I head out today for the first week of the New Product Showcase. If any of you are in the following areas, I would love to see you and show you what is new and exciting in the Dubow Textile world.

January 25th

Isle Of Capri Casino
1777 Isle Parkway • Bettendorf, IA  52722 • 800-843-4753

Show Hours: 9am - 12pm

January 26th

Abbington Distinctive Banquets
3 S 002 IL Route 53 • Glen Ellyn, IL  60137 • 630-942-8600

Show Hours: 10am - 2pm

January 27th

North Shore Holiday Inn
5300 W. Touhy • Skokie, IL  60077 • 847-679-8900
Show Hours: 10am - 2pm

January 28th

Milwaukee Clarion Hotel
5311 S. Howell Avenue • Milwaukee, WI  53207 • 414-481-2400

Show Hours: 10am - 2pm 

Once again, I have found myself procrastinating when it comes to writing a blog. The new year has come and gone, the PPAI show was last week, and we are now heading into the regional shows and for us Northerners, more snow and cold.

I was in Toronto last weekend, and upon my return, was given terrible news that one of our customers, a young 30ish female, had unexpectedly passed away leaving behind 2 young children and husband. Her passing is tragic in many ways and very personal, because she was just establishing herself in our industry, called me often, with success stories and questions and was very close in age to my own 2 daughters. It makes me realize that life is short, and the issues we run across in this industry are trivial compared to what happened to her family.

I will be going on the road again starting next week for the New Product Showcase. The schedule is posted on the home page of our website, so if you are close to one of the cities I will be in, I would love to see you.

We are working hard at learning the ins and outs of the all over dye sublimation process and the heat transfer process and will be publishing pricing and tips shortly. I am posting examples of some of the projects we are doing to give you an idea of what can be done, but I assure you, we haven't touched the tip of the iceberg yet with techniques. We will be publishing a catalog of stock designs and the ability to create designs on-line shortly as well.

More information to follow soon,

Rob

Please be aware!! Fed-Ex is now charging $3.18 per box, yes I said per box, fee for all 3rd party pickups. They are saying this is being charged because we are not a  regular pickup customer and call them only when we need pickup. This charge will be added to your invoice if you elect to use Fed-Ex 3rd party freight.

From all of us, to all of you a very Merry Christmas. Please have a happy and safe holiday.

Rob

With only 4 more business days left before Christmas Eve, we are winding down another very busy time of year. Everyone at Dubow Textile thanks all of our customers for their business and look forward to serving you in 2011 and many years to come.

If I don't have a chance to talk to you before the holidays, I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Please be safe and happy during this season.

Rob

It is now 7 below zero outside and this is the day we choose to have our rooftop heating units changed? Unfortunately, we had a couple of severe lightning storms this past summer that damaged our rooftop units. We struggled most of the summer trying to get them working to 100% capacity, but foudn out when the heating season started,t hat wasn't possible. So to coordinate the rreplacement, it takes a team of professionals from heating and air conditioning to electricians to make this all happen. In addition, a crane had to be brought in to lift the new 20 ton units onto the roof and remove the old ones. Who would have known a month ago when this was all planned, it woudl be the clodest day of the year?

The good new is, if it is cold in the plant, the staff will work faster, more orders will get done and we will delight everyone. OK, that may be dreaming, but I have always been known as an optomist.

We are in the process of finishing up our first large order of all over dye sublimation and it is really cool. If you have a cahnce, look at the dye sublimation catagory under services in this website, to see our newest look. I also purchased a very large catalog of stock designs that will be published shortly on our website. You will be able to choose an all over graphic by category, add a custom logo to the design, and create an all over effect that no one else has. The perceived value will be huge, and you will blow your competition out of the water when showing it to your customers.

It is time for me to run a couple of laps around the plant to warm up for the big chill down. If you here teeth rattling when you call in today, please send the St. Bernard to the rescue with hot chocolate to warm us up. If you happen to put something in the hot chocolate to keep us happy, that would be OK as well:)

What a dsedicated crew we have at Dubow Textile! During a winter storm that took the roof down at the metrodome, ultimately cancelling a professional football game, our entire staff that was scheduled to work overtime yesterday and today showed up to make sure we produce the orders scheduled to be done. I can't say enough about the dedication and professionalism of my entire team.

With that being said, as some of you know, and others are about to find out, we were runnign about 48 hours behind schedule on our production as of Friday. Fortunately that gap was narrowed this weekend and wwe are projecting to be back on time as of Tuesday.

All orders that were received as of the end of the day Friday that need to be in hands prior to Christmas, will be there. All incoming orders from Friday will be taken on a case by case basis for scheduling purposes.

Christmas season is on us, and we are working pretty much, around the clock so we meet the required in hands dates on the incoming purchase orders. It is important to remember to give us all details of the order to prevent delays in order entry or production.

We will be cutting off guaranteed delivery by Christmas on December 10th, so any orders received after December 10th, may not make it prior to Christmas.

We will be working every day through December 24th, off on the 25th and back in production on the 27th through the 30th.

It has been a long time since I have taken the time to update my blog. Some of that has to do with being busy, but some of it also has to do with procrastination. If it was New Years, I would state that I am going to make a resolution to make time in my schedule to stay on top of my communications, and not procrastinate on anything, but since it's not New Year's, I am off the hook. I will say, I promise to try harder in the future to not procrastiate and keep my blog current..

For those of you that have seen our website previously, you will notice a drastic change has occured. Thanks to our great partner's at Smart-Site, we have been updated to the all new, Live Edit web technology that is really cool and exciting. Just to demonstarte how good of partners they are, I actually called Katie manar at 9:00 AM Thanksgiving day with a question about the site. Not only did she not hang up on me, which I wouldn't have blamed her for, she spent about 30 minutes with me demonstrating all of the cool features I have to play with.

I will post more later about what is new and exciting at Dubow Textile. Today is a time to give thanks, and so I want to simply say, thanks to all of our customers, vendors, staff, friends and family for being part of my life. I hope all of you have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving. Each and every one of you is in my thoughts, and prayers.

Rob