Uncle Sam
Member
We all have ?vices? and one of mine is a passion for Dixieland Jazz music played by many bands from all over the U.S., Canada, England, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Many Dixieland Jazz clubs produce Dixieland Jazz Festivals, which my wife and I have followed for 30 years, where music is played by bands on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in hour long sets. One band finishes a set and a new band comes in. A Festival was recently held in Olympia, Washington, so I took the occasion to spend a day visiting some of my customers in the Olympia-Seattle area.
My ?guides? were a couple of car wash operators who live in the area: Jerry Nix, President of the Western Car Wash Association, and his brother, Randy Nix, a long time contributor to the AutoCareForum. Some of my first vendors (1999-2000) were sold in this area and it was great to actually see the vendors still in service and selling car wash products in a trouble free manner for the operator. These vendors still looked pretty good considering they were 8-9 years old and my designs were just beginning on how to make car wash vending work reliably and remain secure against vandalism. Our new vendors are much more hi-tech, more secure, and aesthetically much more pleasing to the eye, but the basic design and functioning is still the same and still reliable. The operators are very pleased with the money they take to the bank from these vendors and they have had very few problems over the many years of operations. If the operators had any desire to upgrade the electronics to the current hi-tech standards, it could be done at a very reasonable cost. I learned some things that we need to work on during these visits. The real world can be very different from what one thinks he is designing for.
Cont'd
My ?guides? were a couple of car wash operators who live in the area: Jerry Nix, President of the Western Car Wash Association, and his brother, Randy Nix, a long time contributor to the AutoCareForum. Some of my first vendors (1999-2000) were sold in this area and it was great to actually see the vendors still in service and selling car wash products in a trouble free manner for the operator. These vendors still looked pretty good considering they were 8-9 years old and my designs were just beginning on how to make car wash vending work reliably and remain secure against vandalism. Our new vendors are much more hi-tech, more secure, and aesthetically much more pleasing to the eye, but the basic design and functioning is still the same and still reliable. The operators are very pleased with the money they take to the bank from these vendors and they have had very few problems over the many years of operations. If the operators had any desire to upgrade the electronics to the current hi-tech standards, it could be done at a very reasonable cost. I learned some things that we need to work on during these visits. The real world can be very different from what one thinks he is designing for.
Cont'd
