It’s that time of year again. Not the time where you sit down to eat a delicious meal with your family, and enjoy the hospitality of friends.
Nope, it’s time for leftovers, of the refrigerated variety: The hastily wrapped turkey gives off a pinkish-grey glow,warning that it may or may not disrupt your digestive system. The gravy, left partially-sealed after a midnight fridge raid, will inevitably spill on some pants that you received as a gift from your wife. A stealthy casserole will make its way onto your shirt in such a manner that only others will see it.
Not all leftovers are bad, or leave stains after eating, however. Some let us fondly recall a meal we ate the day prior. Other leftovers allow those who couldn’t make it to the main meal,to experience some of its splendor(Yes, I said splendor. Work with me here.) Many dishes improve with time, as flavors are allowed to meld, and sauces do their work.
Why all this talk of leftovers? Well, this post is a “reheat” of sorts. Today, I’ll be reviewing some posts written this year that you may have otherwise missed, shunned, or ignored entirely(shame on ya’). These articles will include those that were most read, received a ton of feedback, or that I think deserve a little more attention than they received at the time(Those’ll be few and far between, believe me.)
Without further delay, I present for your inspection and enjoyment “The Top Tire Treatises of 2009“. Bon Appetit…
1.The Real Reasons Behind Chinese Tire Tariffs-Part 2: When President Obama decided to pursue tariffs of 35% on Chinese passenger and light truck tires, I decided to go back and check out the reasoning behind the decision. The USITC held a hearing during the summer months, and kindly made the transcript available.
So, with permission from my kind bosses, I took a couple of days out my usual schedule and read the document. After 3 days of note-taking, it was time to write the articles, which ended up being so large, that they had to be split into 2 posts. People seemed to like this article, and I more than happy to recommend reading it, if you didn’t get to the first time.
2.The State of the Mining and Tire Industry: 2009: They say even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This was my first shot at naked prognostication. A few things I was very wrong about: OPEC depegging from the dollar, and Britain switching to the Euro as primary currency. Who knew China would start buying copper, for no apparent reason, and send the price back up? Not me, evidently. So, take your grain of salt, and see if I got anything right. Your feedback is appreciated.
3. Twitter asks “How Long Does it Take To Change 4 Tires: I didn’t necessarily expect this post to be successful. I did expect it to help some tire dealers learn the importance of using Twitter, as a part of their customer service strategy. We made a few videos as a companion guide to the post, to teach folks in the tire industry how Twitter works
In a twist I didn’t see coming, this article ended up on the first page of Google for “how long to change a set of tires”, along with a few other variations of the term. Hundreds of consumers have read this article. Not many people in the tire industry have. Please, if you didn’t get a chance to read it earlier, please do so now.
If you know any dealerships that are struggling with how to use social media like the big boys, let ‘em know that this post exists.
4. GPX Faults OTR Tariffs For Failure: What Happened, and Why? : I covered OTR Tariffs, back when they first made some noise during the shortage. Writing this post was a walk down memory lane for me. It’s sad to see a perfectly good company go under, just because it gets lumped in with bad company.
This post has been extraordinarily popular, even though it was written less than a month ago. That’s why it makes the list. In the aftermath, Titan made an unsuccessful bid that drove the acquisition price of GPX’s assets up. Alliance countered and won.
Good luck to Alliance in the future. They made a wise purchase.
5. Going Green Means More Cash For the Tire Industry: I tried to write this article near the beginning of last year. It sat in my draft folder for 9 months. The only thing that survived the editing process were the first 2 paragraphs. This was another article that I thought would mainly appeal to the tire industry.
While green is hot, rubber is not the most interesting subject to the common man. This was an unexpectedly big hit, both on Twitter, and in some green blogs as well. The response from the tire industry was very positive. We even received emails from people in the research department at a Major tire company.
Hopefully, this article contributed (even microscopically) towards profitability, and sensible stewardship of resources.
This is the end, my friend.
Yes, this is the end. I cut the total featured posts off at 5 this year, as they turns out to be ~10% of our total articles published. If you want to dive any deeper after reading this article, the “Archives” button is at the top of the page.
I tried to publish once weekly this year, and some of you will note that articles about persons of interest(or infamy) within the tire industry were left out. This was a conscious decision on my part, not because the articles weren’t extremely popular, useful, or correct in their assertions. It’s just that taking the last post of the year to rub salt in some wounds isn’t particularly classy.
So I pray for peace on earth, extend goodwill towards most men, and hope your turkey, ham, or goose is properly wrapped, so that it doesn’t dry out.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year from all the folks here at BuyBigTires.com !!!
Until then, we’ll be…
Signing off…
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