The GreenGlides Story..

Nomad74

Nomad74

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Radar Foster said:
UCO looks like an exciting play with limited downside and impressive upside

assuming crude isn’t quicksand over the next year

you have a target exit? I might play along
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I was thinking $4 feels good. can't feel bad about 100%. Right now i'm just trying to drop funds in places that will recover the fastest. Oil is so low right now, its almost a no brainier. After the hit my dad's portfolio took with this virus stuff, I feel silly taking anything stock related.
 
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FB7777

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www.investopedia.com

Is USO a Good Way to Invest in Oil?

The United States Oil Fund is better suited to short-term investors who actively manage their portfolios.
www.investopedia.com www.investopedia.com

that’s a complex instrument you’re looking to invest in. Nice illustration of negative roll yield, backwardation and contango.

but then you don’t have to understand how it works to profit from it

think I’ll stick with oil companies like Exxon to play the energy sector
 
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Papa John

Papa John

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Nomad74 said:
I was thinking $4 feels good. can't feel bad about 100%. Right now i'm just trying to drop funds in places that will recover the fastest. Oil is so low right now, its almost a no brainier. After the hit my dad's portfolio took with this virus stuff, I feel silly taking anything stock related.
Click to expand...

It's not a "stock" in the usual sense @Nomad74
:headscratch: If I'm understanding it correctly--- Its "SomeGuy placing Bet" on derivatives, and swaps of oil.

having said that-- I might give a $1-2k to the guy to wager for me too.
 
Living The Dream

Living The Dream

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Radar Foster said:
www.investopedia.com

Is USO a Good Way to Invest in Oil?

The United States Oil Fund is better suited to short-term investors who actively manage their portfolios.
www.investopedia.com www.investopedia.com

that’s a complex instrument you’re looking to invest in. Nice illustration of negative roll yield, backwardation and contango.

but then you don’t have to understand how it works to profit from it

think I’ll stick with oil companies like Exxon to play the energy sector
Click to expand...
What do you think of AXAS?
 
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Ken Harris

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Mikey P said:
The GreenGlides Story

It all started with an unlikely but extremely serendipitous coming together of people, purpose, perseverance and passion: GreenGlides birth was not easy, but it changed the industry.

Its DNA combined a Canadian, a vegan, a window cleaner, a woman and a machinist, and online forums that brought this baby into the world.

In the early 2000’s Ken Harris of Canada a carpet cleaner and inventor began to cut grooves into the flat glide that came on the PMF Easy Glide wand. He discovered that the grooves improved the airflow and dry times. Ken was tinkering in a local carpet cleaning supply store one day and saw a couple old wands in a corner. These wands, sold for a very short time by a machinist in Michigan, were dubbed GoldStar and had rounded plastic lips. They were easier to push and the rounded lips improved the dry times. Ken was further inspired by Servicemaster’s round, plastic tile attachment which was made to fit their Castex wands and had a cult following by franchise cleaners who discovered that they made the wand glide easier on carpet - although they leaked too much to afford an appreciable improvement in dry times. Ken’s quick mind put this all together and he crafted the first round, PTFE glide.

In 2003, Ken began to attempt to sell these glides, using the online carpet cleaning forums as a platform for his sales. He soon attracted the attention of Mike Pailliotet, aka “the Vegan”, a cleaner from Santa Cruz, California with a prosperous one truck cleaning company. Mike had graduated from working for Miller’s as a newlywed in his teens, to Coit, to finally becoming an owner/operator with Connoisseur Carpet Cleaning. Mike was intrigued with the infant glide, and Ken made him one for his beloved, custom Prochem Titanium wand. While it had its issues, he immediately recognized the potential. He vociferously promoted them on the industry forums.

In came the window cleaner, Jeff “Greenie” Lydon. Greenie was a veteran Marine, living in Hawaii. Greenie’s window cleaning business was doing well and, responding to demand from his customers, he had recently added carpet cleaning to his services. At the time he only offered dry cleaning methods, however he was looking to add hot water extraction to his offerings. His interest was piqued with Ken’s new glide tool and being a born salesman, he offered to distribute them on the West Coast. He was afforded a PMF 422, wand with a KenGlide, and the West Coast “distributorship”. While he only ever sold a handful of glides, they were destined to become a huge part of his life.

The next player was a female owner/operator from Sun City, California by the name of Lisa Smith, on the forums she was known as “Truckmountgirl”. Lisa had begun cleaning in 1987, soon after the birth of her second child. Most of the cleaning she did was repossessed homes, owned by the VA. It worked well for her as she could bring her children with her and care for them while she worked in the empty houses. Her husband had a regular job which took provided the family with insurance and benefits, and her income helped ends meet. Soon two children became four and they also became foster parents to two more. Then one day in January of 1998, Lisa’s husband died unexpectedly at the age of 39 and she was left with a very small insurance benefit, not enough to keep the family going even six months. She had to hit the ground running and support her family on her own. After considering her options, she decided to use the life insurance to put a down payment on a 16 passenger van and a truck mount and to move into the residential carpet cleaning market since the VA repo’s had nearly dried up and would not support them. Eventually, she purchased her first computer and soon found the online carpet forums. A romance blossomed between she and Greenie, and a deep friendship with Mike Pailliotet. Greenie came to California for a visit, bringing with him that PMF 422 wand and glide and gave it to Lisa. She began to put it – and Greenie - to use in her business and both became pivotal to her life story from there.

Mike, Greenie and Lisa along with other cleaners tried to help Ken fine tune his glide, but it soon became obvious that he was never going to be able to produce the consistent, quality product that the trio felt was needed. He had also attracted the attention of a very large franchise “dry chemical” carpet cleaning company that felt threatened by the drying performance glides gave hot water extraction cleaners. They definitely did not want the average HWE cleaner to be able to boast dry times as low or lower than theirs. They sent Ken a cease and desist letter, claiming glides infringed on the patent of their proprietary RX20 shoes. All of this prompted Mike to suggest that Greenie and Lisa begin making their own glides, at first they were reluctant, they had a business, a large family and neither had ever done any manufacturing. Mike persisted, and persisted and became progressively more insistent as Ken’s glide sales dwindled and it was feared glides might die on the vine before they ever really caught on. They finally agreed to give it a shot.

Greenie and Lisa set off on a quest to find a machinist to produce their glides. The first machinists they visited could not be bothered with such a small project. Eventually one suggested they try one down the street, John Fry, who they thought might be able to accommodate them. By the last quarter of 2004, Greenie and Lisa had their first ten prototype glides and sent them to Mike and other key cleaners to try. They were a hit and soon 20 more were made, all for the Prochem Titanium wand, and they brought some to Connections Trade Show in Las Vegas and demoed them on Shawn York’s Vortex and a few other truck mounts there. Soon orders began coming in and a name had to be chosen. People on the forums would often say “get a Greenie glide, they are the best” and so, as a natural evolution of that, the name GreenGlides was coined. The original GreenGlides dogtag logo was a nod to Greenie’s military service. Lisa closed her cleaning business to allow she and Greenie to fully concentrate on Greenglides. They developed three distinct interface designs – the holed, the hybrid and the slotted configurations, and through the genius of John Fry, their machinist developed glides to fit nearly every tool made. Greenie, who had an incredible knack for seeing how to improve the performance of nearly anything, added a line of high performance tools and truck mount modifications, the Greenhorn wand being one of the most popular.

Eventually Lisa and Greenie also received cease and desist letters from the Franchise, and in 2005 were sued in Utah for patent infringement. Thus began an extremely long and drawn out legal battle that lasted seven years and was famous within the industry for causing nearly every supplier and cleaner using a glide to receive their own cease and desist letters from the franchise. At the end of it, Greenie and Lisa’s marriage had dissolved. Greenie took the high performance tools, which were unencumbered by the lawsuit and Lisa kept the glide portion, and continued the lawsuit. She remarried, and her new husband was drawn into the suit as well. It was an incredibly difficult and stressful ordeal, requiring Lisa to learn patent law….making many mistakes along the way, but eventually in 2012, she prevailed and glide sales were cleared. The last hearing necessitated winning or she would have gone to jail for Contempt of Court, luckily she won.
View attachment 98360

After that, Lisa began a sanctuary home for geriatric, special needs and hospice pugs, which consumed more and more of her time and energy and also kept her close to home. No more trade shows and industry events…Now a grandparent many times over, and a breast cancer survivor, she had decided it was time to turn GreenGlides over to Mike, who had always been told that when they were ready to retire, he would be getting GreenGlides. Lisa spent 18 years as a cleaner and 15 years with GreenGlides and is ready to move on to other endeavors.

Mike has partnered up with John Olson of Superior Cleaning Solutions in Utah, who had been a loyal GreenGlides supporter and one of their first distributors. They have continued the relationship with the original machinist, John Fry, and strive to keep the quality and fit that GreenGlides has always been famous for. They also are continuing the overriding mission of Greenglides, which has always been to serve and give back to an industry that has supported and sustained them. We have plans for continuing innovation and greater support for distributors and end users. Look for GreenGlides at industry events - come by and see us. We look forward to serving you and making your life and your business better!
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Mikey P

Mikey P

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My GreenGlides Story

Many of you in the industry today have grown up with glides and may not know that it was just a short 18 years ago that there were no glides.

You also probably don’t know just how close it came to never being able to have a Glide. If not for the unwavering and relentless fearlessness of Lisa Smith there would be no glides, and with no glides the vortex and Aero Techs and the 650 and 870 would only be machines that people could dream of.

During the legal battle people would get married, get divorced, go to jail, trusts were broken, friendships formed and destroyed. Fortunes (small) made and lost all for a 12” piece of “plastic”.

Through it all there were only a handful of people who truly stood side by side with Lisa and refused to bow down to the cease and desist letters. I am proud and honored to be one of the few that not only kept them on their shelf but did so openly...and dared them to try and come pry my glide from my dead cold hands!

The day that changed our industry forever, the last court date in Utah, Lisa had come
by our store and gave me a list of phone numbers and told me who to call and in what order should she not call me by the time court was over as that would mean she was in jail for contempt of court. You see, the company suing to keep glides out of your hands wanted “your” information, they wanted the names and address of EVERYONE who ever bought a glide so they could “come” take them. She stood tall, all alone and flipped them off to their face and said F’ you , your not getting that EVER.

Your life and the lives of every carpet cleaner changed that day! If not for that fearless defiance you do not have glides period. Every cleaner, hell the whole industry owes Lisa an un-payable debt for what she did for each and every one of you, without expectation of thanks or reward, she did it for you because of you. For real, most will not understand that as they have never been willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for another human being let alone for 1000’s of them they have never even met.

That’s who Lisa is and who and what GreenGlides stands for and why when I say “It’s not a glide if it’s not a GreenGlide”.

I have been honored to be her friend and a supplier of GreenGlides and only GreenGlides for nearly 18 years. When Mikey came to me to tell me the time had come for Lisa to go and put all her time in to the love of her life, the pugs she rescues, it wasn’t even a question for me about accepting the responsibility to take on the running of GreenGlides and to make sure her legacy will always be remembered.

Over the coming weeks and months there will be stories and fights and lies and drama in the online community, our industry isn’t immune to the diseases of selfishness and lying and human nature. But please know this, Greenglides is, was and always will be the ONLY company that was willing to go to jail for you.

The Knock offs and cheap substandard PTFE glides and companies and people with questionable motives and personalities will always be there and you will have a choice. I do hope you will have had a chance to read this and to call me or Mikey or Lisa and learn why the only glide to own is a GreenGlide.

Lastly GreenGlides LLC might be owned by me and Mikey but Lisa is and always will be GreenGlides. We are just the new stewards of her legacy and we will fight to protect her. I hope we are able to do it with the respect and dignity she has but those that know me and Mikey know we are pretty rough around the edges. But you also know we are not liars or thieves or hucksters and everything we do with GreenGlides is to support her and her legacy.

Anyone that tries to mess with that will have to deal with me. I will defend her and her livelihood with all that I am. It is my job to make sure she has a residual income for the foreseeable future so when someone attacks me and Mikey and GreenGlides and try to damage us, they are really hurting Lisa! Neither I nor you, as a member of this industry, should stand for that. We all need to stomp those people out because it was not them that were ready to go to jail for you...that was Lisa!

It’s not a Glide if it’s not a GreenGlide!

Greenglides.com will be up and running soon. If you need a glide call your local supplier, if they don’t have Greenglides tell them to call me and we will get them set up ASAP! We are excited for the future and look forward to saving elbows and shoulders of cleaners and extending the life of carpets for many years to come!

You can email us at greenglidessales@gmail.com or call me at Superior Cleaning Solutions 801-225-0077 until the new GreenGlides number gets activated.

John Olson
 
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Ken Harris

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You are right John.HRI tried to shut me down over the glides, but only Lisa was willing to go to jail if that was what it took to keep them on the market for cleaners.The last of HRIs patents ended 2 years ago so now a glide can be made any way anyone wants to make them with out interference from them or anyone else going forward.
 
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Mikey P

Mikey P

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Ken Harris said:
You are right John.HRI tried to shut me down over the glides, but only Lisa was willing to go to jail if that was what it took to keep them on the market for cleaners.The last of HRIs patents ended 2 years ago so now a glide can be made any way anyone wants to make them with out interference from them or anyone else going forward.
Click to expand...


What are you up to Ken?
 
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FB7777

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Ken Harris said:
You are right John.HRI tried to shut me down over the glides, but only Lisa was willing to go to jail if that was what it took to keep them on the market for cleaners.The last of HRIs patents ended 2 years ago so now a glide can be made any way anyone wants to make them with out interference from them or anyone else going forward.
Click to expand...
How the hell are you Ken!

Now if we could only get that nippy Nava dipshit to post here we could have a family reunion
 
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