Toyota may have created Lean Manufacturing, Hallmark will fine tune it.

It's been a long time since I've been able to get on here and update things. It seems like the time to get on here always slips out of my hands. So, I'm here, and I have time, I'll update it.

Things have been good for Sarah and myself. Sarah's pregnancy is going well; we're about 5 months along. She's is starting to show a little. Sunday we ran out and picked up some maternity clothing.

Sarah and I got away a couple of weekends ago and ran up to Kansas City. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in the Crown Center, which is where Hallmark Cards International headquaters, which is located. Yea, I know, I was trying to get away from work, why go there? Well, it is one of the nicer areas of Kansas City, and there is a lot to do, and I get a kick ass discount at the Halls Department Store.

Before the weekend officially got kicked off, Sarah and I ran out to the Nebraska Furniture Mart and picked up some new living room furniture. All went well; I am not sitting on the most comfortable couch in the world... Aaaahhh..... We rolled into Kansas City a little past 6pm and checked into the hotel went up to the room and relaxed for a little while. The room was really nice, and located on the 29th floor overlooking all of the downtown KC. We went and checked out some of the shops in Crown Center, which was getting ready to close. We checked out looked at a couple places to get dinner. We decided to dine at Skies. The Skies is located on the top floor of the Grand Hyatt. It expensive as hell, but the food was superb and the restaurant revolved a full revolution ever hour and ten minutes at 420ft above KC. It was probably the longest dinner I've ever eaten, but Sarah and I enjoyed ever minute of the views, the eats, and the music the pianist was playing.

On Saturday we go up and grabbed breakfast on the Terrace. They had a pretty good breakfast bar. We went shopping at Crown Center and then headed back to Topeka to head to a Halloween party in Lawrence with some friends. The party was a blast. We got back to Topeka about 2:30ish, went to bed, planned on going to church until we got a wake-up call from one of Sarah's co-workers. The company her husband works for has season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs and they were unable to make it to the game (kick off was at noon). We got the call at 9, and were on the road at 10:30. Sarah and I got to the stadium and sat into our seats at 12:20. The seats were on the third tier and were the very last seats in the row. We were sitting in the farthest seats from the game, which was okay, the angle of the stadium seemed like a 40 degree angle. It wasn’t hard to see the game. The numbers on the jerseys were easily visible, and we could see all of the action fairly well.

All in all, it was a very busy weekend... However, it was very enjoyable. We both had a great time and it was an awesome opportunity to get away from things and relax.

Work is going well. Hallmark is working on making to of my most constrained presses operate more efficiently. I've got to go to another production facility in Lawrence to oversee their pilot practices, which have been designed to more efficiently utilize the machinery (something that we will be piloting possibly as soon as next week). Things are changing. I think that in the long run, it'll be better for Hallmark to make this transition. I also know that if Hallmark wants to take the strain off of these two presses, they'll have to invest in a new piece of equipment. Which is not cheap - about 2 million dollars for a single piece of machinery. It is estimated though, that the press will pay itself off in approx. 4 years. Who knows, maybe in time, the press that we need so badly will soon be purchased.

Anyway, I hope I've updated everyone well enough. I'll try and get more regular at this whole thing. It's just been pretty busy lately.