Foley's Christmas

This is the center pole of the MegaTree prior to putting the light strands on. The top pole is rotated into place vertically.

Base of the MegaTree. The center member is a 4×4 Pressure Treated timber that has be “rounded” on one end. It is 2.5′ deep into a 4″ PCV pipe that is embedded in a concrete base.

These are my new window frames. They are made from a 2 3/4″ wide strip of coroplast. There are four colors…Red, Green, Blue and White. The coroplast is flexible which really helps with arches.

Storage for the Window Frame Strips is great…just coil ‘em up and stick ‘em in the attic!

I know many of you are watching this page for updates on the plugs so I will post here as well as the main page of the store. We have sorted and shipped 5,000 plugs so far. This is a time consuming process and I literally have to count each plug as the vendor has “counting” issues

We are working from the top of the list down. If you need to order plugs or wire, be aware that you will be the last ones filled. The goal is to have all of this shipped by the end of this month. Thank you all for making this a GREAT SUCCESS. You will be impressed with the quality as this is top notch stuff.

Yes, all the male vampire plugs are sold. I still have plenty of wire and about 2000 female plugs left.

I am waiting for the call to pick these up. They should be here ready to go soon.

Finally I am getting daily tracking updates via this site You can zoom out and see where the Ningbo was at the time it was last reported. I am about to get excited myself!!!

That is the container ship that has our plugs! There are a few ship tracker programs out there but they do not seem to update them very often. This ship heads to Tokyo next and I will try to keep you folks update.

Folks, I have had some misunderstandings on the freight arrangements and we have lost a couple of weeks. I have been told that the entire shipment is in the hands of the freight forwarder and should leave China on the 7th. The expected date of arrival in Houston is the 7th of September. Now it will typically take a week to get them out of customs before I have them in my hands. Stay tuned…..

Okay..No drooling is allowed. If you do drool, please use something so you do not make a mess and upset the significant other in your life…..

I just got confirmation that the backup resistors that I ordered are in my box. I have not checked them but this should mean that the orders are about to flow out of my house! I will post a quick update tonight after I get them and check them out.

Oh…Vampire Plugs..the latest update has them being finished late this week. Which sort of puts me in a bind as I am still working the account setup with the freight forwarder! Now I am in a hurry. I still need to see what the next vessel headed to Houston is as that can always cause issues.

UPDATE 7/20/2011: The resistors are correct! Anything with a shipping label printed on 19th and LATER will have a small bag of orange-ish color network resistors in the Receipt envelope! These replace the BLACK Resistor SIPs that are in the kits. For those of you who have already received your kits, I will be sending out padded envelopes with your resistors this weekend.

They have sent us the wrong resistor networks…right numbers on the bags but the wrong part. They are sending replacements now and I will be getting these out as soon as they come in. PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL THESE!!

Okay folks….I am taking the first 5 packages to UPS today.  Here is the deal…we are pulling and packing orders up through #26 (at least this is what my “help” is doing).  I have to QC each package and if nothing is wrong, I pack it into the correct sized box. If something is missing, then I have to fix it (and that takes more time)  If you pre-paid your shipping, it goes right out.  Otherwise you get a shipping quote via email.

If your sales order is higher than 26, please do not ask if your order has shipped.  It takes time to respond to each email…this is time NOT SPENT GETTING ORDERS OUT.  There are over 100 participants in this and it will take time to get all this done.  If your order is between 1 and 26 and you do not have a shipping quote or a shipping notice, then I am working through an issue with your order.

I will post updates to this Post on where we are over the next few days.  If you ordered enclosures only then you should be seeing these ship any time now.  I just noticed that I have a few outstanding and I am going to try and clear that up tonight.

7/13/2011 0500 Hrs Update:  Shipping Orders up through #72 with 2 exceptions, ALL Orders have been pulled  (waiting for QC and packaging).  We are trying to get at least 6 orders done each night.  The international orders are causing us some pain.  I turns out that I cannot drop off these packages at the UPS store (yes even for USPS) unless they are small.  So I have to PERSONALLY TAKE THESE TO THE POST OFFICE .  I am trying to get in touch with my actual postal carrier to see if I can work something out with her on this.

NOTE: Some of you have way overpaid for shipping.  It would be nice if I could just refund the extras via PP but given that one of our vendors has pushed the delivery wayyyy past where it should have been, I cannot do this without paying additional fees (60 day limit on refunds via PP).  I have ordered a set of checks for my business account (no I did not have any before) so that I can write real refund checks.  I expect the checks to arrive in about 10 days.

ANOTHER NOTE: I am sending out about 6-10 shipping invoices a day…I am lucky to get one or two paid each day.  If your sales receipt is less than the above number, and you have not paid for your shipping,  please get with me ASAP.  If is trend continues, I am going to have to consider canceling orders if the shipping charges are not paid promptly.