We've written about tire dealers installing energy efficient lights, windows and other things designed to reduce their shops' power consumption and impact on the environment. Would you believe there's now an eco-friendly, in-ground vehicle lift?

Predicting the future has never been easy (just ask The Amazing Kreskin), but the prescience of 1960s tire industry exec Morgan J. Morgan was pretty amazing.

This week, a "who's who" of the OTR tire segment will once again gather at the Tire Industry Association's annual OTR Tire Conference. A hot topic of conversation, no doubt, will be the dismal state of the U.S. mining industry.

Earlier this week, rock-and-roll fans (including this reporter) marked the 61st anniversary of Buddy Holly's death. Between 1957 and 1958, Holly had seven Top 40 hits, cramming more talent and energy into his very brief career than most rockers manage to drum up over the course of decades.

Walk through any book store; business management books are a dime a dozen. If you read ANY business management book this year, make it "Pride in Performance: Keep It Going" by the late Les Schwab.

So I'm approaching London's Parliament Square last week, one block away from Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, in the drizzling rain, when I step off a curb -- and then leap quickly back onto it to avoid being smashed by one of the city's famed black cabs.

Scott Robinson doesn't claim to be clairvoyant, but looking ahead to 2010, he's fairly sure about one thing: pent-up demand for car repair work will break loose, big time.

Countless words have been written about the shuttering of thousands of GM and Chrysler dealerships this year. One seldom-discussed aspect of this development is the impact the closings have had on independent tire dealers who wholesale tires to these operations.

Remember summer 2008, when gas prices went through the roof and everybody was predicting the imminent demise of the SUV and pickup truck? Well, pickups and SUVs are still around -- albeit smaller, in some cases -- and tiremakers continue to crank out replacement tires for those vehicles.

I try not to use this blog as a forum for shameless plugs, but if you're involved in (or just an observer of) the commercial tire market, you should check out the 2009 Top 25 Independent Commercial Tire Dealers list in the October issue of MTD.