RyanH

Some great love quotes from Lemony Snicket: To Beatrice- Darling, dearest, dead. For Beatrice - My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not. For Beatrice- I would much prefer it if you were alive and well. To Beatrice- My love flew like a butterfly Until death swooped down like a bat As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said; "That's the end of that." For Beatrice- You will always be in my heart, In my mind, And in your grave. For Beatrice- When we met my life began, Soon afterward, yours ended. For Beatrice- When we were together I felt breathless. Now you are. For Beatrice- Summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter without you is even colder. For Beatrice- Our love broke my heart, and stopped yours. For Beatrice- When we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty. Now I am pretty lonely. For Beatrice- Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down. I was cracking up reading these in the books "Series of Unfortunate Events" at a bookstore. My wife wondered what was so funny. Who can argue???

Forget all the hassle,mess, and danger....just go with a Honeybaked ham or other similar product. It will taste better than anyone can make themselves in a kitchen anyway. Just Admit it.

The wife and I are heading to Gatlinburg, TN next weekend for time away. They have one of these up there...I'll send some pics of me being spider man! Loads of fun for about 5 minutes. It'd be better if there was a good trampoline directly under it to really get some height.

Thanks. 5 minutes in PhotoImpact (Adobe competitor). No big deal.

Looks good. But, forget the trucks and uniforms as the only places to post your logo. The key is to arrange something like this. *if your logo is copywritten, then I maintain that this image is a random collection of pixels and is not intended to resemble any copywritten logo.

The white seems to be prevalent on the brick, not the mortar, which suggests damage to the brick itself, unless the "artists" skillfully avoided the mortar. Perhaps the high pressure cleaner before blew the paint into the porous brick surface. How does the surface texture of the damaged brick compare to the unaffected brick?

Congratulations Craig. Will you need an EPA suit and license to clean those diapers?

karen.pz@verizon.net Email this woman and see 1). if she's still in business and 2.) to see if she has any discount packages she can put together. She setup our honeymoon and saved us quite a bit of money and eliminated any problems with registration. For 8 nights, the Polynesian cost was $2667, and the ultimate hopper pass for all parks was around $800 (2 people). You can scale this for your length of stay and number of people. We went 12/4 - 12/12, hopefully the rates will be close to the same.

Okay, now that you and the owner know the lead scenario, keep an eye on this job over the next few months to see who ends up taking it. If they truly want it done, I'm sure they'll find someone to take on the task who won't think to test, or will believe themselves to be invulnerable to lead poisoning, or maybe has some super-duper environmental protection setup and can handle that type of a mess.

Hey....good man Roger (and Celeste!). Scott, If you are in need of another tank, let me know. I have one of those 225 or 250 gallon totes (cubes) already plumbed and ready to go if you'd need one. Just out of curiosity, what problems were you having with the driveway and customer? It's always good to know issues other cleaners have so we can all be aware.

Wish I had some connections there, but I don't. If I did, I'd pull whatever I could to help out with discounts. If you aren't shy about shaking a few bucks out of the tree, the Polynesian Resort on Disney property is really nice. This is a good time of year to go for prices. It's like being in Hawaii, and the tram runs through the lobby, so you can get a trip to any Disney park or other resort every few minutes. My wife and I stayed there for our honeymoon and had a blast. Whether or not you stay at a disney place, if you want to go for a *REALLY* good steak, let me know. Off the Disney property, there are more hotels than you could visit in a month, so you could probably be safe with going with a trusted name. See if you get any type of a discount through any organizations, your insurance company, etc.

An MSDS is intended to relate the dangers and necessary precautions associated with chemicals. They are not a medium to convey proprietary nor specific active ingredients' usefullness in performing a particular function. Being able to infer the abilities of the components from an MSDS generally requires knowledge gathered from experience and thought on how chemicals work together to accomplish their purpose...there is no single book nor article available that will spell out all possible uses of chemicals. If you want to know why the chemicals clean their intended surfaces so well, begin with the manufacturers websites and claims. They love to tell why their particular brand is so much better at cleaning something than others'. Barring that, most knowledge of this stuff is intuitive and based upon experience and gathering information from many sources and putting it together intelligently in their skulls via reasoning to really understand it. Read the plethora of posts in the wood and concrete forums regarding chemicals and you will find everything you need. Also, about three months ago you asked a very similar question regarding caustics. Go back and read the informative responses there...I believe your question was answered. http://www.thegrimescene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2407&highlight=desi

It was at the inside corner (valley?) and the leaves were stacked in the gutters and up onto the house. We had some really heavy rain last week and the gutters and downspouts were so choked with leaves and crud that the water coming down the roof had nowhere to go...it went under the leaves , hit the gutters, and started backing up under the shingles....that hole wasn't caused by the water but the water did damage the sheetrock to the point that it was very soggy. The homeowner who was walking around in the attic for the source put his hand throgh the sheetrock on purpose. There are some other water stains, too. Incidentally, this is the house my wife and I are staying in right now...guess I'll be more vigilant on the gutters from now on. Homeowners were here for a visit and he was in the attic looking for the leak. Thing was, this saturday was supposed to be "gutter day" for me. Guess the weather beat me to it :) !

An example of what can happen when your gutters get full of leaves and then you have a heavy rain. Water can back up under the roof if the rains are heavy enough, seep into the wood, and drip down to the ceiling below, and make for a rude awakening (literally!) This house has the old style wooden slat boards for the roof, not that newfangled plywood stuff. Feel free to use this as an example if you wish. I have a few more of water spot damage before the water actually broke through...if I can dig them up I'll post those too. Man I wish I had taken one from a janitorial account....the suspended ceiling tiles dissolved and 6 squares fell into the office spilling insulation and who knows what else all over a desk, file cabinet, laptop, telephone, and whatever else is kept on a work desk. Absolute mess.

Mentally ill from Amityville.......that house looks scary!! Are they wanting the entire thing repainted, or stain in some areas? That job looks like quite a chore. Robert, There are so many potential jokes from your post about the stripper that it could be fun on many levels :)

Not one breath, just one big brain fart!

Wow...we didn't even have the lines divided here. Just one loooonnnnnggg line. 3 hours, 45 minutes was our wait time. And apparently 2 hours 10 minutes is the length of time it takes before people begin to feel comfortable talking to those around them...up until that point nobody was saying a word, but for some reason once they reached a certain spot in the queue, they opened up and starting talking first about the long wait, then the weather, then whatever. My wife and I were having fun critiquing the studentss (and even worse, the teachers') grammatical and philosophical errors on the display boards outside each classroom. Arghhh. It sucks when you see teachers blatantly trying to skew young kids' minds to such a weak and wimpy line of reasoning. Traits of good character included: kindness, politeness, friendliness, fairness, courteousness (not even a word, should have used courtesy, but I guess this teacher never bothers to check her own work with a dictionary), citzinship (yes, spelled that way), and a whole slew of similar adjectives. NOTHING about self-responsibility, accountability, motivation, aptitude, perseverance, or the pursuit of knowledge and happiness. We are building such a spineless group of whiny people in our youth and it's evident in television shows, reality television, and loudmouth hollywood brats. Whew! Okay, what did that have to do with being shocked or zapped??? I'd put up one of those soapbox emoticons but for some reason the java portion of the advanced screen isn't fully loading on my machine.

Lawrence, I think he's referring to the situation in which Reed has been battling with some folks over shoddy construction. Here's the link http://www.thegrimescene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2116

As a small business, you are able to take the entire amount you make to do with as you please, since you *are* the business. If you incorporate or get set up in a partnership, then you have to pay a salary to yourself from your business account. you also have to record that salary as a business expense and deduct it from the net income of your business (good) as well as matching any taxes associated with payments to yourself (bad). Things get really wierd when you have employees.

I bought it in a spray bottle but there are instructions for using it in a carpet machine. I haven't used it in a machine only because the hot water and Zep chemical I use are sufficient.

Sounds good. What I meant by my suggestion of depriciation wasn't to pay the owner over time...it was to get your invested money back over time. When you look at an investment, your investment capatal is basically "free money." Okay, well, not free, but you are able to depreciate it over a period of time, which means you are deducting the cost from your net income which reduces your tax liability. My suggestion was to work backwards on the concept to come up with a price that you can pay out in cash and, after depreciating that initial payment over X years to save on taxes, will yield enough money for you to pay your operating expenses as well as draw a decent salary. I'm looking at a similar situation myself, only I'm having to build the business from scratch instead of buying one, but I'm trying to get a few investors and am having to figure out how to compensate them. Good luck with the negotiating!

I checked on my stuff...Boston Weatherhead 3/8" poly hose...something about PVC as well. In my opinion, a little more pliable than the stuff that came with my Xjet and doesn't stiffen over time after repeated chlorine use.

I still think you should speak with the current owner to determine his/her desire to sell it. If it's a case of you hoping to persuade him to sell it, you will probably have to go with a decreasing percentage payoff over a few years (like 80% of years profits the first year, 60% the next, 30% the next, 20%, then nothing). If he is wanting and willing to unload it, look at it as a standard investment and relate your initial investment amount as the amount you will be able to depreciate over X years and yield a comfortable return. MACRS is a standard method of depreciation, and depreciation on property can run many years...this is a case where an accountant is definitely required, and if they are following a logical line of reasoning, basing their inputs on realistic, real world numbers, then perhaps you should trust their suggestion. Unless the current owner ignores business principles and just wants lots of cash up front.

Have you contacted the owners of the parent corporation to see what they require for a franchise fee? Usually they have a set rate depending upon where you set up. From the ones I have checked out, they usually ask for anywhere from a $15k up to and sometimes over $100k buy in fee just to use the name, plus what it costs to build a location to their standards using their equipment (usually several hundred thousand). That's for larger national companies (this was a few years ago I checked into this...things may have changed). Smaller companies generally are more flexible and lower in cost to start up. Very large companies, like McDonalds can be upwards of $1 million to begin. I've looked into a chicken wing mogul franchise and the buy in fee is around $30k with about $300k to establish the store, and the requirement to stay within strict guidelines. Not a bad deal if you can get the initial investment.

My cousin runs a center at Clemson that trains these dogs and matches them with owners. It's amazing, the things she says they can train them to do. Not sure what she studied, but I think it's the animal equivalent to human psychology. My cat won't even get the clue to stay off my desk after throwing her off a dozen times.