Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

For those of you who didn’t know, I totaled my Ford F250 pickup the day before Thanksgiving. I had put quite a bit of work into that vehicle, and I am selling the nerf bars from it because they do not fit on my new truck.

If you own a pre 1997 Ford F150, F250, or F350 you might want to take a look at my EBay auction to see if they are anything you are interested in. Obviously, if you are local to Lincoln or Omaha I would be willing to drop them off or schedule a time for you to pick them up.

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Schrock Innovations would like to welcome the latest two new members of our team. Mark Smith has been hired in Omaha to oversee customer support for our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition software and Jeremy Reed has been hired in Lincoln as a new on-site technician.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, Omaha with dual degrees in computer science and software engineering. He will be overseeing all customer support inquiries, maintaining our customer support forum, and managing the Maintenance Checkup website as we release the new version of our Home Edition next year.

Jeremy has more than three years of experience in customer support and computer repair. He has extensive managerial experience which will come in handy as we add additional employees to our on-site services team.

Welcome aboard gentlemen!

It is no secret that Lithium Ion batteries can be dangerous if they do not function properly. Investigators are still looking into the possibility of a Sony-based lithium-ion laptop battery causing the fire at the Nebraska Wesleyan fraternity house last month. While Lithium Ion is normally safe, no other power technology has historically offered the capacity and energy density that a lithium ion battery could. This lack of options is why almost all notebook PCs today come equipped with Lithium Ion batteries.

But a new kind of battery could be on the shelves by early 2009. The new battery is a revolutionary departure from the old concept of daisy chained battery cells contained in a plastic housing that can be removed from a device and replaced. The new battery type is called Lithium Polymer, and while it may sound like a new concept, this is not the gel-based battery’s first trip around the block.

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The truck situation continues… When I bought my 1991 Ford F150 we had a little chat. I explained how my last truck was babied beyond belief, stored in a covered garage, washed and waxed regularly and oil changes every 2,000 miles. I told my new truck that all I ask in return is that it carry me where I need to be, when I need to be there, and if there is an accident that it keeps me safe. The ghosts in the machine and I had an understanding, and I dutifully started repairing the minor problems on the new-to-me truck.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was still getting a check engine light. I suspected a leaking vaccum hose, but then I discovered an oily substance in my air filter housing. After some quick Googleing, I discovered this was called blowback, and was most likely caused by a cloged PCV valve. I stopped by the auto parts store and bought the $4.00 valve, and put it in the next morning.

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As many of you who read this blog know, I was involved in a rear-end collision that totalled my beloved Ford F250 pickup a few weeks back. Almost immediately the search started for a replacement truck with the following conditions:

1) No loans – I don’t do car loans – The interest you pay on a car loan presses your cost of ownership through the roof. Cash for cars is the way to go.

2) It had to be decent looking – after all, my customer would be seeing this vehicle when I go on-site to fix their computers.

3) It had to be a Ford. I know how to work on them, they are easy to fix, and if I bought a Chevy Blaze would have killed me.

The replacement truck is a 1991 Ford F150 Lariat. Too old you say? Seriously the vehicle is pushing 15 years old already. But this was a very special Ford that was deserving at a another chance for service…
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I wanted to take a moment to welcome Josh to the Schrock Innovations team in Omaha. Josh will be adding some much needed HTML development capacity to the Service Center. Josh recently graduated from UNO with dual degrees in Computer Engineering and Mathematics, and his skills in development and graphics design will ensure that our customers are receiving the best possible HTML products.

This is a real milestone for our Omaha Service Center as this is the first time we will have a complete development team of specialized individuals in all areas of web design and software development. In 2007 we will be placing a heavy emphasis on our development services, which some of you may have already noticed.
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Mary Weninghoff in Omaha, NE owns the Harmony Music Box Company. He website details the music boxes she has available for purchase. These are not the small music boxes you may have owned as a child – they are much larger, sound much better, and cost a bit more.

We designed Mary’s website for her about 2 years ago. The site was image intensive and light on text so Google did not rank it very highly. Mary came to us in October and asked what could be done to elevate her website’s ranking in the Google search results for the search term “music boxes.”

In case you were not aware, Schrock Innovations has a growing stable of technology services, one of which is search engine optimization. We have had great success optimizing tutorials on the Schrock website, and the crown jewel was an adoption website my wife and I put together through which our son’s birthmother found us and placed Jacob with us for adoption. Needless to say, anyone who can elevate a website’s placement in Google has a skill worth paying for.

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Around Thanksgiving many people think about the things they are thankful for, but last Wednesday I had a bad accident and I am definitely thankful that noone was hurt.

I was involved in a three car accident near 40th and South after I was done in the field on Wednesday. Thankfully no one was hurt, but my truck is completely totaled. You can click on the small picture above to see a larger image of the front end damage. The rear of the truck was also punched in.

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Kim and I had a spectacular evening last night at the LIBA Holiday Ball and Auction. The event was held at the Lodge at Wilderness Ridge. Proceeds from the ticket sales and the auctions went to support the efforts of the LIBA Foundation.

For those of you who have never been to the Lodge before, I woudl strongly encourage you to make a point of having dinner there before Christmas. We arrived after dark for the event and were both amazed by the spectacular display of lights on the evergreen trees that line the winding road to the Lodge. Thier reflection off the water behind the trees was breath takjing, and an inspiring sight for any Christmas fanatic!
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We are still sifting through the resumes we received fro our Journal Star advertisement for a full time technician. It is always a challenge to find the right person for the job. We have interviewed three candidates who just weren’t our kind of material.

If you know a computer technician who wants to work for a company that pays well and treats its employees like a family, send them over to Schrock. If you are presently working for another computer repair company, please feel free to apply in confidence. Keep in mind that we do REQUIRE you to provide two weeks’ notice to your present employer. We would never hire someone who would just leave their current team hanging. If an applicant would do it to someone else, they might just do the same to us someday!

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