Month: January 2008

/ Don

Peerless Literature

This week, I (with some help from Mike) installed a new sink in my bathroom. It was fairly easy, except for the coupling nut located specifically to be irksome to lefties. This certainly wouldn’t be worth a blog post except that literature that came with the new Peerless faucet was so funny. Take a look:

instructions_large.jpg

They also have an online version, which isn’t as well-crafted or executed as the print piece. The link is below. Oh, and if you’re interested, the faucet came out great. Here’s a picture for all you DIYers out there:
sink_small.jpg

Peerless Links
Faucet Coach
Peerless Faucet
Uninstallation Demo

(I’m not exactly sure why the favicon for that site is a 1980s highschool yearbook photo of some dude with a Cosby sweater)

/ Don

Only in New York

img00005.jpgYesterday evening, when walking back to the PATH, I saw a restaurant with a kitten in the window, pining for attention. Above him, taped to the window, was a sign that said “SORRY! No pets inside the restaurant as required by the NYC Board of Health.” Apparently the owners’ pets are okay, but customers’ pets are not. In the picture you can see the kitten, sign and me. Apologies for the poor photo. Like a dolt, I didn’t have my CF card for my camera, so this picture was taken on a camera phone.

 
/ Don

Mark Khaisman Packing Tape Art

The things people do with tape nowadays…

A little while ago, i posted some examples of the Scotch Tape People by Mark Jenkins. Well, now, take a look at the works crafted from packing tape by Ukraine-born, Philadelphia-based artist Mark Khaisman. These large archetypal images are made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to plexiglass and then placed in front of a light box to give the image shadow and depth. Read more

/ Don

Adventures in Small Business Banking

In an effort to consolidate and grow my businesses, our shareholders made the decision to pull up the stakes of our satellite offices and to re-locate everything to the New York City area—Hoboken, to be concise. Amid the discussions with lawyers, attorneys, shareholders, clients, employees and contractors, one of the tasks at hand was re-evaluating our banking situation.

When the company first surfaced in 2001, we had the intention of providing payroll to the engagement managers and fulltime employees and then sending wires or direct deposits to each contractor in the network. Our first choice was Fleet, which was bought by Bank One in 1999 and slowly became its successor in 2002-03 (and then Bank of America in 2004). We moved to Chase, as they have branches in cities of our satellite offices and this made it easier to provide direct deposits to employees all over the globe. The decision was made out of necessity and mediocre benefit before due diligence was executed and, though Chase treated us well, they treated our pocketbooks like a large business.

The consolidation that is now underway brought back the opportunity to rethink some of our initial decisions to see what was best for the company. Armed by seven new years of experience in small business management, I approached almost all the banks in Hoboken and did my own due diligence. Read more