Kowalski Heat Treating Blog - Kowalski Heat Treating

By the Seat of My Pants

August 23, 2024/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Words /by Steve Kowalski

Here at KHT we love solving your PIA (pain in the #%$) Jobs. Most of the time we use a combination of science, testing and trial and error to come up with the perfect solution to those jobs of yours that keep you up at night. But every once in a while, we simply have an inkling about what to do based on nearly 50 years of solving some of our industry’s most “unique” problems. The saying (idiom) “by the seat of my pants” means to do something using intuition and experience rather than a plan or method, often in a situation where one is improvising or reacting spontaneously. My team is great at this – they get that feeling, pursue it and are delighted when it works. If you’ve ever watched professional football, and especially Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, you have a great visual of him “improvising”- based on ability, practice, patience, and outthinking the other guys, it’s absolutely amazing! I did some searching and found a bunch of history about some of my favorite idioms. Thanks to Google, hymnary.org, englishstackexchange.com, space.com, wikipedia.org and phrases.org for the info. Enjoy! Read more

Happy Birthday Sports Illustrated

August 16, 2024/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Sports /by Steve Kowalski

Growing up during the 70s and 80s, it’s difficult for me to think of a magazine that was more influential to my “sports” youth than Sports Illustrated. We were lucky enough to get the magazine (for you youngin’s, that’s colored paper with photos and words, folded and stapled in a booklet filled with stories and advertisements) delivered directly to our house. My brothers (and sisters) would read all about the upcoming stars, the different sports throughout the world, and of course our favorite football, baseball and basketball players. The stories were magical, filling in things we would never know about athletes – their history, upbringing, and developed desire to be the best at what they do. Throughout the magazine, I got to see amazing photographs of bodies hurtling through the air, pounding one another, and racing for glory. One of my favorite sections was about various high school standout athletes across the country, these boys and girls accomplished some amazing things! I did some searching to find some trivia we can all enjoy (except the cover curse and my Brownies – ugh). Thanks to Google and Wikipedia for the info.

Sandy

August 9, 2024/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Summer /by Steve Kowalski

It seems not that long ago I was at the beach every summer with Jackie and the girls playing in the sand. Back then….and today, I’m not much of an artist – mostly pail molds, our specially designed sand diggers, and time! I can remember being on the beach for hours digging enormous moats, making “drip castles” taller than the girls, while protecting the castle with lots of bucket towers! These would all be connected with twigs, shells, seagrasses (whatever we could find!). We would all run down the next day to see if our creation had survived high tide. Now I get to take my grandkids to the beach and build new creations. I still love to make a moat and direct the water within each creation. These days the little ones have just as much fun trying to step all over “Grandpa’s towers” before I can stop them. When it comes to “real” creations, I love to see the creativity and ingenuity of sand sculpture creations – talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job! Having the genius to design a sculpture in your mind, build the structure and then hand carve the image is truly amazing. Sand sculptures are fascinating examples of art that rely on a combination of physical properties of sand, water, and the skill of the artist. Hats off to this year’s winners. And thanks to people.com and google.com for the info and YouTube for the music – Enjoy!