All right, all right.
Feeney talks with friends, episode 136.
We're in a special place with a special person.
What's up? Greg? It's happening. This is great.
My name is Eric Feeney, founder and president of Friends of Feeney.
And I use this podcast.
Feeney talks with friends, and I talk to wonderful people that are in the community
doing great things.
And you've been in the community.
Well, Cricket press has been in the community for 54 years.
That's amazing.
And how long have you been a part of Cricket press?
I've been. Well, I was since birth.
Since birth?
Yeah.
I started kind of like, actually a lot of the guys that have been here forever.
I started by taking out the trash, bringing in boxes,
breaking down the juice boxes, stuff like that.
And then,
throughout middle school, high school, college, I was on and off part time.
And then, after graduation,
is when I joined full time.
Awesome.
So, yeah, we're here at Cricket press on 236 Park Road,
and we're with my friend Greg Khan for.
Sorry.
That confused. Sorry.
My guy Greg.
I want to thank you.
I don't even know where to start.
We have so much
thank yous histories, but I want to start with a huge congratulations.
These balloons are for you. Thank you.
Can we get a round of applause?
A round of applause.
Greg and Cricket press.
You want to share? Can I share? Share it.
You are small business of the year.
That is an amazing honor from the Hartford Business Journal.
Oh. Here's a nice handwritten card.
Great. Talk about writing a handwritten card.
This is for Greg.
Maybe you open it or read it later, but.
Or. No, thank you. But,
small business of the year.
That's a huge honor.
Please elaborate and talk about this.
How do you feel?
You know, it's funny, when I got the initial phone call,
I actually hung up because I'm like,
no way.
We always jokingly say behind the scenes, we don't do anything different
than anybody else.
We just do what we can from a business perspective,
from a professional perspective, we're just like anybody else.
We don't you know, there's a lot of secret that kind of goes behind the scenes.
But, quite later
when I got the phone call, I hung up thinking, there's no way this is real.
It's like, oh, yeah, you won the Australian lottery.
It's like, yeah, no, I didn't know what I don't know, I don't play.
They ended up calling back and I'm like, really?
That's, pretty incredible.
Wow. Wow.
And the celebrations May 8th. Yep.
That's in a couple days.
Seventh and eighth. Yeah. Later. You go. What are you wearing?
You know,
I thought I was going to be a lot more casual till I just got the,
the agenda, and I got to have a 4 to 5 minute acceptance speech ready.
I'm like, okay, so this is this big deal.
All right. Wow.
They gave you a time? Yeah.
They want 4 to 5 minutes. 4 to 5 minutes at most.
So it won't be, won't be too bad, but won't bother me.
So cool. So cool.
No. You've been helping out again 54 years here.
Park road.
Your contact number is Cricket press dot net.
What is Cricket press?
Say I teach third grade.
You do that.
Say you're explaining to a third grader what you do here at Cricket press.
Yep. Ready? Go.
Easiest way I always describe it.
It's, It's a motto that, we haven't officially created as the tagline.
But you think it. We ink it.
You have a logo, you put it, you can put a logo on it.
We can do it.
And that kind of applies for pretty much anything.
When we first started as a business,
it was
traditional paper, business cards, letterhead, all that kind of stuff.
And the technology's just evolved so rapidly.
Even in the last ten years I've been here.
We've gone far beyond that now.
And now it's stuff like the yard signs and magnets and stickers.
Like I said, you think it, we ink it.
But, I mean, it really comes down to if you can put your logo on it,
it's possible. Yeah. In a nutshell.
So and there's a lot of different areas you can go within that obviously.
But we've really done our best
to keep up with the technology as it evolves by the day.
We've continued to kind of stay current on a lot of that stuff.
And then we've also relied heavily on, some of the other print
shops in the area where it's not possible to own all of the equipment.
So you have to learn to rely and trust the other guys in the area
where a lot of people will say, oh, what's your thoughts on,
another shop in the area?
And they're kind of
feeding into the expectation me to say, oh, they're arrival.
No, they're not.
Because on multiple fronts, number one, I want them to succeed
because they're helping lift our craft, so to speak.
And then also, if they've got technology or equipment that we don't have,
we rely heavily on them.
Which for us, it always comes down to the relationship building.
So with our customers, we take pride that we are happy to transition customers
to some of those places or the customers that we've got relationships with.
We'll say, we can handle it for you.
We'll go talk to that other shop and just make it a one stop solution for you.
So that's been always one of the big things, people.
We get that question probably weekly.
How do you feel about x, y, z, whether it's a new shop in the area
or whether it's a shop that's not around here, but everyone uses them?
The more the merrier.
We are fully supportive
of all the other shops out there and kind of lifting that craft.
Which, you know, I just talked with Ryan McGuinness from Ryan Soft Wash
and he said to same thing his he has a friend
that does the soft wash business and he doesn't treat them as a competitor.
They bounce questions off of each other ideas, suggestions, new things.
So that's you know, how are things. Together learn together.
That's kind of how we've always looked at it.
I like it, I like it, think together, learn together.
You started to go into it, so I was
I mean, I know he's doing it, but I like to ask three keys.
What are.
So let me go over some sponsors first.
We have Keating agency insure insurance.
Ryan keating. Yeah, please, guys,
hit the mic.
Float 41, The fix IV, Luna pizza, golf law group,
people's bank, Parkville management, maximum beverage.
Sally and Bob's our newest one.
And West Hartford lock.
So with West Hartford Lock what are your three keys
that make you great at the vice President of Cricket press?
What are three keys? Because you I caught yourself.
You did one a minute ago.
So a key I thought a. Key three key.
Right. Yeah. What makes you good at being a vice?
What makes this place run?
What are three keys that keep this place?
Number one and probably number two.
And number three are the people got to start there
because our team, I mean, I put our team against anybody else that's out there.
We've got guys. We.
If you go back to the beginning, the 54 years, Dom
was just running around a minute ago.
Dom has been here well over 30 years.
Marvin, has been over here 40 years.
And then we had a couple of years ago, once Covid hit, Peter retired.
But Peter had been here for about 30 years.
And then Carol, the original, owner, her and her husband,
who started the business, she was here right up until Covid.
And she she just passed in the fall, but in the early 90s.
So she was here for almost 50 years.
I know, I just saw a picture of you
in the Hartford Business Journal with Marvin and Carol. Yep.
When was that picture taken?
That was tail end of Covid.
Tail end of Covid. Yep. Yeah.
And that was before.
So the other three that we've got on board now, Scott,
shot and oh, and so Scott, he's been in the industry forever.
We've known him for I've known him for now six, seven years.
We were fortunate enough to bring him over.
He was working for one of the brokers that we do a lot of work with.
He went back to school, got a degree, in project management.
So we sat down with
those guys, had a great conversation, said, hey, he'd be a great fit for us.
It was a really open dialog conversation, and it's been mutually fantastic.
Was that Sean or Scott? That was Scott.
Yep. So, Scott, I've emailed with Sean.
I just met Sean.
We just brought on, about a year and a half ago now, December of 23.
He's been he's an absolute workhorse.
We brought him on.
We really needed the extra hands in the production side of things.
So we brought him on.
We kind of showed him pretty much anything that's in here.
And by the day, as we buy new stuff,
Sean's always looking to learn more of that stuff.
So he's been an absolute workhorse.
And then,
Oh, and same thing we brought on on we brought on on middle of Covid, tail
end of Covid when things were starting to open back up
and we were kind of looking at things going, okay, it's getting busier now.
We got to bring somebody on and it actually worked out.
We were out the parking lot talking to his mom, who's our landlord.
And she just happened to say, hey, I've got a son that just,
just finished school. He's looking for a job.
Even if it's just part time. Are you open to it?
I mean, it's been the hire of a lifetime now, and the rest is history.
So he's been on now almost four years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So, I mean, again, the key has always been the people
without fail that mean that we talk about keys.
Three keys.
I'll give two of them to the people. Nice, nice.
Outside of that, I think,
it goes back to being around as long as we have.
When I took over,
the, the short version of it was my.
I had just graduated.
We found out my dad was sick with stage four kidney cancer.
So I had just graduated, and, August
went down and worked at Disney through the start of January.
By mid-January, we found out he was sick.
So I was applying to go do engineering jobs.
We found out he was sick, and I said, all right, let's put that on pause.
Let's figure out what's going on here.
And he ended up passing August of that year.
So that transition window was six months.
I mean, you want to talk about healthy months, three, maybe four.
And that's where I go back to saying, without the people that were involved
here, we wouldn't have made it through. No way.
I mean, I was able to rely
on the guys that have been here forever on top of the customer base that,
not just my dad, but the rest of the guys had built
those relationships that really helped us weather that storm.
So loyalty from our customer base, which, again,
comes back to just doing good, honest, truthful business with people.
So I would say that's key.
Number three, if we want to do a third individual on number four,
I think it would go back to the in terms of the people,
the willingness from our perspective to keep up with technology.
I think in our industry it's really easy in many, many industries, as is the case,
but really easy to kind of stay complacent with where technology is.
But I mean, it's no secret most people
kind of know the print is dying.
I think that our people have bought into the concept.
Print is changing. It's changing by the day, and it's changing.
I'm sure it will be different tomorrow than it is today.
But the technology and our adoption
has really set us, up for long term success.
Right?
So for keys, I gotta make a note for keys.
People for two, people for two.
Longevity. I'm.
I call it longevity people.
Relationship, for.
Sure.
And fourth one you threw in was.
I don't even remember.
Now, we don't want to ever lock. We, need our lock change.
We lost a key.
Great. Guys, those guys are awesome.
So our motto. Be a good friend.
Pick up trash, hold the door, give compliments.
You know, what makes Dom a good friend?
I know you mentioned he's been here a long time.
Long time running around. Yep.
He was another one. He started right at a counter.
He started. He came in and he he.
What he saw was kind of that culture of
being a good friend, wanting to kind of go the extra mile he's been.
I mean, Dom's a people person, no doubt.
He gets to see every day being one of the front counter guys.
The satisfaction of helping people in their projects and understanding.
We never know what the end usage of a project is, but we find everything from
it might be something for a simple business occasion to,
we'll do a project.
Come to find out, it's going to be a surprise for a kid
that's going into surgery.
So I know he's thoroughly enjoyed the satisfaction of kind of the
the outcome of the projects.
And he's been key in terms of helping along the way of the behind the scenes
stuff.
But, I know that his gratification
from seeing the customer smile,
regardless of what the purpose of the project is,
has really been that motivating factor. That's awesome.
That's cool that you brought that up. Projects.
So we do another game, your first project, your last project, your best project.
In your worst project, any order you want.
First project I ever did.
Let's start there.
The first project I did was unfortunately one of the last projects
I did with my dad, but it's one that I have in my office,
where it was just a
simple sticker and it said, this box is recycled.
And it was really the last project that my dad ever did with the shop.
So that one's a small but important one to me.
Yeah.
Last project, something we did today.
We're actually one of the new machines we got is a flatbed,
so it can do stuff like yard signs, golf balls, tumbler.
So we were just working on some cigar boxes,
where we can print directly on the wood now, which is pretty cool.
So that'll be more to come on that front so people know we have it,
but we haven't really kind of publicized it quite yet.
What were the other two.
Best and.
Worst? Best and worst
best project? We've done
best.
In what sense.
Could be satisfaction financially?
Important to you?
Totally up to you.
How are you on? How do you,
That's tough.
I mean, you.
You got a few, got a few faves.
I think it more so.
Man, that's,
a million projects are running through my head in terms of worse.
There's,
there's really not a ton that we.
Would label as worst, I mean, I yeah, there's always good days.
There's always bad days.
I would say best project we've ever done
was when we.
Tried I think what the circumstance was.
We do a lot of stuff with the aerospace groups in the area.
So a few times we've had to go on site
and kind of hand off some stuff and seeing some of the other facilities.
That's one of my favorite parts of the job
is being able to say, oh, you need me to come out and see you.
Awesome. I love going out and seeing other facilities.
So there's a couple that we
hand it off to some of the aerospace groups in the area,
and just seeing the inside and having a sign
that you won't say what you saw, we saw some really cool stuff.
I'll leave it at that.
Go on and tell us what you see.
What'd you see? Yeah, right.
I saw the exit sign on my way out.
So were you and Raytheon and Pratt and Whitney in.
Which that that whole transition's been interesting?
We worked directly with or
I should say indirectly with a lot of them through Cushman Wakefield.
So Cushman Wakefield, was kind of the managing partner.
So a lot of the stuff we would do
would end up going through the middle man of Cushman Wakefield.
But they the group that was at the coffee shop or the, the mailroom, so to speak,
they were good for
a lot, but the in-depth nuts and bolts of print,
they were not shy to hand off and say, hey, this is completely out of the realm
of what I know.
We need you to come in and you'll know exactly what the user's looking for.
We're just going to know what to call you.
We're not going to know the actual technology.
So we worked with them now for
seven years or so.
We've done stuff for them indirectly, but directly.
We've done it now for about seven years.
So some of the stuff just to see inside of those facilities,
I mean, it's an engineering marvel and some of them, it's
just really cool stuff to see.
Oh, what's your background, your extra interest in. Right.
Yeah. Okay.
Because you're a mechanical engineer background I see you.
All right.
So some of that stuff in terms of worst project,
I mean,
nothing really comes to mind as in worst, I think in general,
what usually we will find the worst scenario to be
will be when,
everybody's an expert in printing.
When it's a rush, I'll say that.
So whenever something last minute hits our plate, of course,
we're doing what we can to go above and beyond.
But we always remind people
we may not be the complete experts, but we know a thing or two about print.
Sometimes. Just trust our judgment.
Trust our expectations.
A lot of people will have these grand visions.
And that really goes back to when I say worst.
I use that term loosely because that's where again,
like Dom, I know has a lot of fun in saying, okay,
here's your vision, that's great, but let's get that back down into reality.
Here's what we can actually do, or here's what we've got tools to provide.
Because some of this stuff, quite literally,
people envision projects that I don't know if that theory even doable at any shop,
which is not a bad thing.
Again, that goes back to fueling the growth, fueling the vision,
understanding, well, what technology can help us get to that point?
So I'd say the worst project are the ones where
we can't necessarily get to the goal that the customer is looking for,
but usually it ends up somewhere the old, what's it shoot for?
The moon land among the stars.
Usually it's something along those lines where, okay, we couldn't get exactly
what they're looking for, but we've got a pretty wide range of options.
What's your thoughts on X, y, Z?
Most times it'll work out.
And confirm or deny.
Did you do printing for NASA?
Wow. That's.
I'll show you the sticker out there, actually. What'd you do?
How did you do it?
It was,
critical space component stickers that had to go on a lot of their shipments.
We, during Covid, we kicked up a lot of government bid work.
There's a lot of really cool projects.
The problem we run into,
and I would say this is probably the case for a lot of the government
work out there.
That is product base is it's a race to zero.
Everyone thinks it's a cool project,
so everyone goes in at the absolute lowest price.
So we don't do a ton of it.
We do some stuff for government contracts, but generally base
got to be given the stuff away.
Which was the lowest bidder. Right.
They almost always shop on price not quality relationship,
which again, from our business models perspective, we're building
relationships, not just filling an Excel sheet.
So a lot of those projects, it's like you really have to have razor thin
margins in what we found is other areas of our business, other projects suffered
because we couldn't devote the equipment power,
the mental capacity, just kind of that human touch factor.
We could
it was suffering because we were just strictly
focusing on volume, volume, volume on razor thin margins.
Really.
That's if you got to do a ton of it to make it worth it. Yeah.
And we found it was kind of harming our,
mantra.
I mean, our, our through and through kind of area is short run, short turnaround.
You need a handful of something and you need it right now.
That's where we're strong.
That's where we're strongest.
And some other fortune 500 companies.
You had a list of a couple more. Do you know any?
Yeah.
So I mean we right now we do a lot of, a lot of booklets and training manuals.
So a lot of those for some of the bigger groups,
end up in the hands.
I mean, we've done stuff.
We just did one actually, recently for all the Major League Baseball stadiums.
So we sent every team in the league, MLB
network in partnership had,
a whole bunch of different materials, but we shipped.
Yeah, all at different locations.
We shipped all 50 states, Canada, Mexico.
Decent amount of international work.
Google, we just sent some stuff out to California.
Apple.
So some of the bigger places, usually most of the big companies
that we work with are,
either indirect through
brokers or the end customer of somebody that we're working with.
So a lot of times
these big companies don't even know that we're doing their stuff for them.
There are a handful that we do directly,
but the majority of stuff we find is is broker work.
And when you're giving me a tour, that's awesome.
That's so interesting.
And I don't know if this might have been off the record.
I'm going to ask anyway I art or rti, I tr yeah.
What does that stand for?
I'm going to botch international.
I are international trade arms regulation something along those lines.
Yeah.
So a lot of the aerospace work that we do, there's a pretty large call out there.
For protected work that can't just simply sent be sent over an email.
So we're working on a couple of different things right now.
Certifications.
We got to have, physical areas that are barriers by,
security measures.
So we're kind of going through the beginning phases of,
becoming Itar certified so that we can chase some of that work
where there's a huge shortage of supply within Connecticut.
Yeah, because it's in two places, not in Connecticut.
Where are. They?
The two main ones that we find when we get a call for it are up by the Cape.
Or down in new Jersey.
So being that Connecticut's got as much,
manufacturing as a whole,
specifically in either aerospace or even some of the, like, Colt,
for example, Colts right here in West Hartford,
they've got work that they need to send out of state, because there's
nobody in state that can be certified to do a lot of that stuff.
Yeah, we're in Cape Cod. I go there all the time. Don't know.
You don't know I've been out there.
I just know whenever they call, every time the customer calls and says,
I need it today and I don't have time to go to the Cape.
Gotcha. Bummer.
And, tell us about the time if you can.
Someone came to watch you print something like a security clearance.
Watch you print just to make sure.
I thought that was really interesting. Yeah.
So there's some of that work where it's it's, it's protected work.
So, you know, top secret.
I don't know a darn thing. I know none of it.
Or that's what they told me to say.
So some of that work, I mean, from a timing perspective, some of it's
super important you got officials coming from all over the place.
And they just need the stuff.
It's one of those.
I don't care what the price is.
We simply need this done right now.
So we've had a couple instances where people come in and say,
okay, we got to lock the doors, we've got some files with us.
We're going to take your specific machine off
of the network, drop our files on there, produce it.
We're going to take it.
You're going to sign off that you didn't retain any files and off they go.
But and again, it comes from a shortage within the state, of places
that have that clearance. And I know there are a couple
there are a couple that have it
within the state but are very select in who they work based on contract work.
Sounds like the show homeland or something.
You know, I like NCIS or
it's another show.
If you ever drive by with the lights are on at like 2 or 3 a.m.,
don't knock chances.
I were doing some of that stuff.
I got it, I like it.
You heard it here first. That's awesome.
Oh, and based on your back to Sunday, I'm trying to get some exclusives.
So you do wide, wide format flatbed printing.
That was the signs.
And the, you do interactive e-commerce. Yep.
Now can is that when like I asked, can friends of Feeney get a site on your page?
That's what I'm working on right now.
Any stuff that you work. It's exactly what we're working on.
Yeah, that's one of the big things. Will be your first. Definitely.
We'll be your guinea pig. There we go. Yeah.
So a lot of what we find, a lot of the work we do is repeat stuff.
So I mean, we still get the fair amount of, okay, it's a brand new project.
We've never done it before.
A huge chunk of what we do is stuff that it's like clockwork.
After six months, reorder it.
We're working on a solution with our new website.
That'll allow people to go in.
We're talking actually right now to West Hartford Solar.
I don't know if you've worked with him yet.
Great group of guys there. Awesome.
Is that Dan Hovey? Yeah it is. Yep, yep.
I know, so.
He, one of the things that he wants is he's got a whole bunch of sales people
that'll go out
and they need some sort of new employee kit,
so they'll have a polo, they'll have a hat.
There's a whole bunch of different materials.
He wants to set it. Forget it.
Give those individuals access.
So when they go on our website and they log
in, they can see the t shirt, the holiday.
I get their beginner bag. Right. Exactly.
And it's only specific for them.
He doesn't necessarily want other people to buy it,
but he wants his people to go on, purchase it and it'll show up.
So to be able to offer that really
is kind of that rinse and repeat where once we set it up, once you're golden,
which kind of ties well, to
we were talking about all the empty space in our building.
We're kind of working on using that for fulfillment.
That's a great example where if he wants to order
or anyone wants to order 100 t shirts or whatever it may be,
but they only need ten of them right now, great.
Order the hundred, get the bulk discount,
and then we'll release it as needed to wherever it's going to ship you.
Someone who wants 10,000 packets.
Yeah, but only wants 1000 at a time, right?
That's the fulfillment service. That's why we're getting.
We get some extra room. Exactly.
And that pairs really well with the website stuff
because they can go in filter by whatever they're looking for and then release it.
At that point, all we really need at that point is the shipping address.
Very cool,
eco friendly product lines, eco friendly
like biodegrade, all like paper. Yep.
Which paper is the obvious one?
We're getting more and more into,
the nitty gritty of the technology, so to speak.
We had for years the offset press was kind of the,
claim to fame, so to speak, where it was the traditional offset inks.
It was you walk into any print shop, say, 15, 20 years ago on that very distinct
smell that hits you.
Yeah.
Chances are that was some form of offset.
We got rid of our offset press about now, two years ago
now, and we got into an inkjet, which is water based inks,
which are
different.
I wouldn't say it's even better or worse than offset.
It's almost
too hard to compare the two.
But in terms of the eco side, much friendlier,
no harsh chemicals, which has been tremendous for us.
We're even finding to the point where, a lot of our equipment actually
runs better as a result of not having the offset press in here anymore.
The vapors that it gave off the VOCs would.
Affect the other machines.
Yeah. And then going back.
So these are eco friendly.
Everything here? Yep.
And then, even, the toners that we use now,
which are like the plastic base, a lot of them have
component of corn actually.
Same thing actually with the later newer offset inks transition.
So a lot of it is, either soy based or corn components to it.
And then in terms of the materials that we can do now,
the range of stuff is just unbelievable now compared to what it used to be.
That really goes towards the evolution of a lot of the equipment,
where like, I just said, we can print on, cardboard boxes now
where it's a water based ink, we can print on all kinds of different wood.
We're working on a sticker project right now
where it's, it's a thin layer of bamboo, so we can print directly on it.
It's all biodegradable, which is great.
That's awesome.
And then you had a big secret that you're not ready to share yet.
Can you share it on the podcast?
An exclusive?
Come on, give us. A couple secrets.
So which one are we talking?
You alluded to it in the in the Hartford Business Journal article on 50.
Five, which, which, it.
Ended with big secret. Not ready to share?
Come on, give me some. Well, I'll give you one.
I'll give you the first secret.
First secret is where I'm having a baby at the end of the month.
Okay?
There's there's there's the big secret.
Anything else is less than that.
So. Yeah, we're having a baby.
Wife and I.
Brittany, we're having a baby on, right now, it's May 27th.
But that may shift up to the 19th.
So wait. Like, maybe like a couple days? Two weeks.
Oh, okay. So. Wow. We're right.
They've known about this for a while.
Yeah, we have, but it's. Been for like nine months.
And I pretty much eat. Yeah, eat and change.
Brittany.
Congratulations, boy. Girl.
Do you know girl girl? Indie rock.
Indie rock. You got the name already too? Yep.
I love it, girl. That time. Let's go. Right
first baby.
Oh that's beautiful.
So that's that's the biggest secret.
Yep. Cat's out of the bag.
Other than that, a lot of the secrets now stem from a website,
which is the big one that it's officially live right now.
Soft launch.
So there's still a couple things we're working on.
One of the big tools that we're it's now
also live has been, for a lot of the different stickers.
So it's a tool where you can go
in, you can drop a logo, it's going to provide you with a cut line.
So a lot of one of our biggest delays is
we didn't have an on staff graphic designer.
We've got,
a couple freelance guys that they're tremendous.
We have nothing but good things to say about them,
but we only have them some days.
We only have them
two days a week, three days a week, depending on their workload elsewhere.
So one of our big hang ups has always been,
if we get a project and artwork has to be done, if we catch them on the wrong day,
it's like, yeah, we'll have artwork ready in three days.
It's not the end of the world in most cases. But
being that we're always a short run, short turnaround, guys
saying on a rush project
we need three days just to get artwork set up has always been kind of a
that's problem. Yeah.
So that is officially we'll say there's probably ten steps
involved on the website front.
We've got probably three live the rest.
There's some really cool stuff that I don't
I can't share yet, but all right, all right, we're getting it out.
It's coming along.
And it's it's going to be big stuff for hopefully everyone involved.
Our side. It's going to make production easier.
The customer side, it's going to make things hopefully a whole
heck of a lot easier.
Well I want to thank you.
You got into it. We're going to do a little show and tell.
You know, I'm a teacher, I love this. This is a cup.
So this is our second.
We had a, glow in the dark green one that were a huge hit.
As you can see, it bends silly for the peach beach or pool.
I said peach pool or beach?
Look at that.
What are they called? Silly pints. Silly pints.
So that was good.
These were a hit.
Sold out quickly.
The the glow in the dark ones were amazing.
But the white ones are great.
To glow in the dark when you can find them.
They're hard to find.
They are hard to find blanks.
Oh, okay. Good.
And then you had you did our newest.
We have a
mural on Parkville market up in the local designed by Rise
Up and our friend Zoe.
Teagan and,
and Jack did this, as you can see, Starry Night
and our friend, from Rise Up and it was awesome.
So we got these printed.
These are going these are our these are on sale to it daily.
The daily grind in Farmington right over there.
So check them out. They're eight bucks. We're doing a little fundraiser.
Thank you.
Zoe, Jack, Teagan and Hannah.
And that's.
You made these.
You made our business cards. Look at that.
Now I want to thank you because these business cards, if we go to
what, like a lot of chamber events, have a fishbowl. Yep.
These one of our team gets picked almost every time.
Really?
Jen. Matt.
Marty or myself. Lucky. It's got to be.
Because of the shape it's got. It's that unique shape.
But as you can see it's like Eric Feeney, founder all right.
Has our mission.
Our mission is to help children and families
who need assistance after heartbreak or tragedy.
I love it, it's really just good quality.
The cut is nice and, you know, as the circle's nice and even,
the fat is great.
So thank you for that.
So what else we got? Stickers.
Look at that. So this is awesome.
You gave us I want to say 5000, 2000.
A crazy amount. Yeah.
2000 for the, for the Saint Patrick's Day parade.
Yep. And,
we had it everywhere.
So the park, the,
I always say park row, but the, Saint Patrick's Day parade is an amazing event.
It was beautiful weather.
We go down by the Bushnell.
It's family friendly.
Then we cut the corner, then you start to see downtown.
It gets progressively more like spring break in Cancun.
Right.
By the time you hit Black Eye, Sally's and the other spot it's like.
Free for all.
Pretty raunchy but but anyway these we passed out everywhere
and our you and our website we checked hits.
We had a thousand hits in one day, like maybe 2000.
We went from averaging like 7 to 10.
Yeah, we had a, like, a bar graph and it was like, boom, spike.
So everyone look these up.
I remember you had a parade.
There were probably I think there were at least four people
that I knew from either high school or college that posted on their Facebook.
And I'm like, hey, I did that.
I did that after like the third or fourth.
I'm like, I feel like they're targeting me.
I mean, I know this is you guys, but I kept seeing specifically the sticker.
I'm like, wow, how many of those are we do? I think it was 5000.
We gave one out to every person.
That was it. Attendee.
And then if I saw, like a student of mine or a friend, I'm like, here,
pass these out to your friends.
Give a stack like, I don't have time to give them here, I trust you.
Be a good friend, pass them out.
So very cool and it worked.
I was like, shocked that we have data to prove that passing out these these
stickers raised awareness and, visibility to our website and to our brand.
So I want to thank you and look at that. Good.
I didn't know I thought it was gonna be a challenge
because it was not like a flat color. Right.
But you had every detail because these kids made it themselves.
Julie from Rise Up was the other person.
She was the the main person.
And Zoe, Jack and and Hannah and Teagan were, you know, touching it up.
Yeah. Right. And the the local.
So check it out and write a daily grind if you want these we have a square app.
But again the business cards are great.
Recently went to this pancake breakfast.
I tried to find mine.
You did our 50th podcast at Playhouse on Park.
Color copy, right? Yep. Beautiful quality.
And I looked everywhere.
I was, like, in my basement.
I'm like, I know I have the brochure somewhere.
Couldn't find it, but I recently went to this.
But you can see good quality, you know,
staple
got the front page, paid big bucks for that.
Let's see. So, you know, it's always.
Amazing to see what the different programs.
You know that guy.
I heard of them.
Heard of him? Heard. He's a good guy.
He's a good friend.
Now, what are you going to say?
I'm sorry.
Oh. With with programs.
It's always amazing the number of,
supporters that we see.
It doesn't matter. The event.
Like I can tell you, a keating's one. You guys are another.
It's like every single program we do, we flip through.
You know, you're going to see the same, like 5 or 6 local, logos.
It's crazy. No kidding.
They're extremely.
Everywhere.
They're extremely they sponsor little league teams, sporting teams.
Any event, any fundraiser. The.
Oh, you said you're getting into that this year.
The event down in June celebration.
Keating's always in. Yep.
That's really exciting.
No kidding.
It is fun. Every time we do a program, we always go through.
And I always find I don't pick up on typos.
That's one thing. People always think,
somebody will come back to us after we printed something like,
you made a typo. It's like, no, we just printed it.
We didn't make any typos.
Most times we don't even read what it says.
Okay. Usually we'll thumb through. We're looking for quality.
We're looking at the technical things.
But we could be staring a major typo right in the face.
We don't even realize it.
But usually we'll go through and we'll look at the logos
and be like, oh, this person supporting again.
Oh, this person, they were in this booklet last year too.
Yeah.
My daughters were in a, an event at Bristow, a play. Yep.
You did that one. Yep.
You do all the schools too, right? Pretty much. Yeah.
Especially this time of year.
The, graduation yard signs.
Most of the schools, if there, if not already.
Most of them in the next couple of weeks will say, hey, we need graduation signs.
Which that was another thing.
During Covid, we never did.
And it's really gone crazy now.
The yard signs are ahead.
Big time.
Yep, I had oh, speaking of yard signs,
we had the ones with the white we were on rectangular. Yep.
But now come on in. Come on. You're good.
We had the regulars, but now you cut the oval.
Right.
And I had my buddy Rob was like, hey, I want the cut oval one. Yep.
I don't want the rectangular one with the white. Yep.
So that was a wonderful idea. And it was. It was like the golf ball ones.
Two for the golf tournament. Right. Where those cut to circle. Yep.
Cut to the shape of a. Golf was on brand too.
That was perfect.
Oh yeah. Our signs every every hole. Yep.
It was a golf ball. Yep. Perfect circle. Yeah.
So that's cool.
It adds a little flair a little extra.
Right. So thank you for that.
Oh. These are nice, too.
I gotta get some reflective.
What are these guys? Coasters?
Beer coasters.
More beer coasters.
So you got this one?
Feels like waterproof, right? Yeah, most of them are.
Unless you go with one of the crazy eco ones and some of the.
You got the, even the ones that are not necessarily paper.
Some of them. Yeah.
And I did notice I, I send stuff through the, the washing machine.
The sticker stays. Yep.
Good quality stuff here.
I think you guys did the temporary tattoos too.
And those, those stay on for quite a while.
Those were a hit.
That was two years ago.
And my foolish don't have any tats.
Do you have any tats? Nope.
No tats. So I'm like it was to be a good friend.
So I'm like, oh, know, let me slap it on my neck.
And then I did for days.
I'm rubbing. It. Yeah.
But it came off.
Eventually.
And I was like, oh, this is great.
But, Don't make that mistake twice.
That I was like, at least I didn't get a real tattoo.
Yeah, right.
We got to do that again. Tattoos were two in.
A row, but we'll do some.
Yeah, we're marching in the.
We're really expanding into Bristol now.
So we're doing the mom fest parade. Yep.
Because unfortunately Park Road Parade's not happening anymore.
That's sad.
Yeah. How do you feel about this? Is the first year right.
Yeah. The first year.
That's not cool.
But it's not too late to bring it back.
Let's do it.
They need a new team.
Start fresh new faces. Menu.
Let's do it.
Well, then we'll refurbish up top here.
We got ideas for a here too.
Wonderful tour, but I keep this in my car.
This is my go to scratch pads.
Scratch pad is perfect and
I want to.
Recommendations usually come at the end, but
this pen in erasable pen means the world to me.
You know how many errors and how sloppy my handwriting is to erase a pen.
Because I wrote you can't write full, full.
True story. Usually I'm writing like for cars.
I'm like, oh, I made a spelling error or my spacing is not well in crib now.
It's just like erase. And it works well.
That's so cool.
So I highly suggest these erasable pens and it's like good quality.
Yeah. My students love them.
Like these are huge prizes.
The kid one kid was like, Mr.
Feeney, if you're going, can you get some for our prize box?
These kids will sit like best behaved.
It's like the best prize ever.
So thank you so much for that.
Minor victory. Victories is nothing better.
And then you mentioned golf balls.
Yep. Printing golf balls.
Well, our golf tournament September 13th.
At Tonks.
This is our fourth annual.
You did our you did our yard signs.
But we would love to have some golf balls done. Definitely.
I'll do we get them and I'll play this year.
Oh, you should play.
You got to play September 13th.
How's your game?
Perfect.
I need balls, if that's the case.
Perfect for a scramble.
That's great.
Anything you like to share about cricket press?
You think I covered everything?
Is there something I haven't?
I mean, like I said, the biggest thing I go back to is kind of
in tandem to be a good friend. Yep.
The people have really been the key here.
I cannot stress enough
the success that we have had as a result of the people.
It really comes down to that.
So, I mean, even with this award through the SBA, it's great.
It's fun for me to see some recognition, a lot of that stuff.
But I also know that it's nothing without the people.
I mean, really, the tip of the cap goes to the team 100%.
How many of the team are going to the event?
None.
Limited. We're going.
Limited tickets? Yep.
So Brett and I will be going, both day.
So they're doing the the main award event is on Thursday.
And then there's a lunch on Friday.
Oh, wow. Where is it?
The the lunch is, I believe, in Bristol.
I don't even know.
Very nice man. That's amazing.
So yeah. Small business of the year.
You got to get a family.
Are you going to get us? Oh, family.
Family business. Family own small business.
Yes, through the small Business Administration.
Wow. Yep.
So cool.
I had envelopes to. You did envelopes for us? Yep, too.
But I had the envelopes. I had the brochure.
Like I said, if you think it, we ink it.
You think it, you ink it.
And how big can your poster be?
We can do on our machine 54in by however long the material comes.
So we can do some depending on the material, like banners is a good example.
Well, we for the town, a lot of people have an event.
You go through.
What is that?
South main intersection. North main. Farmington.
Oh, yeah. These big banners are.
Do are those yours? Yeah.
So we do.
And those are. We're going to need more.
Route to everybody.
Everybody comes to us. So like I don't really know what the in for me.
Don't worry about it. We do it often enough.
And those are 24ft long.
Geez. 24 of you long, three feet tall.
And you put the little holes in them so the wind doesn't catch.
Yep. The slits, grommets, every foot we need.
Yeah. You made one nice for our parades.
Yeah, it's. It took a beating, so I'm going to need one of those.
I got a list. For the pole pocket. Oh, for the wooden dowel through it.
Oh, we need one of those. Yes. Yep.
And we also got a little new logo,
different font.
So we'll get some new logos on that.
Definitely.
Man. Yeah.
I want to thank you for being a good friend.
And I want to say,
I think the brochures you did for free for my 50th podcast, too. So,
that has to be said that you're very thoughtful, generous,
and you support local businesses and local nonprofits.
So I'm sure huge.
It means the world.
Thank you so much.
Shop local.
Shop local family owned business right here.
Now let's talk about
a couple things.
Fun facts.
Here we got fun facts about Greg portion of the event. So
I want to thank you.
Every day when I go to work I see these beautiful bluebirds.
You know where I'm going with this?
Where am I going?
Boy Scouts troop 163. Yes.
So why?
And how do I see bluebirds on my way to work? Yep.
So that was when I was a junior.
Sophomore, junior year,
I was finishing up troop 163 Boy Scouts here in West Hartford.
My Eagle Scout project was
to construct Bluebird houses, which I came up with the project.
You know,
I don't even remember how we ended up on that
because we were talking about other styles, but specifically
the Blue Bird.
I don't know about now, but
12 years ago, when that was 12 or 13 years ago,
the population of the Bluebird specifically was plummeting in the state.
And a large portion of it is there very particular on the type of nest they make.
Not so much the nest, it's more so the housing.
So we looked into and we did a lot of the research of what
type of Bluebird House specifically does the construction need to be?
And we put them up, we put them up all over town,
but specifically the majority of them we put up at Walker Park.
So we put up I forget it was probably 50 bird houses.
Do you know where they are? They're scattered all over the property.
All right, I'm going to go look now. Yeah.
Most of them were within the, children's forest.
In the. Forest. In the forest.
Back by the baseball field, the tennis courts, the basketball courts.
I know some of them. And they're being painted.
For a reason. Correct.
Very particular. And it was the shape of them.
It's basically, it looks like a shoe box with a hole on the front,
but the roof was on an angle that
any less of an angle, Bluebirds won't go in any more of an angle.
The Bluebirds won't go in.
So it very specific.
And we yeah we had everything.
Everything for the project was donated.
Kind of part of the mission
was to kind of go around talk to different organizations, groups.
The town donated a lot of the, the posts, the poles themselves.
Oh, they're on posts. Yeah. They they're not on the trees.
That some of them were.
Most of them were on posts to walk. My dog over there.
And I.
I wonder I mean, I know there are still some up, but birds are.
Chirping.
They are, they're back. Who was your troop leader?
Steve Zukowski okay, which so Steve, his son, John Z.
He actually worked with us for the last couple of years.
So he, he and I were buddies growing up forever.
Neighborhood buddies.
And then, when we were seniors, our juniors,
when we both finished our project, that's when John's dad stepped out.
But, yeah, John's after graduation.
He was with us
for about two years.
He's in the, He's a reservist for the Coast Guard.
Oh, no.
So he left us
last January, went out to Seattle, worked out there,
and he actually just came back.
So I don't know if he's kind of when we say we have 7 or 8 people, he's
kind of that middle ground. We seven and a half because John's.
John's not doctor K, not Plato.
He somehow involved.
He was. Yeah.
So he was where I work, who I work with at the school.
He was kind of the pioneer of what areas would be.
Because he was the principal at the. Time. Exactly.
Yeah. I lived across the street from him.
Oh, that's how I got hired. Gotcha.
Went on on my. Hey, I was driving to Waterbury.
I'm like, hey, doctor k I, I'm a third grade teacher.
You know any openings?
No. Sorry.
I said I'll paint your house. I'm all year long.
I got someone for that.
And then like, five years later, he's like, I got good news.
Bad news.
Good news is I can get you an interview.
Bad news? I'm retiring. Right?
I never worked for him. That.
And that was when was that? 2014.
So that would have been. Yeah. Shortly after.
Yeah.
Because he was there about a year and a half.
Two years later we went back. We actually did some upkeep and maintenance.
That was right when he was finishing cool.
He's a good guy. I like him a lot. Definitely.
And what about your on base percentage,
a thousand, your your housing on base college?
Yeah.
So my senior year ended tragically senior year.
We were having,
spring training game in Boston.
It was February 16th.
Named a captain,
I batted second, I walked,
stole second base, and then on a base hit up the middle, rounding third base.
I folded my knee sideways, torn ACL, torn meniscus, cracked my femur.
College baseball over.
So it was a thousand because I got on my one at.
Okay, oh, leave it to Boston baseball on February.
It was that game.
Actually, the entire interior perimeter of the field.
The fence had about a foot and a half of snow.
So pregame, we're literally out there shoveling snow to clear the field.
So it's hard as can be slippery.
Oh yeah. Cleats aren't.
And it was you know it was my own mistake.
I wore metal cleats and it was a turf field, which is it's a no no.
But it was either that or sneakers.
And I'm like, I don't want to slip sneakers.
But you scored.
I scored, I army crawled, I scored, I was safe,
and that was a wrap on the career.
Are you. Serious? Yep.
What grade were you in? That was. Senior year. College.
Senior.
I was wondering why you had one. Your stat line.
It's one one, one one and a thousand.
Wow. Didn't even get a great story.
I walked, stole second, and then the first pitch.
It was like the fifth pitch of our season.
Base it up the middle, I'm coming around third and the knee just fall sideways.
Do you have cleats and screws and stuff? Yep.
Right knee.
That's horrible.
And that was spring of senior year of college,
so I was nothing but a blast trying to walk around, campus
for the rest of spring,
do all the senior activities, and I'm walking around on crutches.
Don't mind me, I'll catch up.
So that's Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Correct. And what was your mascot?
The leopards.
You're like, that's a great story.
That's like Field of Dreams.
Moonlight. Graham. Yeah, I won that bat.
It was, you know, it was fun.
You were a captain, too, I was.
That's awesome. Congrats. That's so cool.
It was, you know, it really, it provide a different perspective
because I knew it was,
hate to say, a helpless feeling for the rest of the year,
but it really was in the sense. But I still had to.
All the games, practices, pretty much everything
kind of operated as if I was on the team because it was.
I mean, it's
cliche to say it's like any sports team, you're like brothers out there.
But from my perspective, I couldn't do anything between the lines.
Nothing I could do.
So starting with West Hartford Youth League and T-ball and everything else
work towards that season, gone in one pitch.
They are darned are and are now cool.
But that's an interesting stat line.
Last forever. And I had a great story.
I was so wondering, like, oh, what happened here?
Tragedy.
Oh, but I scored like you said, I was safe.
You were safe.
That's all that really matters.
I usually asked, favorite moment with a friend or favorite moment
with a teacher, but due to time, I want to skip.
And I know your dad, Tim, was very important to you.
Do you want to share some favorite memories? Yeah.
I something really.
The first memory I have being here,
was actually at the old shop.
And it's actually working on an account that we still currently service.
So this has been,
we've been when the the company name is Moab Management Aggressive Behavior.
We've been in them for
30 plus years now.
And I remember I was pretty much, like I said,
sweeping up, taking the trash out.
And my the first project I ever did was working on these training manuals,
which they're one of the groups that we send all over the country for,
and even actually out of the country now as well.
And I just, I distinctly remember
working on this project, and it really was a small project at the time, but
it was kind of the first moment I ever had of recognizing,
or idolizing my dad for what he was doing.
And again, I was so little, I didn't really even know what was going on.
You know, I was I was probably
eight, seven, something like that.
That was about when I started,
and then over the years, again, the amount of fun that we had traveling
and going to trade shows and stuff like that, it's something
I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.
I would do anything to get them back or have watch even one more.
But man, we had a lot of fun together over the years working here.
And again, I didn't at the time.
I didn't have any intentions of taking over, was never even in the cards.
It was something I didn't really even
consider as an option because I always viewed it as dad's thing.
You know?
It was always, oh, that's what he does. And I love helping.
But and then once we found out
it was sick, it was more and more real that, okay, wait a minute.
He is human. And the business
has to
either go on or we stay involved somehow.
And it's been it's been a lot of fun for me since his passing.
Interesting to say, fun in, in his passing, in the same sentence.
But for me to hear the stories secondhand
from all the customers that have come in and said, oh,
I worked for the ad for 20 years, so I work for them for 30 years.
Great guy.
I mean, I've heard it more and more times.
It warms my heart hearing how everyone else perceived him.
And that's also what makes it a lot of fun for me
and kind of a motivating factor going forward to continue
not only do the best that I can, but do it in honor and recognition
and kind of within the footsteps of how he ran the business.
And again, with the guys being here as long as they have, there's a reason
that they've been here this long, up to when I started.
And now I like to think at least that I'm hopefully
helping enable those guys to feel the same way.
They did with him in wanting to work here, kind of making that culture,
fun, professional, challenging,
all while still serving the client and putting smiles on the customer's face.
So that's kind of we had a lot of fun, that's for sure.
That's important.
Wonderful to hear. Yeah, he's a legend.
So I did.
Fall to a, a picture of one that was.
Oh, yeah. Let's see it. Hold it to the camera. We'll we'll share it up too.
So that was at the old shop.
Wow. Working on one of the late tables.
So it says,
it doesn't say the year on.
There.
Yeah.
So this was when we were on Sedgwick Road.
So that's me looking into the machine.
So I was yeah, this was probably second grade.
Third grade, maybe somewhere in that range.
And that was really right around the age of when I first remember being involved
at the shop.
You got any more to share?
I think I actually we've got,
Is that Marvin?
That's Marvin.
Marvin way back when.
We've got all kinds of pictures.
We used to get flooding down in that building like no other.
I think there was one of them, dam to see.
That was Bill Teasdale.
So his wife Carol was the one that,
she was our bookkeeper up to the last few years.
So there's dam.
Dam way back when.
That good looking dude.
Yep. He's here is actually brown. Wow.
Way back when.
Yeah.
So it's it's amazing to really look through
some of the old pictures that we still have.
Is one of the other guys.
But yeah, to go through the history that's rare to to hear a lot of the stories.
And again,
I can't think enough the guys that have been here
since the beginning, I mean, dam, like I said, started right out of high school.
Marvin has been here 40 years.
I mean, you just don't hear of people working somewhere for 40 years.
And he's still here.
He's still I mean, he's learned all kinds of different equipment
that if you asked him 40 years ago, do you think he'll ever be running Xyzzy?
That stuff didn't even exist now.
Right. Progression.
So for him to continue
to take on the challenge of learning the evolution of the business,
I hope he finds it fun.
And I think after 40 years he probably does considering he's still doing it.
Still here. Yep.
Wow. That's amazing.
Yeah, I'm glad we got to learn a little more about Greg and Cricket press.
Again, they're at 236 Park Road.
Where did cricket come from?
Cricket press. Why cricket?
Dom could do better. Just smart tube.
All of them could tell the story better.
But when we originally were on LaSalle road, down in the basement,
a couple of units over from, like, where Pansy spice is, currently is,
at the time, the business was called X, the letter X press.
Well, they had just started.
They weren't getting a lot of foot traffic. They were in a basement.
So people didn't really know they were there.
So Bill and a couple of other guys went out on LaSalle Road and Farmington,
and they were kind of
walking around the center, and they pretended not to work there.
And they would say to people, what do you think that place is?
And everyone thought the same thing.
Express, oh, it's got to be an adult movie or adult magazine company.
Well, that's why I mean,
didn't fit
in with the rest of the environment of what the center is.
So they said in that moment, Don, we're no longer name that cricket happened
to be what they came up with
in a couple hours, but they were like, effective today, that name is gone.
Very cool.
All right.
I was wondering that, but, yeah, we a shout out on one episode,
one 28 minute 30.
We talked about the Rotary Club.
You did their brochures and their fliers.
Helen and Cesar left you a nice Google review.
They were episode 126 Lucid Productions. Yep.
Jason Bush left you. Nice one.
So, no great stuff.
Again, nice chatting. We're going to do some.
We're going to see some machines. Right? Definitely.
What machine are we going to see?
We're going to take a look at. We've got a label press.
The two wide formats, and then one of our color production
machines that does Swiss Army Knife does a little bit of everything.
Can't wait.
All right.
This is like Mr. Rogers going behind the scenes.
I made a pizza at Luna Pizza with Alex.
I'm going to go behind the scenes with Greg. Here we go.
You're a real man now.
You're going to be a dad, so I'm proud of you. Thank you.
Congratulations on that.
Congratulations on being family business of the year.
Yeah.
Small business of the year.
Family owned small business of the year.
Thank you so much for your support.
Your continued support truly means the world to our nonprofit.
You you're a good friend. So thank you so much.
And I had a great time talking with you.
We shot for 50 minutes with Feeney.
We're probably at 60.
So on three will say, be a good friend.
One, two, three be a good friend.
Behind the scenes look here at Cricket press.
We're with the rolling machine.
Please talk about this.
All right.
So this is a rolling VG 340.
This is the third generation of the machine.
We used to have the VG two.
Great machine. Just time to upgrade it.
It's a 54 inch wide, so we can do a wide range
of things, ranging from paper based, posters.
We can do, banners, a lot of different sticker materials that can go in there.
So it's eco solvent based inks.
We've got Cmyk, which is a traditional,
like any home printer will have those for traditional colors.
And then we've also got orange light cyan, which is blue, and a light magenta,
which just really helps us hit some of those precise colors.
We get a good amount of, fine art that comes in
from museums, different groups that they have very specific color,
that they're aiming for.
So this really allows us to kind of hit that wide range of stuff.
We also talked about doing some of the banners,
throughout town, whether it's birthday, whether it's an event,
something like that.
This will allow us to print on vinyl.
And a couple other different types of materials that are going to withstand
water,
humidity, stuff like that.
So it's really it's a versatile machine.
It's what we call large format.
It's our roll fat.
So this only will do stuff
that comes on, rolls the paper, the vinyl, stuff like that.
So. It's used daily.
Is this used daily?
Yep. This is something we use pretty much every day, especially
as we get more and more into the stickers.
There's such a wide range and application of what we can do with this.
Really, by the day when we first got it,
we pretty much were only using it for blueprints,
and there's still a, good calling for that for sure.
But we have definitely found more and more in the adhesives.
We do a fair amount of, decals that go on yard signs.
So that's by the day kind of getting larger and larger.
And what we use it for.
So it's going to should start up shortly.
Warming up. Got it.
Yeah.
So then they have these machines on all different types.
The other thing that's nice about this particular one
for us is we've got what's called the contour cutting blade in there.
So when we go to do a lot of those stickers the printhead will see
shortly, the printhead travels back and forth in there as it's printing
starts over at that ends on the on the carriage.
And then off of that can actually come a specific blade.
So that blade will do a circle shape or rectangle or whatever, whatever shape
you're looking to accomplish.
It's got a built in blade, and it'll cut out the individual shape
of whatever you're trying to cut down to final size.
We've had this now about a year.
Roland had a tremendous program where they did, a buyback program
where we had one of the old ones,
and they gave us a pretty good credit towards a new one.
And we actually ended up keeping the old one.
But space is an issue around here, so we didn't end up keeping both.
So it's
about a year old, but the technology itself, the VG three line
is relatively new, with the VG two, which is our previous model.
We actually went ahead and upgraded the inks, which were
it was a huge step up just to hit those colors.
It actually was improved drying time.
So the ink is wet.
And when it comes out, this machine does a much better.
This line of inks, the TR two inks, do a much better job of drying.
Now, how much of your green packet will, friends of Fini magnet take up?
Not a lot.
So the software will actually tell us when we bring in a file.
It'll actually tell us exactly how much it's going to be used.
A lot of shops will actually factor in their pricing.
We don't bother.
I mean, it's you talk about splitting hairs because of how little it truly uses.
If we were to do the Fini logo at this particular size,
we could probably do a couple hundred of them before we would run out of inks.
So it really it's sips, it does a great job.
That was just a sticker poster.
This particular one.
This is a poster based on.
It's a poster stock I believe we've got in there.
Yeah. That's the poster stock.
Some of the other machines we're going to show you also do the heat wave.
So we're gonna do a couple other stickers.
Well, I failed to
mention in the podcast we have some upcoming events.
So please join us at bingo May 16th at Raymore and Flanagan.
That's bingo at May 16th.
We have our Hartford Athletic game on June 6th, we have our Yard Goats game.
On August 15th, we have our fourth annual,
golf tournament, which you'll see some cricket yard
signs and balls at Tunc fourth Annual on September 13th.
And also, I'm collaborating with our neighbors over here, Acey Peterson.
You will see a menu item I'm thinking Fries of Feeney.
Like and share in the comments if you like that idea.
Fries of Feeney I won that at a wonderful Pop Rocks Playhouse on Park.
Fundraiser. It was awesome.
It was a great gift. I had to win it.
And, wife's not happy, but I won.
I'm adding a menu.
So AC Peterson, you will be hearing from me
fries of Feni, and we're going to dip them in ice cream.
You ever dip your fries in ice cream?
I'm lactose intolerant, but I've been known.
I've been known.
We'll get you that pill to take that.
You know, he's got all.
He's got all the secrets.
Being, alumni of Peterson's
milk. We'll do milkshake. Smart.
I was going to have it whipped.
The ice cream, but our milkshake would work.
Would be better.
All right, we're doing fries, a fini. Dip it in your milkshake.
You heard it. Here.
Thanks, Owen. Friends of Owen.
Look at this thing.
It's beautiful.
This on your lap of the car.
All right.
Wow. It's beautiful.
Tacky still. Oh, maybe I shouldn't touch it.
That was so.
If you reach a hand under here, there's a flat bed here.
You'll feel it's nice and hot.
Nice to use the heat on
that is used to open the pores of the sheet so the ink seeps in.
Dries much quicker that way.
So that was also an improvement that they added as the heated bed.
I just learned something new.
I never would think that you need to heat the paper, open the pores
so the ink can go in. Yep. Wow.
That's why it looks so pretty fancy.
Hold it up, hold it up.
You should be good too.
I'll grab.
Look at that.
Perfect print here at Cricket press.
Thanks to our rolling machine.
Look at that 54in,
pores are opened up.
Nice. So the ink goes in.
Good humidity on this print.
Cricket press.
There it is.
Clean.
We're here at the logo jet plus.
Oh, no.
The logo jet UV X40R plus.
That's mean machine.
What do you think? Tell us about it.
So this machine is a flatbed up to 24in by 18in.
Is the biggest print size we can do.
So we can do stuff like yard signs is the most common acrylic.
We can do pretty much any kind of plastic.
So we've done stuff on this, including the lid of a cooler.
We've done cigar boxes, golf balls, glass cups, water bottles.
Pretty much if it fits in this machine, it can print on it.
The other nice part is that the front, as you can see right here,
the front is open.
So when I say if it fits in the machine, it doesn't even need to entirely fit.
It just needs to kind of fit.
As long as the material can fit under the print head itself, it can print on it.
And there's
such a wide array of materials that this thing can print on.
We're really just scratching the surface.
We just tried, stretch canvas for the first time.
So we did some canvas prints.
We did a couple things on the wall there, some car pictures that we did.
That's on an acrylic.
So that's, it's a thick, quarter inch thick plastic
we print on the second surface of the backside of the material.
And then you can see from the other side kind of the image come through,
which is pretty cool.
That's awesome. That's thick plastic.
Yeah. So it's good.
I mean, the other thing you can do is you can print in multiple layers,
so we can do stuff like signage for hotels or hospitals
where you can have that plaque that goes outside of an office
or whatever it may be, and can actually do res print.
So we can print Braille on there, which is really nice.
So we're still kind of experimenting on how to accomplish that, but
once we master it, it'll be something that's
something else that we can offer.
So so what are we printing here.
So we've got here a cigar box.
So this is one there's all different wood finishes that we've tested.
Printing on this particular one is a tri color blend is the particular color.
So I'm just going to go ahead and hit the start button here that, Let's go.
We're printing on the logo jet.
We're printing it a cigar box.
And any guesses what we're going to print on this cigar box?
Stefania. Logo.
Good job.
It's going in.
Tell us side by side.
Oh, there we go.
Open the room.
Open the hood.
This particular machine doesn't have a white jewel.
This one has white and clear.
So a lot of times this one I did put right down first.
But usually what we can do is put printing on a dark surface, white first,
then put your color on top of it.
Inks pretty much all of our machines.
You want, pretty much all the machines, the inks themselves are toners act
almost like a stained glass effect,
where it's going to take on whatever the background colors.
So in this case, we're doing just a green logo.
So you're going to see the green, but you'll also see
the brown of the would come through it.
Whereas we can
also if we did it with white first it would put down that white layer first.
Then it would put the ink color
on top of it so it pop like you would see on pretty much any other material.
So this one. Yeah.
So this has got that strong base of wood behind it
rather than having that base of white.
So there's a couple different ways to do it and experiment with it really.
It depends on what the outcome you're looking for is.
Very cool.
Might
be a good friend.
Cigars.
That's awesome.
Well, I appreciate that too.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
It's a win win.
Great podcast.
I'm coming home with some swag.
I got erasable pens, posters.
This is beautiful.
I really enjoyed this podcast.
Learn so much about Cricket press.
And my friend Greg.
We're doing wonderful things over here.
It's pretty cool.
So the difference between that one and this one,
the main difference between the Roland and the logo jet is the types of ink.
So you got on the rolling the eco solvent based inks.
So those are just going to dry with air.
This one actually uses a UV lamp and cures those inks.
So instantly it's already done to the touch.
Those things are as dry as they're ever going to be.
A good friend.
This is great.
Very cool.
This are going to put cigars in the raffle.
Here you go. Perfect. At the golf tournament.
Definitely put some balls inside of it.
It's nice and warm, but.
Yep. You said it keeps the wood finish.
Yep. With the green on the background.
Be a good friend
again.
This is podcast episode 136 here at Cricket press.
Thank you Greg for being a good friend.
Thank you to all of our friends and listeners.
Please like and subscribe and thank you.
Direct Line Media. Be a good friend.