Dr. Phil, Ozzy Osbourne, and the FAA

Friends & Subscribers:

Before I talk about something that's actually
important, I gotta get just one thing off my chest.

It's about Dr. Phil, the "straight-talkin' guy" on Oprah.

First, I will agree that Dr. Phil has a lot of good things 
to say.  For example I completely agree that if mama
ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  He is definitely
right about that.  In fact there's a lot of things
you would learn just by growing up in the South, 
that you can also learn from Dr. Phil.

But friends, I'm sorry, but no matter what Dr. Phil 
says, the Ozzy Osbourne family is NOT one of the 
most loving, committed, and mutually supportive 
families I've ever seen.

For example, take our own B&B family here in Ottawa
Illinois.  We've got over 100 people who work here. 
We have Dysfunctional Thanksgivings, Dysfunctional 
Christmases,  and Dysfunctional 2-Week Vacations.  
We've got every disorder in the book.  Heck, it would 
take a round-the-clock team of psychologists and 
sensitivity trainers years to fix this place.

But lemme tell ya, WE are loving, committed, and 
mutually  supportive at B&B.  More than the Osbournes.  
For  example, there's the time when the Federal Aviation 
Administration needed a custom data router.  Way back 
when, the Feds developed a network scheme for tracking 
airplanes as they fly across the country.  It's a unique 
concoction of RS-232, RS-485, and FAA Voodoo.  
And now they needed more than 2000 custom routers 
to make the next set of air traffic control upgrades.

They talked to Dennis Flanagan, one of our technical 
sales reps. Sure, Dennis is dysfunctional, but he's 
also committed and mutually supportive.  He figured out 
what they needed, and then Randy Hanck, our 
dysfunctional custom products engineer, made sure 
that engineering built this thing exactly to their 
spec - including the FAA Voodoo part.  

And even though engineering is dysfunctional, and
even though production is dysfunctional, they've 
bought  over 3000 of these routers (Lockheed-Martin 
installs them in a new air traffic control apparatus) and 
NONE of the routers have ever failed.  Not one.

Why?  Because we are a loving and committed
company family.  And because Don, the El Presidente 
at B&B Electronics ("Dad"), is going to fire somebody 
if the FAA ever gets unhappy with us.  

(That's the "Mutually Supportive" part at B&B.)

So yeah, I'm sure Ozzy and everybody loves each 
other just fine.  But would the Feds entrust the 
care of the air traffic control system to Ozzy?  
I think not.  That's why they gave the contract to us.

Love and mutual support works in body shops, too...

Akzo Nobel puts systems in auto body shops that mix
paint to the proper color.  They read a special number
on your car door and the system mixes the paint to 
exactly match the tint you have.

The problem they were having was that the serial 
conversion card in the system PC's would routinely 
fail, leaving the entire body shop high and dry for days.  
This was not good! Akzo Nobel came to us and 
we adapted one of our existing isolated RS485 PCI cards 
to their system, pre-configured to exactly match 
their setup.  It's a drop-in replacement for the old card, 
and requires no extra programming.  Very
convenient for them.

If you're like Akzo Nobel, and one of our products would 
be useful but you need special pins or jumpers, special 
firmware programming, or even if you just want your 
name on it, we can take care of that for you.  

Got an application? The person to talk to is Randy Hanck, 
(815)433-5222.  You can email him at 
mailto:rhanck@bb-elec.com. Or, click through to 
http://www.bb-elec.com/custom.asp?s=e033105 to
find more information and fill out our Custom Quote Form
for your project and Randy will get right back to you.

Good Source for Custom Cables,
Connectors & Wiring Harnesses...

When our product developers at B&B need custom cables,
wiring harnesses and power adapters, our vendor of 
choice is System Connection.  Some of these items are 
very price sensitive (i.e. China looks attractive) but also 
have very specific technical requirements 
(big problem if the guy in China speaks Chenglish).  
System Connection is a hybrid company, with engineering 
done in Provo Utah and Taiwan, and manufacturing 
in China.  They can turn around sample requests in 
as little as two weeks.  Their website is 
http://www.systemconnection.com?s=e033105. 

Now you may ask, are the System Connection guys
dysfunctional?  Yes, of course they are, and not just 
because they're our sister company.  They live in Utah.
Everybody in Utah is dysfunctional. 

But just like B&B, they're loving, committed, and mutally 
supportive.  They even mutually support their customers.  
What's not to like about that?  The Osbournes could learn 
a thing or two from them.  

So maybe they'll do a live telecast from Utah sometime, 
together with the Osbournes and Dr. Phil.  Hey, does 
anybody know a producer at Oprah?

Happy Connections,

Mike Fahrion
mailto:support@bb-elec.com