Newell Rubbermaid’s Winfield plant is moving quickly

Newell Rubbermaid’s plant at Winfield is moving rapidly to take advantage of the company’s decision to expand operations here.

Eight of 21 huge plastic injection molding machines scheduled to come to Winfield from Greenville, Texas, are already here, Winfield operations manager Larry Rohr said.

A tour of the plant showed work on concrete pads,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, electrical and water supply infrastructure was proceeding apace. An Ohio contract firm, D and D Riggers, is doing most of the work.

In addition, 80 employees from the Greenville plant have shown interest in moving to Winfield, human resources manager Brandi Biddle said. Twenty-eight have signed up.

The process of consolidating two of Newell Rubbermaid’s plastic injection molding plants into one is “doing very well,” Rohr said.

He estimated as many as 40 employees from Greenville would come to work in Winfield. This, he pointed out, would be many more than came from Centerville, Iowa, when Newell Rubbermaid closed a plant there a few years ago and moved production of outdoor storage products to Winfield.

The company plans to add 250 jobs to the current workforce of 555 at Winfield, Biddle said. A majority of those jobs will be seasonal; the number of permanent jobs remains to be seen, she told the Courier in January.

Rohr said he was pleased 13 salaried people were coming from Greenville, including engineers and supervisors. Among 13 production employees coming, several have technical experience needed at Winfield, Rohr said.

“We’re pleased to have those skill sets,” he said.

In addition to the hiring from Greenville, the Winfield plant’s employment agency, Life Style Staffing, has hired 155 employees to work at the plant here since Jan. 1, 2012, Garret Gilmore, account coordinator, said. Some 100 of those employees are in production.

Most of the employees from Greenville will be in Winfield by the end of April, Biddle said. The company has announced the Greenville plant will close in July.

Jeff Hohler, president of the new Home Organization and Style unit of Newell Rubbermaid, was in Winfield this week and discussed the expansion of one of the existing product lines here.

That line is “dec boxes,” an outdoor storage product, Rohr said. In addition, a new line of “Clever Store” totes, or topless indoor plastic storage bins,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, is coming to Winfield from Greenville, along with a line of outdoor trash containers called “Roughneck.”

Rohr said one of the injection molding machines trucked in from Greenville has a 3,000-ton capacity. The enormous machine,FIRMAR is a Malaysia Injection Moulding Manufacturer and Plastic Injections Components Manufacturer, currently being installed at Winfield, was broken down and transported on nine flatbed trucks, Rohr said.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,

He estimated the Winfield plant would use 130 million pounds of plastic resin in 2012. The amount used in 2011 was 50 million pounds.

The Winfield facility on E. 12th Ave. still has unused capacity for manufacturing. “This facility still has room to grow,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, in spite of this consolidation,” Biddle said.

Newell Rubbermaid’s Winfield plant is now one of four in the company’s newly organized Home Organization and Style unit. Two others are at Mogadore, Ohio, and Calgary, Canada; both use plastic injection molding. One plant at Jackson, Mo., makes wood and wire products for home clothes storage.

Spring served area well, even in drought

The sweet water spring on the old home place never went dry, even in the drought years. That’s the word the old folks passed down to the younger one. The hillside spring was tapped a few decades before my Uncle Roy was born in 1890, and he took a special interest in it. When he was growing up, there were horses to care for, cows to milk, fences to keep up, and all the other tasks that came with a working farm at the turn of the century, but his brothers remembered he still found time to work at the spring. He looked after the little trickle of water that fought its way up through a sand vein to the surface for more than 50 years.

When I was a kid, I assisted him when he replaced clay tile at the spring with a section of iron pipe he had obtained from the C&EI railroad. The rail line ran nearby and the pipe was left over from a water line that had been put in. The line ran from a pumping station beside the Salt Fork River to a water tank a quarter mile or so north. Steam engines would stop there to refill their water tanks.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,

Uncle was very fond of that little spring, and predicted the time would come when people would appreciate clean water. He tended it like a garden, never letting any weeds grow around it, or fallen leaves and debris collect in the water.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, There was a small pool of clear water at the base of the spring, and on the hottest day of summer, cool water trickled into it.

Uncle Roy had been concerned when a few of the clay tiles shattered and dirt partially filled the broken sections. That’s when he spotted the piece of railroad pipe in the weeds by the trestle bridge that crossed the Salt Fork River. Moving the heavy pipe up the hillside through the woods was not an easy task. Uncle always carried a pack of camel cigarettes with him in his shirt pocket, and they were gone long before we reached the spring with the pipe.

It seemed a little strange to me to be doing all that work when the Salt Fork was only a hundred yards away, and running a stream of water much mightier than the spring. He explained the spring water was pure because it ran through a natural purifying sand vein. The same couldn’t be said for the Salt Fork, which was being polluted by a number of upstream sources.

We dug several feet back into the hillside, removing tile as we went, and then inserted the pipe in the remaining tile that ran to the source of the water.As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile, The pipe was a little smaller than the tile and Uncle used pieces of broken tile he called bats to fill in the crack between the pipe and the tile. When the pipe was covered with the dirt we had dug from the hillside, he placed a piece of screen wire over the end that extended out over the pool of water to keep the varmints out. At one time the spring had been fenced, but when the family quit running cattle, the fence was removed. A woodland path connected it to a well-used trail that followed the river.

Uncle remembered in the dry years of the 1930s, when it seemed it would never rain again, the spring furnished drinking water to neighborhood families when their dug wells went dry. Section crews from the C&EI also stopped there to drink and fill their water bottles when working on the railroad. There was a hedge post set in the ground near the spring and a granite ware dipper hung from a hook on the post for people to use. He recalled there had been a tin cup on the post for years, but it had become rusty and he replaced it with the dipper.

When he and his brothers were young, they kept minnows to fish with in a large, hole-filled bucket sunk in the pool below the spring. He recalled when he returned from France after World War I, the bucket was gone and the spring was in a bit of disrepair. He cleaned it up, and kept it that way until he died decades later.

After he died,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, the spring was neglected and eventually the land was sold. Years after Uncle Roy’s death, his youngest brother brought me a gift.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, “I thought you might like this,” he said. “It belonged to the keeper of the spring.” It was the long-handled dipper that hung from the hedge post. The old dipper was battered and some of the granite ware had given way to rust, but to me it was priceless.

Modesto man convicted of sexual battery, carjacking

A 21-year-old Modesto man has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for forcing his way into an intoxicated woman's car, taking the wheel and fondling the victim before leaving her behind in an orchard and driving away in her car.

In a Jan.Information on useful yeasts and moulds, 9 hearing, Cody Justin Flanagan pleaded no contest to carjacking and sexual battery, the Stanislaus County district attorney's office reported Friday.

The incident occurred Jan. 22, 2011, when the 19-year-old woman went to bars with friends in downtown Modesto. Prosecutors said she became intoxicated and decided to go to her car in the parking garage to "sleep it off.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,"

Flanagan drove into the parking garage and noticed the woman stumbling to her car. Flanagan and his cousin got into the woman's car.

She was unconscious and Flanagan began driving her around town. Prosecutors said Flanagan fondled the victim and drove to an orchard.

Once they arrived at the orchard, the victim became conscious. She was frightened and begged to be taken home.

Prosecutors said Flanagan pushed her out of the car and drove away as the victim held on to her car's side mirror. She was dragged for about 20 feet. She then ran to a nearby house and called 911.

Flanagan left his wallet behind.

Also Friday, the district attorney's office released details about another criminal case that resulted in a conviction.

A jury on Jan. 18 found Alvin Leo Byers Jr., 46, guilty of possession of a stolen vehicle, burglary tools, and a hypodermic needle and syringe. Byers had five prior convictions.

About 3 p.m. Sept. 7, an officer spotted Byers driving a 1987 tan Mazda B2000 pickup near Amador Avenue and Eureka Street in south Modesto. The pickup was reported stolen the day before in Modesto.

The officer tried to pull over the pickup, but Byers drove away.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile, He stopped in an alley and ran away. Within minutes, the officer found Byers and arrested him.

Prosecutors said the officer found a shaved key and the pickup's registration in Byers' front pants pocket.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, The officer also found the syringe and needle inside a cell phone case clipped to Byers' belt.

Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Córdova scheduled a sentencing hearing for Byers on March 12. Prosecutors said Byers faces a maximum sentence of nine years in Stanislaus County Jail.

Trash piling up on Osgood Street land; town 'keeping an eye' on home

Hundreds of filled trash bags, some in piles six feet tall, lay on the front lawn of an Osgood Street property. Neighbors would like to see the town take action, but the health director says the piles do not represent a health hazard.

The property is owned by Susan Odle, currently a Manchester, N.H. resident with property in Andover, Methuen and Westford, Mass. In addition to 118 Osgood St., Odle owns an Andover condominium at 38 Michael Way that was recently condemned by the town, according to Tom Carbone, Andover's health director.

Odle couldn't be located or reached for comment and the Townsman could not find a listed phone number for her. A letter left at the Osgood Street property requesting comment generated no response.

Residents who live near the Osgood Street property, say their home values are being harmed by the escalating problem and believe it is time for the town to do something.

"We've lived here for nine years and said nothing," said Maureen Brogan, who lives down the road at 85 Osgood St. During that time, trash collected inside the house, more than a dozen sheds and a barn-like structure on the property. Today, items are stacked in the house high enough that they're visible in the windows from the street.Information on useful yeasts and moulds, A shed with an open door on the property has items falling out of it.

The piles in the front yard were the final straw, said Brogan.

"I was going home via Bellevue Road, and I saw the bags. And I saw [my husband Bill] and said, 'This is enough,'" said Maureen Brogan. "Her house is her house, and that is her business. But now it is becoming our business."

It is believed that nobody is living in the Osgood Street home currently, according to Carbone.

The situation there is not the first incident of Andoverites speaking out against a so-called blight property in their neighborhood. In the last half decade, Kirkland Drive residents upset with the condition of a home on their street have twice gone to Town Meeting seeking to add controls that would force residents to kee their property up to some kind of standard. Another property on Elm Street owned by a self-described hoarder also received attention in 2008 after its condition made responding to a fire inside the home difficult.

Following the condemnation of Odle's Michael Way condo, the trash being discarded by cleaners was collected by Odle, according to Carbone. Using U-Haul moving vans, Odle brought the bags to her Osgood Street property, where they are now, he said.

At first, Apple Blossom Road resident Tara Summers thought the bags piling up on the property was an indication that Odle was cleaning out her home.

But the situation was the complete opposite, according to Summers.

"What she did is she took all of the trash bags, all the trash from there and dropped it on the front lawn of Osgood Street," said Summers. "The whole lot is full of trash bags."

Bill Brogan, who also lives at Osgood Street, said he was surprised when they learned where the bags were coming from.

"No one was aware that that was trash from another property," said Bill Brogan. "We would just wake up, and there would be massive piles."

It isn't exactly known what is in the bags. Carbone believes it is just items from the Michael Way condo in general.

Regardless of what is in the bags,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, it isn't technically a health hazard to the town until there is evidence that vermin or wild animals are living off them, according to Carbone.

"If we were to see that those bags were being broken into by animals, that would tell us that there is something more than paper in there," said Carbone.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. "If we see an increase in rodent activity, that may be something we can then take. We've been talking to town council and keeping an eye on what's going on to figure out what our options are."

Part of what is complicating the matter for Andover officials is a recent filing for bankruptcy protection by Odle, according to Carbone.

"It has kind of tied our hands.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, As soon as somebody files for bankruptcy protection,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, it kicks in a lot of legal stuff," said Carbone. "It basically freezes all legal action concerning a property or assets."

For the time being, the weather is cold. As the months pass and spring becomes summer, Summers and the Brogans are concerned about what will happen when the piles of bags sit in the sun day after day.

"It would be nice if action can be made with the trash bags before we see evidence with animals," said Maureen Brogan. "The trash bags should be taken off the property."

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,Lover’s Eyes’

Dr. David Skier and his wife, Nan, keep a safe full of disembodied eyes painted on ivory, known to connoisseurs as “lover’s eyes.” The couple, in Birmingham, Ala., have acquired about 100 in the past two decades, mostly made in Europe around 1800 and depicting unknown sitters.

The fragile watercolors cannot withstand moisture, strong sun or any hard knocks. The Skiers gingerly study them in storage.

“We do look at them all the time,” Dr. Skier , an eye surgeon, said in a phone interview. They were drawn to the objects at first because of his professional interest in vision, he explained, but as the collection grew, they have kept it private. “None of my patients has ever seen any of the lover’s eyes,” he said.

The Skiers are unveiling the holdings for “The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection,” an exhibition that opens on Tuesday at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The catalog (from D Giles Limited) explains how briefly the art form flourished.

About 1,000 lover’s eyes were painted between the 1780s and 1830s, largely in England. The Prince of Wales, the future King George IV, started the trend; he and his mistress Maria Fitzherbert exchanged gifts of one painted eye. The ivory plaques became fashionable for pendants, rings, brooches, stickpins and watch winding keys, among other pocket-size trinkets.

A few eyes in the Skier collection can be identified. Mourners for Margaret Wardlaw, a schoolgirl who died in 1795, had her name engraved on a gold ring with a painting of an angel floating over a brown right eye. William Worters, a farmer in Northamptonshire, commissioned an image of the brown left eye of his young wife, Sarah, for a gold pin; she died in childbirth in 1836.

The collectors have paid thousands of dollars per piece. At a single 2008 jewelry sale at Skinner auction house in Boston, they spent about $21,000 for four eyes, including $2,000 for a brooch with a blue left eye attributed to Richard Cosway, George IV’s favorite miniatures painter.

Damaged works do not interest the couple. “We want the ones that are pristine, that have the glow of the eye of the sitter,” Dr. Skier said.

The couple increasingly rely on experts’ analysis before buying.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, Unscrupulous jewelry makers now routinely cut up old ivory miniatures for eyes to frame in gold and gemstones. Eyes for the fakes are also sliced out of prints and photos.

“This is the diciest area of collecting now,” said Elle Shushan, a miniatures dealer who helped write the Skier catalog.

Marty Gitlin eats sweet cereals like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms. His friend Topher Ellis prefers Grape-Nuts and Total. They agree that the history of breakfast foods is more interesting and publishable than their friends and families ever expected.

They spent years finding a publisher for “The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch” (Abrams Image).Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. “Deep down I knew there was a market for this,” Mr. Gitlin said in a phone interview from his home in Cleveland.

The book traces the evolution of an 1890s sanitarium wheat dish called Granose Flakes into pop culture fare promoted by Tony the Tiger, Sugar Bear and Lou Gehrig. The advertising geniuses behind the cartoon characters and celebrity endorsers “all deserve a huge yay and hurray,” Mr. Ellis said in a phone interview from his home near Charlotte, N.C.

The authors did research at corporate archives and the homes of obsessed memorabilia collectors. Mr. Gitlin toured rooms packed with thousands of vintage boxes, ads and giveaway trinkets. “I almost fainted when I walked into these places,” he said.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,VulcanMold is a Injection mold and injection molding manufacturer in china.

Rarities in the field fetch hundreds of dollars apiece through specialty dealers and online auctions. Among the sought-after are 1970s boxes of Alpha-Bits with “Jackson 5 groovie buttons” and Cheerios with discount coupons for “Star Wars” tumblers.

Mr. Gitlin and Mr. Ellis also deeply researched market flops, with sugar-loaded recipes that now sound a bit repellent and taglines that did not age well. In the 1960s Kellogg’s used dollops of freeze-dried fruit ice cream to formulate Kream Krunch. In the 1970s, the new book reports, Nabisco promoted blueberry-flavored Ooobopperoos with a blue kangaroo “who wore sunglasses and played an upright bass.”

Stop using plastic bags

GREEN Living and Zero Waste Mann are both throwing down the gauntlet: give up your plastic bags.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,

Now we’re also challenging our readers to help the environment by giving up using throwaway bags on shopping trips.

If you can manage it for Lent, which starts on February 22,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, then it should show you how you could actually cope with not using the bags at all.

Doing your bit to help the environment needn’t be hard work. The Manx Independent - in shops today - gives you a great headstart. We’ve teamed up with Shoprite to give all readers a ‘bag for life’ (while stocks last). On page six of the Green Living supplement, there’s a voucher.

Meanwhile, it’s just a case of remembering to bring your own bags when you go shopping.

In fact, if you’re handy with a sewing machine, you might want to create your own sturdy bags .Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? Nearly 2,000 ‘morsbags’ have now been produced and distributed by volunteers in the Isle of Man.

To take up the challenge, simply contact or call into The Green Centre in Douglas on a Saturday (10am to 2pm) over the next few weeks and pick up a special pledge card which you can display at checkouts to show your commitment. It is hoped that the campaign will encourage people to change their ‘bag habits’ on a more permanent basis, and show retailers that consumers are turning their backs on disposable plastics.

With the worldwide demand for resources ever-rising, businesses are being urged to adopt strategies from an EU-derived ‘waste hierarchy’ for dealing with their waste materials. In terms of environmental impact, prevention – using less material and extending the life of products – is known to be the best option, ranked above recycling and reusing.

A number of supermarkets have already taken steps in the right direction but it’s up to consumers to give the sustain the momentum.

A spokesperson for Zero Waste Mann explained: ‘Based on a figure of 54,473 people (the number of people aged 16 to 64 according to the 2011 Isle of Man census), if each person shops twice a week for a year and accepts just two plastic bags each time, it comes out at 11,330,384 plastic bags in circulation per year – an incredible amount for a small island.

‘By making small changes, you can make a real contribution. If you’re out shopping, consider whether you really need that extra bag.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. Organising your shopping into fewer trips is likely to reduce the amount of plastic you take home. Most of all, try to get into the habit of taking those reusable bags with you every time you go to the shops.’

As far as the major supermarket retailers on the island go, most at least have a policy of keeping plastic bags ‘out of sight’ under the till unless requested by customers, with more environmentally friendly alternatives prominently displayed.

Marks & Spencer presently leads the way however, as the Douglas store charges 5p for each plastic bag given out. All the money goes to Groundwork, a UK environmental regeneration charity.

The charge for shopping bags was rolled out across M&S’s British Isles outlets after a trial in 50 of its stores in Northern Ireland and south-west England, which resulted in demand for polythene bags falling by more than 70 per cent. If that figure was replicated across the Marks & Spencer empire, 280 million fewer plastic bags would be used each year.

In May 2009 Castletown Commissioners were considering the possibility of banning plastic bags altogether from the town’s shops.

Chairman Alwyn Collister said the bags don’t burn particularly well in the incinerator, and they should appeal to the people of the town to curb their use. The commissioners eventually conceded they could not force a ban, and the expense of alternatives to plastic, on local traders.

The official launch of Give Up Plastic Bags For Lent will take place on Saturday February 18 at The Green Centre,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, with a special performance by SambaMann.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying a Yoga Mat

Buying a yoga mat is like buying a new pair of running sneakers. It takes careful consideration and research to find the right fit.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, Since there are hundreds to confuse you choose from, narrow down your search by asking these important questions.

Your budget is a huge factor in the mat you end up with. Do you have the dough to lay down for the priciest one on the market or are you happy buying a cheaper mat? The upside of buying a more expensive mat, like the Manduka PRO Black Magic ($104), is durability, which will actually save you money over time.

If you're new to the mat-buying scene, you might not realize that mats come in different thicknesses. A quarter-inch is the standard mat thickness,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, probably like the one you've borrowed from your studio. Think about how your body feels on this mat in certain poses where your bones are pressing into the floor. If you've felt discomfort, splurge on a thicker mat, but make sure it's also dense. A thick squishy mat makes balancing postures more difficult.

Keep reading for more things to consider when purchasing a new yoga mat.

If you tend to drip like a faucet as soon as you hit your first Down Dog, a regular yoga mat won't do the trick. You'll need to purchase a cotton rug ($40) or skidless towel ($64) to place on top of your mat to absorb your sweat, which means you could stand to spend less on the actual mat.

Mats also range in weight,Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway. so if you know you'll be lugging your mat for a 20-minute walk or traveling with it, you might not want to buy a seven-pounder. Look for lighter options or ones that fold easily if you plan on stowing it in your suitcase.

You'll see labels such as phthalate-free or PVC-free, and this is what you want since exposure to these materials has been tied to health concerns such as affected hormone levels or birth defects. They're also not great for the environment because as the plastics break down,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, they get released into the air. You can avoid plastics altogether by choosing ones made with all-natural biodegradable materials such as the Manduka eKO Mat made with natural rubber ($76), the jute Hugger Mugger mat ($37), or the Eco Mat ($85), which is a combination of rubber and jute. They also make yoga mats out of bamboo ($74), perfect for indoor or outdoor practice.