The Mheda Journal

A few days ago, I posted a note about Yale dealer NITCO Material Handling taking over the Hyster dealership in its territory. I said:

Though the announcement doesn’t explicitly say so, the combination of NITCO, a Yale dealer, with the Hyster dealer in its territory would appear to be another instance of NACCO Materials Handling Group, the owner of both Yale and Hyster, strategy to allow distributors to carry both lines for the first time.  To my knowledge, Arnold Machinery Company (Salt Lake City, UT) is so far the only dealer to take advantage of this arrangement.

Well, yesterday word came that, indeed, NITCO is taking on both lines by way of a press release from NMHG stating:

NACCO Materials Handling Group, Inc. (NMHG) has appointed Northland Industrial Truck Company, Inc (NITCO) as the Hyster dealer for Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and parts of Vermont and Massachusetts. In addition, NITCO will remain the Yale dealer in Maine, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts.

In a separate NMHG release I received yesterday, it was confirmed that Alta Lift Truck is now a distributor for both Hyster and Yale in certain markets. This is going to be an interesting trend to follow in 2010. I’d be interested to know what other people think about this.

To those of us who spent last night watching TCU play Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl, we made the wrong decision. Airing at the same time on ABC was a new reality show, Conveyor Belt of Love. Think of it as speed dating meets material handling.

A series of single men rode a conveyor belt to the middle of a stage, where their dating worthiness was judged by five single ladies. The women could ask questions of the men and elect to go on a date or let them pass on the conveyor and out of the way forever.

Had I known about this sooner, there is no doubt that I would have penciled this in as must-see tv and definitely would have alerted you to it in this space. As it is, we’ll each have to settle for this clip.

I’m not much for “reality” shows, particularly reality dating shows, and my official review of this one is that it’s about as good as you’d expect. But, hey, whatever gets material handling out into the mainstream, right?

For now, this was a one-time special show made to conicide with the premiere of the new season of The Bachelor. That’s probably enough.