Posted on Tue, Aug 24, 2010
Pack n send usually discusses international news on our blog. Since we have customers calling in to ask about our international shipping services, we are making a change for this blog and discussing some of our international shipping services.
We do pack and load household goods for shipping out of the Port of Houston. We do ship all over the world. We have a network of shippers and do arrange shipments for our customers out of other ports as well. We will determine if you need a twenty foot or a forty foot container for your shipment.
Besides house hold goods, we also load and pack machinery, airplanes, cars and assorted other items into containers for both individuals and companies.
We also freight furniture through out the fifty United States as well as through out the world. If you do not have enough furniture for a twenty foot container, then we can ship your furniture on a pallet. We ship this by the cubic meters. After you have over ten cubic meters, it becomes more cost effective to order a twenty foot container for you.
We fill in the paper work for you, as well as prepare the bill of lading for your shipment.
We will try and answer more questions for you on our blog or you can call us at 713 266 1450 so that we can help you.
Posted on Thu, Aug 19, 2010
Photo by Wang Yish/Imaginechina
Pack n send has been following alternative uses for containers used in freight and cargo shipping. This article from NBC news caught our attention because the the term “pod” housing.
Huang Rixin, a spritely 78-year-old former engineer turned Beijing landlord, has made a name for himself in recent months producing cage-like, 21.5-square-foot living spaces dubbed “capsule apartments” for the capital’s burgeoning class of jobless and underemployed college graduates.
Two Chinese men sit in their own small spaces in capsule apartments in Beijing, China, in a photo taken June 12, 2010.
Taking Japan’s famous capsule hotels for inspiration, Huang has improved on previous iterations of his pod houses by doubling the size of the rooms and including more shelf space. Huang views his pods, with rent of about $51 a month, as a cost-effective way to house the estimated 3 million recent university graduates seeking employment or earning less than the average starting salary of approximately $400 a month.
In many ways his capsule apartments highlight the social and economic problems that belie China’s gaudy GDP numbers.
Even as the national economy surges, China’s per-capita income has simply not kept pace, and millions of people have been left out of the nation’s economic miracle.
China’s per-capita income, at around $6,600, is closer to that of Turkmenistan or El Salvador, rather than to the U.S.’s $46,000 or even Japan’s $33,000.
While China’s liberalized economic policy has certainly pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and transformed the country into an industrial dynamo, little of that prosperity has trickled down to the majority of would-be Chinese consumers – the very people who many economic experts insist will fuel China’s growth well into the 21st century.
In essence, China is still the largest market in the world for virtually everything, and despite claims otherwise, Chinese consumers are very willing spenders. However, Chinese wages are currently so low that consumers simply are unable to contribute to domestic consumption unless serious wealth redistribution or salary adjustment occurs.
Whether that economic stature is fleeting – as it was for the Japan – or relatively more long-term, as it has been for the U.S., will bear close watching.
Pack n send has reproduced portions of this story from NBC News' Arata Yamamoto contributed to this report from Tokyo.
For more information on shipping freight and cargo from the United States, please feel free to contact pack n send at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Wed, Aug 18, 2010
Pack n send is publishing this article from Handy Shipping News as a service to our customers.
US - Always keen to promote innovation and education throughout the shipping industry, German heavy lift and oversize project freight specialists Beluga Shipping GmbH is the latest company to support a short course designed to fast-track project cargo management skills that otherwise may take years to acquire.
Beluga will join the sponsors supporting the Certificate of Achievement in Project Cargo Management that will be offered during the education component of the 21st Annual JoC Breakbulk Americas Transportation Conference & Exhibition at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from 12th to 15th October.
Port Corpus Christi is also a sponsor of the training that will be run over two days from October 14-15 and is a joint venture initiative between the JoC Break Bulk Conferences (a division of UBM Global Trade) and international over dimensional 3PL network, Project Professionals Group. Course trainer and the general manger of the Project Professionals Group, Kevin Stephens, said the support from the project forwarding industry was much appreciated and showed that they were committed to education and training that delivered a higher standard of handling services for clients:
“Understanding how to manage multimodal project cargoes is extremely challenging and increasing skills through practical training is in everybody’s best interests to ensure the successful delivery of the freight.”
For more information about freight and cargo shipping as well as household goods shipping overseas, please fell free to contact pack n send at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Fri, Aug 13, 2010
Pack n send loads containers for both household good and business shipping. While we pack and wrap goods before they go inside the container, we also label our palletized items for easy unloading..
Businesses are shipping office furniture, files and machinery over seas on a steady basis. While some of our households and individuals are returning to their home countries, we also ship for people just shopping in the United States. They have their brand new furniture and goods delivered to our warehouse, and then we load and ship the container for them.
Some of our best customers are locating overseas for a few years. When their job assignment is complete, we will then ship back their belongings.
Businesses are busy purchasing machinery as well as entire plants and requesting overseas shipping.
Our last commercial container had a Caterpillar 120 taken apart and then loaded into the container.
Our automobile shipping is steady. We offer containerized shipping to most countries. We are able to offer a lower cost roll on roll off service to certain locations.
For customers that do not have enough goods to fill a container, we offer shipping by the cubic meter. For our much smaller shipments we offer regular shipping services.
We custom crate items, as well as box or palletize shipments. Our crating service handles fragile or delicate items priced form one hundred dollars to over one million dollars.
If you need any over seas shipping, please contact pack n send at 713 266 1450.
-Freight Shipping & Receiving
Posted on Mon, Aug 02, 2010
As we reported earlier on our blog, a shipping container was being used to house a subway restaurant. We have found another innovative use for shipping containers in the country of Haiti.
In Haiti, 20 foot containers are now serving as independent housing units with many going on to provide shelter for the survivors of the January earthquake. The earthquake cost the lives of around 230,000 people. We have commented previously on the innovative uses of the ubiquitous container but with one million made homeless by the disaster this means a relief effort of gargantuan proportions is required and each 20 foot container is capable of carrying steel building sets for 50 homes
There are continuing efforts to bring some sort of normality back to the island most recently by transporting the emergency housing units to homeless families. Shipped in the containers and packaged into kits, the homes are assembled in country by trained Haitians and humanitarian aid workers.
To date, there have been 68 containers shipped to Port-au-Prince. In all, the plan is to send 300 containers to relief organizations in Haiti. The temporary structures, which replace tents, measure 10 feet by 20 feet and are hurricane resistant, fire resistant and earthquake resistant and are the ideal structure for harsh environments and are being delivered to various aid organizations in Port-au-Prince and Leogane, including CHF International and the Lutheran World Federation.
Logistics teams worked closely to ensure that fifty of the structures were loaded into each 20-foot container at a new 70,000-square-foot warehouse near the Jacksonville Port Authority's Dames Point Marine.
The housing of displaced Haiti residents is still one of the toughest logistical challenges faced by many aid organizations according to individuals working in Haiti. While the recovery in Haiti is expected to be slow, this is a great help in the restoration of normalcy in Haiti.
Parts of this article have been taken from Handy Shipping News.
Pack n send prepares freight for shipping and ships cargo worldwide.
For more information on freight shipping, please contact pack n send at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Tue, Jul 27, 2010
Our services include:
Packing and crating
Domestic and international shipping
Pick up and delivery
Small moves- both local and long distance
Packing and unpacking
Estate packing
Document shredding
Full value coverage
Choice of delivery method
Freight preparation
Container loading
Freight receiving
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Pack n send is located at 6214 Beverly Hill Street in Houston Texas. We are between Fountainview and Hillcroft, at the light at Greenridge.
We operate an 8400 square foot facility and are open Monday-Friday from 9:00 am to 6 p.m.
Se habla Espanol.
Please call us at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Tue, Jul 27, 2010
In the closing days of the 2010 legislative session, Delaware lawmakers took quick action to exempt some mobile two-way radios from a pending law that would have barred their use by motorists.
Legislation signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell on July 6 (HS 1 for HB 229) prohibits Delaware drivers from using hand-held cell phones or other electronic devices to hold conversations, send text-messages or access the Internet. The legislation also outlaws the use of two-way radios in moving vehicles.
Schwartzkopf said that, while police and first responders were excluded from the original ban, he was embarrassed to admit that he forgot transportation workers and others still use the dated, but proven, technology.
Delaware will be breaking new ground when the law is implemented. No other state in the country prohibits motorists from using CB radios installed in their vehicles.
On the issue of hand-held cell phones, the First State will actually be the seventh state to enforce the prohibition on motorists. It’s already illegal for drivers to use the devices in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Oregon, and in Washington, D.C., as it is in the Delaware municipalities of Wilmington and Elsmere. Maryland’s hand-free cell phone law will go into effect on Oct. 1.
Additionally, 25 states have enacted laws prohibiting texting while driving.
Supporters of the Delaware law point to the increased distraction caused by cell phone use and the hazard impaired drivers posed to their fellow motorists and pedestrians.
“This new law is about improving safety for everyone who shares the road. We hope we can reduce the number of drivers who text and e-mail while driving, and therefore, reduce the number of distraction-related crashes. Just as we’re keeping our focus as a state on creating more jobs, we want drivers keeping their focus on the road,” Markell said.
Violators would not accumulate any points on their licenses. Drivers would be permitted to punch in the phone number or activate the hands-free device, but then cannot have the phone in their hands.
The bill also allows drivers to use a hand-held cell phone to report an accident, fire, reckless driver or another emergency.
Sen. Karen E. Peterson (D-Stanton), who was the primary Senate sponsor of the bill, acknowledged that it was controversial.
The new laws go into effect 180 days from signature – on Jan. 2, 2011.
Portions of the article written by M. Patricia Titus,
Coastal Point News have been printed here as a public service.
While pack n send specializes in freight preparation and cargo shipping, we are always looking for ways to keep our customers informed about new laws affecting drivers.
For information about shipping furniture on pallets, please call us at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Tue, Jul 20, 2010
Travelers who slog through long lines at airport security just to reach their seats might be surprised to learn that not all the cargo beneath their feet has been screened for explosives. But that's about to change.
As a result of the 9/11 Act endorsed by Congress in 2007, all cargo ferried aboard passenger aircraft originating in the United States must be screened, a mandate that federal officials say affects some 25 million pounds of cargo a day.
The law has ramifications for metro-area shippers and freight forwarders, who moved 24,825 tons of cargo -- including 4,263 tons of mail, as well as chemical materials, fruits and vegetables, high-tech machinery and electronic equipment -- out of Portland International Airport last year on passenger flights. It wouldn't take much for that kind of volume to interrupt timetables and back up cargo.
Next month, cargo headed for the belly of a passenger plane will be screened here before heading out through open doors in the back and down the tarmac for loading.
The law requires screening at the piece level, which means that shipments that are bundled together and shrink-wrapped on pallets or packed in containers have to be taken apart and reviewed and then repackaged.
The mandate also applies to shipments coming in from foreign countries, but T S A not expect to meet that requirement any time soon. It does not apply to all-cargo companies such as UPS and FedEx.
According to James Fotenos, a TSA spokesman, 47 percent of cargo is already being screened by certified freight forwarders.
He said the agency doesn't anticipate any major problems once the law fully takes affect, though acknowledged that "There may be minor back ups in some of the major gateway airports."
Shippers and air forwarding companies opposed the 2007 law, formally known as the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, arguing instead for a "risk-based" system that would call for screening only when there was a known security risk, but Congress opted for the 100 percent solution.
The law has been phased in. Last year, airlines were required to screen 50 percent of all cargo;in May of this year that went up to 75 percent.
In fact, nearly all cargo going on narrow-bodied aircraft is screened now. Most of the remaining cargo to be screened is shipped in the hold of wide-bodied aircraft.
The final 25 percent includes the most difficult to screen products, such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, and perishables.
The mandate doesn't specify the method of screening and allows for hand screening, or X-ray and other scanning types of systems. It requires that the screening for cargo basically be the same as the T S A expects for passengers' bags and carry-on items.
A recent survey by the Air Forwarders Assn. found that 64 percent of its members expect the airlines to handle the screening. But the airlines lack space and manpower, and airline officials have made it clear they will fly when they are ready, and if the cargo isn't screened, it will sit at the airport until it is.
A March 2009 Government Accounting Office report said that participation in the Certified screening program may be cost prohibitive for small freight forwarders, which constitute 80 percent of the industry.
In an effort to keep our customers informed about trends and laws in the cargo industry, we are publishing parts of the article written by Pack n send is publishing by James Mayer of the Oregonian.
For more information on freight and cargo shipping, please contact pack n send at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Thu, Jul 08, 2010
US – Regular readers will know that we are always pleased to publish stories about the new generation of environmentally sound freight delivery vehicles (just type Electric into the News Search box as evidence) but today sees a special honor for one of the foremost companies in the field who are producing practical commercial vehicles every day.
President Barack Obama is making a special trip to visit the Smith Electric Vehicles US Corporation (Smith US) facility in Kansas City, Missouri today where he will discuss the economy with the plant’s 50 workers. Smith US is the only company the President is visiting that day.
Smith US, which is America’s first manufacturer of new technology, all-electric trucks, recently received $22m in grants from the Obama administration. The funding, which follows an initial $10m government grant, is helping Smith US to build more than 500 of its market-leading ‘Smith Newton’ electric trucks. Designed for urban operations, the Newton has a top speed of 50mph, a range of up to 100 miles on a full battery charge and payload capabilities of up to 16,000lbs (7,500kg).
Smith US is an associate company of Smith Electric Vehicles UK (Smith UK), which was founded in 1920 and is the longest established electric vehicle manufacturer in the world. Based in Tyne & Wear, the company produces the world’s largest range of electric commercial vehicles (vans and trucks), in the Smith Edison van and minibus (electric Ford Transit) and the Smith Newton truck. Hundreds of these electric vehicles are now in service in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Hong Kong and Southern China.
Bryan Hansel CEO of Smith US, said:
“This is a very proud day for everyone at Smith Electric Vehicles. The Government has been extremely supportive of Smith US since we started work in Kansas City last year. This help is enabling us to quickly grow and develop our business, attracting new customers and already creating a significant number of jobs.
“Electric trucks represent a fantastic opportunity for America to create green collar jobs, cut carbon emissions from the most polluting vehicles on our highways and reduce reliance on foreign oil.”
The President will witness first hand the range of Smith’s electric commercial vehicles including the development of their latest project a purely electric version of the iconic London black taxi. Smiths US only began production in October last year and have already supplied vehicles to numerous blue chip companies
Pack n send has reproduced this article originally published in the Handy Shipping Guide.
Pack n send has recycles peanuts and boxes in an effort to help the environment.
For information on international and domestic shipping and moving, please call pack n send at 713 266 1450.
Posted on Wed, Jul 07, 2010
While the cargo shipping is beginning to pick up in the United States and exports have increased during the last quarter, Subway has come up with an ingenious use for cargo containers.
The New York Times recognized this ingenuity, and pack n send is posting parts of their article to our website. Our hats are off to Subway for pushing the American Dream to new heights.
Most of the patrons are drawn from an elite group of high-beam artists, namely ironworkers laboring hundreds of feet above the street. The dress code is severe: hard hat, overalls, safety vest and glasses. Security clearance and a union card are a must.
The restaurant, a Subway franchise, opened its door at the top of the steel honeycomb that forms 1 World Trade Center, the skyscraper rising at ground zero. The building will be the city’s tallest when finished in 2013, and the sandwich shop, currently sitting on the 27th floor, will rise along with it.
The sandwich shop is one of four movable “pods” on hydraulic legs sitting on either side of two tower cranes; the other pods house offices, a shanty where workers can change clothes, and bathrooms for men and women.
But despite advances in engineering, materials and safety, when it comes to lunch, ironworkers and other laborers are used to eating the way their literal and proverbial forebears did during the skyscraper boom of the 20th century: out of a lunch bucket, with a plastic cooler doing the job of the old metal pail.
The array of pods cost $3 million, but the contractor hopes to recoup some of the expense in saved time. “The days of eating on top of a steel beam are long gone,” said Bill Grutta, a DCM vice president.
Each pod is made of nine cargo containers welded together and stacked three levels tall. In the dining pod, the Subway sits on the top level.
It is no different from any other Subway, with a kitchen, a walk-in freezer, a service counter and refrigerators for drinks. One level down, there is a heated and air-conditioned lounge with tables and chairs. A compost tank and an evaporator in the bottom container take care of all the solid and liquid waste.
The menu, for now, is instantly recognizable to any connoisseur of the chain. But Mr. Schragger may add ready-to-heat lasagna, burgers, hot dogs and pretzels to the usual $5 footlongs to infuse the shop with a sense of variety. There is also talk of adding Papa John’s pizza. After all, he must cater to the whims of his clientele.
“I don’t think the veggies will be a big seller,” said Mr. Schragger, who owns four other Subways in Manhattan. “I imagine most of the guys will want protein. Philly Cheesesteaks and the Feast.”
The shop is open to ironworkers, who work at the top of the building as it goes up, as well as laborers, concrete workers, electricians and others on the lower floors; at any time more than 1,000 people can be on the job site. But they are not required to eat at the Subway. Business was a little slow Wednesday for what Mr. Schragger called a “soft opening,” but he and DCM are hoping the shop will catch on.
But it is probably the only one whose 500-gallon water tank is replenished weekly by an even larger tanker lifted by a crane. DCM expects — or hopes — that the compost container will not have to be opened until the building is finished. The waterless toilets and urinals are cleaned by negative pressure that pulls the waste into an evaporator that turns much of the sewage into steam.
“As the building goes up,” he said, “the views will be pretty nice. I’m sure it will be one of the most talked-about sites to come have lunch.”
For more mundane uses of cargo containers, please contact pack n send for both cargo shipping and freight preparation at 713 266 1450.