Birthday cards are starting up again! The only problem, AOL has locked up my calendar, so I cannot retrieve the birthdays that I had recorded. If you want back on the birthday card list, please email it to me.
Hey everyone - here is a pre-Holiday sale. Come in November 20th and you can buy a $22 Airway Gift Card for only $20. They make great stocking stuffers. The offer is good ONLY on the 20th! - while the cards last.
I am SO embarrassed. I was so excited about telling everyone that I was able to do a coupon via email, that I forgot to tell you about TEAM PICTURES!! That's right - team pictures. It has probably been 20 years since they were last done. The company that we have now has everyone line up, by teams, at the foul line. Then the photographer walks down the entire row of teams - snapping the pictures. The whole process takes less than two minutes. While you are bowling, he goes into the office and prints out the photos. he then brings them down to the teams. Anyone that wants one can buy one for $7. The whole operation is pretty slick. The photographer is impressed that Airway has had the highest rate of bowler purchases so far (except for the youtgh tournaments!). Hopefully, we will also get thumbnails on this site, that you can look at. If you want it then, you would email the guy and order it.
OH MY GOD!!! I was finally able to get my email list into the address book - and it did not disappear (yet). It took me a bit, but I got a coupon out for November to everyone that I had on the list except for the volleyball players. They are next. This coupon is a bit different. It is designed to reward those that frequent Airway Lanes more often, by making it worth more to just those people. All coupons are worth $2, BUT, if you bowl, or play darts, or volleyball, in a league at Airway, every one after the first one adds $1 to the coupon. Just fill in the information as asked. It can be worth up to $5! If this proves popular and is not abused, I will probably stick with it. Either way, as long a s my email list does not disappear, I have coupons going out. Just to toot my own horn - Airway is the ONLY center that does this - at lest in this area. Thank you Amanda for getting the job done.
As stated below, Amanda is working on the mailing list. Once it is done (tomorrow?) I will contact the web site host to see if we can FINALLY get out an email coupon. Keep your fingers crossed.
I have Amanda now entering all of the email contacts from the former AOL account to a table. The plan is to save the table in a CSV file, then load it into Outlook. I have to go this way because email providers like Yahoo, Google, MSN and the others all limit the amount of emai I can send to 50 - 100 at a time, and not to close together - like 36 hours apart. It would take me weeks just to do a coupon, or news for a month. The other providers (NetworkSolutions, CBeyond, etc.) have no limits to what you can send at once. These providers send mail to Outlook contacts, and getting them into Outlook, in a useful format, has been a challenge. Hopefully, soon!
I am still working on getting the coupons out - it is making me nuts. I have to get all of the names into Outlook, and connect that to the new web site host - but first I have to be able to switch to the new host. Hopefully - November 1st???
People havebeen asking about the coupons and I have been replying that I am shooting for October 1st. Right now, I do not think that will happen. I am having a bit of a time setting up my address book and syncing it with Outlook. I will send out a coupon as soon as I get it done.
I have started formatting my new website. Great news, I can copy and paste most of it. I just can't highlight anything (yet). I know that there will be mistakes do to missed dates and things like that, so bear with me. I will be starting on a new email address book (God willing and the creek don't rise) tomorrow. Time will tell, but I really want to be able to send coupons out in October.
In the next few weeks, I will be moving this website to a new host. You will not see any difference - and can still use the same web address, EXCEPT - to move anything to the new site, I have to copy what is here, and paste it to a word document. I have to do this with ALL of the items I am moving. As I copy them, I will make little notes to myself that you can see. When I am done doing all of that, I then have to copy and paste them into the new host site. Be ready for some screwball things to happen.
I would like to thank Oakland Press reporter, Carol Hopkins, for the great story, and photo (left) about Airway Lanes not being sold. The request came out of the blue and my family and I were thrilled that this happened. It was published on Wednesday, May 6th, and came hard on the heels of Mark Martin's bowling column, published on Friday, May 1st, stating the same thing. Carol's column is available at http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2009/05/06/business/doc4a015f89b4ab9349136086.txt for those of you that missed it and would like to see it. copied 9/9/09
MAJOR PROBLEM: After almost 16 years with AOL, my account has been closed by their "Community Action Team". I send out too many emails to you, my bowlers, volleyball players, darters, bar people and much more - so many that I must be spamming! That is irregardless of the fact that almost all of you have sent me your email address - mostly to get the coupons - and that anyone that wants to be taken off the list, is taken off of the list. I am just livid that, with a 45% return rate on my coupons, AOL deems it spam. I am in the process of getting another email site set up. Than I have to hand type each and every name in to the new address book. Once I get the new email, I would appreciate it if each of you would email me with your first and last name so I can just capture it. Thanks. By the way, the old airwaylanes@aol.com no longer works -- please email me at bowlingisbest@airwaylanes.com. I am asking everyone that reads this to click on that, as requested just above, so I can capture your info. Thanks Gary
There has been talk about Airway Lanes being sold. While we did get a really incredible offer, Sheryle and I decided to turn it down. We started announcing it to our leagues and friends on Tuesday, the 21st of April. We also put it up on our road sign. We are here to stay, and will keep it in the family. They will bury my ashes under lane 32 when the time comes. (THAT statement grossed out Phyliss Walker, who does cleaning @ Airway two days a week. Phyliss told me that after I go to that "bowling alley in the sky" (where there are NO 10 pins OR lane oil complaints), that she would not clean that end of the bowling alley anymore!) I have worked at Airway since 1961, Sheryle since 1970. We have a lot of 3rd & 4th generation bowlers here. A lot of you have become family friends. To even consider it was one of the toughest things we have ever done. When I started making the announcements, it was like a ton of bricks was lifted from my shoulders. Stay with us, we are staying with you.
I would like to use this space to thank everyone that signed the contracts for next bowling season, thank everyone for their trust in me and my staff. Doing the contracts this season became quite a humbling experience for me and I feel quite honored. What really awed me was that every team in every league (except 2) signed up to come back. Thank you! Gary (Note: Now it is every team in every league except ONE)
For those of you that have Youth bowlers, let it be known that Airway lanes is co-hosting the 2010 Michigan State Youth Bowling Tournament. This involves hundreds of youth bowlers from around the state. It starts in March and ends in May.
Going green -- what a concept for a business. When I came back to Airway after 4 years at Ferris State College, one of the first things I did was replace a bunch of 150 watt flood lights (above the bowlers area) with two 40 watt flourescent tubes. The original "bar service lights" were actually another row of 150 watt floodlights. Those floods were not needed when I put in the flourescent lights. I put in 25 watt lamps in that 2nd row, put pull strings on them and , viola, we had "bar service lights". For those of you that can remember back that far, they were not actually behind each pair of lanes. Some were off as much as a lane to the next pair. The row of flourescent lights down the center of the upper concourse was yet another row of 150 watt lamps. Yup, more flourescent fixtures. Another thing I did was to replace the 9 1000 watt mercury vapor parking lot lights with 400 watt high pressure sodiums. The sodiums actually put out more light. I also replaced incandescant lamps all over the building with flourescents. I have used more energy efficient motors where possible/practical. At one time I even had units on the pinsetters that would shut the motor off when the machine was inactive for over 45 seconds. Those all burned out and were not being remanufactured. I presently have 4 new style, electronic, ones, with plans to get more. Since the '70's, I have managed to keep my electric bills fairly level. Proof that I have cut consumption. Just recently, I have started replacing more incandescant lights with CFL's. The new concourse bathrooms have motion actvated toilets/urinals, faucets and hand driers. It all helps. The flourescent lights outside, under the carport and the sidewalk overhang, were originally incandescant lamps. I am stil looking to replace bulbs with CFL's. copied 9/9/09
Here is a link to a neat place: "How bowling pinsetters work". It talks about the Brunswick GS-10 (the latest, but not many out there) sequence of operations, but the theory is similar to the Brunswick A & A2, and the AMF series of units. Take a look at http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/pinsetter.htm. If you go to the sites home page, it will link you to sites that show how almost anything works. It is really neat. Another neat site is at the "Bowling Tracker". Here there is a ton of info regarding bowling. At this link, you can create a page to track your own bowling (with several profiles, even). Try this at http://bowlingtracker.no-ip.org:2222/personalstats/
If any of you have a favorite bowling web site, notify me and I will add it to my page; and, if I have a link that doesn’t work, let me know that, too, so I can remove it.
We are doing a booming business in birthday and corporate parties. The smaller kids, especially, love to bowl and the mess stays here. The older kids -- and adults -- like the comeraderie during their parties. And, for your company, it is an inexpensive way to reward you employees. Call us for more information, or to set up your party.
By the way, if anyone has pictures (digital only) of Airway events or people, upload them to me and I will publish them as much as possible. Also write a little story about the event. Follow the 5 W's -- Who, what, when, where, why, so people will know why the pictures are here. Also, if you have a web page link and it has something on it involving Airway, let me know the link.Click here to E-Mail Airway. Also, if you hit a web link that doesn't work, let me know. If you email me, make sure you put something in the subject line so I won't thinkl I am receiveing spam. If I think it's spam, I will just delete it w/o looking at it.
