Outside the Box

As part of your retirement, have you invested in the Stock Market? I am sure many have or think about investing in this very illusive but lucrative area. By wise investing and guidance, many have been successful. However, overtime, there have been bumps along the road and people have lost alot of money.
For example:

1. A year ago, if you had brought $1,000 of Nortel stock, it would be worth $49.00.
2. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000.
3. Five dollars is all you would have left with WorldCom.
4. If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock, you would have $49.00 left.

However, if you think "outside of the box", you can get ahead of the investment game and have fun doing it. If you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then recycled the cans, you would have $ 214.00. You could say the return is 21.4% on your investment. Yes, very few stocks can match this performance and the fun of doing the investing.

PS. I am not advocating drinking, but use it as an example of thinking "outside the box". Good luck with your thinking outside the box.

Quote of the Day:

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."

Commemorating D-Day June 6,1944

D-Day is the day the Battle of Normandy began, starting the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.
The Allied invasion of northwest Europe began on June 6 and ended on August 19, 1944, when the Allies crossed the River Seine.
It is still the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving 3 million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy, France. The Battle of Normandy lasted for more than 2 months and concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise pocket in late August, 1944.

D-DAY QUICK FACTS
1.1 million Canadians served in WWII
42,042 were killed
54,414 wounded
14,00 Canadians landed on D-Day
During the first 6 days, 1,1017 died
By the end of the Normandy campaign, 5,020 Canadians died
About 5,400 Canadians are buried in Normandy
In the 2 1/2 months of the Normandy campaign, Allies causalities (killed,wounded,and captured) totalled 210,000.
D (abbr. of day) + day - repeat the first letter to emphasize that this is the day that the operation will start, not on any other day, but this day. The actual name for the invasion is Operation Overlord. D-Day has become a term that can refer to any day of action or decision

We owe these men and women a debt of honour that we will never forget their sacrifice on this day in history.

Tanning Leather for Moccasins - Part 5

The final phase for tanning is finishing the leather.
Leather maybe finished in a variety of ways depending on its use. Using fine abrasives, the leather can be buffed to produce a suede finish. Leather can also be embossed. Another way involves waxing or shellacking and treated with dyes, pigments, and resins to produce a smooth leather and desired colour. Another finish is to lacquer the leather with urethane to produce a glossy patent leather. To bond these processes to the grain of the leather, a process called plating is used.

As you can see the process of tanning leather for footwear like moccasins is a long one even using modern technology. Pity the person without the access to tanning factories. The process must have been difficult and tedious indeed.

Quote of the day:

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."

Tanning Leather for Moccasins- Part 4

Another source of tanning leather involves chemicals. This process is called chrome tanning. The drying and finishing steps are the same as vegetable tanning. However, in chrome tanning, the hide is placed in a bath of chromium salt. As in vegetable tanning, once the process is complete, the hide is wrung, split and shaved to thickness.

Because the hide is exposed to many drying processes, it needs to have some of the natural oils
replaced. This is called fatliquoring. This is where the hide is placed in a drum of oil emulsion for 30-40 minutes. After this, the hide is again wrung, dried, and finished.

Quote of the Day:

"Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks
before you need it."

Tanning Leather for Moccasins- Part 3

Once the hide has been prepared, there are three methods that can be used to turn it into leather. A hide can be made into leather by tanning, chamoising, or tawing, and while these processes all differ, they are called "tanning". Tanning gets its name from the tannins that are present in all vegetable matter, and these tannins are used to tan raw hides. This is also why tanned leather is sometimes more specifically referred to as vegetable tanned leather.

Commerical tanning practices place the hides in rotating barrels full of water and tannins for several days. There are also many variations of tanning, each tailored to the specific products the leather being treated will eventually become. Boots, for example, have a slightly different tanning process than wallets.

It usually takes approximately 3 weeks for the tanning material to completely penetrate. The hide is then wrung and is set out to smooth and dry.
Leather can be dried in 5 methods depending on the tanning factories equipment.
One of the most common is air drying where hides are hung and the air circulates around the hide. Related to this is drying by tumbling or air circulating through screens. Two last methods require more sophisticated equipment. In vacuum drying, the leather is spread out with the grain side down on a smooth surface and heat is applied. A vacuum hood is placed over the surface and a vacuum is applied to help in drying the leather. High frequency drying involves the use of a high frequency electromagnetic field to dry the leather.

Quote of the Day:

"Opportunities always look bigger going than coming."

Tanning Leather for Moccasins - Part 2

From pre-tanning to finishing, conventional leather tanning requires about 15 steps, which produces enormous amounts of waste water and pollutants. The first steps of leather tanning is referred to as the beamhouse operation which includes trimming, soaking, fleshing, and taking the hair off the hide. The next step is the tanyard process which includes bating, pickling, tanning, wringing and splitting. The final steps includes staking, dry milling, buffing, spraying finishing, and plating. Environmental rules are strictly enforced due to chemicals used and other pollutants.

Today, most animal hides are shipped from slaughter houses to tanneries, and so they must almost always be cured after slaughtering to stop the hide from putrefying. Usually the hides are coated with salt and other chemicals. When the hides reach the tanners, they are stiff, hard and rough. At the tannery, soaking the hide in water for up to two days starts the process of cleaning the hide, to remove all impurities such as flesh and fat, and, if necessary, the last remnants of curing agents, such as salt. It also makes handling the hide easier. After soaking, to avoid errors, modern tanneries use machines with blunt blades to scrape away the hair and flesh/fat/inside skin. This is called "fleshing".

While the hides are still wet, tanning factories shave the hides by pushing them against an ever-revolving band knife. The hide can be split by this process into two useful sheets which gives the correct thickness for tanning. This is called "skiving". Softening compounds are chemical rather than natural ( urine), and the last bath of sulfuric acid and common salt, is designed to remove the any traces of chemicals which is helpful in the tanning process to follow.

Quote for the Day:

"No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes."

Tanning Leather for Moccasins- Part 1

Before you can make a pair of moccasins, you need tanned leather. What is invoved in this process? What is the difference between a dried animal skin and a piece of leather?

In reference to the latter question, skins refers specifically to the skin of a smaller animal, such as a calf, while the term hide refers to the skin of a larger animal, such as a cow. The process for both skins and hides are similar. Raw hides or skins, when not tanned, are rough, dry and hard due to tightly compacted collagen, the natural moisturizer of skin. When exposed to water, dry hide/skin usually begins to putrefy and rot. Yet, when exposed to hot water, glue or sizing can be made from it. However, hides/skins have the ability to absorb tannic acid and other chemical substances that prevent them from decaying, make them resistance to water and keeping them soft and supple. The 3 types of hides and skins most often used in leather manufacturing are cattle, sheep and pig. Other hides can be used from horses, moose, deer, elk, bison, seals and walruses. The process of turning skins/hides into leather is called tanning. The process for skins and hides are similar. For our purposes, we will use the term "hide" in the rest of the article.

Quote of the Day:

"Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques."