PLD

I think it does matter. I could just as easily reply to every post with 500 pages of regurgitated propaganda from creationisbunk.org or some other contrarian source. But where would that get us? If this debate is not abot intelligent debate on a passionate subject, what is the point of having it? If I am the only one who wants to actually have an open discussion on the subject, let me know now. Furthermore, one thing that really irks me. Can creationists actually support their argument, or must they simply resort to tearing down the opposition? I have yet to make a single post bashing creationism. I simply indicated that I support evolution as the origin of man, and stated my basis for that argument. I even took time to defend my position when it was attacked. But I have yet to start regurgitating volumes of "research" trying to prove that creationsists are full of cheese. IMHO, Scott is the only one who has actually supported his position. He made more sense in 27 words than the rest of this crew has in 16 pages. Gone to fly a kite....

An excellent post. Well written, and certainly thought provoking.

Once again, you have provided a detailed, fact filled, argument against evolution. Now provide a detailed, fact filled argument for creation. Once again, you have nicely quoted volumes of someone else's thoughts on the issue. Now offer volumes of your own thoughts on the issue. In fact, I bet you can not write an original dialog in your own words that supports creation. If you disagree, prove me wrong by doing it and meeting the following criteria. 1) The words will be exclusively your own. Your ideas may be based on the writings of others, but your writing must contain significantly original thought as to be easliy distinguished from being work of others. i.e. no regurgitation. 2) None of the ideas presented therein, or the supporting evidence thereto, will be based on the failings or gaps in evolutionary theory or science in general. i.e. disproof is not proof. 3) The post will be at least 1100 words long. i.e. the length of your last book excerpt.

That's 1% for a 5.5 machine or 1.15% for a 4gpm machine. Perfect fine for housewashing. I have done the same in a pinch more then once.

This is not true everywhere, but it's worth looking into in your area. Here, Paramadecs live at the firestation. They also get service time credits for anything they work. If you go there with an "medium" injury, they will treat it for you at no cost. They get an hour or two credit for 15 min work (and no drive), you get good top notch first aid for free. They won't do stitches, but they will clean it up and put on butterfly bandages and advise whether they think you need to go get stitches. When I was a kid, we lived about a mile from the fire station and I got 4-5 sets of butterflies there over the years.

Don't forget the pressure switch. Mine did that when the switch was dying, and then quit heatng. A new switch brought it back to life.

By the time you factor out the cost of the chems you are using, CC costs about $1.00 per house extra. By my standards, one hour of labor caused by tinkering would take me 100 houses to pay it back. 30 if I'm being really liberal with the numbers. You can tinker for months, or you can just spend $1/house and be done. No offense intended by the phraseology, but it sounds like you are being penny wise and pound foolish... As for citraclean, I think you will find that almost almost all citraclean users are using an old Rowlett recipe that contains more than just CC and bleach. So while you are upping the nonphenyl, you also need to think about the rinse aids, waxes, foamers, etc that need tweaking. I don't think there is anything wrong with your machine. It's just that 6% and downstreaming don't go well together. If you're gonna use 6%, xjet it. If you're gonna use a downstreamer, use 12%. No, $550/6hrs isn't terrible. But scrubbing for an extra 3 hours when you could have been at home having a cold one is not fun. Bottom line: No one is knocking your way, particulary if you are getting good results. what we are saying is that we have been there, done that, and you could get home a lot quicker for very little increase in cost.

Don't know about the pump, but that looks like a Chevy 2500 work bench :)

0.4% bleach? I love the xjet, but that mixture sounds like too little chems, too much work.

Amen. I started with my career with laundry soap (Ok), moved to brown truck wash (better), and now use CitraClean (excellent). Good soap is well worth the extra $$$. Ignorning, artillery fungus I you worked about 4 extra hours to save $12 in chems.

And weak chems. 3/4 gallons of 12% for a house that should have used 3 gallons.

Jeff, FWIW, I was about 6 when I was the "throwee" in that same scenario and busted my friends head open. Anyway, whenever something like this reminds me of it, I still feel guilty... Kids and the ER just seems to go hand in hand...

Not only that, but it will grey UNDER the coating. My girls preschool elected to polyurethane the new railings. One year later, the wood is beautifully coated, smooth, and visibly grey underneath the coating. Philip

Kevin, Excellent post and quite well spoken. I'm actually quite envious of your faith. Having been born with the gift of intelligence and the curse of curiosity, I find it quite rare that I understand a subject to my own satisfaction. As such, faith without question is probably one of my weakest personality traits. Perhaps the only thing I can take you to task on is Benny Hinn. Making rocks sing and praise - Impressive. Creating the universe - Awesome. Use Benny Hinn for good? Sorry, I just don't see it... ;) Philip

Nope. But some miracles require a little more scrutiny than others. Poor family with sick child wins the lottery, easy to believe. TV minister raises the dead, gotta have a little more than someones word.

Mat 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Somehow, I just have a big problem with Christ manifesting himself on earth through Benny Hinn or Pat Robertson.

Larry, Save yourself the aggravation and get out now. It does not matter what type of evidence you present for your argument, or how credible the source may be. If Paul disagrees with his position, he will question it's validity and validity of it's source. You will be expecte to provide compelling evidence of the validity of both. It's an debate tactic called arugment Ad Hominem. It is generally accepted as being intellectually illegitimate, and employed only when being right is more important that reaching the truth. Argument ad hominem is most often used to distract from the issue at hand when the party employing it lacks evidence for their own argument. It's most famous public use was probably in the OJ Simpson defense. Also, once you have managed to support your evidence Paul will then change the issue at hand and question another aspect of the issue. This tactic is called argument of impossible perfection or more commonly "moving the goalposts". It obtained the latter name because no matter how far you advance your argument, when you reach the goal line you will find that it has been moved farther away. With a new goal established, you will once again be expected to make an argument, support that argument, etc. And this case, defend your evidence, it's sources, etc. (see 1st paragraph again). Finally, if you do manage to successfully return a few volleys you will find that they will start coming in groups of 4 or 5 five at a time. And you will be expected to go through the aforementioned processes for each and every question in the salvo. This is technically called argument by barrage, but I prefer to call it the Missile Command defense after the video game of the name. That meaning, no matter how good you are there will always be a next wave and it will come in faster and larger than the last. The bottom line is very simple. Debating anything with Paul is a complete waste of time and energy and an exercise in frustration. He has no intention of supporting his position, but will gladly sit back and shoot yours full of holes. If you do confront him about his position, you will receive nothing more than a trite response such as "Just look around". If you are compelled to continue this debate, I would suggest that you go outside and start shouting your case into a empty trash can or barrel. You will accomplish about the same thing, and your fingers won't be nearly as tired. Philip

This summer has without a doubt been the most down time that I have ever seen in this business (3 years). We have dicussed the reasons at length here and elsewhere with gas prices being high on the list of suspects. Another topic around the bleach barrel here is the number of new, unrecognized rigs that we see *each day*. So, today I pulled up 2-3 major local ad channels and tried to identify just how man there are. The results: Roughly 23 identifiable, advertising FT operators in the Fayette Co, Ga. By windshield estimation, I guess there are actually closer to 30+ FT operators. I don't even want to fathom the number of PT operators. Our demographic? 32-34k owner occupied SFR's. Thoughts? How does this compare to the areas you work in?

My college method was to throw a big drunk. The not so good theory was that the alcohol killed the infection. It did appear to work, but then you had a hangover to deal with. Then again, we used any excuse to throw a party...

Sold two cars, bought one. Other item bought/sold: Who knows. Hundreds. Not one bad experience. Just be cautious and handle the transaction like you would any complete stranger.

What's your number of owner occupied SFD's in a 20mi radius?

qed...

Come see me anytime. As for the opportunities on our side of town, I'd suggest that you evaluate the current situation hard before jumping ship. The water is fine for PT'ers. But for FT'ers, the pool appears to be too small for the number of guests that have arrived... Just run the numbers for 32k SFD homes. Optimistically: 100% wash every 2 years, that's 16k washing per year. Divide 16K homes 24 ways and you only get 650 per company, per year. Only 12.5 per week. Average $200/job and you're grossing just $2500/week. Basic operations cost at this rate will be about 50% or $1250. After it's all said and done, you are looking at 60k/yr EBIT. A fair wage for a job, but a terrible return for a business. And it does not factor in part timers.... Pessimistically: 60% wash every 3 years, that's 6400 washing per year. Divide 6400 homes 24 ways and you only get 265 per company, per year. Only 5.1 per week. Average $200/job and you're grossing just $1120/week. Basic operations cost at this rate will be about 75% or $840. After it's all said and done, you are looking at $14.5K/yr. A terrible wage for a job, and suicide for a business. That's just the effect of the FT'ers. NOW FACTOR IN 40 PART TIMERS... We're feeling the impact significantly and we've been at it for 3 years FT. We have an established customer base, are well known in the community, and spend about 25% of our budget on advertising. Our net margin for this year is a dismal 10.5%. One sure fire way to see things are out of balance it to look at advertising performance. Previously performing ad channels (across the board) are performing at a rate less than 1 per 1000. We just finished a postcard campaign for 5000 *highly* targeted top dollar homes. In past years, this card/list has garnered ~1% return and about 5:1 ROI. This run we got 3 calls, 2 bookings, and a blistering -500% ROI.

Paul, If you wish to make a case for creationism, please do so. Otherwise, you are accomplishing nothing. Even if evolutionary theory is completely wrong, that still does not validate creationism. No more that it validates panspermia, scientology, etc. As for your comment about "Most evolutionists do not believe in God". It is a great sound bite and certainly does a good job of rallying support for your cause by painting us to be immoral, Godless heathens. But like much of what you have posted it simply is not supported by fact. Repeated Gallup polling shows that; ~45% of Amercians believe in creationism. ~40% believe in God & evolution. ~9% are Atheistic ~4% have no opinion. That means that only 18% of evolutions are athestic. A far cry from "most" Also, just because *a* scientific theory (or a portion thereof) becomes invalidated, it does not mean that ALL scientific theories become invalidated by association. But, I suspect that you already knew that since you probably go to the doctor, take medicine, have x-rays, etc. I find it quite ironic actually. The same people who are use bloodletting to cite the inherent fallability of science (and hence impugne evolution), would have no problem getting their blood drawn for a test, or taking 4 units if they were in a car accident. Furthermore, please excuse my presumptiousness in judging your expertise in the field of physics. After all, I only spent a four short years in the study physics for years working on my degree. But, if I may make a small suggestion based on my limited experience? Please do a bit deal more reading on the science topics you have comment on. There's just a wee bit more to the subject than meets the eye in a 100 word news release. Finally, your manner of debate by attack, fallacious arguments, and general FUD makes it impossible to engage in an intelligent dialog. How can you expect anyone short of Forrest Gump on meth to address your endless volley of highly repetitive questions peppered with questionable facts? I strongly suspect that you don't expect them to. Knowing that no your opponent cannot possibly respond at such a rapid pace for any length of time, you simply persist in your assault until they tire, inject the last word, and claim victory. Well, I am there so let me be the first to say... Congratulations, you win! Philip

Absolutely incredible! Why isn't CNN & Fox carrying the story?