Saturday 4-19-2008 Rolling Thunder and Full House Cycle Poker Run for Children's Miracle Network

Today on the way to the shop, I doubled back to see what was going on at a Motorcycle Shop we pass everyday. there was a tent outside and lots of people and bikes. Turns out it was a Poker Run to benefit the Children's Miracle Network. Rolling Thunder Va Chapter1 was sponsoring it in conjunction with Full House Cycles. I'd been wanting to stop and talk to Full House for a while now, so it was a good prompt. Immediately, all I did was U-turn to scope it out, since we had to open shop on time.

When I got to the shop, I went to both of their web sites and downloaded Logos. Next I put together a Corel DrawX3 image with the Logos and additional text, including the name of the event, date, and phone number of Full House, along with another 2 lines of text with our name and web site address. Once I had laid out the three Logos, and the text, I grouped them into a single object and placed 5 copies of the image on my 11x17 page. One had to be rotated 90 degrees to get them all on. I ended up with 6 images @ 8" x 3.5". The heat transfer process was next, I printed to our Epson 4800 on a roll of special transfer paper. Step 3 was cutting the images to size and taping them to 6 of our 11oz ceramic steins. In step 4, I heat press using a special mug press at 400 degrees for 330 seconds. This transfers the ink from paper to the ceramic, in full color. Final step was peeling the paper and tape from the steins, and repacking them into the original box. Since that took a little time, i flashed with a second idea, we also have a Can Cooler sleeve that is ready for Heat transfer. so I printed another page and warmed up the 16' x 20" flat heat press. When ready, 400 degrees, I transferred 6 at once to the Can Cooler sleeves, these only cook for 45 seconds.

Now about 2 and a half hours had passed, and was really worried that Poker Run had already made their tour and was back to Full House. Marcia printed up a packing slip in Quickbooks and away I went, only about a half mile or so. When I pulled in the parking lot I was relieved to see that they hadn't returned. Carrying my still hot box of steins and the 6 cozys in a ziplock bag, i went to the table and started to explain to ladies manning the tent that I had prepared a Donation for Rolling Thunder's effort in behalf of Children's Miracle Network. I was explaining that I felt both were great organizations and did good things, when the roar (Rolling Thunder means roar of a group of motorcycles) of the return of the Poker Run. My timing couldn't have been better!

I showed the owners of Full House Cycles samples of the Steins and Coolers, and chatted with them a bit about our businesses. All together I only spent about 15-20 minutes at this event and store. When i got back to the shop, which Marcia was tending, I had barely sat down, and the phone rang. It was Kim from Rolling Thunder asking if the Chapter could get more of the Steins and Coolers, and what price. I was already feeling the joy of having done a Good Deed, but hear it was making a return! All together, this was great day at our business. Not bad for a Saturday where we only open for 4 hours, to accommodate people who can't get away from their own jobs during the week.