When owning your own business, you should always strive to please the customer and provide an exceptional experience.  However, do not let them dictate how you run your business and let them try to change the way you operate if you believe it will devalue what you do or offer.  We were rewarded handsomely because we stuck to what we do and the way we operate. 

The weekend is over and we spent most of it shooting or selling.  We had a shoot on Friday and Saturday and then a sales session on Sunday.  We have another sales session tonight and then it gets crazy busy until October 20th which will be our next day off it would appear. 

The baseball coach at JD's university found out he was on campus and asked him for a meeting.  I won't go into all of the details of that meeting but in the end, the coach offered JD a full ride to play ball for them.  Although he had talked about walking on previously, I was hoping he would at least take a year off to allow his arm to rest and heal.  He says it feels good now but that doesn't mean he is without any issues, in my opinion. 

We met with the coach yesterday and I clued the coach in, likely more in detail than JD had shared with him, about the arm issues.  I told the coach that ultimately the decision lies with JD but I feel he needs to have a thorough exam by his doctor to see what he thinks.  I left it at that.  Coach reiterated that he would pay for JD's schooling.  That's where it stands now.

More overtime this weekend as I am working both Saturday and Sunday.  We are building trucks as fast as we can and now we're seeing some OT on the van side.  It's a busy time here at the plant and we're going to be even busier around Christmas as we go through the changeover to the new truck model.

We are also staying quite busy with our business as well.  We only have one day off next week and October is filling pretty fast too.  It sure will be nice to retire and just pursue the photography at some point.  I still have four more years before I can consider that.

I posted the video from our show we shot this past weekend.  It was awarded the Judges choice for Best in Show.  Video never does a fireworks display justice as it can't capture all the effects vividly but it's all we have afterward. 

Pyromania 2014 - KCAP Pyromusical - "KCAP Goes to the Movies"

That was a fun and exciting weekend, although I'm a bit wore out and could use a vacation from my vacation.  Pyro is hard work and long days but the thrill of seeing your creation go up into the air and the crowd response is worth it.  After tearing down the display and packing up all the gear, I walked out of the field at 1am.  The ground was covered in dew and it was 43 degrees, making for wet feet and a chilled body, but it was all worth it.  Next year is our 10th anniversary of the shoot (I have made the last 9) and it will be even bigger and better. 

I'll be posting video of some of the shows here soon.  I'm looking forward to the video of my club's show.  We were smoked out a little at the end but I think it was one of the best of the night.  Our show was a fraction of the cost of a couple of the others but held its own against them.

It's amazing how a couple days off can rejuvenate a tired body.  The ability to not wake to an alarm clock for a couple days really helped me feel better.  Even though I didn't sleep in all that late, it was late enough to get some adequate rest.

We have another busy week ahead before we take a three day hiatus and a trip to St. Louis.  The good news is that we are kind of caught up at the moment with editing sessions and we have two sales sessions this week prior to leaving.  Jodi and I shot a session last night, our first time together on a  shoot in quite a while.  I've been having members of our model team assist me while she stayed home and edited sessions but the model who was to help me sprained her ankle and rather than replace her, Jodi was free enough to go along.

The weather is really going to change this week with highs in the 60's they say.  That will be perfect weather for me to work outside this weekend setting up our show for Saturday.  There will be ten shows total that evening and I'm looking forward to just hanging out with other like minded people for a weekend of pyrotechnic awesomeness. 

It's Friday!  I cannot wait to sleep in tomorrow.  I'm going to enjoy that.  But before I go to bed this evening, I'm thinking I'm going to watch our high school play another local high school ina  battle of state ranked teams.  It should be an awesome game and we should have pretty good weather for it as well. 

I've been investing in photography gear more than guns lately but that all changed yesterday when I ran across a really good deal on a handgun.  I saw a post on a local Facebook gun page for a Ruger SR22, new in the box, for $250.  That's about $100 less than what it would cost me new with tax/shipping and FFL transfer.  I met up with the seller at an area QT, inspected it and it was as described so I'm the new owner.  I know several people who own one and they all have given it high marks for performance and fun. 

Well, it's Tuesday so I only have 4 days of work remaining this week.  Our plant is currently the only one making F-150's right now and we are maxing out production in an effort to build every single one we can.  We are working both mandatory and voluntary weekends and holidays as we even ran production on Labor Day.  Obviously there are enough people willing to sacrifice a day off to get double time plus holiday pay.  It also goes to show you that the company can still make money paying us about $90 an hour!  Our wages are not and have never been an issue when we design and build products of high quality that people want.  That's why I opposed the two tier wage system and any cuts to our benefits.  I'm all for a company making good profits so they can reinvest in the business and continue to provide good paying jobs but I'm against always looking to the workers to make the sacrifices in economic downturns or in the face of poor management decisions.  We have a contract coming up in one year.  I haven't had a raise in 8 years.  It's time. 

Speaking of business, we've had a pretty good year to date.  Our sales averages are up almost 100% over last year which I find pretty incredible.  We don't want to be high volume but our target audience is pretty small.  A small percentage of high school seniors actually have senior portraits done.  An even smaller percentage looks to a high end studio to have them done.  There are a lot of people who don't appreciate quality photography as well and price is the biggest factor to them.  With all of that in mind, my goal is to do 50 seniors per year, once I retire.  Coupled with my pension, that should be a pretty good retirement income and allow us to do all that we want to do.