We won an Academy Award Oscar for customer service!!  Well, it feels like we did.

Oh, we like to consider ourselves smart, clever, problems-solvers…and we are.  But most of all ACS Industrial is a collaboration of customer-centered, skilled people who listen.  Why?  Because it matters.  A lot.

When we get letters like the one below we share them with our entire staff to make sure they know how important true customer service is and to show our appreciation…

If you were thinking of just maaaybe watching the Academy Awards (or maybe your wife/girlfriend/room mate, etc.) is making you watch) on Sunday night, here’s another reason to watch, at least between 8:00 and 9:00 pm…the awesome new Harpejji (see pic) will be featured when A.R. Rahman and Florence Welch of “Florence and the Machine” perform the Oscar-nominated song “If I Rise” from the movie “127 hours”! 127 Hours is up for Best Picture.

The Harpejji is the combination of an electric guitar and a piano and is played by tapping the strings.  As musicians become aware of this new instrument, popularity is growing!  Musicians like A.R. Rahman (also famous for “Slumdog Millionaire”), Coldplay, and Dream Theater use harpejjis.

Science fiction once again comes to life.  No, not flesh eating zombies but a tiny, incredibly dexterous robotic spy plane developed by  the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and built by AeroVironment .  You don’t think that’s totally cool?  Well, you will when you see it.  What’s really cool about it is that it looks and moves just like a real hummingbird!  Talk about covert surveillance!

The hummingbird drone is able to fly forward, backward, and sideways, as well as rotate clockwise and counterclockwise using only it’s two wings for propulsion and control.  It is also about the same size as an actual hummingbird with a 6.5 inch wingspan and weight of 19 grams. 

Yesterday afternoon, after fidgeting for an hour in a cracked, plastic chair at the Motor Vehicle Administration, my middle son received his learner’s permit and his Rookie Driver handbook….just thought ya’ll should know about this disturbing fact.  If you are a parent of teenage sons, as I am of three of these buffalo, then you know why it is disturbing.

This is the car he is planning to drive…a 2011 Camaro.  Reality, however, is that a 2003 Hyundai Elantra, previously dented up by his older brother, is what awaits him in the driveway.  But he can dream…and plan for the future.

So, it’s Jules Verne’s 183rd birthday today.  Did you see the Google logo tribute today? Pretty cool…based on 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. 

I hadn’t thought of Jules Verne lately…not since I read those classics aloud to my three sons who loved them as much as I did when I was a kid.

Come to think of it, Jules Verne was probably my first serious introduction to science fiction and to the thrill of science in general.   Which is probably why I’m in this business of industrial electronics.   

Super Bowl XLV is only three days away and the excitement is building for what could potentially be an absolutely epic game. 

Both teams are well positioned to walk away with the Lombardi trophy and a pile of oversized, gaudy rings on Sunday.   Of one thing you can be certain – it will be a major slugfest between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh St…Ste..Stee… (arrrrrgh, as a Baltimore Ravens fan I cannot possibly bring myself to utter their name but you know who I’m talking about, they of the yellow rags, uh, I mean terrible towels).  Though I will admit, head coach Mike Tomlin is a class act and Troy Palumalu is a great talent and exciting to watch.

Punxsutawney Phil, he of the infamous shadow, announced today that he saw no shadow upon emerging from his rodent abode, so spring will be here soon.  Not a moment too soon for most of the country which has seen quite enough snow, ice and finger-numbing temperatures.  Probably quite enough for Phil too, since his cozy burrow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania was completely iced last night by a major storm.

Brace yourselves!  The Blizzard of 2011 is apparently here.  We in the Mid-Atlantic are shivering in our boots, just not used to all this ice and snow.  Ocean City beaches are just a faint, sandy memory at the moment.

And driving?  If you’re from Chicago or Buffalo, you know Baltimoreans are incapable of driving in winter weather (me excepted of course!).  It’s a sight to behold!  I mean, did you HEAR about all the abandoned cars out there after our last storm?  Yep.  Abandoned…right in the middle of the road.   Now, where did those people go?  I dunno, but we haven’t found any of’em frozen in a snow bank yet!