My career has bridged over six decades, in the advertising and marketing industry. Having experienced working for: agencies, studios, publishers, manufactures, distributors, organizations, business to business, retailers, catalogers and e-tailers as an employee, consultant, or supplier provides a base of knowledge both practiced and proven. Creating, then manufacturing and fulfilling items of all kinds has built an extensive knowledge bank of how to get things started and done. Providing practical analysis of Product to Market and Market to consumer has been at the forefront of my career. Creating “art that works… not works of art” and looking at things “where they live” are the focal point of every project. As a result of my involvement and a commitment to these basics, many of the companies served have survived, grown and prospered. To learn more about me and follow my weekly posts log on and like “allthings abmadcouncil” on face book
alan b.meschkow 11/21/2014
“Dog Bytes” is in conjunction with my online gallery and shop. I have created 60-word videos about the AKC breeds and the Portraits of them. Currently they are being released weekly on my you tube channel in the “Dog Bytes” section.
These are some of the posts with their video and abm545shop links…
Being an active member of LI-DOG has been one of the best Organization membership experience’s I have enjoyed. Making our parks and public places more dog friendly is an integral part of Long Islands suburban appeal. Encouraging dog friendly activities, responsible dog ownership and socialization is at the forefront of what LI-DOG strives for. A well socialized and behaved pet should be at its owner’s side enjoying the beauty of our Island and its expansive parks, beaches, and public places.
Many of you may know Zara our AKC Whippet and others may know that I have an online gallery of dog portraits, and shop featuring dog imprinted items. Every year LI-DOG runs several fund-raising events. The first one will be BARKS & BREWSSat., June 28th, Noon to 3 PM at Great South Bay Brewery Bay Shore, NY 11706. The next one is Barkin Brunch, Sunday, OCTOBER 5th from 11 AM to 3 PM, at The Refuge 515 Broadhollow Rd. Melville, NY 11747. The last one
Howl-O-Ween Costume Contest & Pawty, Sunday, October 20th, 12 to 4 PM at The Pine Grove Inn 1 1st St., East Patchogue, NY
Each of these events features a fun time for our canine friends, a great opportunity to meet other dog loving families, great DJ music, varied food and drinks, specialty vendors,
doggy activities and of course a great display of fund-raising raffle prizes for you to choose from. Among the vast array of gift baskets and prizes at these 3 events is an opportunity to win one of my dog portraits. To all the people who have won a portrait; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did creating it! For all of you who would like to win one, I look forward to meeting you and your dogs at these great events.
You’re a Pontiac Solstice owner, you get in your car, you roll down your windows, release your convertible top from the windshield, click the trunk release, the trunk clicks open, and the driver side or passenger side buttress doesn’t release. If you Google the problem; you will find out how to release it and get the top down. After a wonderful top-down ride; you close it up and all seems well.
It isn’t! the next time you take your top down, the buttress doesn’t release; you now know how to fix that problem however, you now have a new problem. The problem you will find out is that; the release cable has disconnected from the buttress release mechanism.
Here is a quick easy fix, that takes a bit of mechanical skill and some simple improvised pieces. Read my instruction’s and I believe my photos will make perfect sense. I am a Car and RC hobbyist and have a good mechanical skills.
Open your trunk and put your top up using panel pullers remove all the trunk lid push pin retainers. You might find it easier to do when you climb into the trunk and sit on the raised area.
Once the inner panel is removed you will see two cables that actuate the buttress releases. Follow them up to the connection points. If the cable is connected and you click your remote you will see them work. If the cable is disconnected it will not.
Now that you identified your problem look at the one that works; you will see the one that works has a ball on the end that is connected to a spring that acts as a release for the buttress pin on your top when it is closed.
Now look at the one that doesn’t work the cable is probably retracted, pull it out to expose the ball on the end, put it back through the lop that attaches it to the spring.
Use a round object like a sharpy cap to hold back the spring by placing it through the trunk chrome ring that the post goes through. The cable will comfortably leave enough room for cable to be retained by the new fasteners you will improvise.
Using a new or used push pin cut off the stem, using a Dremel smooth it out to create a disc. Drill a 1/16th hole in the middle and cut a very narrow slit in it. Get a very small hobby spring cotter pin.
Using needle nose pliers snap the new black disc over the cable next to the spring now snap the miniature cotter pin over the cable next to the ball end retainer.
Remove the round object used to hold back the spring. Now test with your remote. Success it now works
For added ease of operation cote and let cure the entire mechanism and spring surfaces with CowRC…
This article is a continuation of an article, I wrote about niche businesses in May of 2016; it was about the growth and commitment to customer service at Cow Performance Company AKC CowRC.
In 2016 CowRC was 8 years old, the product line featured about one hundred items. They were: Magnetic Pit Mats, Aerosols, Grease, Air Blasters, and Gear. These were the basic core products for a small segment of an even smaller niche of RC Hobbyists. From 2016 through 2024 our business not only advanced and grew but the marketplace we serve evolved. CowRC and its commitment to customer service remained at the forefront of our business as more and more users of our products made us the go to for RC Maintenance.
Today, the importance of maintaining your RC vehicle has become a critical part of ownership, enjoyment, performance, and durability of your RC; car- truck- boat- plane, or your very own creation. Your RC maintenance program starts when you unbox or build it, continues when run it, or compete with it, and finishes when put it back on the shelf prepared for the next time you use it. Just like their full-scale counterparts’ today’s RC vehicles require service with products designed and formulated for them.
As we are preparing to celebrate the new year 2025, CowRC completes its’ 16th year of serving the maintenance needs of RC Hobbyists with over two hundred uniquely designed and engineered items to choose from. We have continued our customer first commitment and our reputation has grown on that foundation.
Within our small niche of RC’ers is a group of scale builders who not only race, crawl, drift, and rock climb their vehicles; when they park them, they go into scale garages. CowRC miniatures now find their way into these Garages just like the real products go on the shelves and workbenches of their owners. These tiny replicas are symbolic of how taking care of your RC’s has become part of the hobby.
CowRC, and its commitment to quality and service has been first since the original barn doors opened. We are proud of our reputation and how the importance of RC vehicle maintenance and performance has grown.
“Remember when friends were more than a number of; that you collected on your social media ap and cookies were a delicious treat you actually could pick up and eat! My dear friends the times are a changing.”
As many of you know I have been around and involved in the advertising and marketing world for a long time.As a matter of fact, it all started for me in the mid 1960’s. I have experienced going from Hot metal type to computer generated type, from creating new ideas with brain power to let’s see what comes out of the computer.
For a long time, many of us have enjoyed the benefits of social media and have built businesses and followings around it. We have also experienced as providers-built followings the benefits were restricted and even removed. Just like the dot com bust of the 80’s at the end of the day money has to be made. In many cases we are all paying for benefits that may have started out free and now are fee based.
So, what is the big deal? Traditional advertising as we knew it has been ravaged; traditional retail is in a state of adjustment; how to drive it; what drives it, and how to bridge the gap of addressing each generational group needs to be defined. This process takes time and in our fast-moving market place with so many channels getting a clear focus has become more and more difficult.
It is absolutely imperative to define and capture your customer base. To that end every business however small or large needs to define and have control of its ability to communicate directly and capture all potential consumers of their products and brand.
2024 will be marked in many cases by the loss of third-party cookies. This will leave a huge gap in businesses’ ability to take advantage of what used to be available. We have gone from the age of “location-location-location” to “audience-audience-audience”. Capture them now and build for the future.
These are my thoughts and opinions and I would appreciate any comments…
In July of 2018 while discovering I could still draw; I completed an 8×10 pencil portrait of “ZARA” our much loved Whippet. However I did not make any commitment to starting an art project. I did like that my drawing skills were good and drawing was at least enjoyable! I wrestled with the fact that my entire career had been based on creating “art that works not works of art” and it would take a huge commitment to develop a no fee based project that had no client requirements or deadline. My creativity as well as my artistic drive was always based on fee first; the better the fee the better the performance!
As summers and winters rolled by; I stayed committed to the project and it became a flexible part of my daily schedule. My Wife and I split our time between New York and Florida. When in NY we spend a lot of time with family, friends and of course our grand children. Covid put an end to our longtime commitment to lure coursing competitively with our sons and our whippet kids CJ and Zara. I started showing some of the portraits locally on long island and was invited to teach a class for teens on sketching dogs. The shows and Teaching have become an annual commitment. My e-commerce business involvement keeps me pretty active. There is always golf and my Trophy winning two-seater in the garage. If you add in the joy of summer on the east end of Long island, LI dog Pac walks and events it fills up a lot of my time. Each portrait can take between 6 and 12 or more hours and I like to draw in a very relaxed environment.
When winter comes it’s off to South Florida, it usually starts with condo craziness, it is a little quieter in Florida, so I have a little more time to draw. I also show my car at local events, play more golf, spend lots of dog beach time, and tend to e-commerce commitments virtually, my wife and I get lots of time for casual living and enjoying summer type weather for the next 6 months of the year.
As the effects of Covid retreated and new normalcy returned, while in New York in the summer of 2022 I was recognized with a 3 page LI Newsday Story about My life and Drawing Dogs…My teen Drawing Class was done and I was nearing completion of all the AKC portraits and had 30 or so to complete the collection; it was May of 2022! When I started there were 180AKC breeds, 12 more had been added over the years bringing it up to 192. My goal was to finish it up before I left for Florida in November. That did not happen!
In July of 2022, I passed out from a 95% artery blockage… my entire plan for completion was upset. Things got back on track by the time I had to leave for Florida… It was now the week of April 3rd 2023, normally it is Dog week for us in Florida. Our Son comes down with CJ we celebrate our son’s Birthday; CJ and Zara do dog stuff all week.
275192 the last entry until next years update
This year also marked the completion of all 192 Portraits of the AKC recognized breeds. After 4 years and 8months they will all be on permanent display at abm545gallery **. My current plan is; to do an annual update of any new breeds as AKC accepts them and develop an online shop based on the gallery portraits, with some of the proceeds directed towards charitable causes.
I want to say a special thank you to my son Heath…on one of our early morning walks almost 5 years ago we discussed if I could still draw and in my usual fashion now I can honestly say “Yes I can!”
These are some links that refer to this story as it evolved.
