Happy Friday, everyone! It’s storming here in the Quad Cities and I’ve got to tell you that is a welcome sight! There is nothing more awesome than sitting at my desk as I write this Blog post and hearing the rumble of thunder in the distance. Love it! The only downside is its going to be sweltering this weekend. *sigh*
So, today, this post is all going to be things found on Pinterest that made me 1). laugh out loud, 2). go, “awww”, or 3). say, “you know that’s right!”. Hope these bring a smile to your face!! Oh! And before I forget! What are we going to do about next week? We are off on HumpDay next week to celebrate Independence Day, so should we skip our post next week or do it on Tuesday? I have a poll set up, so make sure you vote!! Majority rules! Have a good one!! Enjoy these funnies!!
- During this heatwave please remember to dress for the body you have not the body you want. No one wants to see your back fat. - Life was much simpler when we could play a friendly game of red rover and just clothesline the people we didn’t like.
- Sometimes you have to burn a few bridges to keep the crazies from following you.
- A father says, “Just remember, son, there isn’t enough make-up in the world to cover up crazy.”
- Whenever I delete an app from my iPhone the shaking icons look like the rest are nervous about who’s going to get cut next from the team.
- How I see math word problems: Q: If you have 4 pencils and I have 7 apples, how many pancakes will fit on the roof? A: Purple, because aliens don’t wear hats.
Have you ever seen that sign that says, “Nothing messes up your Friday like realizing it’s Tuesday.” Uh, yeah. That’s for darn sure! But rest assured, HumpDay-ers, it’s not Tuesday anymore!! It’s the (uh, please read the following with increased emphasis) beacon of hope, (more) the light at the end of the tunnel, (more still) the coveted glimpse into the realm of splendor and calm…(full-blown excitement) it’s HumpDay!! And you know that means the weekend is just two short days away, baby!!
Well, transitioning to your funny part his week, a couple of weeks ago I watched a comedy special called Them Idiots featuring Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy, and Larry the Cable Guy. Those boys crack me up, but Bill Engvall has to be my favorite. It’s not only his jokes that are funny, but his delivery and his squinty-eyed face, are too. He’s hilarious and you probably know he is best known for his “Here’s Your Sign” stint. I love those things! I hope you enjoy this…it’s an oldie, I know, but it sure put a smile on my face today and I hope it did yours as well.
More Here’s Your Sign Jokes….
- I come in the house soaking wet and am greeted by “Is it Raining?” “Nope,” I said, “I decided to take the fish for a walk”. Here’s your sign…
- I am out in public and using the phone. I am in a phone booth, got the phone in my hand, and a man taps on the glass and says, “You using the phone?” “Nope, I’m Superman, I’m just looking for my costume.” Here’s your sign!
- We were in the park flying a kite and a guy walks up and says, “You flying a kite?” “Nope, we’re fishing for birds.” Here’s your sign!
-I learned to drive an 18-wheeler in my days of adventure. Wouldn’t ya know I misjudged the height of a bridge. The truck got stuck and I couldn’t get it out no matter how I tried. I radioed in for help and eventually a local cop shows up to take the report. He went through his basic questioning. No problem. I thought for sure he was clear of needing a sign… until he says “So..is your truck stuck?” I couldn’t help myself! I looked at him, looked back at the rig, then back to him and said, “No I’m delivering a bridge…here’s your sign!” (That is particularly funny to us here at Grace because we have a truck-eating bridge in town! The signs warning people about this bridge and its low height start about 30 miles away. There are many, many signs and even when you are getting close, they have sensors that tell you if you are too big to clear it. Lights start flashing and everything, yet year after year someone gets caught by the truck-eating bridge!)
Well, boys and girls, I hope you enjoyed that little laugh. It sure picked up my spirits!! I can’t end this posting without giving a shout out to our friends in Colorado who are battling wildfires. Grace Engineered Products has made a donation on behalf of all of us who participate in HumpDay to the American Red Cross to aid those in need. Anyone else who would care to make a donation also can do so by clicking here. Our prayers are with those who are dealing with this fire. God bless you all!
When it comes to our GracePorts there is one thing you need to keep in mind – we always customize. You may not know it, but we have more than 10,000 part numbers and that list grows by 15-20 part numbers weekly. A lot of people don’t realize we build our GracePorts to order and that allows us to make it exactly they way you want it.
If you need special text added to your logo (for example, if you call a certain DB9 connection in your plant by a certain name, let’s say for the sake of this example it is called SMURF, we can label that DB9 SMURF). If you have an odd connection that you need, we can combine that connection with any of our other component.
If you need an international outlet, we’ve got ‘em. Maybe you need a GracePort with just 9 Ethernet connections (we’ve had an order for that!), we can make it. Heck, when it’s different enough, we even show it around the office and take photos of it. Take, for example, the GracePort pictured to the left here. Someone asked if we could get our Power Warning Alert inside a GracePort. We didn’t know if we could, so we tried. Turns out, we could. And we’ve sold a lot of this particular configuration!
If you wanted to add your company logo to the GracePort, well, we can do that too. You see, we are able to customize practically every fashion of a GracePort – and get the product shipped in about 72 hours from receiving the order. If you have an interesting or odd configuration, give our Inside
Sales team a call at 800-280-9517. Press 1 when the auto-attendant answers and you will be speaking with either Jennifer, Stephanie or Troy in just a few seconds. Or, feel free to start a live chat with either of them by clicking here. If you want to see our Top 10 GracePorts you can click here! Happy Configuring!
Happy Friday, folks! Here’s what I’m obsessed with this week: The best of humanity! Cassie sent me a link to a group of pictures and stories that will, “restore your faith in humanity”. And boy did it. I know we typically do a bunch of laugh-out-loud things on Friday, but I just had to pass along the warm fuzzies I’m feeling today. So, here we go!
- Japan Pensioners volunteer to tackle nuclear crisis: “A group of more than 209 pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.” Amazing. God bless those people for sacrificing for others. Love that story!
- This note (pictured right) was left for a waiter along with a $20 tip by an elderly lady in his restaurant. Love, love, love. It says, “Luke, The tip for you was given because you remind me of my son, Deron, who died 15 years ago. Maybe you look a little like him, but it is your kind, gentle, conscientious mannerly spirit that makes the connection. Thanks for the bitter sweet memory. God bless you, dear!” No, God bless you, dear woman.
- This interaction (pictured left) between a Guatemalan girl and tourist she just met. How sweet! It just put a smile on my face. Every young girl loves to be given flowers!
- A note left on their bill at dinner for a man, his wife, and their 1-year-old said, “Someone once bought our dinner when we were young parents. It made quite a mark on us. The foundation of this gesture was good parenting. Keep up the good work. Time goes by so fast.” Yes, it sure does.
- And finally, you may have heard of this one. It is probably one of the best (and worst) stories I’ve heard in a long time. This week, a video of 12- and 13-year-old school kids bullying a 68-year-old school bus monitor has been floating around the web. I learned of it yesterday and my heart broke as I listened to several minutes of the 10-minute video (I couldn’t watch it all because it was too horrible). I got tears in my eyes and I watched this woman silently weep as the children taunted her, pulled her hair and flicked her ears. As a parent, I was dismayed that young kids would ever think of behaving this way to anyone, let alone an older person. As I dug a little deeper into the story, I discovered there was a young man who was equally appalled that these kids would humiliate this woman like this and felt like this school bus monitor, who makes about $15,000 a year, deserved a very nice vacation. So, he started a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.com and encouraged people to help fund it. As of the writing of this blog post, his goal of $5000 has been met – 96 times over! People from all over have been generously giving to this woman with the hopes that she not only get to go on vacation, but that she may be able to retire and enjoy her golden years in comfort. The average donation from the 22,464 people is $21.46!! Wow! I cannot tell you how this story is shaping up has overjoyed me! This woman has seen the worst in humanity when she endured the tauntings of these children, but now she has seen best with this outpouring from strangers who simply want to say, “They were wrong. What happened to you was terrible and this is my small way of speaking out and making a difference. Enjoy!”
Here is the link for the campaign, which contains the video (caution, the language and actions of these kids are pretty horrible) in case you want to watch along with us to see how much this woman actually gets. The fundraising goes until July 20, so it is possible she could get upwards of a million dollars (before taxes, of course)!
Well, guys, I know these are the funnies you are used to on Fridays, but I think they will still put a pep in your step! It just kind of makes you feel good all over to see people treating others with kindness and compassion. Have a good weekend and we will see you next week!
Well, HumpDay-ers…it is National Ice Cream Day! Woo-hoo!! I don’t know about where you work, but here at Grace we intend to celebrate this momentous occasion by making a DQ run! How will you be celebrating? With sprinkles? Chocolate sauce? Whipped cream with a cherry on top? Personally, I’m tempted by the Peanut Buster Parfait. Oh yum.
Today is also the summer solstice, which means it is the longest day of the year! This is good news for me because now the days will start getting shorter. My inner vampire is very pleased about this. The sun and I are not on the best of terms this time of year. We’d be fine if it wasn’t trying to kill me with its death rays and heat, but (enter sarcastic tone) it insists on, you know, rising and shinning every day. What’s a girl to do besides lurk in the shadows and rejoice on cloudy, rainy days?
For your funny today, I have one of my all-time favorite things. These are called Memes and if you are a Facebooker you might have seen some of these. Some Memes are are called Rage Cartoons and they look like simple little drawings done by a 10-year-old, but I think the are hilarious. I share these all the time on Facebook and Pinterest, and I have been trying to find out what they are called for the longest time, so I was super glad I found them! I don’t typically share a bunch of pictures for the funny section because they take up a lot of room and make the blog post look really, really long, but this week we are going to make an exception. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
Funny Meme Photos! (Click on the hyperlinks to view.)
Hope you enjoyed these Memes!! I can honestly tell you I look at these most every night before I turn in for the night and just chuckle to myself. Hopefully they brought a smile to your faces as well! Until next time, don’t forget to…
Why We Do What We Do #3 – True Story of an Arc Flash Incident Here is an excerpt of a report I found on an arc flash incident. To read the report in full, please click here.
“On March 4, 2009, at the Jubail Project in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, three workers were removing a 480-volt, molded-case circuit breaker from the bucket of an energized Motor Control Center (MCC) when an electrical arc flash occurred, severely injuring them. All three sustained first- and second-degree burns and were hospitalized following the accident. The workers had been asked to obtain information about the breaker and tried to remove it to retrieve the information. They did not have an energized electrical work permit, were wearing no PPE other than their hardhats, and wore no arc-rated clothing.
“The face and neck areas of two workers were badly burned, and one of them sustained burns to his hand (Figure 1-2). The third worker suffered scattered burns to his face (likely from molten debris). Figures 1-3 and 1-4 show the burn areas in the utility room where the MCC was located and the proximity of the MCC bucket to the wall. Figure 1-5 shows the inside of the MCC bucket after the event. An arc flash can release a tremendous amount of concentrated
radiant energy at the point of the arcing in a fraction of a second. The result is extremely high temperatures, a tremendous pressure blast, and shrapnel being hurled at velocities in excess of 700 miles per hour. Exposure to an arc flash frequently results in a variety of serious injuries and in some cases death. Workers have been injured even though they were 10 feet or more away from the arc center. Injuries can include damaged hearing and eyesight, as well as severe burns that can require years of skin grafting and rehabilitation.
“The workers in Riyadh were fortunate that their injuries were not more serious. They were severely burned primarily because they failed to apply fundamental Integrated Safety Management (ISM) principles to the task. When they realized that the requested breaker information could not be obtained without removing the circuit breaker, they should have stopped and modified the work plan and associated hazard analysis. The designed controls for the identified hazard should have included, as a first option, the necessary actions to establish an
electrically safe work condition before allowing a worker inside the arc flash protection boundary. If removing the hazardous energy was not feasible, an energized electrical work permit that clearly described all barriers, including appropriate PPE, should have been developed and discussed with each of the workers.”
We believe the use of a thru-door power warning alert would have given notice to the workers outside the panel that voltage was still present inside the panel. Given this visual indication, the workers could have taken the necessary precautions to protect themselves. Click here to learn more about the Power Warning Alert.
What do you think about this story? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!
Happy HumpDay! Hope you all are having a great week. This Sunday is Father’s Day, so today we are going to honor all the dads out there in HumpDay-land. Thanks to all you papa’s and grandpapa’s out there who are investing time and resources into your kiddos. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I think in our society the valuable impact fathers have on their kids is too often overlooked and undermined; you guys kind of get lost in the shadows of mothers, in my humble opinion. So, I am glad we get a chance to honor father’s this week. Your job is so important! We also want to give a special shout-out to all the military dads who are away from their children this Sunday. As always, we are grateful for your sacrifice and service.
For Mother’s Day, I shared a hilarious video called Mommy Rhapsody. For Father’s Day, I have a video, done by the same group of people, called Dad’s Life. Oh my goodness, this video cracks me up so much. I hope you find it as funny as I did!!
I think my favorite part is when the dad is watching Disney movies with his girls. Hilarious! Hope you enjoyed it!
Before I go this week, I wanted to remind you all that it is a Summer of PESDs and we have a pretty cool Bingo game happening. So many of you have game cards and we are so excited!! Don’t forget that some numbers are being called in some of our ads placed in various publications. The Journal is the only issue available online as of yet, so check out our ad for that extra number!! We will have one number called in the June issue of Maintenance Technology and another in the July/August issue, so make sure you pick up your copy of that and get those bonus numbers! The winner of our bingo game will win a Weber Performer Grill!
Hope you all have a great week!! As always, don’t forget to…
Keep reading,
**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************What General Safety People Need To Know About Electrical Safety
by Phil Allen
The business of safety is good business. Many times safety benefits both the workers as well as the bottom line. When standards in electrical safety began forcing unprecedented changes onto the electrical industry, few thought that productivity increases would be part of this equation. Now, all of a sudden direct voltage exposure for a worker became an unacceptable practice thereby needlessly complicating maintenance work on equipment. A standard called the NFPA 70E now covers every aspect of electrical safety for personnel. The NFPA 70E sets a high standard that leaves little guessing room for workers who perform the everyday ‘nuts and bolts’ work on electrified equipment. With over a decade of ‘run time’ with the NFPA 70E Standards, both electrical safety and productivity has increased.
The reason is that higher safety standards also beget better safety products. Setting higher safety standards is like plowing fertile ground and allowing the seeds of innovation to grow and multiply. Grace Engineered Products, an Iowa company, positioned itself at the center of this swirling vortex of electrical safety innovation by rewriting how electrical safety is done. Because the business of safety is good business, these innovations provide a perfect payback by increasing the worker’s safety as well as their productivity.
THE PROBLEM
Unlike other hazards, electrical energy instantly injures workers upon contact. Electrical injuries include shock from direct contact and severe burns from electrical explosions or an arc flash. Therefore, keeping a distance between the electrical energy and the worker provides a sure path of safety from electricity. When a worker is in direct contact with electrical equipment, he or she must make sure that the equipment is 100% free from all electrical energy. In short, electrical safety boils down to the ability to isolate all electrical energy before commencing work.
Please use the comment section to answer these questions!! How have you revised your safety programs? How will you revise them next year?
Happy Friday, everyone! It’s storming here in the Quad Cities and I’ve got to tell you that is a welcome sight! There is nothing more awesome than sitting at my desk as I write this Blog post and hearing the rumble of thunder in the distance. Love it! The only downside is its going to be sweltering this weekend. *sigh* 
- Life was much simpler when we could play a friendly game of red rover and just clothesline the people we didn’t like.
outlet, we’ve got ‘em. Maybe you need a GracePort with just 9 Ethernet connections (we’ve had an order for that!), we can make it. Heck, when it’s different enough, we even show it around the office and take photos of it. Take, for example, the GracePort pictured to the left here. Someone asked if we could get our Power Warning Alert inside a GracePort. We didn’t know if we could, so we tried. Turns out, we could. And we’ve sold a lot of this particular configuration!
d ever think of behaving this way to anyone, let alone an older person. As I dug a little deeper into the story, I discovered there was a young man who was equally appalled that these kids would humiliate this woman like this and felt like this school bus monitor, who makes about $15,000 a year, deserved a very nice vacation. So, he started a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.com and encouraged people to help fund it. As of the writing of this blog post, his goal of $5000 has been met – 96 times over! People from all over have been generously giving to this woman with the hopes that she not only get to go on vacation, but that she may be able to retire and enjoy her golden years in comfort. The average donation from the 22,464 people is $21.46!! Wow! I cannot tell you how this story is shaping up has overjoyed me! This woman has seen the worst in humanity when she endured the tauntings of these children, but now she has seen best with this outpouring from strangers who simply want to say, “They were wrong. What happened to you was terrible and this is my small way of speaking out and making a difference. Enjoy!”
Well, HumpDay-ers…it is National Ice Cream Day! Woo-hoo!! I don’t know about where you work, but here at Grace we intend to celebrate this momentous occasion by making a DQ run! How will you be celebrating? With sprinkles? Chocolate sauce? Whipped cream with a cherry on top? Personally, I’m tempted by the Peanut Buster Parfait. Oh yum.
We’d be fine if it wasn’t tr
ying to kill me with its death rays and heat, but (enter sarcastic tone) it insists on, you know, rising and shinning every day. What’s a girl to do besides lurk in the shadows and rejoice on cloudy, rainy days? 
It Was Yummy!
grandpapa’s out there who are investing time and resources into your kiddos. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I think in our society the valuable impact fathers have on their kids is too often overlooked and undermined; you guys kind of get lost in the shadows of mothers, in my humble opinion. So, I am glad we get a chance to honor father’s this week. Your job is so important! We also want to give a special shout-out to all the military dads who are away from their children this Sunday. As always, we are grateful for your sacrifice and service.
The business of safety is good business. Many times safety benefits both the workers as well as the bottom line. When standards in electrical safety began forcing unprecedented changes onto the electrical industry, few thought that productivity increases would be part of this equation. Now, all of a sudden direct voltage exposure for a worker became an unacceptable practice thereby needlessly complicating maintenance work on equipment. A standard called the NFPA 70E now covers every aspect of electrical safety for personnel. The NFPA 70E sets a high standard that leaves little guessing room for workers who perform the everyday ‘nuts and bolts’ work on electrified equipment. With over a decade of ‘run time’ with the NFPA 70E Standards, both electrical safety and productivity has increased.
