Unexpected Post

Yesterday I had pretty much given up any hope of making my weekly post today. Thursday afternoon our Internet connection died. It flatlined. We tried rebooting the whole system. We tried bypassing the router. I checked the connection box outside. The tower on the roof looked fine. Not even a whiff of a connection.

My experiences with troubleshooting Internet issues with our provider have not always been good but we had no choice but to give them a call if we ever expected service again. (They are the only game in town for us by the way). Part of the problem is that we live in a rather remote corner of the province. Our home phone runs through our Internet connection so we can't just call and work with a technician. In the past, our troubleshooting procedures have required a certain amount of creativity. On one occasion we actually formed a chain of people within earshot of each other and a pair of walkie-talkies all the way to a local farmer's home so that we could troubleshoot over the phone. This time was simple. The tech actually listened to the procedures that we'd already gone through to try to solve the problem and he decided our tower top modem had died. He put in a service order and we were supposed to have a repairman visit within 24 to 48 hours. To our surprise, this guy arrived this morning within less than a day. The muddy road had frozen overnight so we didn't even have to hike in his equipment. As anyone can see we are back in business.

I'm off work all this coming week and a few days next week so expect something to happen at MFCP Woodworking. I'm hoping to at the very least make some footage for a number of upcoming videos for the YouTube channel. I'm hoping to spend some needed effort in promoting our giveaway. To date, I haven't been able to pay it a lot of attention. There are a lot of things on my plate but there should be time to get a few things done. I may post something midweek. We'll see how it all plays out. For now, I'm just glad to be back online.

Hair Stick Giveaway Update

Last week we announced our first promotional giveaway and it is moving like a herd of turtles. We had hopes of getting enough response to do an early draw but that doesn't look like it will be the case. At the rate we are going I'm not expecting to get more than 25 entries much before the closing date if we even get that many. With that in mind, the draw or draws will take place on January 6, 2019. The winner or winners will be announced on that date.

We are not going to let this discourage us. There are enough responses already to make drawing a name out of the hat necessary. This is after all our first go at this so we are regarding it as a learning experience. On the bright side, there are still three weeks left before the draw so with a bit of work this still could reach a level where we can consider it a rousing success. The company where I am currently working will be shutting down for a week and a half during the holidays here so I will have more time to pay attention to this.

For anyone who hasn't yet entered here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/ox9324EzJG8

Free Hair Stick Giveaway

As promised last week we are having a promotional giveaway. If you want to participate here's what you need to do.

1)  Go to our Youtube channel and view the video. https://youtu.be/ox9324EzJG8

2)  If you aren't already subscribed, subscribe and click the notification bell. Winners will be announced on the channel after the draw(s). We will try to get into contact with winners but if we can't another person's username will be drawn.

3)  Comment on the video. Tell us you want to win the hair sticks and tell us what colour you want.

4)  Share the video either on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media. We would like this video to reach as many interested people as possible.

That's all you have to do. If you are a winner message us if we haven't been able to message you asap so that we can get the appropriate shipping information.

We are hoping to get at least twenty-five respondents and will hold our first draw as soon as we reach that number. Usernames will be drawn out of my cowboy hat. After four weeks from today, we will do a further draw if there have been more than twenty-five respondents. If there are a large number of respondents we will do a third draw at that time as well.

For everyone interested good luck in the draw. If this is successful will do regular draws in the future when we introduce more products. For what is currently available have a look at our rustic hair stick page.

Upcoming Promotional Event

Exceptionally tiring day today. Right now there is a lot of windfall laying around the neighbourhood because of a couple of severe windstorms. We are in constant need of firewood so it was one of those make hay while the sun shines kind of day. Cutting, hauling and chopping up wood is really tough work and I'm paying the price. Will stay warm for a while though.

The idea of having a promotional giveaway on Youtube involving hair sticks has been on the back burner for a number of months. Longterm if it is successful we'd like to do a giveaway on a monthly basis. It would boost our Youtube channel and gain us some much-needed exposure. I was considering carving a new style of hair stick for the occasion but after thinking about it I think it would be easier just to keep the whole thing as simple as possible. Somehow in the coming week, Wesley and I get to record a short video for this promotion. I plan to offer a pair of our triangle profile hair sticks. I have hair sticks in stock and money to ship them anywhere in the world in my pocket. Really just a matter of putting together the video, getting it posted and then promoting it as much as I can.

We'll see if we can manage this for next weekend. Thanks to all for the sharing on Facebook and Twitter it is helping.