U4 gave away 500 free phone cards @ Elkhart

U4 gave away 500 phone cards over the course of Elkhart County fair this year. Depending on who worked and how many people walked by the booth we had people ask for them or we just handed them out to get peoples attention. The primary purpose of U4 being at the Elkhart fair was to educate people on VOIP telephone service that we will soon be offering to the public.

Elkhart County fair is almost over

Elkhart County fair is about to come to an end. The last night for the fair is Saturday night 7/29/06. We will be tearing our fair booth down on Saturday night after the merchant building closes. Stop by our fair booth before its gone. We still have phone cards for anyone that wants one over the age of 18.

Elkhart County 4H Fair Balloon Chase Sunday Brunch

This morning was the balloon chase brunch. The brunch included a ton of food including chicken, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, French toast, eggs, fruit, and pie. The brunch is for all pilots and crew. The crew usually consists of 4-8 individuals that help launch the balloon and chase the balloon as well. In the previous post you can see some of the hard work that is required to launch the balloon. The brunch is also open to all sponsors. They have awards to all the winners for those who are able to get closest to the x. The first balloon to launch lands about 2-3 miles from launch and they place a large x on the ground (usually around the airport). This x is then a goal to toss your balloonists small bean bag. The closest to the x within 250 feet wins. Someone actually made it within 1.4 feet early this morning. Anything outside of 250 feet is not counted. The guy that tossed the bean bag this morning was at 400 foot. That is an amazing feat to throw a bean bag from 400 feet and have it land 1.4 feet away from the x.

Gene Stutzman is in charge of the balloon chase for Elkhart County 4H Fair. Shown in this photo he is handing out awards.

U4 Hot air balloon sponsorship rides

U4 sponsorship gets four free rides during the Elkhart County Balloon chase. These are the times and dates this year of the balloon chases.

Friday July 21st 2006 6:00 PM
Saturday July 22nd 2006 6:30 AM
Saturday July 22nd 2006 6:00 PM
Sunday July 23rd 2006 6:30 AM

Elkhart County Balloon Chase is a committee of the Elkhart County 4H Fair Board. You can find more information about the Elkhart County fair and the Balloon chase here on the 4H Fairs website: http://www.4hfair.org/


Here are this years riders:
Friday - Cancelled
Saturday- Bill Rondeau
Saturday- Zak Wolfinger & Ben Plikerd
Sunday- Kariann & Jason Yotter




Most pilots only allow for one rider, but Ed Chupp from Balloon Fantasy 574-534-2000 out of Goshen, Indiana allowed two riders to go. Ed gives rides for $190 per person or $355 per couple. Each ride is usually over an hour long.

One small interesting thing to know about Ed Chupp, he works for Eagle Quest cement that came and poured our cement slab in the back of the building at 101 E. Main St Syracuse for our generator. It’s amazing how small of a world it is.

Here are a couple of pictures of the launch of the balloon, take off, flight, and landing. This was Zak’s first ride in a hot air balloon. Every rider this year except for myself was a first time hot air balloon rider.

U4 Fair booths always professional

U4’s Elkhart County fair booth is in full swing. We are giving away phone cards at the booth this year. Rich Hays is working the fair booth every evening. We have two people on schedule to work the fair booth from 11 AM till 10 PM everyday this week. Some evenings there will be three people working the booth.

The two monitors on the outer edge of the booth are showing what we do now and some of our future services we will be offering soon. Each slide is a different division of U4.

Shown in this picture are Rich, Bill, and Zak

The center monitor shows our presentation in the evening and during the day it shows our services and our logo.

We have a policy that we don’t eat food in our fair booths so you might sometimes only see one person working in our booth. We don’t eat food in our booths so we always look professional and ready to talk to anyone that might stop by.

Kariann doesn't get a ride a 4th time

Friday night Kariann Yotter planned on going in the hot air balloon and they had to cancel the flight because of rain. Hot air ballooning is very difficult and can only be done during certain times of the day usually because of air speeds. This was Kariann’s 4^th attempt at going on a balloon ride and it was cancelled yet again. She tries again on Sunday. Kariann shows her pin off happily. Every flight the rider gets a pin.. The pilots feel bad she doesn’t get a ride again so they gave her a pin. U4 is a sponsor of the Elkhart County Balloon Chase. This is the 4th year we have sponsored a balloon.

Syacuse BZA gives permission to build Tower

Syracuse BZA (Board of Zoning and Appeals) met tonight at Syracuse Town Hall. They had three cases on the agenda and the last was U4. In case you didn’t know I am a member of the BZA and hold the secretary role. During U4’s case I stepped down and did not vote as I presented the case. During the case there were a couple of questions as to why we want to build the tower and what the purpose is. As I have mentioned earlier it will allow us to offer wireless high speed internet to our local community along with a place for our BITS clock antenna for our switch.

During the meeting there was only a couple of remonstrators one in a letter and one in person and their biggest concern was how close it was to the alley. During the review the board made the stipulation that we need to put the tower in line with the building. There was about a three foot difference in where the site plan called for it.
I have a goal to make some progress on getting the tower installed in the month of August. We will soon have weather issues to worry about and we do not want other liabilities on our end. There was a stipulation that they would like it flashing white during the day and red at night. This is fine with me. The more lights the better.

They allowed the exception and we have permission to build the tower.

Knowing how important energy is to me, you should know that we are already looking into the fact we want it solar. Solar tower lights only have to be replaced every 10 years and not every year like other tower lights. This will save us thousands of dollars a year in tower climbers.

Watch the sky over the next couple of months it will be changing.

Thanks to Jon, Margaret Truman, Margaret’s husband, Scott Wenger, and Zak for coming and representing U4.

I would also like to thank Bill Dixon from Hoosier 103 and Linda Crow from Ace Hardward for their letters supporting our explansion.

Elkhart County fair booth installed and ready

Jon Lightner, Rich Hays, Zak Wolfinger, and I went to Goshen this afternoon and setup for the Elkhart County fair booth. Setup took a little longer then expected today (3 hours). We had a couple of electric and structural problems but other then that it went together as planned. We finished setting up at 6 PM.

During the fair this next week you will be able to use any of our phones and place a VOIP phone call to anywhere in the world for free. We will be giving away phone cards this week to anyone who asks for them. We have approximately 2000 phone cards to give away.

Two of our plasma monitors are mounted vertical rather then horizontal. Stop by and take a look at our booth. We are located in the north west corner of the main merchant building.

Rich will begin presenting around 6 PM every night. The presentation lasts around 5-10 minutes. Come and ask questions.

Unfortunately I will be out of town from Tuesday till the end of the fair and will not be able to provide to many photos during the fair. I will try and have some staff members take some photos this next week. I will be on location with Benson Communications Inc. in Kentucky with a video production called IMPACT. This is the last IMPACT for two years.

You can see in the photo Zak & Jon are working on last minute phone issues.

U4 needs your help

U4 needs your help Thursday night @ 7 PM. U4 will be presenting to the BZA and requesting a variance to build a tower on our property in downtown Syracuse. We ask that everyone come and support U4 in this crucial BZA decision for our switch deployment.

The Syracuse BZA meets at Syracuse Town Hall the 3rd Thursday of the month.

Please come show your support.

The tech guys start making the gizmos work

Gary Crisenbery, Jon Lightner, and Zak Wolfinger worked on the technical aspects of the Elkhart fair booth tonight. We spent roughly 6 to 7 hours making sure all of the equipment was working properly. We have two plasma monitors displaying a constant rotating presentation about the services we provide. The center plasma monitor will be showing our talking presentation given by Rich Hays from U4. During the presentation we will be talking about U4 VOIP.

Benson Communications & U4 will have Cisco phones on the table in front of our booth. We will be offering to the public that they can call anywhere in the world for free during the fair. You can also hear the quality of the transmission while on the phone.

Elkhart County fair starts Friday the 21st.

Bill & Kristi work the fair tonight

Bill Rondeau & Kristi Plikerd worked the fair booth tonight at Kosciusko County. We met many of our customers in Warsaw and signed up new customers. The temperature was around 85 degrees in the merchant tent. Bill filled in for my shift today in Warsaw as I was finishing some last minute things for U4 billing tonight. Thanks Bill.

Mounted first plasma monitor

We mounted the first plasma monitor on our Elkhart fair booth this afternoon. Tomorrow final touches on the fair booth will take place. Each plasma monitor weighs about 100 pounds and we have three mounted on our booth. The presentation for U4 VOIP is taking final shape as well. Rich Hays will be giving a presentation during the evenings every 20 minutes.

Zak Wolfinger and Bill Rondeau mount the first plasma in this picture.

Kosciusko County fair starts today

Rich Hays and myself setup for the fair today at 11 AM. Upon arriving to the fair grounds we discovered the merchant tent is now in a new location. The merchant tent is located on the south side of the fair grounds on a large cement slab.

This picture is the finished booth for Kosciusko County fair. This is the same booth we have used for the past three years.

6 PM today started the Kosciusko County fair. Steve Slabaugh and Scott Wenger will be running the booth tonight from 6 PM till 9 PM. U4 will be manning the booth only in the late evenings till 9 PM. Kosciusko County fair is going till Sunday July 22nd.

Here is some of the U4 staff you will run into at the fair this week:

7/17/2006
Scott Wenger
Steve Slabaugh

7/18/2006
Scott Wenger
Ben Plikerd

7/19/2006
Melanie Shorthill
Whitney Land

7/20/2006
Bill Rondeau
Steve Slabaugh

7/21/2006
Margaret Truman
Whitney Land

7/22/2006
Margaret Truman
Melanie Shorthill
Harry Gates
Teddy Pieper
Whitney Land
Steve Slabaugh

Final coat of paint

Elkhart County fair booth got a final coat of paint today. Whitney Land came in on Saturday and gave it a second coat. None of the PVC shown in the picture will actually been seen, but it is important it not show through the fabric. You can see one of the plasma monitors ready to be hung on the PVC display in the background of this picture.

I bought some halogen spot lights to be hung on the sides of the booth for spot lighting. I am not sure if it will be enough lighting or not at this point. Above our booth we have a sodium vapor light and it looks better if we accent our booth with some lighting other then what is provided. I have not yet decided if we will have any kind of light on the table located in the front of the booth or not.

The front table will show some VOIP telephones along with some of our sales information.

Last minute touches

U4 finished last minute touches to the Kosciusko county fair booth today. During final gathering of the supplies for the fair booth we discovered that we were missing the 4 to the display booth. At last minute Ken Plikerd cut a new 4 to be used on the booth. Thanks Ken for your help. Rich Hays and myself will be setting up Monday morning around 10 AM in Warsaw, Indiana. The fair starts Monday afternoon and lasts until Sunday.

All employees that will be helping and working for the fair these next couple of weeks will have access to free bottled water at our fair booths. At each fair booth we will have a mini refrigerator with bottled water. This is just a small way for us to thank our employees.

Today at 3 PM was our first fair meeting. During the meeting we discussed what we will be doing at the Kosciusko county fair. We will be passing out plastic U4 bags during the evening with some U4 information about what we do in the bag. We will also be giving out approximately 2000 free calling cards.

This year during the fair we will be offering our U4 Fair/Expo special for dial up internet. This fair special is the best price for service and price in the area. U4 normally sells our high-speed dial up internet for $18.88 which includes tech support, pop up blocker, and unlimited time. During the Kosciusko county fair we will offer this to the public for $14.44 for life as long as you are a customer.

We will be setting up the Kosciusko fair booth Monday the 17^th. See you there!

Today at 5 was the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce's annual members picnic. It was held at the Syracuse Community Center. Many of our staff attended, enjoyed great food and networking. Approximately 40 people attended this year’s picnic. U4 strives to be active in the community and this is just one of the ways we participate. More information about the chamber can be found at www.swchamber.com.

Zak, Bill and I finsihed putting all of the PVC pipes together tonight for the fair booth. It took about 3 hours but it is finally finished. The next project will be to mount one of the plasmas on the PVC and make sure it will hold. We then need to paint it and cover it with fabric. I still haven't decided what to use for lighting the booth but I will figure something out after it is finished.

Our new online customer interface is available for customers to use. www.u4billing.com We recently gave this an overhaul so it would loads quicker. We also changed the look and feel of the interface making it easier to read. Many customers have been asking us to add the ability to view the actual CDR data (customer calls to and from). We have made that an option in this interface. Here are the steps in order to see this information:

1. Login

2. Click Past Bills

3. Click sub accounts

4. Click the BTN you wish to view

5. Click "View CDR"

6. This will open a new window displaying the most recent CDR data on your account.

We would love to here your thoughts or improvements that we can make to this system. Our billing group would love to here from you.

Zak and I spent about 5 hours tonight starting to assemble the Elkhart Fair booth. We spent hours cutting 3" PVC pipe and using our math skills to calculate how long each peace should be. I didn't think it would take as long as it did. Tomorrow night we are planning on gluing all of the pieces together. We are hoping at this point that the PVC will hold the pipes together enough to hold 3 Plasmas up.

I recently got a new phone that is a pocket pc. It already has saved me a ton of time along with providing me instant access to my email, calendar, and tasks from pretty much anywhere. We are able to get rid of our wireless network card that is out of contract and save the company about $40 dollars per month. Every little penny matters. Verizon Wireless XV6700 rocks. It syncs with my desktop email all day long wherever I go. This is everything from a PDA, MP3 player, word and excel software, and digital keyboard. This thing even has a qwerty slide out keyboard. If this device continues to work as well as it is now then we will be getting more of these for the company.

We sent out certified letters to all the neighbors at our corporate address in Syracuse about us erecting a 150' tower. One of our neighbors asked us if they could bungee jump from the tower and I jokingly told him yes he could, he laughed. It was pretty funny, because I don't believe Tim is a bungee jumping kind of guy. July 20th we will be asking for permission in front of the Syracuse BZA. The 150' tower will allow U4 a place to mount our BITS clock for the switch, offer wireless internet, and offer our store in Syracuse internet and telephone access to corporate.

Our second plasma monitor showed up today at the building for our Elkhart Fair booth. Suprisingly it was cheaper to buy the units then to rent them for 2 weeks. It is amazing at how the rental market is. Benson Communications Inc. rents out AV equipment and they will be renting the units to U4 for the week of the fair. U4 will purchase one of them for the Store as we will use it for advertising.

During the setup of the fair booth today we identified that we will hold working on the website content for a couple of weeks until the fair is over. We will be handing out calling cards at the Elkhart County Fair and plastic U4 bags at the Kosciusko County fair. Two weeks from today will be the setup for the Elkhart County fair.

I went to Menards tonight to pick up the 3" PVC pipe for the Elkhart Fair both. The PVC pipe was going to be the most secure for the plasmas to be mounted on. One of my uncles (Gary Wiggs) came in today to look at building a custom metal frame and he suggested to use what we were using (PVC) instead of welding anything. That was going to save us money. Thanks Gary.

The purpose of the U4 Blog is to provide fast and updated information to our customers, vendors, and employees. Within the web blog you will find new product descriptions, telecom news, and customer notifications. Through the blog you will also find out about sponsorships and how U4 is involved in the community. While a press release gives a professional presentation on an event, the U4 Blog will do such things as give behind the scenes information about an event or the reasons behind a change within the company. We hope you find the U4 Blog helpful and informative.