Thanks to the 46,254 people who have visited this site as of 8/13/09. We know there is a lot of information here for you but did you know that you could be getting a lot more out of T-Biznetwork.com? I think it’s time to let you know how.

What is with you people? We have an average daily visitor count of 889.5 people so it stands to reason that some of you must have opinions and that some of you actually voice your opinion on occasion. OK, most of you are the silent majority I guess. Gee, what good does it do to be in the majority if you’re silent? Poof…you don’t matter at all because it’s the vocal minority that gets all the attention.

“What the heck is she talking about?” you might be saying. “Why is she being such a bitch to us?” others might be voicing. What I’m voicing is “What are you – a bunch of chicken s—s?” Afraid to answer a few questions on our survey or post answers/questions on the forums that might help a lot of fellow screen printers?

Or perhaps you are a procrastinator. Or perhaps you didn’t click down to see that we actually have a pretty good survey running right now.

OK, now you know. I’m showing the results of the survey as of today – 8/14 a.m. at the end of this blog. I’ve been following them and have seen a particularly interesting change in the results from the question “Do you think the economy has hit bottom?” Up until about 10 days ago the NO vote was at about 60%, the YES vote was about 40%. Today that is reversed – the YES vote is at 55% and the NO vote 45%. So there seems to be some optimism of economic recovery out there. What would the results look like if 100 people voted?

I’ve decided to give weekly reports on some of the survey stats because I feel there is timely and valuable information there for all of us. Some questions are a barometer of our industry, others we can view as accumulating material for industry standardization. The bottom line is that they are about our industry, our livelihoods, they are there for you. So get over your shyness and start to post your answers on the survey right now. If we can get a decent base here then we will add more questions.

Along those thoughts……the goal here is to get pertinent valid input from all of you regarding what survey questions you would like to see. Just post a reply to this blog with your suggestions.

And…..while I’m in the “busting your chops” mood today I’m going to yell at you for not posting on the forums. Granted, most forums are pretty dead right now but with 367.15 “new” or “unique” visitors per day (uvpd) to this site (889.50 total visitors per day (tvpd) I would think that some of you are in the screen printing/garment decorating industry and that some of you are newbies. That being a correct assumption, then why the heck aren’t you asking your “newbie” questions? Afraid you’ll look stupid? Hey, we ALL look stupid sometimes. The stupider (is that a word?) person doesn’t ask the question and therefore doesn’t get the input from industry veterans that can give you a host of answers and a host of fixes.

So I hope one of my future blogs will be to give thanks to everyone for their valuable input on the surveys and the forums. The other hope is to turn the “silent majority” into the “vocal majority.” Of course I also hope to develop a cure for cancer and save the world from asteroidal destruction. Oh well, at least I’m not afraid of looking really, really stupid. As a matter of fact, I’ve looked really, really stupid lots of times before!

“The Best Things In Life Are Free”

Yes, this is really a story about an encounter I had with a fish, but because I’m a woman, I won’t exaggerate about how big this fish was – he was about the size of two small bananas.

One day I’m checking out the fish in the pond and I see a goldfish lying on a waterway ledge with a big bloody hole punched through the top of his back near the neck. It looked like someone had taken a pencil and stabbed him. I thought he was dead and prepared to take action, only he wasn’t dead as he let me know when I picked him up.

I took him down to the big pond where he floated motionless after I put him in. Floating fish are targets for predators so I nudged him under a lily pad. The next morning I found him in the skimmer basket and again he wasn’t dead.

Well I decide it’s time to put him out of his misery so I ponder the ways to kill a fish. I’m darned sure not bashing his head against a rock or putting him in the freezer (I did briefly consider running him over with my car however.) I decide he needs a “hospital room” where he is protected and I’ll just let nature take its course. An upside-down child’s Dora tent placed in the pond works pretty well.

I gather Fish Eyes and once again he whips his body all over the place when I pick him up, but the minute I release him into his “hospital room” he is motionless and sinks ceremoniously to the bottom where he remained for the next 42 days.

Every day I check on him and some days he is in the same spot as the day before, and other days he has moved to a new spot. But there are two things I know for sure about fish: 1. Dead fish float. 2. Dead fish’s eyes are not shiny and black. He is always lying on his left side and occasionally waves the one little fin sticking up. Oh, not in a greeting but in an effort to get away from me. But one thing remained unchanged every day – He always glared at me with that one little beady black eye. That eye spoke volumes to me. It said: “I’m Alive You Bitch!” “Get Away From Me!” and “I Hate Your Guts Lady!” But as long as that eye was shiny and black I knew he was alive.

After 42 days I decided I was being cruel and went online to find humane ways to kill a fish. Yep, I found it. It involves clove-oil and vodka. I had the vodka and drove all over until I found the clove-oil.

So I prepare my solution, don my waders and set out to do the deed. Now I tell you that it isn’t real easy to raise a 4ft. x 4ft. enclosure out of the water. I got it up far enough where there was only 7 or 8in. of water in the tent but now I’m trying to hold the hospital room up and grasp a slippery fish which I cannot see in the remaining murky water. Not enough hands but I manage to do it. And don’t you know Fish Eyes fights me mightily.

Ok, he wants to live. I am going to respect that because I have never killed anything and don’t want to start now. I place him in the open pond where of course he again sinks motionless to the bottom. But after about three days I see him swimming up to the top in peculiar circular motions. By day five I spot him floating sideways and hovering about 5” underneath a lily pad. But when he saw me he turned, straightened his body upright, gave me a really pissed-off glare and then swiftly swam away.

Now my job was over. Success against all odds – Sick or injured fish simply do not usually live no matter what you do. Sure, I gave Fish Eyes the surroundings to survive, but he, and he alone decided to live. He simply would not give up.

So that kind of brings me to how this story might relate to you. It’s a stretch but I’ve got to make it relevant for site members don’t I? I mean, I can’t just write a story that you can’t relate to, can I?

Well, I’ve actually had a couple of times where I felt like giving up or giving in but then I thought to myself “hey self, if Fish Eyes never gave up then I guess you can just keep on going too.” And really, when I think of his tenacity it does kind of make me feel like I’d be a real loser if I can’t give it as much effort as a fish did.

So sometimes when you are feeling overwhelmed, down, defeated or just plain beat-up just remember Fish Eyes and keep right on going.

EPILOGUE

A couple weeks ago I again had a surprise in the pond skimmer basket. It was black and large and I thought that Fish Eyes had perished. And I thought that I should have euthanized him rather than let him meet this nasty end. So I get a net and start jabbing it down into the basket but suddenly I notice a black fin wiggling. Oh geeze, my very large and slippery carp (we have one that swims with the koi) was stuck in the basket. This guy is about 10 lbs and 15in. long. I probably injured him by trying various push-and-pull techniques to get him out of there. And guess what, when I finally dislodged him and put him back into the water he dropped motionless to the bottom – resting on his left side with only that one little fin able to move. I thought this was an omen not to write about Fish Eyes. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I don’t see Mr. Carp floating around anywhere so I don’t know if he recovered or not….I will keep you posted though!

Hey, if you think this blog was irrelevant wait until I tell you my story about me, my paintball gun and a 5 ft. tall Blue Heron face-off at the pond’s edge!

So this is blogging. Heck, it seems just like writing to me. I’m actually a better listener than a talker…I tend to talk only when I actually have something to say – perhaps blogging will change that.

I’m really excited about our new website and especially excited about our new Industry Directory.

I kept getting back to the thought that we wanted to give screen printers avenues to increase their business. These avenues could of course be through technical articles, forum discussions and blogs, but one area that was important was to give screener’s venues to market their trade.

The Industry Directory has some categories that should give screeners ideas on where to get new business both locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally.

While you may think you are too small to market to some of the leads – like maybe Government Purchasing Agencies -  remember that many of these agencies are local or regional and their needs don’t always require a giant factory with 12 auto’s.

We’ve also done a comprehensive listing of Garment Decorators throughout the U.S. so be sure to capitalize on that in any way you can. You should go to the Industry Directory - Garment Decorators – Screen Printing – and “claim” your listing. After you “claim” the listing it will be submitted for approval and you can then go in change the information if needed. Be sure that the address, phone, e-mail, etc. is correct.

We have dedicated ourselves to the advancement of the screen printing industry for the last 40 years and look forward to continuing that path with our new venture – T-Biznetwork.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read my first blog post. I hope to get a lot better at this in the future. At the risk of boring you, I’m going to take the scary step in the future of exposing a little of myself to you. Don’t get excited – not that kind of exposing! I will blog about some things that interest me personally. I’m a wife, mother, grandmother, businesswoman, and a liberal but non-political person. I’m a nature lover, an outdoor girl and I love children, flowers and animals and am always grabbing my camera to capture the beauty of a bird, cat, raccoon or a beautiful new bloom in the pond or on a plant or tree and I’d like to share some of those images with you. ….so consider yourself forewarned!