Black Friday Ad Now Posted

Happy Thanksgiving!!

UNIFORMS MANUFACTURING, INC OFFERS $25,000,000 WORTH OF CREDITS TO COOK COUNTY ILLINOIS RESIDENTS

UNIFORMS MANUFACTURING, INC OFFERS $25,000,000 WORTH OF CREDITS TO COOK COUNTY ILLINOIS RESIDENTS

Scottsdale, AZ — October 7, 2010 —Cook County Illinois rejected a bid from Uniforms Manufacturing Inc because they are located in Scottsdale, AZ.

Cook County requested quotes for contract 10-84-29. The items were to be used for clothing residents of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center of Cook County. Even though the bid from Uniforms Manufacturing was $25,000 lower than the nearest competitor the bid was rejected because their headquarters are in Scottsdale Arizona. On June 1, 2010 the county commissioners passed resolution 10-R-202 banning business with Arizona companies except “where there is no significant additional cost to the county”.

Uniforms Manufacturing Inc released the following statement, “While he haven’t done polls of the residents of Cook County Illinois we believe that most of those residents feel that $25,000 is a significant amount of money. Since their elected officials don’t feel any sense of fiduciary responsibility to their constituents we will offer a one time $5 discount to any resident of Cook County Illinois who places and order on one of our websites (UMIdirect.com or FortifiedWorkwear.com) in the month of October.”

COOK COUNTY WASTES ADDITIONAL $25,000 ON CONTRACT

COOK COUNTY WASTES ADDITIONAL $25,000 ON CONTRACT

Scottsdale, AZ — October 5, 2010 —Cook County Illinois announced that they are rejecting a low bid from Uniforms Manufacturing Inc because their headquarters are in the state of Arizona

Cook County has announced a ban on doing business with Arizona companies due the Arizona passage of SB 1070. On October 5, 2010 a bid from Uniforms Manufacturing Inc. was rejected that was $25,000 less than the next closest bidder. After a two votes by the county commissioners Uniforms Manufacturing’s bid was rejected simply based on where their corporate headquarters are located.

Uniforms Manufacturing Inc is a small company based in Scottsdale Arizona and had been successfully providing uniforms for many of the county employees and inmates since 1978. “The loss of this contract is not a devastating blow for the company however; it does push more tax burden onto the taxpayers of Cook County.” Larry Tucker, CEO of Uniforms Manufacturing Inc, was quoted as saying, “While it is the right of the county to choose to whom they award contracts it is not fair to further burden the people of Cook County with additional tax burden especially given the current economic climate. Since the county board refuses to do the right thing while serving their constituents, Uniforms Manufacturing Inc will have to.”

Don't Throw Away Your Kids Clothes

Do you still have clothes that are hanging around that your kids outgrew months or even years ago and you realize that it’s time to get rid of them? This is often the case with many parents, including myself, and it is hard to let go of those items because usually your child only got to use them for a few months. In my home grandma loves to buy the girls clothes and sometimes they may only get to wear something once or twice before they grow out of it.

So what do you do with those clothes that you cannot bring yourself to throw out because they are still almost new? Here are just a couple of suggestions that have worked great for me either by putting a little cash in my pocket or giving a sense of satisfaction that I did a good thing.

The first thing your going to have to do is separate the items that are truly almost new from the ones that may have stains, wear spots, rips, or even dead batteries. The best of the best can either be sold at a garage sale or at a consignment shop. Often times I’ll do the garage sale first then take them to a consignment shop. This way I get double the chance of selling them and often times I get a better price in a garage sale anyhow. Also many consignment shops will donate whatever doesn’t sell.

The best stuff is pretty easy to sell but what do you do with all the less than perfect items? Well I will usually sort this into two piles. One I call trash and the other I call wearable. I figure that if I wouldn’t want my kid wearing it then it’s time to donate it to a thrift store like goodwill. If an item is bad enough that they cannot sell in there store they have people who buy those items to recycle into a whole bunch of new products from rags to insulation. So even if it is a total piece of junk they are still going to make some money off of it. Now the items that I still consider wearable I personally like to donate to organizations that support foster care. Being a foster parent myself I have had children dropped off at my house at 2 am with a dirty diaper and pair of shorts 3 sizes to small and nothing else. More than once I have made a 6 am run to one of these places just so a child can have some clothes to put on until I have time to do some actual shopping. I couldn’t imagine getting pulled from my home dropped off in a strange place and just to make things worse have no clothes.

There are a million other things that you can do with old kids clothes that you either don’t want or need but don’t just throw them out. There is already enough good stuff flowing into landfills today lets work together to see if we can keep some out.

Save the world and a few dollars

With the current global warming trend and the recession any way we can find to save is a good thing. In this article I would like to impart a few tips about how to save a few bucks with your clothes dryer and at the same time conserve energy.

The optimal thing to do is to hang your clothes on a clothesline and let the sun take care of the job for you but urban dwellers often don’t have that option either due to space constraints, HOA rules or a whole assortment of other reasons. This means that millions of dryers must be used every single day and we need them to work better instead of harder.

Lets first look at how a dryer works. It’s a pretty simple process in that all it does is suck in surrounding air and heat it up. It then blows all this heated air through a spinning drum, which your clothes are in, and forces the warm damp air through a pipe to be vented outside. The process is actually really simple and while there are factors that you cannot control but there is a lot, which you can that will pay off in putting money back into your pocket.

The air that your dryer is sucking in should be as dry as possible and while you have no control over the humidity try not to use your dryer when the humidity spikes. Usually during or directly after a rainfall are the worst times. Another thing is often times the washer dryer combinations are in a small confined area. If you’re using the washer at the same time then it raises the humidity of your laundry area. So if your using your washer and dryer at the same time then keep it ventilated so that the damp air can escape which will help your dryer.

Next you’re going to want to look at the clothes that you’re drying. If you just pull them out of the washer and throw them into the dryer you are making the dryer work a lot harder because the final rinse cycle tends to make your clothes into little balls that the dryer has to get opened up to dry them. If you give each item a quick shake to open it up before you put it in the dryer it improves the airflow throughout the entire garment allowing it to dry faster. Another trick is to throw a clean dry towel in with each load to dry. This will pull the moisture out of the wet clothing and since the towel is already dry whatever moisture it does pick up will evaporate much more quickly.

You must clean your lint trap after every load. This will allow the damp air to escape so that fresh dry air can continue to pick up and remove more water from your clothing. Dryer lint is blamed for thousands of home fires every year because if it does come into contact with the heating element on your dryer is can burst into flames with relative ease. Also make sure that your dryer screen doesn’t become clogged and impede airflow. The lint screens can be easily cleaned with toothbrush and warm water.

Finally check your dryer hose that attaches to the outside vent. The first thing is to make sure that it is firmly attached to your dryer and the outside vent so your not blowing damp air into back into your laundry area. Another major mistake that is often made it the hose itself is way to long. You can tell if you look behind your dryer and the vent hose is snaking around back there. When you purchase the hoses they usually come in lengths about six feet long but the connection from the dryer to the vent is often less than a foot. You should cut the hose to make the connection as direct as possible but make sure that you leave a little extra so it won’t come off if your dryer shifts a little. This will increase the airflow out of your dryer and also eliminate a good place for lint to build up.