Gemba in an off shift.....

Howdy folks, it's time for another installment of my blog.  Grab a yourself a seat around the campfire and a cup of coffee as today's topic is going to be covering something I think we forget.  There is Gemba on shifts other than first.

So last week a chance came available for me to work in the afternoon.  I wanted to see what went on on shifts besides first.  We all know the suits are not there, the support personnel are not there, the quality department may or may not be there.  Yes cowpokes, on an off shift that isn't fully supported it can be quite lonely and the job of a Lean leader is never done.  So in true fashion I cowboy'd up and worked an off shift to get a better feel for what other teams were and are experiencing when the support isn't there, yet the work still has to be completed.

As I did my normal routine of grabbing a cup of coffee in my hammered copper coffee mug, I walked the floor with an open mind.  Just because it is an off shift doesn't mean I deviate from my standard practices now does it?  Within this walk I noticed ample opportunity to drive out waste.  

The first thing we tackled was a lack of flow, without flow there isn't going to be any production.  Yes buckaroos the variation needed to be removed or at least minimized.  It was in our best interest to get a material handler.  I knew the best forklift driver on that shift so that problem was no more.  See.. the people component here.  I knew who was the best at that given task as learning the names and strengths of members in your organization has benefits.  With this task complete we implemented staging of work to equipment.  This task was fun, and I'll explain why.  When I "go into teacher mode", as yoda calls it.  I come alive.  Teaching Lean to a group I normally don't have much time with is wonderful.  I get to talk about the tools, why we use the tools, how to figure out what tools to use, and when to use them, coupled with the old saying of, "I'm not the end all be all, if you see something I'm not seeing speak up as this is a team and as a team we support each other."  

When we had everything staged and flowing, the creative juices with these guys came alive.  As I was talking about the Single Minute Die Exchange etc... I saw something.  Yes, Ohno would be proud.  Seeing with my feet and learning with my hands once again.  The guys had a basic concept and were practicing quick change over yet didn't have the process refined.  With a quick shop floor discussion about the whys and how's, coupled with questioning the individuals.  The ah ha moments were happening.  They were understanding.  The light bulbs were going off.  Here we have a shift that really doesn't know me,  grasping Lean and running with it.  All it needed was a catalyst.  

I believe that we as leaders at times don't give our people enough credit.  We become so entrenched that we forget that with every pair of hands we hire, a brain comes for free.  All we have to do is tap into their brain by asking questions and treating our people as human beings and respecting their voice of customer.  Ahhh.... yes the VOC.  Have you ever thought your direct reports were your customer.  They are.  You are selling your leadership, knowledge and expertise as the head cowboy/cowgirl on the ranch.  Your direct reports are the ones buying into what you are "selling" them.  Some don't buy in, some half hearted buy in, some don't buy at all.  We as Lean leaders must respect our customers, internal as well as external.  

With things flowing and my walking about observing the flow of product, the thought crossed my mind about writing this blog.  How many of us think Gemba is just at first shift?  Out of sight, out of mind, it doesn't matter because I'm not here.... That line of thinking can be detrimental to a Lean culture as we, the leaders, aren't trying to build a bridge.  We leave the valley untouched.  That isn't a culture of Lean, that is a culture of disjointed leadership and direction.

I took it upon myself to work that off shift.  Not out of direction by those higher in the org chart than me, but out of a sense of duty.  A duty to help teach those who don't work directly for me.  A duty to help build those bridges and close those gaps.  Yeah the cowboy is going all idealistic on you, but its true.  I spend a lot of time learning from those who have been practicing Lean for more than 2 decades.  We have an obligation to teach and implement what we have learned.   There are those of us who know Lean in theory and write tomes upon tomes of how to do it yet never have.  There are those of us who read those writings and actually implement, record the before and after, take pictures, etc.. and blend the academic with the hands on.  I am one of the academic hands on cowboys.  Hence, you get a different perspective when you read my blog.

In closing I'd like to thank you all for stopping by and to remember this.  When the chance presents itself to work an off shift and you are able to build bridges and teach by all means do it.  By doing so you are actually living a PDCA cycle rather than telling others about the cycle.  Until next time, which will probably be in a few days,  stay the course.  

Cowboy

A team introspective

Howdy folks, here we are again on a Thursday sitting around the campfire to tell you about our week and what my team and I learned.  Pull up a log and grab a cup of coffee for this weeks topic touches on what drives me and what drives my team.

This week we have seen some real changes, were they all good? For the most part yes.  Were there some real challenges this we, you betcha there were some challenges this week.  Being the ever vigilant and voracious reader of all things Lean, and on top of that an implementer of Lean, a champion of Lean in my organization if you will; my team and I began to look at open issues this week.  What issues did you and your team of hard charging cowboys look at you are wondering, as I have drawn this intro out.  Well, we were asking ourselves the question, "Why should we improve and why should we continue to drive improvements?"  No we were not questioning our Lean journey, we were questioning our motives behind the actions that we take.  The real fence mending portion of Lean.  Before we put forth any action we were looking to see if that work we put into the improvement was worth the effort.  Sure you can do this in a board room with all sorts of members of upper management there to discuss the ROI, manpower needed, raw materials and plan, etc.  This is good for capital stuff, yet what we were doing at the ground level such as moving things, continuation of the ever present 6S, looking at layout, discussing how to optimize flow on a high volume mixed model line with enough sku's to feed a herd of cattle stretched from El Paso to Phoenix, and the ever present search for single piece flow with a continually evolving manufacturing line.  Yeah these were actually discussions that are heartfelt and get at the true soul of what drives some people to greatness and what has others throwing their hands in the air and abandoning their journey.

Is everyone on my team a Lean zealot, of course not.  We have some team members that don't care about Lean at all or the terms we use.  Yes I use the Japanese terms, but also translate them to English so we get as much buy in as possible.  With that being said, there are some members on my team who are early adopters.  Early as in they were reading about Lean on their smartphones when we started this journey.  These are the true buckaroo's who are just a joy to work with.  Always driving continuous improvement ideas, their work areas are immaculate, their pride in craftsmanship and work ethic is unrivaled.  The conversations with this handful of hard chargers this week really drove something back to me that Lean Leaders who have done this for 27 years constantly speak of.  That is respect.  These guys told me one of the reasons they follow and drive so hard is out of respect, not only for me, but for their work, their peers, the organization, and themselves.  Interesting isn't it?  Did I cultivate this, I'd like to think my hand was in the recipe.  Though with these early adopters there is something inherently great about them.  They are the force multipliers.  What does that mean Cowboy?  That means these guys "get it", they are students as I am a student, they help me and help the team thru driving a culture change.  They are change agents in their own right.  This is the group I've found that without them, things would be a lot more difficult.

The next group is the middle of the road guys, now does this mean they are average?  NO WAY!!!!  They just do not spend a lot of their free time reading about Lean, or "taking their work home with them".  These are the work horses that come in everyday and do a great job and give their best and contribute to the cause.  In speaking with these guys and gals, I found they embrace our journey yet are not driven by an undying force to be the best of the best.  This is ok, you don't need a team of superstars to change a culture.  Dr Deming would say, Cowboy you have "willing workers".  Only with these willing workers we are a team and they know that.  We either all win or we all loose.  There isn't the finger pointing and "that's not my job" attitude with this crowd.  These are the people that when catalyzed by your top performers and early adopters will rise to the top and perform.  They are the members of a winning team and being part of a winning team gives them pride and satisfaction.

Do I have any individuals on my team that are burrs under my saddle?  I have in the past yes, and thru Yoda and her superpowers, she has trained me with some quite effective skills in the art of coaching and mentoring.  It helps that she is also an executive coach besides being mentioned as one of the top women in Lean today.  Did these lone holdouts on the ranch decide to participate and join our transformation journey?  Some did and actually one turned into a top performer and driver when it comes to ideas for continuous improvement.  I am actually very proud of this guy as he is what every Lean Leader desires.  He is a student the same as the teacher is a student.

In closing what did the team and I learn this week?  We learned that all of us on this team have a desire to win, a desire to improve our organization, a desire to improve ourselves, a desire to be treated with respect, a desire to have a clean and safe working environment.  Pretty simple isn't it.  When we boil it all down it goes back to what Yoda tells me all the time, "Cowboy it is about people, processes and culture".  She's right and in the true spirit of the student I too, am always trying to improve who I am and pull my people forward.  That is what makes an organization tick, people, for without them you have a large vacant building with machines that sit idle, and a true static state.  Without processes one has another disjointed state of chaos.  Nothing falls in line, shop orders are lost, customer orders are lost, outside sourced parts never arrive.  Then we touch the culture piece, the "what people do when nobody is watching" part of it.  We are a learning culture, yes I'll say it again cowpokes, a Lean culture is a learning culture.  We are always striving to make those improvements not only on the shop floor but with the design team as well, providing positive feedback about designing for manufacturability.  This is what we learned.  We are a team of guys and gals on a journey that is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks for stopping by my campfire folks, it was a pleasure having you here and if you have any comments don't be afraid to post them.

Cowboy

Training, what training?

Howdy folks I'm back again with another posting about Lean from the front line.  Grab a cup of coffee    and take a seat around the campfire while we discuss training and the illusion of training programs.  Yes that's right, the cowboy stated illusion of training and a lack of a true training doctrine my team is experiencing.

One may be reading this and asking, "If you are a Lean guy, what on earth are you doing allowing holes in the most basic of process controls, training your people?"  I'll have to answer this upfront and personal and declare that we are not totally absent of training, our training process needs improvement.  Yes the PDCA cycle once again rears its arms like a saguaro cactus on the way to the White Tank mountain range.  Let's look at how my team and I discovered our training is lacking.

We have expanded our operations into a second shift to increase our capacity.  Nothing wrong with that right?  We had trained individuals train and sharpen the skill sets of semi-trained individuals bringing them up to speed.  Nothing wrong with that right?  Then it hit me like a mule kick to the chest.  I brought in an individual who had no idea of our processes nor our product to work within a cell.  Yes we have VWI's etc... yet there was something glaringly obvious that took two days for me to really pick up on.  We threw this new individual into the mix to observe, things appeared on the surface to be going great then Yoda's voice in my mind kicked in and told me to engage this new member of our team and start asking questions to gain insight from an outsiders perspective as to what he saw.

The question posed was this, "What have you learned the past few days about your role in the team?" His answer blew me away, "I just follow these guys around and try to pick up things the best I can."  Talk about wanting to go hide out in the Lost Dutchman mine.  I failed to train my guys and give them the proper tools to train someone.  Yes, boys and girls this was a failure moment in time.  What do we get with failure, that's right a true chance to make improvement and learn from our mistakes.  Better yet we get to improve our processes, then teach others in our organization where we were making the error so they do not fall into the same pitfall.  Collective learning and effective communication of our efforts.  Why you may ask?  A Lean culture is a learning culture, plain and simple.

With this gap in our process, the team and I whipped out the A3 and went to town to help define and narrow a solution.  Yes we even fishboned this problem to keep the teams skills up on that tool as well.  Within about 2 hours of looking and asking questions to the trainers and the trainee we had came up with a starting point to bridge this gap.  Within the week we had something documented and established as to protocol when we training individuals who are completely new to our organization.   This protocol is now being tested in our fabrication area to prove it out and streamline it to the point where we will deploy this organization wide.  Yes this is still a future state, and it is important that we recognized this gap in our processes that was causing undue hardship for a new individual.

Driving out waste and making change is a full time job as it is, when I as a leader failed to recognize I was inducing the trifecta of Muda, Mura, and Muri all at once due to a rudimentary oversight it was humbling.  As an individual who has had careers where life and death happened based upon situational awareness and interpretation of data within seconds, I felt as if I let my team down.  You'll notice the excessive use of "I" in this paragraph.  The reason, I am the leader hence it is my fault.  The good news is that we had the situational awareness to apply countermeasures and corrective action.

This was a real learning experience for me as well as the team.  My guys are VERY good at what they do, some of the best in the industry.  Yet as in a previous blog, the devil is truly in the details.  Fortunately we recognized the problem and that is a win which will pay dividends at the bottom line and truly add value to our product.  I'd personally like to thank my guys for the help with this issue the past week.  Without you, we wouldn't have came as far as we have.

Well there you have it cowpokes, another post from the front line of implementation.  Though we fancy ourselves as academics who read the books and listen to the podcasts, we are the ones who make the vision happen.  If you don't believe me... go to Gemba.  Thank you for stopping by my campfire and remember, just when you think you know it all, something simple comes along to inform you that you don't

Cowboy

Saftey

Howdy folks, thanks for dropping by my posting in the middle of the week.  Today's topic I feel is one of utmost importance.  It it safety.  Something that we as leaders have a moral, legal, and ethical obligation to keep our people safe.  This goes from issuing proper PPE, to having daily discussions in the huddle as I do,  to having your safety record posted and using maps to track incidents, accidents and near misses.

It was during a twitter feed that I saw safety come abreast and decided to chime in.  This reinforced my belief that those in the Lean world promote safety and lead from the front with this topic and not the rear.  From an employers perspective it can be overlooked until the fines show up.  From a shop floor employees perspective it could be overlooked until discipline is administered.  BOTH of these perspectives are WRONG!!!!!!!  Safety is the concern of everyone.  Starting from the CFO/CEO all the way down the org chart.  There is no compromise with this.

When we as leaders set standard work in place we do it for a reason.  The same with safety protocol and training doctrine.  This is standard work.  I've written about a handful of topics thus far and never touched on this one as I felt that leaders had a good grasp on this.  Well I was wrong.  When asking other leaders the hows and whys of PPE usage, I'm talking front line leaders here, the answer defaulted to government regulation or company policy.  I didn't hear anything pertaining to, "I do this to ensure that my people go home with all they came in with because it is the right thing to do."  Nothing was ever said about continuing education on safety, or soliciting ideas from their respective teams.

Coming from my former careers, PPE was a way of life.  It wasn't questioned and we were always looking for lighter more effective and durable equipment.  When your life depends on PPE, it is taken rather serious.  This is the same mindset that needs to be cultivated into your teams on the shop floor. Nothing less is to be accepted.  Yeah cowpokes, this sounds like I'm pushing instead of pulling.  Fear not, for the way we do this is thru education and sometimes show and tell.

I have a few souvenirs of where PPE has saved parts of me, one being my eyes during a rather unfortunate incident where my safety lenses shielded my eyes from some high velocity particulate matter that was unplanned and undesired.  Yes, those lenses saved my eyes and performed just like the advertisements and torture tests demonstrated.  I saved those lenses and have them to this day.  Taking these lenses to work with me, I had a genuine and honest discussion with my team about our safety program, what safety means to them, what it means to me and our organization.  By bringing in those lenses and telling the story of what happened coupled with passing them around and allowing a question and answer session, it provided context to the concept.  

There we go with effective communication again, and engaging our people to improve our processes and advance our culture.  Ahhh yes, people/process/culture where it all starts.  There are some things that we as leaders can't compromise on, safety is one of them.  Whether we be at the top of the org chart, somewhere in the middle, or the greenest greenhorn on the cattle drive.  Safety is the responsibility of all.

I'd like to thank you for stopping by the campfire and reading this post.  Hopefully it lands with you and can have the take away of collective mindset when going to work the next day and actively engaging your team and honestly looking at what you as a leader are doing to help promote a culture that values safety.

Cowboy

Teaching the Team

Howdy folks, it's that time once again for another entry into the blog of the Lean Cowboy.  This entry is going to cover the topic of education and how do I educate my team, better yet how do we sustain this education and pique their interest for more.  So grab a cup of coffee and sit around the campfire for a while.

Every Wednesday morning it starts.  We have 3 white boards near my desk, one is a 4x8 pick board in which we have divided up so that ideas can be solicited from the team.  The other two are the Lean Term board where a Japanese term is written on the board with its definition.  Since we clearly defined the word we have to use relevant examples in our environment.  When doing this it makes the term relevant.  If we were to use some example from say ohhh.. a Toyota factory yes it would still be a relevant example, though it wouldn't have direct context with the team.  Something tangible where it is visible to the team and guess what?  A lot of time I learn something, see something I'm not doing right as a leader, someone comes up while I'm writing on this board engages me in a conversation, etc...  See where I'm going with this?  It is a visible means in which to convey a term, define the term, keep it up there a week for all to see and engage with, see how it applies to us as a team and generally exposes everyone on the team to our term of the week.

The continuing education component of the term of the week comes in where I as the leader, circle back to everyone, yes thats right, everyone.  When circling back engaging everyone in conversation. This does a few things, it affords me direct personal interface with the team to know how things are going with that individual, see if they understand what I was scribbling on our board, and most of all I get input back from what I was doing right or wrong in the course of the week and give them an opportunity to critique me and upwardly evaluate what I'm doing.  See cowpokes a Lean culture is a learning culture.  We are a collective learning unit that pull each other forward with simple things such as boards, 10 at 10 Ohno circles, the Wednesday morning huddle with the team.  These are the elements of Lean that we are mastering.  The basics are the key.  My team knows that I've had a couple different careers before coming into manufacturing and that I bring a unique perspective and teaching style.  They will tell you that a mastery of the basics is a mastery of the art, we train until we can't get it wrong.  Hence we PDCA all the time.  For you Demming purists, yeah we PDSA for we do not like reworking the improvement due to the fact we didn't think it out in the planning stages.

These sustainment component and continuing education modules come in the work.  It is required of me as a leader to actively engage my people respectfully, even when the idea is unsound or my idea would be better served at the bottom of a campfire.  The active engagement facilitates the learning processes and pulls us all forward.  Though I may be the trail boss at this organization, I learn just as much from my team as they learn from me.  This is the beauty of it all, the beauty of Lean.  A learning collective coupled with implementation and improvement with active engagement from the team.  For if it were not for those hardy souls that ride the trail with me on these 60 plus hours a week thru thick and thin, disagreements and victories, we wouldn't go anywhere.  We would all be stuck back at the stable bickering about which horse we would get.

The continuing themes are prevalent here once again, People/Process/Culture, *head nod and smile to yoda*.  We must engage our people to improve the process and change the culture.  You'll notice I've only written about the first board and did so for a reason, I'm going to revisit this in a second entry discussing my second board where I discuss the concept board and how theory and application merge into what we do everyday.  See as an engineering student I've got the hands on of manufacturing supervision first, my other careers where life and death were a daily and very real issue,  and the cowboy code and lifestyle I lead are very unique to our Lean journey.

I'd like to thank you for stopping by my campfire this week and sharing in this entry.  I'd also like to thank yoda, for without her, my journey to find true north would have never started and would have stayed the course a solitary man.  Until next time buckaroos, keep your head up and keep smiling.  Simple words and concepts, yet powerful when applied.

Cowboy

Who is your customer?

     Howdy folks, I'm on the plane to work and it is a Sunday night.  So fetch a cup of coffee and grab a seat around the campfire.  I'm here tonight to talk about who is my customer and how do I serve them.
     We all have customers internal and external, yet do we know who they really are?  Do these customers have a voice or do we as suppliers push our solutions and goods to our customer?  Oh yes, the push vs. pull concept is rearing its head once again just like an angry rattle snake ready to strike.
    My direct customers are my guys and gals that report to me.  Yes those 42 hardy souls who have watched our transformation from a push to a pull and all the continuous improvement we have done, along with all the improvement we have to go.  These are my customers.  Yes I know what you are thinking, "Cowboy what about the individuals downstream and your external customer?"  I'll have to admit you are correct and that I am mindful of what we are doing.  Note here buckaroo's, I said "WE" that is my team and I, not a push but a pull system of thoughts and actions.  We are mindful of our internal customer in the value stream and our external customer who pays our bills.  What I'm talking about is the day to day structure of what I do listening to my team.
     There have been times in the past when I listened to an idea generated from a pick board, and discussed it with the individual who supplied the knowledge and experience along with the effort to write it on the board.  The problem with before is that I shut the idea down based on my opinion.  I was not listening to my customer.  This is true when organizations don't listen to their internal customers and disconnects occur.  Shop floor will not respond to a supplier that is unwilling to give them what they need.  They disconnect and continue to struggle with their current problems while we, the supplier thinks that "we know better".  That is far from the truth, the supplier may know the needs of his or her customer, but the customer more than likely will have a general scope of the issue and a list of resolutions at hand.  Only if you are willing to listen.
     I thought I had the answer to the worlds problems and how to cure boredom with this cart I designed and constructed for one of my guys.  Boy was I proud of myself.  Here is the catch, he didn't need that cart, the cart didn't fit the parts he was generally manufacturing, it didn't have a way for the individual to push the cart, etc...  This was just a handful of items to this solution in search of a problem.  If I would have only gone to gemba, spoken with my guys, LISTENED TO THEIR NEEDS, and collectively constructed a cart which would provide them a viable solution.  I didn't listen nor understand who the customer was in this instance.  I thought the customer was the paint department not the fabrication department.  I failed to see or ask who my customer was and induced waste into the value stream.  Ooops, you can say I left the barn door open and all the horses got out on that matter.
     In all seriousness though we as Lean leaders and managers have to understand who our customer is, and ask the questions as to their needs and desires.  Be they internal or external customers.  When we figure out what problem it is we are trying to solve with our customer vs shoving answers and solutions at them we grow as Lean leaders.  Growing also builds respect and bridges along with friendships
     I'd like to thank you for stopping by once again to hear my frontline experience in leading and implementing Lean.
Cowboy

Difficulty in Sustainment

Howdy folks, yes it has been awhile hasn't it?  Sixty hour plus weeks are still the norm, yes I still am known by name at the airport, my favorite baristas at Starbucks in my town in AZ still shout my name when I show up, and yes I still am a Lean zealot and implementer.  This cowboy has not given up.  My focus has been on implementation and driving out waste this past month.  Once again what a month it has been.

Grab that hammered copper cup and fill it with coffee while I discuss difficulty in sustainment in this blog posting.  Yes that is right I'm talking about difficulty here.  The nuts and bolts of our job as leaders teaching our team and following up with the plans we have implemented.

We all read of stories of win.  Why?  Well, wins make us feel good.  Feeling good about something usually will reinforce a repeat of that behavior or performance.  I'm not going to give out a win today.  Let's look at the sustainment of a win.

I have a team of +/- 45 individuals.  Yes, I have a bonafide team complete with early adopters, superstars, those who do the job great, and finally a few who would tell you the sky is purple just to be contrary.  The best part of my job, I get to work with people.  The most challenging part of my job, I get to work with people.

The area I'm going to discuss today has been one to cause this old cowboy to have a conniption fit of hopping mad proportions.  So as the engineering student in me asks, "What problem are we trying to solve here cowboy?"  I scope the problem.  The area in question has poor 6S habits, the individual is disengaged, his work is of marginal quality, his adherence to standard work is something one would see mending a fence without tools circa 1885.  So what do I do?  I do what I do best and that is solve the problem on my own, implement the solution, issue an individual audit sheet, and wait for magic to happen.  Wow, was I wrong.

Becoming frustrated with this I had to bring the problem to Yoda.  She is my rock, and all knowing eye in the sky when it comes to the People, Process, Culture of Lean.    She sat me down and within fifteen minutes I felt sheepish for I knew what the problem was.  Yup, you guessed it folks.  The problems wasn't with the individual the problem was with me.  Though my process control was solid, the audit sheet and visual management of the area good, I pushed the solution onto this individual.  He was not allowed any input into the solution, hence he took it as an invasion upon his work area. Yoda asked me to put myself in this individuals shoes.  How would I feel?  Then she hit me with her barrage of questions which all led back to, "What are you going to do to solve the root cause cowboy?"  That is something I could answer and knew what to do.

I approached the individual about ten days later, and had to apologize for intruding into his area and forcing ideas and solutions upon him in which he had no input.  Yeah, I started to feel his frustration as I too have been in this individuals situation before and here I was doing something that I so much despised.

Once I whipped out the A3 form, I carry those with me at work as I am quite passionate about teaching Lean to my team as they can attest, involved everyone pertinent to the situation. BOOM!!!! It happened, my individuals started to solve their own problem and implement their sustainment methods based on the requirement set forth.  Yeah buddy, this is what Lean is about.  Teaching, People, Process, Culture, Leading with Respect, Improvement.  Yes this could be called a win, yet it is a teaching tool in sustainment.

The gold nugget of information here I'd like people to walk away with is this.  To sustain true change,  I'm talking about a lasting testament of PDCA and culture shift.  We as leaders must lead from the inside out.  We must know how to "show up" at various situations and not force our solutions or alter the creativity of our workforce.  Yes it sounds easy and at times it is.  Then there are times that we as leaders become myopic and ultra focused scoping the specific issue and not addressing the actual problem or root cause thereof.  Give the vision and work WITH your people, TEACH your people, and LISTEN to your people.   When you stick with these guidelines, I'm sure you will achieve a more desired outcome.

Wait, am I just issuing orders again without consulting my customer to scope their needs?  I'll be traveling this week, and I am going to make an honest attempt to post from the aircraft and effectively utilize my time instead of reading the latest issue of Western Horseman.  Thank you for dropping by and as always may the sun warm your face and may you never loose sight of what true north is.

Cowboy