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Showing posts from April, 2016

A Very Frustrating Trip

I wish I could say my trip back to the states was uneventful and smooth.  Unfortunately I can not say that.  I will start this entry by giving you a little back ground on the Jordanian/US relationship.  The United States has long been one of Jordan's biggest supporters and for the most part with good reason.  Jordan is one of the most stable counties in the region despite a huge influx of refugees spanning back for over 50 years.  To give you an idea of the refugee situation a Jordan Times article from December of 2015 lists about 1/3 of Jordan's total population being refugees.  The United States has agreed to  help  support the Jordanian Government with about $1 Billion dollars a year in Aid for three years that was agreed to in a non-binding memorandum of understanding signed between the President Obama Administration and the Government of Jordan in 2015 and in fact Congress stipulated that Jordan receive no less then $1.275 Billion in aid in FY 2016 (https://www.fas.org/sgp

Been a busy week!!

Well quite a bit to post so will break it up into 3 or 4 posts over the next couple of days!  The first big event last week was my sale at the Embassy.  Of course like always for me it was a total rush before hand, spent the last day before trying to build up a little more inventory in the non-pen department so made some cigar punches and bottle stoppers and a shaving kit.  When it was all said and done had about 100 items for sale which was right on track for what my goal was.  This is what my table looked like for the sale! Sales Table at the US Embassy, Amman Jordan Over all over the two days I sold about 27 items and took orders for a few more for a total of about 750 Jordanian Dinars or close to $1300.  About half of that was material costs or sales cost so over all not bad.  The sale itself was great but was not the sole primary goal, the main idea was to get my name out there for making these products so that people would come to me later with orders or requests.   For th

What a Week!!

Well this will be a busy week, I ended up taking today off on leave to pump out a few more items for my sale this week.  I will have over 100 items on sale from pens (a huge majority) to wooden handed shaving kits, bottle stoppers, cigar punches and coffee scoops.  Will have to wake up early tomorrow to try to get price tags on everything and pack it up. Below is a picture that I took of some of the items on sale that they are using for advertising. A good sale this week will give me a little more walking around money on leave so wish me well!! . After the sale I will be going back to work for two days before heading off on leave, flying out on Friday about two in the morning to get to Mn about 9 PM. Will spend the night in Fargo before heading out to the farm on Saturday.  From what Chris said my planting may get shoved back a few days due to cold weather, Chris says he thinks the ground is still frozen solid but we will see,  I did get an email back from one of the guys I em

Texas House Sold!

Well this week has been an adventure with alot of late nights!  We finally closed on selling the Texas house on Tuesday, it was supposed to have closed last week but the buyer did not have the money in yet.  So Wednesday called the father (only number we had) of the people who own the house next to our property in Minnesota to see if they were interested in selling. He was going to pass on the information to his daughter and soon in law but as of today we have not heard back so will probably give another call tomorrow to make sure they copied my number right but may hold off another week.   We heard rumors they were planning on selling this summer so we will keep the fingers crossed. Chris left to go back to Mn/ND this week, he got back just in time for a PT test!  I am looking forward to getting back there myself in a couple weeks.  Have so much to day when we get there!  Other then that been building inventory for my sale next week, up to about 60 items but wanted to be close to 90