Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss $2.96 Gas...

Just try shipping to Russia. It may get there but the contents seem to disappear.

You left off ".., Senator." at the end of your comment.

Rex,

I don't think all corps are crooked. LOL And I do know sonething about running a business as I run two of them. Of course they have to make profits and I don't begrudge them that. However what I'm seeing with my UPS account is gouging and the fact that they know they're are only two major shippers in the U.S. And their guarantee to be on time is not worth the paper it's written on. Shipped some fish in early December to Montana and they sat in Illinois for three days. It took seven days when they were guaranteed to arrive in four. Needless to say they were a bloody mess and UPS didn't give a crap. Don't even try and collect on damage. It's virtually impossible. You can do all this if you don't have competition.

If there there was serious competition for shippers in the U.S. I guarantee you their rates woukd be considerably lower. In fact one shipper, Speedee, that is only confined to a few states at this point, is much lower to ship for comparable distances and I've been told by customers the service is excellent. Unfortunately they are not in Indiana yet.

http://www.speedeedelivery.com/areas.html


My shipping expense is up to 30 percent of the sale price of a fish and I'm not selling them cheap as they are up to $120.00 per fish. Just seems a little too high too me.

Btw I do like the on line tracking and ease of setting up shipping from my home on the computer and the printing of the scanable labels with UPS. I'm sure it's the same with FedEx. Also the drivers are nothing but professional from my experience. Not crazy about the $13.00 pick up fee if I don't order something to be delivered to coincide with the day I want pick up, in which I avoid the pick up fee.

I used to use Priority Mail exclusively as no matter where I shipped my frozen fish in insulated boxes in the U.S., including Hawaii; it got there in three days. And it was a better rate than UPS and Fed Ex The last two out of three boxes I shipped to Northwest Ohio from Northeast indiana took four days. I can drive their in two hours. The second one I shipped 2nd day and it still took 4 days! It was explained to me that every parcel in Indiana regardless of where it goes has to be sorted in Indianapolis now. They lost me as a customer.

I hear ya on that part. If I mail my neighbor 2 houses down a card it takes 2 days to get there as it has to go to another town to be sorted! I asked about this once at the post office and was told USPS has lost so much business to Fedex and UPS, they have had to close many of their sorting facilities and smaller post offices.

Rex,

I'm well aware of going up to the next pound and already do that. I .e, the box weighs 3 lbs. 4 ounces so I type in 4 lbs. And my scale is checked by the goverment every year too. That why it's certified.

.001 over is charged to the next inch? Who told you that? Holy crap what are they measuring with industrial calipers?

Type in UPS complaints including unethical business practices in a google search. Plenty of reading material.

Speaking of USPS. I went to get a money order a couple hours ago, and was going to send it out priority mail. Puters were down and could only sell stamps for cash, no receipt if you need one.

I go to the bank and get a MO, then back to the post office. This time I read the notice on the door, and systems are down, nation wide.

Asked the gal what happened? She don't know, just that everything went down.

I bought my stamp and asked if mail was moving? She said no problem with regular mail, and this is going local, so you're fine.

Gas prices seem to have stabilized around the $2.30-40 mark around here. I can live with that.

The high speed conveyor systems I've seen incorporate lasers that measure each piece on a high speed scale and software calculates the best packing arrangements for loading.

Most of those Priority Mail packages probably get put on FedEx Jets...why do you think you'll find FedEx overnight drop boxes in most USPS parking lots?

Both FedEx and UPS will occasionally use the USPS to do the final delivery. I don't know how that gets arranged.

Oh my!

At the local hub they must not have that yet. I was told by someone that worked there that they have so many boxes around Christmas time they are walking on them. And they pretty much dump the boxes out of incoming trucks enmass to save time. No wonder they are so hard on boxes!

This explains the condition of some of the boxes I shipped. I got out of doing and shipping fragile wholesale fish for that reason. Had to build custom crates for each fish to keep them from getting crushed. That was time consuming, and you can only pass on the cost to the consumer so much-- especially at wholesale prices. It was also impossible to get a claim paid. They fought me tooth and nail.

I've seen drivers for both show up at the local post office. Both carriers know some of the rural routes are not cost effective.

I don't believe REX is talking about 0.001" accuracy here, because that will never happen.

I use Scanning Arrays and Lasers all the time, but you have to understand the nature of the beast.

I'll bet that this goes thru multiple 2D scanning arrays and they are tracking the velocity thru. Has to be tied in quite tight, like with processor scan times. Probably could get into a window of a millimeter or so if conditions are right, and the programmer knew what the hell he's doing. Scanning Arrays work the best.

Ahhh, Lasers. Big name dropping word. I have a Laser, so I'm cool, right?

These are retro devices, meaning that you are going to shoot a beam at something and it has to reflect back to the pickup to Triangulate it's distance for accuracy, or you do time of flight. Not nearly as accurate as people are led to believe.

Non-contact measurement still has a ways to go. Some of the recent laser products are pretty cool tho. Not color blind, and don't have to hit the object dead square.

Yep, gas prices.

Have a project in Pueblo at a drill pipe mill that was officially put on hold until gas prices bleed your wallet again.

Project at a pipe mill in KY that was supposed to be up and running quite some time ago, well, they filed bankruptcy.

Holding pretty steady at about $2.50/gal.

The US rig count is down 60% from where it was just a few months ago. All because of OPEC not wanting to lose market share. It is a war on America. Our oil technology requires oil prices to be @ or above $75.00 per bbl for our Shale oil to be marketable. Opec continues to flood the market with oil.
One of our US Presidents called it trickle down economics where money is dispersed through jobs. So when oil prices drop, and markets collapse , it trickles down through lose of jobs and company Bankruptcy. Steal mills, Real estate, Banks etc. We all like lower gas prices but like I said OPEC is Warring against America. Period !!

Tracy

Just filled up my 2006 1500 hemi yesterday.... well $100 didn't fill her at $112.5 per L thats like $4.50 per gallon. Lucky if that lasts the week.

Cheers Don.

Don, like I said we all like cheaper gas, it just needs to be drilled here including Canada and not in the Middle East where it supports the Radical Muslims. there are many ways to war on a nation.

Tracy

Tracy, you are correct - mostly…..
The “middle easterners” have “lifting cost”, or as others call “production cost of somewhere around $5 bucks a barrel.
Athabasca Canadian Oil Sands are so high cost per barrrel as well as N.D Bakken shale companies, they cannot compete.

On the other hand, the Texas Permian Basin Sprayberry/Wolfcamp production lifting costs are around $8-9 bucks a barrel and those old wells hold “HBP” acreage millions of acres so no lease acquisition costs - We have advanced technology that allows us to drill multiple wells with one a rig on one pad site.
This thing is not over - you know all this stuff but others might be interested.

Yes, I am very familiar with this stuff - I was Division Geophysicist for a Major Oil Company in Midland at one time and assignment in many of the other Oil Provinces.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
Cheers,
George

Thanks for your information here George. I posted my remarks because some can not see the forest for the trees. I am tired of seeing jobs lost and wars fought over oil and oil pricing. America needs to wake up. I am on a rant today George, as u might see from other post here lol

Tracy

I am with you all the way Tracy!
Just pointing out that things are different this go-round.

George

George I lived in midland in the 70's. Sometimes we would travel 4 hr's and drag a boat just to get to a lake. I herd once that there were more boats in Midland per person over any other city in Texas. It was all beach out there till u got to the water. We might know some of the same people from there. The world is smaller than we think

Tracy

What we need is more pipe lines that we can run up graded fuel through. What we have seen over the last few years is oil and fuel run on rail as much as they can pull. We have seen the pressures on the pipe lines we do have doubled because this is the only way to get more product through the same size line.

Then we have the rail cars accidents because of the larger volume of cars hauling fuel and oil. And then we have these pipe lines popping leaks because of the extra pressures and an old line with weak spots.

Here in Ontario they trying double the one main line pressure but spend the last four years looking for bad spots with an xray pig with still running fuel through it. Some good pay welding on a line that is full of bunker oil.

In stead of building more pipe lines they find its easier to raise the price to lower demand and curb use rather than get more volume. Our government is fine with this because the tax on fuel is a %.

Cheers Don.

I will agree with the pipelines needing to be increased and improved. I would like to see us move to natural gas for transportation needs. It is better for the environment and for the engines (giving a longer life span) and we have the Mother Load when it comes to natural gas. It seams to be moving that way but not moving fast enough. We could get away from supporting the Muslim rebels on the middle east. I have a natural gas driven GMC pickup and it runs great. Todays pricing is @ or around 50 cents per gallon cheaper than gasoline and I should get a longer engine life. That is a win win.

Tracy

Tracy, living in Midland in the early sixties was an oxymoron..
Boom or Bust - half the time half of the geologists were selling washing machines at Sears...
Fantastic blue quail hunting -