HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

With all the noise and conflicts surrounding us these days,
We’re taking this time to bask in the warmth of family and faith.
We hope you’re able to do the same.

sunset over lake

 

 


 

Got the itch?

golfer lying on grass and blowing in the ball, just need to give it a little help.

With the weather starting to warm here in NE Ohio, I’m getting the “itch” to go out to hit some balls and play some golf, yearning for bluer skies, bright sun and warm breezes. Like many of you, I’ve watched the pros on the west coast, and make their “southern swing” through Florida’s snake pit and blue monster. And every year about this time I do a mental inventory of my gear, weighing clubs I should replace and new gadgets I should consider putting in my bag. So for all my “golf geeks”, here are some fun and crazy things I found online to help us enjoy the game a bit more and shave a few strokes off our scores. Special thanks to PC Magazine for this find.

Ball Finder Scout – This handheld device ($179) helps you hunt for your stray shots. As long as a ball is one percent visible, it can search up to 600 square feet in just one second with a 3.2-megapixel hi-res digital camera to locate balls up to 35 feet away. A red cursor brackets the ball on a LCD screen and a blue light guides you right to it…unless of course it’s in the water hazard or Mrs. Johnson’s “do not enter” backyard. – AGAIN AND AGAIN!

Solar Power Golf Bag – Have a lot of business to do while on the course? No worry – now you can charge your cell phone, laptop or iPod via the solar panels located on the side of this solar golf bag ($349). Constructed of heavy duty nylon, the bag features a mini USB cable, two interchangeable iPod adapters, and five interchangeable mobile phone adapters. You’ll also find a rain hood, tee holder strap, umbrella holder, and a mobile device charging compartment. – OR –  JUST TAKE SOME TIME TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF THE COURSE AND FRIENDS!

Twilight Light-Up Golf Balls – Just because the sun goes down doesn’t mean you have to stop swinging. The Twilight Tracer Light-Up Golf Ball ($13.95/one pack) from Sun Products is a regulation golf ball with an inner core that contains proprietary circuitry, a lithium battery, and two red LED lights programmed to flash at a rate of 7.2 flashes per second. The ball is also motion activated, so once you swing at it, it will stay lit for about five to six minutes until you find it in the dark. – Great for those holes 37-44!

Shot Making Laptop Simulator – Always in the rough and never in the fairway? Practice your strokes with The Dancin’ Dogg Shot Making Simulator ($399.95) a golf simulation game that lets you practice and create your own shots. Use the included swing pad, balls, and tees to practice your chip, swing and bumps by choosing on your computer where you want to hit the ball and then see your performance results, including distance traveled, yards off target, and swing speed. Even comes with Tiger Woods matching performance software. – Just what everyone wants to see …me dancing!

Harmony Performance Bracelet – The latest product from Q-Link is the Performance Bracelet ($79.95), which features SRT-3 programming to resonate a supporting frequency in response to stress for better performance on the course. You’ll golf more calmly and put your mind to ease as you “tune up your biofield through a resonant effect that harmonizes your energy and helps you to navigate smoothly through a stressful round of golf.” (Won’t help your aim at all!) – Golfing and no stress, that’s no fun!

Voice Advisor Golf Caps & Visors – Leave your rangefinders at home with the Advisor Golf Caps & Visors from SkyKap ($??). Each hat is equipped with a voice-activated, high-quality microphone. It utilizes real-time GPS against a detailed course map so that when you want to get yardage to the green, just say “advisor distance” into the microphone and the automated voice will respond with the information. Afterwards you’ll also be able to download your round and view every shot to improve your game. Perfect for when you are so far left, you can’t see the green. – I am hoping for my hat to burst into song! – “ How do you know…!”

Laser Putting Trainer – This device uses laser beams! The Laser Putting Trainer LPT from OptoSmart ($39.95) allows you to position your putter for the best shot using the laser as a guideline. It mounts to your putter shaft with a battery-operated remote power button on the grip. Available for both right- and left-handed putters, you can just tap, tap, tap and watch it track your ball. Great for indoor practice or on the putting green. Fun at night! – Not sure me and a laser is a good combination!

Clubs, Clubs and More Clubs – Each year all the manufacturers pump out new and better equipment – drivers, irons, hybrids, wedges, putters, shafts, balls, tees, gloves – just too many to list. Industry experts predict ’16 could be a rainmaker year for new sales. Go visit your local pro shop or golf store and try things out – I’m itchin’ for a new putter (thinking titanium v-fang with improved alignment elastomer insert oval, tour-proven model with audio feedback impact response feel and oversized super shot grip) – actually, for me just more practice!

Bonus – Let’s tee ‘em up – send me a shout out email or call me and let’s pick a date to play – I’m good to play any day of the week that ends in “y” – first beverage is on me!!  REMEMBER- If the sun is up, I’m there, 5 AM is always more fun!

 

 


 

St. Patrick Was an Engineer Clarification

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone – hope you are enjoying the day.  In response to our post last week, KHT received the following clarification from our friend Todd Courtney, President of Crown Composites Tooling LLC in Twinsburg Ohio.
– Steve

While I generally enjoy your emails, I have a couple of things on which to comment.

First of all, if 1 in 161 Americans is named Patrick, that would be about 2 million Patricks (approximately 320 million people in U.S.). You’ve got the number right, but the relationship between that and Ireland’s population is wrong.

Second, many people don’t know that St. Patrick is the patron saint of engineers like me.

It seems that this fact was discovered in 1903 by a group of spring-fever infected University of Missouri engineering students. Their chain of logic is thus:
1. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.
2. Legend states that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.
3. A snake is nothing but a big worm.
4. Therefore, St. Patrick invented the worm drive.
5. Nobody knows more about worm drives than engineers.
6. Therefore, St. Patrick was an engineer.

Interestingly, this fact is still recognized and celebrated by engineering schools across the United States. At Mizzou, it takes the form of roughly a week of activities, parties, ceremonies and outreach programs involving the university community, local community and high school students around the state. Check it out sometime.

(For an “official” version of the origins, minus the worm drive story, visit http://engineers.missouri.edu/eweek/history/)

Green hats off to all our engineering pals out there – “Top of the mornin’ to ya – and the rest of the day to yourselves”

 

—————————::————————

 

clover art 768 blog

Happy St. Patty’s Day (a Bit Early) from O’Kowalski

Next week we’ll all be wearing green, eating corned beef and cabbage and celebrating with green beer, parades and fun. In KHT fashion, here’s some trivia to get you ready for the day – be safe and enjoy!

Erin go Bragh – translates to “Ireland forever.”

The very first St. Patrick’s Day parade was not in Ireland – It was in Boston in 1737. And the largest parade in the United States, held since 1762, is in New York City, and draws more than one million spectators each year, joining over 100 cities who hold parades.

Chicago celebrates the day by dying their river green – Green is associated with Saint Patrick’s Day because it is the color of spring, of Ireland, and of the shamrock – even thought St Patrick is associated with blue. In several artworks depicting the saint, he is shown wearing blue vestments. Green was associated with Ireland, presumably because of the greenness of the countryside.

There are about 34 million U.S. residents who are of Irish ancestry – that number is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself.

1 in 161 Americans is named Patrick – two million more people than the population of Ireland. And 19 Presidents of the US proudly claim Irish heritage — including our first President, George Washington.

St. Patrick is a hero in Ireland – there are about 60 churches and cathedrals named for him in Ireland alone. One of the most famous cathedrals is St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. These grounds bear the mark of the place where St. Patrick baptized his converts.

St. Patrick is actually not Irish – He wasn’t born in Ireland. Patrick’s parents were Roman citizens living in modern-day England, or more precisely in Scotland or Wales (scholars cannot agree on which). He was born in 385 AD. By that time, most Romans were Christians and the Christian religion was spreading rapidly across Europe.

The Guinness Book of World Records – was created by Hugh Beaver, a managing director of the Guinness Brewery to help settle arguments and bets made inside bars over random trivia.

St. Patrick was a slave – At the age of 16, Patrick had the misfortune of being kidnapped by Irish raiders who took him away and sold him as a slave. He spent several years in Ireland herding sheep and learning about the people there. At the age of 22, he managed to escape and made his way to a monastery in England.

St. Patrick used the shamrock to preach about the trinity – Many claim the shamrock represents faith, hope, and love, or any number of other things but it was actually used by Patrick to teach the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and how the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit could be separate entities, yet one in the same.

Legend says St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland – According to legend, St. Patrick drove all the snakes, or in some translations, “toads,” out of Ireland. In reality, this probably did not occur, as there is no evidence that snakes have ever existed in Ireland, the climate being too cool for them to thrive. Despite that, scholars suggest that the term “snakes” may be figurative and refer to pagan religious beliefs and practices rather than reptiles or amphibians.

The Shamrock (or Leprechaun) is not the symbol of Ireland – These are popular Irish symbols, but not the symbol of Ireland. As early as the medieval period, the harp appeared on Irish gravestones and manuscripts.

St. Patrick’s was a dry holiday in Ireland until 1970 – Aside from the color green, the activity most associated with St. Patrick’s Day is drinking. Irish law had declared St. Patrick’s Day a religious observance for the entire country meaning that all pubs were shut down for the day. Overturned in 1970, St. Patrick’s Day was reclassified as a national holiday – allowing the taps to flow freely once again.

Bonus Fact: Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are about 1 in 10,000.


“Top of the Mornin’ to Ya”

clover art 768 blog

Happy St. Patty’s Day (a Bit Early) from O’Kowalski

 

Next week we’ll all be wearing green, eating corned beef and cabbage and celebrating with green beer, parades and fun. In KHT fashion, here’s some trivia to get you ready for the day – be safe and enjoy!

Erin go Bragh – translates to “Ireland forever.”

The very first St. Patrick’s Day parade was not in Ireland – It was in Boston in 1737. And the largest parade in the United States, held since 1762, is in New York City, and draws more than one million spectators each year, joining over 100 cities who hold parades.

Chicago celebrates the day by dying their river green – Green is associated with Saint Patrick’s Day because it is the color of spring, of Ireland, and of the shamrock – even thought St Patrick is associated with blue. In several artworks depicting the saint, he is shown wearing blue vestments. Green was associated with Ireland, presumably because of the greenness of the countryside.

There are about 34 million U.S. residents who are of Irish ancestry – that number is almost nine times the population of Ireland itself.

1 in 161 Americans is named Patrick – two million more people than the population of Ireland. And 19 Presidents of the US proudly claim Irish heritage — including our first President, George Washington.

St. Patrick is a hero in Ireland – there are about 60 churches and cathedrals named for him in Ireland alone. One of the most famous cathedrals is St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. These grounds bear the mark of the place where St. Patrick baptized his converts.

St. Patrick is actually not Irish – He wasn’t born in Ireland. Patrick’s parents were Roman citizens living in modern-day England, or more precisely in Scotland or Wales (scholars cannot agree on which). He was born in 385 AD. By that time, most Romans were Christians and the Christian religion was spreading rapidly across Europe.

The Guinness Book of World Records – was created by Hugh Beaver, a managing director of the Guinness Brewery to help settle arguments and bets made inside bars over random trivia.

St. Patrick was a slave – At the age of 16, Patrick had the misfortune of being kidnapped by Irish raiders who took him away and sold him as a slave. He spent several years in Ireland herding sheep and learning about the people there. At the age of 22, he managed to escape and made his way to a monastery in England.

St. Patrick used the shamrock to preach about the trinity – Many claim the shamrock represents faith, hope, and love, or any number of other things but it was actually used by Patrick to teach the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and how the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit could be separate entities, yet one in the same.

Legend says St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland – According to legend, St. Patrick drove all the snakes, or in some translations, “toads,” out of Ireland. In reality, this probably did not occur, as there is no evidence that snakes have ever existed in Ireland, the climate being too cool for them to thrive. Despite that, scholars suggest that the term “snakes” may be figurative and refer to pagan religious beliefs and practices rather than reptiles or amphibians.

The Shamrock (or Leprechaun) is not the symbol of Ireland – These are popular Irish symbols, but not the symbol of Ireland. As early as the medieval period, the harp appeared on Irish gravestones and manuscripts.

St. Patrick’s was a dry holiday in Ireland until 1970 – Aside from the color green, the activity most associated with St. Patrick’s Day is drinking. Irish law had declared St. Patrick’s Day a religious observance for the entire country meaning that all pubs were shut down for the day. Overturned in 1970, St. Patrick’s Day was reclassified as a national holiday – allowing the taps to flow freely once again.

Bonus Fact: Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are about 1 in 10,000.

 

 


 

Takin’ A Leap

Summer fun, Friends cliff jumping into the ocean.

This past week we all celebrated an extra leap year day – it was fun for me in three ways – it added a work/sales day to our month-end calendar (hope to see a tiny blip in my comparables), it  gave me a great excuse for a night out with my golf pals (since our wives let us go out on a school night, we boldly decided we’d make it an “every-four-year event).  And it also made me think how lucky I am to be running KHT.

When I got back in on Tuesday, I was sort of energized by the leap day.  I walked around the plants and thought about all the times in our company history when we took a risk and “made the leap” to build a bigger, better operation for our customers. So many milestone events came to mind – my first sale, problem-solving with Dad, hiring talented people, adding new furnaces, new land acquisitions, new building additions, new treatment service offerings, new delivery trucks, new investments in technology for our lab, new employee training programs, new financing partners and more. I’m sure just like you in your business, we did it much the same – “dreaming”, then due diligence, second guessing, then securing financing,  battling with design/development and finally waiting anxiously for things to get completed.  I can’t tell you how many times I’d lie in bed at night and wonder – did we do the right thing?

My marketing guy tells me he built his company around “the thrill of the leap”. He refers to that feeling you got when you were a kid standing on the high board at the pool. You had the guts to slowly climb the ladder – each step filled with trepidation. Slowly as the wind blew, you finally got to the top, and it was your turn to walk out to the edge. Once there, you looked down and realized “whoa, It’s “way” higher than I thought it would be”, and you got that little belly flutter of “I’m not so sure of this now”. Then your courage inside says “go” and you are all at once in midair, kicking and yelling and falling until you hit the water, scrambling to hold your breath and paddle endlessly looking up to the surface. You pop out of the water, take a big gasp of air, then look around to see if anyone noticed.

As you pull yourself up the deep end ladder, you look up again at the high board filled with a gentle strength and confidence and ponder “was it worth the leap” as a smile curls across your face. And then your buddy “Mikey” runs by, slaps you on the back and says – “come on, let’s do it again” and you race to see who can get to the base of the stairs first as the lifeguard whistles and yells – “no running boys.”

If this makes sense to you, give me a buzz and let’s compare notes. 216-631-4411 ext. 2211