| They take, and make, the prize
DECATUR - A few years after John Bolletta joined the Decatur Fire Department, a fellow firefighter decided to sell a trophy business he owned on the north side.Bolletta's wife, Deana, was working afternoons and evenings as a nurse and was ready for a change so she could spend more time at home with her children.In August 1997, the couple bought AAA Trophies, a small shop established in a single-family house. To make the shop more attractive and efficient, they renovated the front room area, painted the walls and added a counter.John Bolletta, an all-around handyman, and Deana Bolletta, who also worked as a hairstylist, have channeled their skills and positive attitudes into a successful business, which is steadily growing.While the Bollettas, who have added screen printing and embroidery to their repertoire, serve some of the area's biggest corporations and organizations, they still treat anyone who walks in the door as if their one small plaque is just as important as a large company order."That's where we really compete, in customer service," Deana Bolletta said.If a customer wants a special kind of baseball cap or a unique award to mark a special occasion, the Bollettas will do everything in their power to fulfill those requests.If they can't find something in one of their many product catalogs, they will figure out a way to make it themselves.When a union wanted to honor all its members who did not cross picket lines, John Bolletta had a cabinet shop fashion a 6-foot-tall plaque, to which he added 928 1-by-3-inch plates."They all had to be engraved and drilled and screwed onto the plaque," John Bolletta said, adding that the hard part was getting it all lined up just right.The Bollettas enjoy putting their heads together with their customers to produce creative, unique items.
100 years ago: Fire destroys Barbreck mansion
In 1833, a certain Dr. Campbell dismantled his home along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina and shipped it to New Orleans. It was then placed on barges and moved in a plodding journey up winding bayous and rivers to about five miles north of Washington. Campbell reconstructed the home on a tract of land he called Barbreck Plantation, which straddled both sides of Bayou Boeuf and eventually encompassed about 2,000 acres. .
Websites for cell phones
Brett Dewey's company thrives on spur-of-the-moment purchases. His North Hollywood, Calif., web business, WickedCoolStuff, collects $1 million a year for nostalgic merchandise such as Captain Picard action figures, Underdog lunch boxes, and toys based on Monty Python movies. His customers, mainly men in their late 20s, are more tech savvy than most online shoppers, but they aren't chained to their computers. Even Star Trek fans venture outdoors. So when Dewey heard about a new kind of website tailored to conduct e-commerce over cellphones, he jumped at the chance to make himself accessible to clients during virtually all their waking hours. "If someone sees an advertisement, he may not remember it by the time he gets back to his computer," he says. "But his phone is always on hand for an impulse buy." If the first wave of online business was all about getting a dot-com, the next may be about adding a dot-mobi.
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