When I checked my email this morning I had a message with "Happy
Thanksgiving" in the subject line. It didn't make me happy. The
message claimed to be from sales@... It put up
a shopping mall kind of page with a big ONE DAY SALE message. When I
clicked on the leather belt link it took me to an on-line pharmacy to
sell me Viagra. Somebody in Lagos Nigeria hates me. Ever since I had a
phony web site taken down because they had coppied my handbag page and
had the payments go to Nigeria I have had problems with spam emails
using my email address. The only time I email using the leather Goods
Connection email address is if there is a question about a pending
order. Your order number will be in the subject line.

I removed all the order buttons for the handbags for Dec. I need all
the time I have for belt and wallet orders this time of year. The
source for most of my handbag leather has switched tanneries and what
they now have looks like vinyl. I'm looking for a new source, I have
no idea what I'll have for bag leather in Jan.

I wrote another article on "Handbag conversion" on my blog
http://henrysleathernews.blogspot.com on the menu it is, November #4
The previous one was about hand lacing handbags. This one is about
moving up to the use of sewing machines.

I got my latest issue of "Shop Talk" The leather Retailers and
Manufacturers' Journal. (www.proleptic.net) It seems to paint a dismal
future for the industry. The demise of the leather industry in the US
started when the shoe industry left the country. With it went all the
other business that supplied it. If the auto industry goes, the US
won't be able to build anything.

Leather Goods Connection unlike the rest of the domestic leather
industry is doing well. There are people that I trained in two other
shops making some of the orders. If you wondered why your order was
shipped from MN or WI when you placed your order with LGC in GA that
is the reason. The orders come in here and I send the over flow to the
other shops.

I want to mention another Publication that I love. It's the catalog
from Lindsay Publications. www.lindsaybks.com They sell reprints of
old technical books. On the back of the latest issue:
"Take time out from those important discussions with your broker to
invest in something that will provide returns forever - returns that
no one can shut off - the returns that come from knowing something...
having a skill. Yes in this world there are only a very few people who
know what they are doing. You and I both know your broker isn't one of
them..."
I bought a book on plastic injection molding. I sent one on deep
hole drilling and making gun barrels to my machinest brother in-law.

It was from their catalog that I learned about "Thomas Edison-types".
I use that method when I train people to make leather goods. It works
like this... Thomas Edison decided what he wanted to invent, then
tried everything until he found something that worked. When asked,
"How do you increase your success rate", he replied, "You increase
your failure rate".

So now, after telling someone how to do the job and what not to do...
and when they screw it up by doing what I said not to do, instead of
going balistic like I used to, and yelling something like... "I might
as well have been talking down the toilet"... I smile and say, "I see
you are making progress". I call it my Edison method.

Next week I'm off to a handbag factory in the Dominican Republic to
find out if I have anything to offer that will increase their success
rate. Maybe I'll come back with interesting news.

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very bottom of this email.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!