Where is Horns?

[fett]

This is serious. Bill hasn't been around for a long while. I just hope he's OK. Chime in if you guys have talked to him.

[StukaJU87]

Maybe he is on a "time out". Maybe he is just taking a break from this place.

[fett]

I hope so. But it must be killing him. I have had 2 times out and I thought I would die.:ROTF: Just wait until he gets back and vents.

[St.James]

What is a time out?

[fett]

A "Time Out" is when you say and or start something that the "Powers What Be" think is not "Cool" and may offend something. Then they shut off access to a forum for a while. It's kinda like crap shoot. You may make the point and then you may not. God, I love this board.

[lerxstcat]

Well, he was pretty bummed about Jack losing his wife. Then Val was having a problem with her back,Vinny's recovering from have\ing the rods taken ourt of his arm. It's the peak of cold and flu season.

I didn't think he'd be gone this long, but he DID say he'd be away for awhile. If there was anything seriously wrong I think John would tell us what was happening, or that's my hope.

A great loss like Jack's can make you think. Maybe Bill is just cherishing time with his family.

[fett]

I hope so.

[khabibissell]

Yeah, Bill's a good guy. I hope all is well.

[kmanick]

Yeah, Bill's a good guy. I hope all is well.

Same here, I'm surprised we haven't heard form him for this long.
I hope everything is OK

[Cleveland Metal]

He's cool. Just being a hermit. I can't imagine what he does with his free time considering he has such a tremendous amount. But, he seems to find stuff to do I guess.

I haven't been here either, been doing a mega home remodel (vinyl windows, new doors, plumbing, electrical, bath and kitchen) for 10 days now at the GFs new house so she can move in Sunday. Ugh.... I'm hit...

Currently, Bill is battling it out with his wifes workers comp people and her last employer who is trying to deny that she hurt herself working there. Strange, their insurance company paid for the MRI's and all the services involved when she fell... I think he's doing good with it tho, he has "a way" to deal with those people it seems. haha...

And no, he wasn't banned or put on a time out. Just turned off his PC and kept it off. haha... He'll be back around.

[Budman68]

Good to hear, thanks for the info -

It's quiet in here........too quiet....

Oh, and good for you with the remodeling, I hate that shit but you have to admit, it feels great when it's all done. Of course, it's never really ALL done!

[Cleveland Metal]

Yeah, I sorta like remodelling stuff, I'm good at it and I do love to see the end result (this one is amazing, as this house was majorly fucked.

My shop is slow so I took time out, and this has been 11 straight days now of 12-14 hour days, and I still haven't gutted the kitchen or put in a the new breaker box and 220 for the dryer yet even. I'm pretty much fried in body and mind right now. Good thing I can do this stuff, I'd hate to see what it would really cost.

And, tomorrow is the move in, and it's a bit of a snow storm out right now, should be fun. Not looking forward to the morning. Long day tomorrow for sure. Ugh...

And yeah, it's never really done...

[lerxstcat]

John, thanks fror the update on the Zurlos, I remember now it was a WC thing with Val. I'm sure Bill will 'splain it to them why they picked the wrong people to fuck with!

Dude, I hope your girl understands the magnitude of what you're doing. Women expect the grunt work but the skills to do all those things, she's saving a fortune by you doing this. Maybe you should do a mock bill at the end just so she knows. I don't know the rates there, but average contractor rate would be at least $75/hr with x 1.5 after 8 hours in a day.
Take major fixtures and double them, minor parts at 300% markup, and well you get the idea.

She'd best be laying some serious loving on you for busting ass - as soon as you're rested up enough to do yourself justice that is!

[Cleveland Metal]

Yeah, I'm sure it would be a large dollar amount if I added it up. I'm sorta contemplating going back into this work in some form, I used to be a contractor about 15-18 years ago. It just made my carpal tunnel so bad (like it is now again I see, ouch) I had to quit that line of work or quit playing guitar. So, I quit the job haha...

Hehe, and yeah, she's been taking care of biz with me for sure. We've been taking late morning umm... "breaks" all week. Prolly why I'm running a little slower for a bit come early afternoon.

I really do have to admit, she has truly been kicking ass and working about as hard as me at least. She's there at the house before me, busts her ass all day scrubbing cleaning painting etc, and then goes home every night to pack a bit and get her stuff ready to go. Cool she isn't just sitting there letting me work. She's quite a trooper and hard worker. Refreshing after the last GF was such a sloth.

[lerxstcat]

The thing to do John is to get your contractor's license and hire others to do the physical work. Your knowledge in those areas is more valuable than just busting ass doing the work. Of course you'd have to work at first but if you get a deecent crew going, then you build it until you can just sell jobs and put your guys on them.

Or even better, a good general contactor can just run all the subs and make 15-20% on a job total. That's more a matter of knowing who the good plumbers, electricians, etc... are than hands-on work. You'd probably be great at that, you're selling yourself to the customer and if you know the good and reasonbly-priced contractors you basically just bundle them, get their bids, add the profit you want to make and present your bid to the customer.

Guys who know their shit AND can talk to the end-customer are pretty rare in general contracting, at least in SoCal they were. In CA you basically can take a class and then take the contractor's test.

Sorry, don't mean to plan your life there! I just worked in that field, in a service/repair/remodel plumbing shop. In 14 years at that shop and 20 years total in plumbing I probably didn't meet 5 guys who understood all aspects of construction. I knew a lot of contractors who knew how to schmooze people but didn't understand the logistics of doing the mechanical
work.

My top advice for that field is, get EVERYTHING in writing. If you write it down you'll look at it and talk about it. Without that, so many gray areas develop where each party makes assumptions. Next thing 2 parties who both are honest are each thinking the other's trying to fuck 'em. Related to that, always do a change order when a customer wants a change - especially if they decide after you've done something that they want it different. At the end of the job they'll remember the original price, not that they had you rip out a bunch of stuff and do it differently because they dicided it looked different than they thought it would. But when you trot out 6 change orders and the price revisions, they'll remember and cut you the check.

Without the changes in writing, they can't recall, and while they're not recalling, they're not writing your check either. And see, they're usually NOT trying to jack you up, they REALLY don't recall. The remod took a year, they had a kid or someone's got sick in the meantime.

My crew always thought I was an asshole for riding their asses on stuff like this, but I improved our rate and speed of collection. Still, half the changes DIDN'T get written down, and so half my job was translating from plumberese to English and reconstructing the history of the job.

Customers would be pissed that the plumber couldn't explain it to them and a guy in the office had to. But craftsmen usually aren't nearly as good at exxplaining things as they are at doing quality work. That's why I think if you can do both - and I know that from your posts here - you might do very well at it.

Okay, serious threadjack tangent over!