Paramount Textile Machine Company - Paramark 20 Transfer Machine

 The Paramount Textile Machine company is no longer in operation.  They were located in High Point, NC and manufactured the Paramark 20 machine that we use at my company.  It is old and parts are hard to find.

I could not find anything in Google Search about this machine so here is what I have on it:

Paramark 20 Heat Transfer Machine

Shit Adrienne Says

Mom, when you have grandkids from London they will be mixed.  You better learn how to do corn rows.

Enfitnix XLite 100 Smart Tail Light

I purchased the ENFITNIX XLite 100 Smart Tail light for my bicycle.  Since I can't see it while I am riding and I have not remembered to ask those riding behind me (of which there are very few) I do not know how this perfroms.  I do know that I have it set on automatic and I have it on a table in my garage and if the table is bumped or very slightly touched the light recognizes the motion and turns on.

Since I could not find the manual for this thing on line and I hate keeping hard copies of manuals or anything paper, I have scanned it and added it to this link for anyone else to use:

 ENFITNIX XLite 100 Smart Tail Light

The Motley Fool Effect

I subscribe to the Motley Fool Stock Advisor (their lowest level I believe) where you are sent stock recommendations about every week.  I don't always buy their recommendations but occasionally I do if I feel the recommended stock fits my overall strategy.

An interesting phenomenon I have noticed is that on some of the stocks (especially the smaller cap stocks) immediately after the Motley Fool email is sent recommending the stock the volume and price jump on that stock.

Case in point: the recommendation today is Charlotte's Web Holdings (CWBHF) and the email I received today at 1:38 PM GMT -4 (EDT).  Take a look at what happened after the recommendation was sent out:

There was an immediate spike at 1:00 PM.  Did some people get the email before me?  Did someone know that the email was going to go out and bought beforehand?  Are they staggering the emails sent?  Does my email server (Office 365) suck and not deliver my mail in a timely fashion?

Who is acting on the recommendation before I get it?  Are Motely Fool employees buying the stock before the emails are sent out?

In this case it is not a big deal to me because I don't particularly like this stock but if it were one that I really liked, I would be upset that everyone else was able to buy early and drive up the price before me.

Yoga Pants

Am I the only one who really likes the new fashion trend that has all those young women wearing yoga stretch pants everywhere and in all seasons?  It adds just a touch of positivity to traveling through airports.

New Parental Names

The kids have give me and the wife yet another set of names:

Hers - Squinchy
Me - Imaginary Squinchy

I won't go into details here but they can be viewed as non-loving nicknames.  At least hers.

They have given each other names too which they use in conversations with very annoying low forced voices.

London's name is Roger, Adrienne's name is Alfred and Atticus' name is Chloe.

Newton, North Carolina Post Office - Getting your passport

So since we are doing this epic trip this summer in the RV and planning to go to Canada, it is time to get the three kids passports. To figure out how to apply for passports I went to the site travel.state.gov and followed the directions.  For an individual getting his or her passport for the first time, one must go to either a passport office or a Passport Acceptance Facility that handles the applications.

So I did a search for a Passport Acceptance Facility near me on the travel.state.gov website. It showed me the results below:

So I thought it would be no problem to take the children to the Newton, NC Post Office Passport Acceptance Facility on a Monday to submit their applications for their passports.

So I leave work and meet the wife and three children at the Newton Post Office at about 3:30 PM.  The nice lady in the Post Office kindly informed us that the person who did the passport applications was not there today and that he took appointments.  We had to schedule an appointment for this coming Thursday.

It would have been nice if the travel.state.gov website actually made mention that we needed an appointment to get a passport application submitted.  I guess I should not be surprised that when dealing with a government agency I would have my time wasted.

So if anyone needs to know:
If you want to submit your passport application at the Newton, NC Post Office, you need an appointment.  Call ahead in plenty of time and don't expect that you will be able to get just the time slot you need.  They were pretty full.  The person who accepts teh applications is not at the Newton Post Office but on certain days.

The Hickory, NC Post Office accepts walk-ins for submitting passport applications but there is often a significant wait.  The travel.state.gov website doesn't indicate that the Hickory Post Office accepts walk-ins.  Lots of room for improvement with that site on this front.

Life out of Control

Right now my life feels out of control for the following reasons:

1. Business is very difficult.  We were making lots of money now not.
2. Taking extended vacation this summer with the family - will be gone for at least a month.  Lots of planning.
3. Three children in five different sports.  Every night and weekend there is something - practice or games.
4. Multiple properties to consider and manage - takes lots of time and even more money.

Catch in my left thumb

In the past month or so I've noticed a catch in my thumb.  Sometimes whenn I move our in a certain way it feels like it won't move any further Ehren though it should.  And maybe half the time I can bend it in a different way it will emit a audible crack and then it will move freely. It seems to be intermittent and is not painful when it happens - just mildly uncomfortable.  There's a good sense of relief and things feel like they are back to normal immediately after I hear the crack.

Shit Adrienne says

I'm a free range chicken, yo.  I can't be held back.

Heard around the house today

I was walking through the fourier today and I heard Tamara ask Atticus in a very loud voice "Why are you pelvic thrusting all over the house?"

Atticus: "What is pelvic thrusting?" as he thrusts his pelvis forward and backward on the handrail.
Tamara: "Its what you are doing!!"

Startown Landsharks difficult Season

So Atticus was on the baseball team called Startown Landsharks this fall season.  He has played baseball since he was about 4 or 5 and this was his first season in the kid pitch league.  I think it is called Babe Ruth League 10U.

He has played with the same group of boys for about two years now.  This past spring season which was machine pitch we had a pretty good team with a decent record.   This fall has been brutal to the Startown Landsharks.  For one reason or another the kids had a very difficult time focusing as a team while trying to get used to a human being pitching to them instead of a machine.

I don't even know what our record was but I do know that we didn't win a game all season.  Our final game last night was absolutely brutal.  We were up to bat first and went down 3 up 3 down.  The bottom half of the first inning took about an hour and I lost count of how many batters were walked and the number of runs scored.  We went through 3 pitchers in the first inning.

It has been on hell of a learning experience for the kids and the coaches did the best they could (I was labeled a coach and came to all the games that I could but my lack of baseball knowledge really doesn't qualify me to be a "coach") but it was a humiliating season.  I just hope that some lessons were learned and that next season will be much better.

By the way, Atticus played 1st base and Pitcher.  He walked many and hit at least two batters.  Nevertheless he really enjoyed pitching and playing.

Sick Again!!!

I started getting sick again on Saturday the 3rd.  Noticed a little cough.  Now I have head congestion, headache and am coughing up phlegm. 

Getting over Sick

Today is the first day that I have not coughed my head off.  So for the record this sickness lasted about a week.  No fever and no doctor visit.  Just a lot of coughing, phlegm and headaches.

Sick

I started feeling it on Thursday night September 3.  Friday the 4th in the morning I felt terrible and I stayed in bed until about 10.

Saturday the 5th I was feeling a bit better and took the boat to the lake.  Drank only water.

Sunday the 6th went to the lake again.  Drank only water.  Felt a bit better but still a cough.

Monday the 7th felt a bit better still but still the hacking cough. Coughing up phlegm from my chest.

Today still have the cough.  Couldn't sleep.  Plenty of phlegm.

Jet Lag

Trip to India and China.

Left Newark June 28 at 9 pm local arrived in Delhi around 10 pm local the next day June 29.  Checked into the radisson blue in Delhi about 11 pm slept from about 1 am to 5 am.

Arrived in Kolkata June 30 about 9 am did factory tours until about 7 pm.  Slept from 10 pm to 4 am July 1.

July 1 left hotel about 9 rode two hours to visit knitting and dipping factories.  Rode back to Kolkata to visit company headquarters. Arrived back at hotel about 7 pm.  Slept from 11:30 pm to 3 am on July 2.

July 2 factory tours from 10 am to 4 pm. Slept from 5 pm to 8 pm.  Slept from midnight to 5 am July 3.

Another Adrienne Saying

Adrienne sitting in London's bed (becausae she is afraid to sleep by herself in her room) on her iPad talking about the wireless signal:

"Dad, I only have two bars.  We are living like animals!"

Called out

We are in Goldsboro staying the night getting ready to drop the children off for camp tomorrow. The kids of been swimming at the pool and I've been hanging out watching them.

Tamara has gone back to the room to help the girls to go out to dinner. Atticus has been in the pool swimming by himself. He got out of the pool came up to me and said "dad, that is your third beer!"

When the hell did he become the beer police?

Stubborn little ass

Here's the shit that I have to deal with on almost a daily basis. Atticus comes downstairs with about 20 minutes left before we have to leave for school and ask for breakfast.

I tell him that I will be happy to make the breakfast for him. I ask him what he would like. He asked for waffle with chocolate chips placed in each cavity and a chocolate smoothie.

I explained to him that I will not make both those things for him because he will not eat them both.  He insists he will. So then I tell him he can either make a choice or have no breakfast. He storms off back upstairs to see his mother Who comes downstairs and opens the freezer to start making the waffle and smoothie. I told her that I would not allow him to have any breakfast this morning because of his completely unreasonable demands.

His mother did not like the fact that I requested that she not make him breakfast. In my opinion, I think that the fact that his mother will do just about anything he asks her to do his part of the problem.

Hanging with Adrienne

So I'm here at Fort Walton Beach Florida at the Waterscapes resort.  We arrived yesterday morning and the kids have been super active the entire time.

Right now it's about 8:30 PM and everybody has gone upstairs to hang out in the room except for me and Adrienne.

For the past 30 minutes she is been swimming around the lazy river in the reverse direction against the current. She doesn't mind play by herself. Earlier today she was playing by herself under all of the water features.

She usually hangs around everybody else until she's ready to go do something else on her own. Then she'll go and do it and not think a thing about being alone.