Home Page Re-design

You may have noticed that we've made some improvements to the site as of late. The home page was re-designed just before the holidays to streamline navigation and provide an improved featured product area. We removed the images of each design from the home page and added a section to enable you to browse by product type. The reasoning behind this change was to provide a clean look and feel to the home page. You can still browse by design if you wish by clicking on the design link located in the browse designs section on the left side of the home page. The featured product section now has a rotating feature that provides the ability to present multiple special offers while maximizing home page real estate.

This round of improvments is just another baby step toward our long-term vision for the website. As you may know by now, we are dedicated to continous improvement so be sure to check back frequently to see what's new. I also invite you to join our mailing list to receive updates and special offers in our monthly newsletter.

New Design for the Holidays

Looking for that perfect last minute gift for the Project Manager on your list? Look no further! We are thrilled to launch our first Christmas design just in time for the holidays.



I originally intended to finalize and release this design about two weeks ago, but I was caught off guard by that whole emergency appendectomy thing. Better late than never I guess. Let me know what you think.

The Project Management Hut

I am always on the lookout for great project management resources and websites. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon The Project Management Hut. This site has a wealth of blog postings and articles ranging from categories such as Agile Project Management, Portfolio Management, Best Practices and Certification. The categories are far too numerous to list here, but you'll want to check it our for yourself at: www.pmhut.com

After spending several hours on this site, I decided to send quick note to share my feedback about the great content they had on their site. I was then contacted by the founder of The Project Management Hut, Fadi El-Eter. After exchanging a couple of emails, Fadi graciously offered to publish a posting on his News section informing his readership about PSG Novelties. Check it out! www.pmhut.com/news

Not how I planned to spend my weekend

As a project manager by trade, planning is something I do all the time both on the job and in my personal life. As a matter of fact, I think it is safe to say that I haven't met a project manager yet that wasn't just as fanatical about organizing and planning their professional commitments as they are with their personal life. Ok, raise your hand if you've created a project plan for anything non-work related. I rest my case. So, this past weekend I had not one, but two Christmas parties on my fun filled agenda for the weekend. Unfortunately, those plans changed late Friday afternoon. I had experienced abdominal pains late Thursday night, but chalked it up to a tuna wrap I had for lunch that day. (gimmie a break, it sounded good at the time) By the time the lunch hour came around on Friday the pains were still there. Only this time, the pains seemed to be more on the right side. So, after calling my wife and having her strongly urge me to call the Dr., I was able to get in to see the Dr. to get it checked out. The Dr. checked me out and sent me off for a CT scan. She said it could be kidney stones or appendicitis. I wasn't too keen on the idea of passing kidney stones. 3-hours and 3 CT scans later it was determined that I had appendicitis. 6:30pm and I was off to the ER for an emergency appendectomy.

Wait it gets better...

So, I'm sitting at a stoplight on my way to the ER and *crash* I get hit from behind by another car. It turns out there was a 3 car pile up behind me that decided to invite me to the party. The officer at the scene asked if I had any injuries. I said, yes, but not as a result of the accident. I'm on my way to the ER to have an emergency appendectomy. He was nice enough to quickly take my info and send me on my way.

7:30pm and sitting in the ER. This may be a good time to mention that I hadn't eaten anything since 12:30pm that afternoon. The good news is the ER had a nice flat panel TV to watch while I waited. The bad news is the TV was tuned to the Food Network. Good Eats was showing us how to make the creamiest, tastiest cheesecake; Diners, Drive-ins & Dives was paying homage to Bar B Que. Heck, even Emeril's show was interesting. Approx. 3-hours of torture was brought to a close when they called me back.

Approx. 2:30am Saturday morning: surgery went great and I was taken out of recovery to my room. I was released 8 hours later to the comforts of home.

I didn't get to go to the Christmas parties, but the good thing about all of this is I have been afforded some "down time" away from my consulting assignment to focus on creating some new holiday designs. I will post again once the new design has been added to our online shop.