I went into a book store yesterday, I won’t mention the name.  I needed to buy a gift card.  They have several choices but no Merry Christmas version.  So, I figured they were out of stock.  The lady behind the counter says, “no, we try to keep it politically correct this time of year”.  I couldn’t believe it!  Then, as I’m walking out of the store, I noticed there is no mention of Christmas anywhere.  It’s just the “holiday season” at this particular bookstore.  I guess they were afraid if they put up a Christmas sign, they might have to put up a Festivus pole too.

Here is a newsflash for all you struggling retailers.  Come Christmas season 2009, you better have signs up saying Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas gift cards on your counter, and have sales people that aren’t afraid to say Merry Christmas.  Why?  Because I am going to make it a requirement next year for my shopping.  If you’re too “politically correct” to say Merry Christmas (or at least recognize that Christmas exists) then I’m not spending a dime in your store or on your website.  I encourage you and your family to do the same next year.  It’s amazing, Christmas is such a big time for some of these retailers, yet some refuse to even mention it by name.  

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to step down from my soapbox, have some eggnog and wrap some Christmas presents for my family and friends, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Due to the high volume of items purchased from Central Carolina Scale and our suppliers on a daily basis, we are one of the top OEM suppliers of name branded load cells in the USA market. Central Carolina Scale is also an excellent and highly competitive source for replacement load cells for existing scales from other manufacturers products.

We carry many of the top brands of load cells in the weighing industry. These items are common load cells, many of which are direct interchange with “other” brands. Please let us know what type and capacity scale load cell you need.  In most cases, we offer super fast delivery and excellent pricing for the following brands among others:

Sensortronics - Single Ended Shear Beam load cells for floor scales and tank scales
Vishay Tedea Huntleigh - Single Point load cells for bench scales
Coti Inc. - Direct replacements for many applications
Scaime AG - Single Point load cells used in bench scale applications
Celtron - Single Ended Shear Beam load cells
Revere Transducers - Single point, S-Beams and Single Ended Beam cells.
Others

Please contact us today If you are looking for an OEM supplier for load cells and instrumentation or seeking replacement load cells for existing equipment.

Due to the unique engineering and manufacturing capability at our suppliers facility in Terre Haute, Indiana; we are adept at providing special designs at standard pricing, usually with only 3 to 4 week lead times.

Examples of these applications would be:
Floor Scale for Underneath a stretch-wrap machine for weighing and wrapping capability
Fitting an existing pit with an odd sized platform
Special loading requirements, such as weighing steel coils or tanks
Floor scale in place of separate tank mounts for greater accuracy and reduced costs– especially in commercial weighing applications requiring Weights and Measures approvals
Unusual platform sizes to accomodate carts or vehicles with large wheelbases
Space restrictions, such as Commercial Laundries where floor space is at a premium
Height issues– either higher or lower than standard design

New to the DC-788 is an updated display, which enables operators to easily view quantities and simultaneous views of weight, unit weight, tare and quantity help to speed up any task. Net/gross weight display is standard with a lb/kg weight display conversion.

For non-Legal-for-Trade applications, the DC-788 Counting Scale offers an internal counting resolution of 1/1,000,000, along with an auto recomputing function, providing extreme accuracy. Negative sampling and counting allows counting out of a full container. The DC-788 provides the choice of unit weight per thousand or average piece weight. 

The DC-788 also features full-duplex RS-232 output to a PC or printer. For counting on the go, the DC-788 offers true portability with an internal battery option to provide up to 24 hours of operation.

Rice Lake Weighing Systems is a family-owned, ISO-9001 registered company that designs, manufactures and distributes a complete line of industrial process control weighing equipment through a worldwide network of distributors like Central Carolina Scale, Inc. The headquarters, metrology laboratory and main manufacturing plant are located in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

You see, we’ve been working on and selling floor scales going on thirty years.  Many of our suppliers have been selling them for longer than that.   That’s why we just shake our head when we continue to have folks ask us to try and “match” or beat the price of some of these imported scales that have only existed for a few months.  Fact is, we can’t beat the prices for these scales and there are some good reasons we can’t. 

Sure, we could go out and import our own floor scales by the container and then dump them on the market like others have.  However, many of these “import beauties” are built with no drawings.  Many others are built in subpar factories overseas.  Finally, many others are built with subpar steel or shall we say pieces upon pieces of steel. 

All this is done to cut costs and create the ultimate low cost floor scale.  The loser in all this is ultimately the end user because he/she buys a floor scale with less durability and a shorter lifespan.  However, the American Scale manufacturer also loses marketshare as a result and the individual scale dealer loses potential sales.  

That is why when it comes to floor scales, we recommend the Rice Lake Roughdeck Floor Scale.  It is built by a reputable company that you can trust.  Roughdeck floor scales are the toughest, most accurate floor scales available. From general industrial weighing applications such as shipping and receiving, bulk loading, and counting, to abusive operations such as shock end or corner-loading, Rice Lake Weighing Systems’ complete line of floor scales delivers durability and accuracy.  Standard version is painted mild steel.  Also available: NTEP legal for trade, stainless steel, corrosion resistant, washdown, and flexure lever models. RoughDeck™ floor scales are designed from the bottom up to perform year after year in the most rugged industrial environments. With standard models built specifically for a variety of tough applications including general use scales,sanitary designed scales, portable scales,and a single animal livestock scale, there is a RoughDeck ready to work for you. 500 lb to 30,000 lb capacities. Deck sizes ranging from 2′ x 2′ to 8′ x 10′. Exclusive super-duty underdeck design. Available with access ramps and pit frames. Completely customizable to meet your unique needs

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his/her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount of up to and including their life.

That is Honor and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

Usually, it is an old mechanical dial scale.  These days, not too many of those old mechanical dial scales are available.  However, we do have these portable digital platform scales which are similar.

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the
villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the
forest, and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the
villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy
at $20.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching
monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to
their farms.

The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little
that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50!

 However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant
 would now buy on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. ‘Look at all
these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them
to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to
 him for $50 each.’

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant ever again, only monkeys
everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

I know that I try to keep this blog about scales and most of the time I succeed.  But, every now and then I have to talk a little sports.  I was fortunate enough to go to the East Carolina (ECU) vs. North Carolina State (NCSU) football game on Saturday in Raleigh.

It was a great game.  What an exciting finish with the NCSU Wolfpack taking the win in overtime over the #15 ranked ECU Pirates 30-24.  As an NCSU alum, I was proud to see this team succeed and of the great atmosphere that existed for this game.

However, there is a dilema.  For years and years, the argument has existed, should NC State play ECU more often?  In fact, I just finished reading a message board loaded with different opinions.  So, I’ll give you my answer. 

No.

In order to look at this rationally though, you have to look at it from two different points of view.  The fan’s perspective and the University / Football program perspective. 

First, the fan.  I remember going to this battle for the first time back in 1997 and I remember walking through the parking lot before the game that day.  You could feel the tension and anticipation in the air.  As a fan this past Saturday, it was a great game.  The atmosphere was great.  Both fanbases were passionate and wanted their team to win.  It truly was an exciting college football atmosphere and ballgame. In fact, most of the previous ECU/NCSU football games I’ve been to have been very passionate battles.  So, why not play the game every year? 

NC State University is in the ACC, which is a BCS conference.  East Carolina University is in Conference USA, which is not a BCS conference.  NCSU plays seven home games in the state of North Carolina plus, games against Duke, UNC and Wake Forest, that aren’t on the home schedule.  This year, NCSU plays nine of twelve games in North Carolina, eleven of twelve in either NC or SC. 

For recruiting and name recognition purposes, NC State needs to get more national exposure.  Playing yet another game against yet another North Carolina based school simply does not make sense for NC State University or the football program at NC State University.  Remember, the state of North Carolina doesn’t produce a large number of Div IA football prospects.  And, it definitely doesn’t produce enough to support the large number of Div IA schools in the state.  You have to be able play outside your home state. 

For ECU, it makes perfect sense to schedule NCSU.  ECU is a member of Conference USA, which has no other schools in North Carolina.  It is a perfect scenario for ECU to play all its games against its normal National opponents located in numerous states across the country (MS, TX, TN, OK, WV etc..) and still get to play (and force) a North Carolina based team like NCSU (or UNC-Chapel Hill) from a BCS conference to play yet another North Carolina team.  In fact, the North Carolina State Legislature demanded that UNC system colleges like NC State schedule ECU and play them both home and away even though it is obviously not in NC State’s best interest to play this game.  I could tell you what I really think of the Legislature, but maybe we’ll save that for another entry sometime. 

I believe NC State should play East Carolina once every four to five years in Raleigh and that is about it.  NC State is a BCS conference team that plays nine of twelve football games in the state of North Carolina this year, eleven of twelve in the Carolinas.  You have to be able to get out and play other Nationally recognized teams.  This is important for recruiting.  It is also important when it comes to being seen by voters who are voting in the polls each week. Honestly, most years ECU is not going to come into this game #15 in the polls, with wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia and generate the buzz that occurred this year including national TV coverage via ESPN.  Truth is, nine out of ten years, this game will generate very little, if any, interest nationally. 

To summarize…as a fan, it is a great game and makes you appreciate what college football can be.  From a NCSU football program perspective, playing ECU more often does not make sense for a variety of reasons.  What ultimately will happen?  Probably depends on Athletic Directors and Legislators (who pretend to be football schedulers) that are in place in the future.  As long as the current status quo AD / Legislators stay in power, the game will probably continue to happen and ultimately bring little if any real long term benefit to NCSU football.  But you can bet if the game does continue, it will always be a big football game for both sides. 

As always, the opinions presented in this blog past, present, and future, are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the company.

• You couldn’t get a job at McDonalds and become district manager after 143 days of experience.
• You couldn’t become chief of surgery after 143 days of experience of being a surgeon.
• You couldn’t get a job as a teacher and be the superintendent after 143 days of experience.
• You couldn’t join the military and become a colonel after a 143 days of experience.
• You couldn’t get a job as a reporter and become the nightly news anchor after 143 days of experience.
BUT….
• ‘From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate.
• That’s how many days the Senate was actually in session and working.
• After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan. 143 days?

We all have to start somewhere. The senate is a good start, but after 143 days, that’s all it is - a start. AND, strangely, a large sector of the American public seems to feel comfortable with this and campaigning for him. We wouldn’t accept this in our own line of work, yet some are OK with this for the President of the United States of America

 
 
I have to include our standard disclaimer that goes for all our blog entries, past, present and future:  This entry does not necessarily represent the views of the company. It is the opinion of its writer.