We knew how to hook up all the electronics, how to level the longarm frame, and all the myriad of other details . . . . except we had neglected to ask the girls that morning if they had packed the bobbin winder.  Crap.  Nope, we didn’t have it.  So there was no way to even wind a bobbin to get the customer started in using her new machine!  (Am considering that maybe James and I should have taken more of the actual responsibility of packing rather than simply asking the girls.  But let’s not look too closely on that.)

So for all the loading, traveling, unloading, and assembly work we did, there it was.  Everything came to a grinding halt for the lack of a tiny little wound bobbin.  So my job tomorrow will be to pack up a bobbin winder and get it sent to our customer via UPS asap.

Have to admit I had a little aggravation issue this morning too.  Was fixing a Malt-O-Meal breakfast for Donna.  After cooking it, she likes me to add some cream to get the consistency right.  So I did all the right things.  Boiling water, add the Malt-to-Meal, cook it, pour it in the bowl, adjust the consistency . . . Suddenly a little miller bug hopped into the bowl, and he was instantly creamated.

Chip