Kevin Chupka

[kevinchupka-blog]

The real story behind James Bond's Aston Martin

The last James Bond movie, “Spectre,” made more than $880 million globally, but the car he drove may be priceless. Across 24 films and 39 movies (or 22 and 14, respectively, for purists) 007 has driven a wide variety of vehicles. Still, he may be best known for a proclivity toward Aston Martins. 

And so when pre-production began on “Spectre,” director Sam Mendes went to the chief creative director of the 103-year-old automaker, Marek Reichman. Yahoo Finance caught up with him at Monterey Car Week where he recounted his run-in with the Oscar-winning director.

Mendes “came into my design studio, met the design team. We were presenting a car that already existed to Sam as the next car for James Bond, and he loved it. But as he was walking out of the studio he saw a sketch on the wall and asked me what that was and I said, ‘that’s a car that doesn’t exist.’ So instantly he then said, ‘Great. So that’s the car we need to do for James Bond.’”

That was April of 2014. By September of that year Reichman and the Aston Martin team had taken that sketch and turned it into 10 real-life, running Aston Martins. Following the company’s existing naming convention they were called DB10s. Just one of the 10 made is in the hands of a private owner. It went up for auction earlier this year and was expected to fetch between $1.4 million and $2.1 million. It sold for $3.5 million.

[kevinchupka-blog]

Walmart's new Olympics ad highlights American job creator

The Olympic’s opening ceremony didn’t have as many viewers as previous openers, but it was still watched by 26.5 million Americans last Friday. If you were one of them (and didn’t fast-forward through the commercials), you probably saw an ad for Walmart that blasted Aerosmith’s “Dream On” over video of American factory workers. It was part of the retail giant’s 10-year commitment to buy $250 billion in American-made goods. Walmart made the pledge in 2013, and while the company won’t reveal an exact figure, says it is on track to meet its goal.

The commercial featured one of the US-based factories that has helped Walmart meet that goal. Lifetime Products, based in Clearfield, Utah, was founded in 1986 when founder Barry Mower built an adjustable basketball hoop for his family. Anyone who has come of age after that either had one or had a neighbor who did. With the push of a button (usually thanks to a broom handle), adults and kids alike could adjust the height of the rim from 7 feet to NBA-regulation 10-feet and anywhere in between.

Lifetime claims it is still “the world’s leading manufacturer of residential basketball equipment,” and since 1986, has expanded to products such as outdoor furniture, swing sets and kayaks. They became a Walmart supplier soon after launching.

Lifetime’s current President and CEO, Richard Hendricksen, began as an overnight welder with the company in 1988. He was rising through the ranks at the company when off-shoring became a more common practice in the 1990s. “We had some tough decisions to make,” Hendrickson notes about that time at the company. “We really struggled to continue competing and stay in the US, and keep our jobs in the US, specifically in [the basketball] category. And we did. We stayed. We didn’t ever leave with basketball.”

While many other Lifetime-made products did get off-shored, 60% of the company’s manufacturing is done stateside under Hendrickson. He hopes to increase that number with a second plant set to open in Tennessee. The company’s kayaks, he notes, “are very much a U.S. product.”

Perhaps this is why Walmart chose to feature Lifetime in its Olympics ad. “Many of [Walmart’s] people have been through our facility,” he says. “After Walmart … visited thousands of facilities all over the US, they chose our factory as one that I think has great people, great processes, a great product… It’s a great sense of pride, as you can imagine.”

[kevinchupka-blog]

Why heatwaves make you so...hot

Just about anyone who passed elementary school health class knows that most humans’ body temperature is 98.6 degrees. But why then do we “feel” hot when the mercury rises above 80 or so? I did the Google search so you don’t have to and Scientific American had the answer.

All of the normal processes that keep our body working properly release heat. The heart beating, limbs moving and the stomach digesting food are just some of the ways our body generates heat.

In order to keep everything working correctly, the body has to do something with that heat. It releases it in a variety of ways such as breathing out warm air, sweating and circulating blood close to the skin to allow heat to escape.

The machine that is your body does all this most efficiently when the air temperature is around 70 degrees. That explains why most people are most comfortable (not too hot, not too cold) when the air around them is at that level.

When it gets hot out that process is less efficient and not as much of the heat is able to escape, making us feel hotter.

Humidity, as just about everyone knows, makes things feel even worse. That is because moisture in the air impedes evaporation and helps lock even more heat in or near the body.