>You make it sound like the two SHAW plants are 'worlds apart!' :0) I didn't realize Jim worked at the 'executive' location. I'll have to give him a hard time about that. Actually, Jim is a good friend of mine. His step-daughter is my best friend from the ol Army days (years ago!). We were stationed together during training, language school, and in Panama. She and I get together at least once, maybe twice a year and burn the phone lines talking every week. Our daughters are the same age too. They are a great group of people. You'll have to meet them sometime at one of the Shaw events!

Actually, the "Shaw plants" are actually groups. Dalton's about 50 miles north of here. Shaw's a pretty big outfit (25,000+ employees). Prior to our being purchased by Berkshire-Hathaway, we were a publicly traded (NYSE) Fortune 500 company. The Contract Group alone generates over 1.33 billion a year. We're kind of like the Microsoft of carpet because of our market share.

The Shaw events are pretty few and far between and mostly the residential group and the contract group don't mix very often.