Well, here it is Thanksgiving 2009 and the year is almost over. I've been busy down south and not keeping this blog up to date. Sorry bout' that. Dennis and I did the Miramar air show and then the Los Alamitos air show for www.rearareasupport.com raising a bunch of money for our care packages. Met a lot of folks who feel pretty much as I do about what's happening to our country. In talking to the military, both veterans and active duty, law enforcement and firefighters I'm moved by the amount of patriotism and feelings of commitment in carrying on the fight against terrorism. Now if only our elected officials would get back to at least using the term "terrorist" and believing in "victory" and get over this political correctness crap then the folks who know how to win will win. I'm confident this will happen, don't anyone out there lose the faith.
That's it for my update, I'll climb down from my soapbox now and try to find a few pictures to post.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Just posted a picture of the United States Marine Corps Mixed Martial Arts fight team out of Camp Pendelton. Cold Forged just became their sponsor about a month ago. The guy standing at the far right is named John Walsh, watch for him as he will soon be a contender. We printed the shirts you see on them and they all wear them to all their matches. Very cool. We just did a fundraiser for our charity at the Mirimar air show in San Diego and about six of the team as well as their coach came to our booth to sign autographs. All the kids and young girls mobbed our booth. It was so popular that we discovered that while they were there we couldn't get near the booth to sell shirts. But that wasn't a bad thing and after the first autograph session I limited them to only an hour at a time. They certainly helped to make the air show a big success. I'll take this time to say what a great bunch of guys. Very humble and nice. Not at all what you'd expect. I think it comes from their discipline and dedication to the sport as well as to the corps. I'm very proud to be associated with them.
Just posted a picture of the Orange flag ceremony in Orange California. I missed posting my text with the picture so bear with me. The lowering of the flag happens every Wednesday evening at dusk. A friend of mine, Mark Walen heads the ceremony because the city was going to discontinue because of budget cuts. Mark is a retired Orange fireman who also at the age of fifty became the first firefighter para medic to join the Orange SWAT team, going in with them armed on calls. He's also an ex-Marine Vietnam Veteran and a close friend of many years. Unfortunately he's absent in the picture but both Pat, Dennis and I are there. Yea, I know it's hard to believe I actually have Marine friends. I try to make this ceremony every Wednesday I'm in town. Pat Noonan has been attending with me along with my brother-in-law Dennis. Again I know it's hard for my Airborne buddies to understand but both Pat and I have developed a tolerance, (in our old age), for associating with "legs".
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday Sept 21, 2009
Hi all,
Just a Monday morning check-in. No pictures to add. My brother-in-law Dennis and I set up a booth at the San Bernardino Sheriffs mud run a couple of weeks ago but forgot our camera's. We met a Marine Corps photographer there who promised to send us some pictures but hasn't yet. Next weekend we're doing another one at a Sheriffs rodeo, I'll be sure to take a camera this time. Having fun at these events meeting the kind of people I like to meet, law enforcement, firefighters and military, both active and retired veterans. Everyone I talk to helps out with the charity and gets a shirt in return, lots of fun and we're able to generate some cash for the care packages we send to deployed troops all over the world for free. Once again if you know of anyone deployed or if they know of someone deployed, just send us their names and APO address to www.rearareasupport.com and we'll be sure they get on the list.
That's my update for now
Just a Monday morning check-in. No pictures to add. My brother-in-law Dennis and I set up a booth at the San Bernardino Sheriffs mud run a couple of weeks ago but forgot our camera's. We met a Marine Corps photographer there who promised to send us some pictures but hasn't yet. Next weekend we're doing another one at a Sheriffs rodeo, I'll be sure to take a camera this time. Having fun at these events meeting the kind of people I like to meet, law enforcement, firefighters and military, both active and retired veterans. Everyone I talk to helps out with the charity and gets a shirt in return, lots of fun and we're able to generate some cash for the care packages we send to deployed troops all over the world for free. Once again if you know of anyone deployed or if they know of someone deployed, just send us their names and APO address to www.rearareasupport.com and we'll be sure they get on the list.
That's my update for now
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
I can't believe I found the picture and added it all by myself, I am really becoming blog literate, scary. The picture shows me on the left besides Ryan with Pat Noonan standing on the right. Ryan lost both legs and has a badly wounded arm but you would never know it. His additude as well as his physical recovery is truly amazing.
Hi again, thought I would add this picture as well. It was taken at a fundraiser for a member of the 101st,(Ryan Price), who was seriously wounded in Afganistan. This fundraiser took place about a month ago and allowed a special handicaped addition to be placed on his parents home where he is recuperating. He has elected to stay in the service in a program called "wounded warriors" where disabled veterans are allowed to remain in the service on active duty. Amazing young man and I feel honored just to know him. I have a picture of him as well, and once I find it I'll post. That's me on the left, a member of the association in the middle and my friend Pat Noonan on the right.
Hi all,
This picture was taken at a fundraiser we did at the Long Beach Veterans hospitol a couple of weeks ago. Our booth is shown in the background. The guy in the wheelchair is the last surviving member of "Pappy Boyanton's "Black Sheep Squadron" made more famous by the television show starring Robert Conrad. The fundraiser was a big success allowing us to send more care packages to deployed troops. Next weekend is the San Bernadino Sheriffs mud run where we will set up a booth again. I made a bunch of "First Responders" shirts for the occasion.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Torrance Armed Forces day
Memorial day in California,
I spent Memorial day celebrating Armed forces day in Torrance and they go all out for our military. I didn't know what to expect and only took a few shirts with me and they were so appreciated that I was struck by the humbleness of our active duty troops. Polite, humble and appreciative, those are the only words I can think of to describe them. I guess it's the all volunteer status but whatever it is these guys and gals are our nations finest. Another thing I saw that was interesting was a great number of 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles there. I kept coming across them everywhere I went. Not a part of the division anymore but they had served at one time and now serving in other units. Again these young troopers are carrying on the tradition making me feel very proud to still be wearing a "screaming eagle" even though it's only on a tee-shirt and hat.
Next year I want to have a booth there and hope to see all my friends there cheering on our troops and taking advantage of the city of Torrance hospitality.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Marines showing our new shirt!
Finished a new Marine Corp t-shirt the other day and took it to a local recruiting station in Orange. When I walked in holding up this shirt, the two recruiters, along with a new recruit signing up, stopped all they were doing and stared open mouthed at the shirt. Needless to say they loved it. This shirt is a new printing technique using a red shirt as the main color in a reverse print using water based inks printed all over, turning the red shirt into a black shirt. I'm hoping this shirt will open the doors for us to sell the exchanges. To date we have been shut out by one buyer at Quantico. He hasn't been up against the Army Airborne though and we will figure out how to circumvent him. If any of you guys out there know any of the head buyers for Marine Corp emblamatic at Quantico, tell him he's screwing up big time.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Name from the past
Hey everyone,
It's April 11th already and I've been in California way to long. The tee shirt business just has way to much going on right now to leave. We have been in contact with Quantico and have a bunch of Marine Corp samples heading their way, everyone keep your fingers crossed, oh and be sure to view them on our web page www.coldforgedusa.com there's a bunch of new Marine Corps graphics going up in a few days.
I'm attaching a letter I got from on old friend from the past who found me through the internet, really amazing. He had one of the very first surf shops I did business with back in the early seventies. Great talking with him again, so here it is hope everone enjoys it as much as I did.
"Michael... thanks to your site, and Rick Houle from Hammer Graphics finding it, Dan Little has been found! Wow... this is better than Facebook because it comes with an ocean breeze! I went to the site Rick listed and within a coupe of days Dan was online! He's doing great in every possible way and he related a story to me that lit me up! It's the stuff of true surf lore! Now remember this was a long time ago. The revolution was on in shortboards and I needed a psychedelic logo for Surfboards America. I had just found his company. Some of the rice paper back then was like clear cardboard! (It was so stiff it would cause the glass to pull away from the foam as it straightened up. Guys back then would lay a logo under the lam, cover it with wax paper and put a brick on it til it dried.). Dan was one of the largest high production shirt screeners in the country. I came to him with a concept and an order for decals and probably four dozen shirts (he must have been amused at this little surf rat standing before him!). He wrote: "I remember the rice paper decals we printed, I finally got it down and was doing quite a few of them for a lot of surfshops, which brought me in contact with Hang Ten who introduced me to this little start up surf company called Ocean Pacific who I believed in, and signed an exclusive deal to make their shirts. Well, needless to say that was one of the smartest things I ever did. I was able to retire and move to a ranch in Oregon in 1990 and was happily playing golf every day when my oldest son wanted to be in the silkscreen business, so here I am again." Wow, again. He played a bigger part in the development of the culture than I knew! The 60's and 70's were definitely the "soul surfing" years. A lot of the professional surfers were guys who made their living building boards and surfing as much as they could. Boards were cheap. Wages were low. Team members got free boards and shirts, but the money wasn't there at all. It was the clothing guys who brought a lot of the money into the sport and who began sponsoring the world circuits. Thanks Dan... for believing in OP... and giving all the grom's today a foundation to stand on! Hey Mike... none of this would be coming to light if you hadn't sown your life into Stanley's! Thanks from a million of us! Rock on buddy! Cere!"
Cere was a crack-up back in those days, you simply had to like him. The thing I really remember most about him though was the car he drove, a little piece of crap Honda. One of the first ones I really remember ever seeing. My 34 Ford 3 window coup was bigger then that Honda. Cere and I experimented with rice paper decals to be laminated on surfboards. It became a big part of my early days as a screen printer helping to open the doors of the local surf shops like Hobie, Dewey Weber and all those early guys. My love was still motorcycles and boats but the surf business was booming back then. Lots of fun and great memories, thanks Cere.
It's April 11th already and I've been in California way to long. The tee shirt business just has way to much going on right now to leave. We have been in contact with Quantico and have a bunch of Marine Corp samples heading their way, everyone keep your fingers crossed, oh and be sure to view them on our web page www.coldforgedusa.com there's a bunch of new Marine Corps graphics going up in a few days.
I'm attaching a letter I got from on old friend from the past who found me through the internet, really amazing. He had one of the very first surf shops I did business with back in the early seventies. Great talking with him again, so here it is hope everone enjoys it as much as I did.
"Michael... thanks to your site, and Rick Houle from Hammer Graphics finding it, Dan Little has been found! Wow... this is better than Facebook because it comes with an ocean breeze! I went to the site Rick listed and within a coupe of days Dan was online! He's doing great in every possible way and he related a story to me that lit me up! It's the stuff of true surf lore! Now remember this was a long time ago. The revolution was on in shortboards and I needed a psychedelic logo for Surfboards America. I had just found his company. Some of the rice paper back then was like clear cardboard! (It was so stiff it would cause the glass to pull away from the foam as it straightened up. Guys back then would lay a logo under the lam, cover it with wax paper and put a brick on it til it dried.). Dan was one of the largest high production shirt screeners in the country. I came to him with a concept and an order for decals and probably four dozen shirts (he must have been amused at this little surf rat standing before him!). He wrote: "I remember the rice paper decals we printed, I finally got it down and was doing quite a few of them for a lot of surfshops, which brought me in contact with Hang Ten who introduced me to this little start up surf company called Ocean Pacific who I believed in, and signed an exclusive deal to make their shirts. Well, needless to say that was one of the smartest things I ever did. I was able to retire and move to a ranch in Oregon in 1990 and was happily playing golf every day when my oldest son wanted to be in the silkscreen business, so here I am again." Wow, again. He played a bigger part in the development of the culture than I knew! The 60's and 70's were definitely the "soul surfing" years. A lot of the professional surfers were guys who made their living building boards and surfing as much as they could. Boards were cheap. Wages were low. Team members got free boards and shirts, but the money wasn't there at all. It was the clothing guys who brought a lot of the money into the sport and who began sponsoring the world circuits. Thanks Dan... for believing in OP... and giving all the grom's today a foundation to stand on! Hey Mike... none of this would be coming to light if you hadn't sown your life into Stanley's! Thanks from a million of us! Rock on buddy! Cere!"
Cere was a crack-up back in those days, you simply had to like him. The thing I really remember most about him though was the car he drove, a little piece of crap Honda. One of the first ones I really remember ever seeing. My 34 Ford 3 window coup was bigger then that Honda. Cere and I experimented with rice paper decals to be laminated on surfboards. It became a big part of my early days as a screen printer helping to open the doors of the local surf shops like Hobie, Dewey Weber and all those early guys. My love was still motorcycles and boats but the surf business was booming back then. Lots of fun and great memories, thanks Cere.
Monday, March 30, 2009
August 1965, on our way to Vietnam
Here is a picture of, from left to right, Rick Salazar, myself, Stan Perry and Vince Carta after sneaking away for a weekend at home before going to Vietnam. We were in Oakland California waiting for our final departure and decided the hell with it and went home for the week-end. Never were missed and got on a plane sometime the following week bound for the 173rd Airborne who had just landed in Vietnam. These were all friends from California along with Pat Noonan and Jim Howe who I forged a permanate bond with over all these years. Stan Perry and Jim Howe both passed away from accidents after we got back home and out of the service. Stan in a motorcycle racing accident out in the desert and Jim, still being a hero as a LA firefighter, dying in a fire while saving lives. True friends and still missed today by the rest of us that survived Vietnam.
I'll post more pictures as I figure out how to download them.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
wearing one of our shirts
Another long hard day in tee-shirt land. I was on a project making some pallets for one of our tee-shirt automatic machines and had to go to Home Depot to buy and have some particle board cut. One of the guys there was helping me and we started talking finding out we were both vets. He served two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corp. Super nice kid and he really helped me out so when I was leaving I told him I was bringing him a couple of shirts back. When I did he just about broke down and cried. He couldn't believe that I would actually do that. I now have a new best friend at Home Depot helping me whenever I need anything done. Goes to show you that it pays to wear one of our military tee-shirts because you'll never know who you will meet, especially at Home Depot.
Again, check out our website www.coldforgedusa.com along with our foundation that sends care packages to deployed troops, www.rearareasupport.com I will never forget how it made me feel whenever I returned to a fairly safe rear area and had a care package from home waiting for me.
Again, check out our website www.coldforgedusa.com along with our foundation that sends care packages to deployed troops, www.rearareasupport.com I will never forget how it made me feel whenever I returned to a fairly safe rear area and had a care package from home waiting for me.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Cold Forged USA
Hi everyone,
My kids have set me up with my own blog, now I'm learning what a blog is all about. This will have to serve as my introduction because old Airborne soldiers are hard headed when it comes to learning something new. I'd like to take this oppurtunity to invite you'all to visit our website http://www.coldforgedusa.com/ and check out all our really cool shirts.
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