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11.5 years as an engineer pretty much bored me.  It wasn’t until about 3 years before I took an early retirement that I actually got to do something I really enjoyed and, I might add, excelled at.  I was given an assignment to create a test lab, staff it and supply it with tools, instruments and anything else needed.  This assignment would require someone who could work without supervision, secure supplies and testing equipment without a budget, design testing platforms and methodologies, impliment the tests, gather the data and pass the information on to the affected departments.

In a word it was a license to create.  And create I did.  A collection of Rube Goldberg machines like you have never seen.  Some had computerized components.  Others were gizmos and gadgets that whirred, buzzed, clanked, whined, whooshed and, sometimes, went boom in the night (my favorites).  Those of us who worked in this lab were known as “Helper Monkeys”.  The “design engineers” didn’t care for us much, afterall we were doing unimaginable things to their inventions trying to find the weaknesses, terminal velocities (and I do mean terminal), points at which their creations failed - and why. 

 I always gave names to the robots and test machines I built or designed.  The names were always a goofy combination of letters that represented the actual process or function the machine served.  Like “AFLAC” which stood for:  “Always Functional Linear Actuator Control”. 

As we built more and more of these testing machines the lab took on a rythmic, almost musical tonality with all the pops, whizzes, whirls and bangs.  That led to me applying music and video to the process.  We were already using video to capture test results, adding music was a no-brainer.

Well, before you knew it, I had gotten an idea in my head about doing a rap piece about the life I led as a “Helper Monkey”.  That ended up as a music video called:  “Where My Dogs At, Yo?”  And, yes, that is my voice doing the rap.  What a ham bone I turned out to be.

You can view these videos at:   The Further Adventures of Helper Monkey Mike

POP, WHIZ, WHIRL, BANG

Where My Dogs At, Yo?

Each month seems to roll around pretty fast.  It doesn’t seem all too long ago we were getting ready for our trip to Bryce Canyon and beyond.  Now it’s July and I have thousands of photographs and hours of video footage to edit from our trip.  Where to start? 

I am thinking about changing the format of this blog.  Over the next couple of months I hope to introduce more small business owners to the community.  We’ll be putting together short videos of businesses and making them available for download and reference.  I am sure we will continue to bring outstanding speakers on the hot button issues businesses deal with.  In the meantime we’ll be editing and pouring over the photos and video from our trip.  Til next time…

Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for the New Year!

Our November Small Business Forum was lightly attended.  If you recall, there were threats of freezing rain throughout the day.  As it turned out, we had a nice little get together with a few friends, sharing stories and poems.  We made a short night of it avoiding complications from the inclement weather.

If you have been following any of the hype surrounding Microsoft’s  latest operating system, “Vista”, you have to be wondering what is going on in Renton?  As a former programmer and systems analyst I have been watching this unfold with great skepticism.  I must say this is probably the worse release of a bloated operating system, ever.  What galls me is that Microsloth has bragged about how many millions of dollars and thousands of new IT jobs will be created as a result of this new product.  Since when is the need for more service techs a good thing for consumers?  If it is so complex and buggy as to require all of this added infrastructure, then count me out.  Remember, you, the consumer will be ponying up the millions of dollars required to maintain these thousands of new jobs.  A fellow observer, Ron Wackerly, sends this link on the problems Vista will create just in one area of hardware:  http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

Joan Stewart publishes a wonderful site, http://www.publicityhound.com/, appropriately named.  If you are looking for ways to promote your business, be sure to link up with this site.  She also publishes an eBook  http://tinyurl.com/y4dnwr filled with hints and tips you can start using today to promote your business.  Please check it out.

Lastly, what would a Small Business Forum Post be without links to some of our latest videos?  Here are 2 we shot in Washington DC this past October:

The Incident in the Oval Office;  The Incident at Farragut Park

The Small Business Forum keynote speaker for September was Don Anderson who is the mentor for the singing group “Cloud 9″. “Cloud 9 Final Concert”. ( You can view their August 12th concert by clicking on the previous highlight.) We asked Don to come to the SBF because this group of young men is outstanding, and we want to be sure that this effort continues. We encourage you to step up and support this group. They fund this effort out of their own pockets. Don would like to create a scholarship program for those who would like to join, but do not have the financial resources to do so. Click here: http://nlemedia.com/DonAndersonWeb.wmv to view the video of our SBF keynote. We also have a webpage on our site dedicated to this group: Cloud 9.htm We hope to have a link to the website these young men are creating in the near future. Check back with us to get that link.

We launched the first of what will be a series of discussions on various forms of fraud in the Internet world. We have been helping a number of small businesses that have been “taken” by hucksters and charlatans. Since January of this year Greg Gordon has been following the topic of “Click-Ad Fraud” and he shared some information at this SBF. Internet Fraud

We have attached several good sources you should make yourself familiar with:

1. http://www.clickforensics.com/about/

2. http://www.benedelman.org/news/040406-1.html

If you have or are planning to have a website we recommend doing research, asking questions and getting everything in writing. Here is a link to a site that will be very helpful on many different levels. We recently joined this group and can say they have a terrific program: http://www.ideacafe.com

When you put together a meeting schedule like the Small Business Forum, you never know exactly what to expect.  You send out invitations, e-mail reminders and try to annoy as many people as possible.  Frankly, I was afraid from the responses that I received the day before that there wasn’t going to be enough room or poundcake to serve.  Thankfully, it rained Friday and only a few folks showed up.  I was glad because it was a little nerve wracking launching this first forum.

We had a good time and shot plenty of footage for the blog.  I have broken the footage into 5 categories.  Enjoy.

1. Intro
2. Miss Anita R. Smith    Hannah Bea’s Poundcake & More
3. Saan Patterson   Hannah Bea’s Poundcake & More
4. John Doherty   ASI Bookkeeping & Tax Service
5. Closing Remarks

At NLE Media Productions we offer many services including the editing that was done in the videos shown on this blog. For more details on what we can do for your business or organization:

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See: http://nlemedia.com/eventvideo.htm

See: http://nlemedia.com/Video Production Packet.pdf

For more information on the graphic content used in this blog:

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