USCC Under New Ownership??

Sir,

My name is Adam Mulholland. I was the original owner of U.S. Challenge Coins from 2005-2009. Patrick just forwarded me this email as I did not originally receive it for whatever reason. I am resuming ownership fully this week. I have limited information at this point of your dealings with Mr. Summy, but I am working to gather everything I need for yours and all the other orders that never completed. You may or may not care about what I about to write but I am going to upfront with you about the current situation of the company so you understand what I am walking into.

The company current has no income or money on hand. The company has 2 choices to make: 1. Go into bankruptcy and dissolve completely, which leaves all involved a limited way to collect what is owed, or 2. Allow myself time to take the reigns, sell assets and produce a revenue in which I can pay all back in either refunds or products. I am opting for #2 since it's the honorable and responsible thing to do, regardless of the pain it might bring to myself.

I understand you are owed money and want a refund. I want to get you exactly what you want and it is my #1 priority along with all the other customers. This takes time and communication to be able to take nothing and make it into something. I want to establish reasonable timelines to ensure everyone is taken care of.

Mr. Summy is being relieved of his ownership this week and will be no longer dealing with the company. I want you to know that you can reach me directly at this email address or my personal phone number at (phone number removed). I am more than happy to engage with you as often as you would like to get this resolved. I do not have the assets in the company to transfer you $1200, however I am working towards being able to do that as soon as possible.

I don't expect you to be satisfied with my explanation, but it is what I have to offer with taking ownership back over and looking over the current state of the company. Next week I will reopen the FB page and submit an open letter to everyone that is owed and engage with each and everyone so I can put together a plan forward. I have no issues working with everyone to make sure the right thing is done and I have no issues discussing options.

Respectfully,

Adam Mulholland

I removed the phone number for now, because I don't want an innundation of negativity to flow toward Mr. Mulholland.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Terra Nova is the Future

My current prediction is that the world of Terra Nova is actually the distant future instead of the distant past.  That would explain why they never found the beacon, because it was sent into the future.  Maybe it is a commentary on our world a bit, perhaps in another million years, someone will be thriving off of the fossil fuels that are dead human corpses.  I wonder if dinosaurs ever thought they would be running my Jeep. 
What kind of vehicle will I be powering? It's a future jeep thing.

US Challenge Coins, LLC: A fraud exposed.


A few months ago, I ordered 135 custom challenge coins through a company that came highly reccommended through the Better Business Bureau.  After paying the company around $1200 at the end of September 2011, it soon became difficult to contact them.  Some of the only communications I recieved from them was regarding ordering more coins, which I was prepared to do for my Base's Petty Officer Association.  When the promised 30 business day turnaround time came and went, I contacted them and was told that the coins hadn't been made yet, and that they were in the process of being minted.  Another month went by.  Still no coins, they became even more difficult to contact at this point.  After the holiday season, Mr Patrick Summy, the owner and proprieter of USChallengeCoins told me that my coins had been made and were being shipped from the factory directly to my house.
At this point I was relieved that my coins were on their way.  Unfortunately I did not have a tracking number.  Mr Summy quickly remedied that fear by sending me this USPS number: 9101 7850 9140 1474 8887 19. You can go ahead and check it out yourself, it still says the same thing it did in January,
"The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on January 18, 2012 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. No further information is available for this item."
It was on January 30th that I recieved a call from Erick Richards, who was my original point of contact for the coins, I thought that it was regarding my coins, I was so excited!! 
What Erick told me was dis-heartening.  The basic jist of the conversation was that USCC was insolvent, and that they have been using new order money to pay off old debts.  Basically they were going to try to "unload enough inventory to keep themselves out of jail."  I tried to contact USCC at their primary and secondary numbers to confirm, having no contact, I finally filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  I also tried to dispute through PayPal to get a refund, but since they had dragged me on for more than 45 days, that was out of the scope of PayPal's dispute resolution service.
Patrick finally contacted me and told me that due to the apparent shipping order, my coins were re-minted; which if they ever really were minted at all, would have been, in my mind, for the first time.
Mr Summy is still feeding me lines about my coins being ready, and he will send me a picture of them by the end of the day, and a tracking number will be coming soon, but the only thing that Patrick Summy seems to be able to produce is promises and excuses.  Never coins.


Through my digging I have discovered a few things about USChallengeCoins.com.
Mr. Adam Mullholland was the original owner, and although he still is listed as a contact on their webpage, he has been transferred overseas and gave up the business to Mr. Summy.  Since then it is apparent that USChallengeCoins has been run into the ground.  Their Facebook account USChallengeCoins Facebook, has been deleted after recieving numerous complaints in their "reccommended" section.  The Better Business Bureau has finally updated their page for USChallengeCoins to remove their accreditation and to warn consumers.  Sure wish they would have done that in September.  USChallengeCoins is still operating their Ebay and Amazon stores, while I am still sitting here with a $1200 debt.  As of yet, I have no coins and no money.

Do you Dutch

My buddy was telling me that his wife is a teacher in a Chicago area school.  Three of her students got suspended for starting a fight.  They were passing insulting notes to eachother.  One of the notes said, "Shut the fuck up or I am going to do you Dutch."  What the fuck is doing someone dutch?  Is it possible to force dutch rudder someone?  Maybe he was going to take him to dinner and make him pay for half?

VFF Day One, Two

So, I've been wearing Vibram Five Fingers KSOs for about a week now and finally started out running. I did 4 laps on the indoor track on day one. I went out and bumped it up to 6 laps today. 4 laps is approximately a half mile so, if I follow this trend, I should be doind my "usual" 5 miles by mid September. I don't feel too sore today but my poor dog, whom I took for a bike ride yesterday apparantly rubbed his paws raw. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it easy tomorrow with Campbell doing his "motivating" PT. I don't know of many more things that are more demotivating than Campbell PT. Oh well.

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Kadence's cooking show episode 1

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Superbowl Squares

Here are the squares only 13 not taken. 435 per quarter.

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Christmas Bird

I decided what I am going to do as a next project.  I'm going to do the welder, I just need to find some places to get some microwaves.

I got a new thermometer for the smoker for Christmas.  Which is why I think that the turkey was so good.  Better than ever.

What to do next...

I am in the middle of deciding what my next project will be.  I've looked at a few things and am considering a few of the following:

A backyard medal smelter
A new smoker, because someone donated a 22.5 weber to me.
Homemade Arc Welder

I think that the Welder would be the thing that I would get the most use out of, and I will learn how to weld , always a useful skill.  Especially in the upcoming post apocalyptic zombie world that we may or may not be heading toward.

Swype Beta Reopened

I just got invited to the Swype beta, which has apparently re-opened. It is super smooth. I can't wait to get faster at it. I'm surprised at how fast I can go already. The only thing that would make it easier for me would be if it would be in the dvorak layout. Although, if it were I think that it would be slower, because all the words would be across the screen from each other.

Just to let you know, that Swype can work on older phones (the G1) although I do have the "2708" radio with 14mb xtra ram running the latest Cyanogenmod Daily that I have had the time to flash.  But it works just fine.

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Day 1-1 of DGMT

I did the test also 5 Minutes Before I started. My Latest DGMT! Results: I just did 56 pushups at 37 pushups/min in #DGMT!  DGMT is Drop and Give Me Twenty, an Android app that does the "100 pushup" program.  Sure, I could just workout normally, but wheres the fun in that?

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Snug as a UDS in a Rug

Alternate Title:  UDS in a Blanket!

I couldn't find anything on "the web" against wrapping a drum smoker in a blanket (admittedly I didn't look very hard), so I grabbed a blanket that may or may not be the property of the most recent moving company that I have used...

I wrapped it up because despite my best efforts the smoker would either shoot way up to 250 with all the holes open or hover around 208 with one hole closed.  I thought  to myself, "Self, I bet your smoker is loosing a lot of heat to the atmosphere.  If you were to wrap it up in that blanket, you could conserve heat."  And so I did.  So far the temp has evened out at 232 which isn't too bad all things considered (all of those things being the freezing temperature outside).   Heres to hoping that it doesn't catch on fire.  God Forbid I be the focus of the next safety brief, right after: "Don't deep fry a turkey inside," youll have to sit through:
"Do not wrap a Smoker or Grill in a U-Haul Blanket."

Also this is a picture of Kadence enjoying the first day of the Advent Calender that we made together.

DIY Advent Calendar

With it being the holiday season, I decided to make my daughter an Advent Calendar.  I went with a more modern one than one with any religious overtones.  I also wanted a reusable one instead of a cheap store bought one.

First thing was a trip to the hobby store where I picked up my materials:

12"x12"x1/8" plywood
2  6"x12"x1/8" plywood
A book of Christmas themed 12"x12" cardstock
Green Spray paint
Wood glue
"Elmers" white glue

First step was to cut the 6" boards into 6 equal 12" long slats each so you have 12 appx 1" long slats.   It is more important for them to be the same width than to be 1".

Now, make a small sharpee mark off appx every 2" on one of the slats in addition to one on each end.  Once again, it is more important for there to be 6 equal sections instead of exactly 2".

Clamp all of the slats together.

I used a dremel to cut halfway down all of the slats at each mark.  The last "flag" on each slat is extraneous so it may be cut off, but ensure that the notch that you just cut is still there.  This will leave you with 12 inter-lockable slats.  I did a little dry fitting and I had to re-dremmel a few of them to get everything to work great.

Should look like this.

Add just enough wood glue to each notch and fit them all together; six notch up, vertically; six notch down, horizontally; to make a nice 5x5 grid.  I rigged up a couple of scrap pieces of wood so that everything would dry up nice and even.

While that was drying, I had my daughter help me pick out the background paper and spread some Elmers on the 12x12 board. After the glue was applied I put the paper on it and put a book on top of it all.

Next step was to get the doors cut.  I picked a good cardstock and placed it face down.  I placed the dried grid on top of it centered.  I spray painted the grid which left a negative image of the grid.

I took a perforating tool and perforated each square from the back.  Once everything was perforated I glued the grid into place.  Since we cut off one of the "flags" on each slat, that left a bit of "door paper" on each end that could be folded down to cover the wood on the outside of the grid.

Had my daughter pick out some candies to fit in the grid and had her place them in. (Tip: kids will stuff as much as they can into each compartment.)

Once everything was full, I glued the grid down to the backboard, centered of course.

Here is the result:

She had a super fun time helping me and she is looking forward to December. (Tomorrow)

Next year all I'll have to do is strip off the red door paper and re-glue a new piece down.

Thanksgiving is upon us.

I was up all night last night checking the chamber temperature of the UDS every thirty minutes, and cleaning up the house waiting for Baby Davy to come home.  This morning at 10, went to go pick up the wife and baby and brought them home.  Come to find out, the couple who were coming over for dinner may not be coming after all.  Oh well, more turkey sammiches for me!

At about 830 I took the turkey out of the smoker and put it in a roasting pan and covered it with foil added a cup of water and threw 2T of butter over the top.  Threw it in the oven at 250 so I didn't have to watch it while I went to the hospital.
When we got home I temped it and it was at a perfect 165 so I took it out, removed the shish-kabob skewers that were holding the skin together and wrapped it in foil and a towel.  Heated up the faux-cambro and dropped that bird right in.
Still waiting on the wife to tell me what to go to the store to get in addition to the turkey so.... I will tell you the results of this turkey cooking tale when I have them!

What to be thankful for!

Early Tuesday morning my wife went into labour.  However awesome it was, which it was, this meant that the bird had to be brined for a few extra hours.  It also meant that the dog had to stay locked up for a good 12 hours, but he seemed to have survived without too much mental distress.  Back to the Turkey, got home late Tuesday and didn't feel like de-brining the turkey and rubbing it down, which meant that I had to do it Wednesday.

After rinsing and rubbing the turkey down, I started up the UDS.  Got some good smoke going and a good temp and threw the bird on.  I weaved some bacon threw it on top of the turkey so it will be extra delicious.  I've heard not to mix meats while you're cooking, but I figure, as long as I get the Pork up to the temp that the Poultry needs to get to to be safe, then everything will be hunky dory.  Only about 9 more hours of smoking to go!!

Thanksgiving Turkey Smoke Prep 1

Went out and bought the turkey for thanksgiving.  I wanted to make sure that I had enough time to :

Defrost (Tonight)
Brine Overnight (Monday -> Tuesday)
Rub Down + Rest (Tuesday)
Smoke Overnight (Wednesday -> Thursday)

Now that I have my plan down, I am all ready to Smoke the T-day Turkey.
I ended up getting a 14.1 pound turkey because that is the "maximum safe weight" so that during the smoke I don't food poison the family and friends that are coming over.

The part that I am not liking about the defrosting of the turkey, is that I don't have anything big enough to soak the whole frozen bird in.  I'm defrosting it in the Fridge to make sure it stays cold enough to thwart any bacteriological beasties.
Hopefully when it is thawed and I move on to brine it, it will be able to distort enough to fit into my Large Pot aka "The Cauldron."

Smokin' Some Ribs

Decided to pull out ye olde Ugly Drum Smoker for some ribs. It took a while for it to get up to temp but it had some nice hickory smoke pouring from it so I wasnt worried. The one thing I was worried about though was the thermometer. Its been on the fritz ever since it started getting cold out. Something to do with the hot smoker and the cold wind made condensation form under the display, or it could just be the battery, but I put it in a bag of rice and most of the liquid cleared up. Turned out to be some delicious ribs.

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Turkey Smoke Success!!!

Yesterday I got the chance to smoke the turkey.  Mixed up a nice spicy rub (basically the same one from the ribs but sans sugar).  Rubbed it on and threw it on the smoker.  I used hardwood lump charcoal and it was a little difficult to maintain temperature so after three and half hours, I was sick of opening caps and closing holes, so I used what I am going to call the Ohio Crutch (kinda like the Texas Crutch but you use the oven at a hotter temperature).

The Ohio Crutch is:

1. Preheat the oven to 300 (I would have done 225 and kept it low and slow, but it was getting late and I was Hungry.)

2. Wrap the bird in Foil.

3. Stick it in until it reaches a safe temp.

4. Eat that Turkey.

IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!

I highly recommend smoking a turkey, just make sure that you have enough time to prep it (2 days), let it sit out of the oven (30 mins) and keep it low and slow (30-40 mins per pound).  Although, I don't see how it could have tasted better if I would have kept it low and slow. 

Turkey Smoking Part 1

I want to smoke a Turkey for Thanksgiving.  First thing being first, I wanted to test everything out before I actually ruined Thanksgiving with a subpar smoked turkey.

After visiting smoker-cooking.com I found what I believed to be a good recipe for a brining soulution.  One change I did make was I used 2T of cayenne because, my wife, trying to hurry up the labor wants things Spicy.  With the turkey sitting in the brine and me thurougly disgusted from peeling skin from breast I wait.  Not wanting to mix up a new rub, I plan on using the rub from all of my previous rib smokes which I found at amazingribs.com.  I thought that I was going to be smoking up the Pre-Turkey today, but I ended up having watch today until 1530.  Hopefully I have tomorrow off so I can get this Turkey party started!