PressurePros

I hear what you are saying, Ron. I think I should rephrase. I think Bob would edit something that was outright nasty to another person. I guess it still is subjective, even on Bob's board as he has ultimate decision power but I think one would really have to step over the line. Hell, he let Heart Wobden of W-wash run a tirade without banning or editing. Bob has stonger will than I in that respect. You have had a board for a long time, Ron, so I respect that you have seen much more than I have. You have seen much more in this business period. I lread what you type and listen to what you say during conversation.. doesn't mean I agre with all of it, but I do take your experience and viewpoint into consideration. Here is my experience..I have a message board on my RAD website for consumers. There have been some posts I would have loved to delete threads that may have looked R-A-D look bad. I keep them on there, address what I can and move on. The first time I ever deleted a post was when I had facts that someone was a) promoting other products and b) lying about their claims. I asked that person to refrain from that but did not delete the post until that poster asked me to. He self governed and realized he was out of line. I think self moderation can work as long as signatures are required. If I cry and complain about something in a post, my signature is right there. Next time someone searches for Ken Fenner or PressurePros, up it comes. Who looks like the a** then? I was actually opposed to TGS going private because I was being selfish. I wanted the Google link backs. With much after-thought, this is the only forum that now provides me a place to vent, discuss sales etc and never have to worry about the public hitting my posts with a direct link. I'm not opposed to moderation nor would I stop visitng the boards that do unless it gets excessive or driven by sponsors. You had a recent experience with that happening. It was called a mistake but trust me, noone in the business who visits these boards thinks it was a mistake. A certain supplier distributing monetary compensation to *** (directly or indirectly) had an issue with a post and away it went. I don't want you to think this is an attack on you personally, Ron.. I have enjoyed our chats and I find you enagaging and full of ideas and concepts that could further the industry. But, this was another form of subjective censorship and that gets a personal foul for a board that is claimed to be non-sponsored.

A tiny foul contrary to popular belief. Good job for moving on and dropping this subjective system of penalty. You know whom is a trouble maker and whom has strong opinions. The two are different. Bob's board gives you guy's a good model of self governing, non-owner participation. It can work. As soon as you give a moderator with limited understanding of personalities and/or start to interpret friendly (or maybe not so friendly) debate as something to be quieted, the system becomes perceived as Gestapo. Fight personal attack with superior refrain from rebuttal and you will get much farther in the mind of the intelligent. We know who is a jerk and who isn't. I was infracted for a statement that I thought was valid. My instinct was to preserve my right to free speech at any cost and I choked down a public retort for the sense of maturity and professionalism. The one thing that kept me on this board was a single pm.. I had made a post about a certain product and Beth sent me a message saying she had received some grief about it. She gave me the option of changing my wording. That meant much to me and while I still believed in what I wrote, I was inclined to understand her viewpoint and also understood that I could be affecting her ability to earn.. Post changed. Had I been infracted for that, I would have deleted TGS from my favorites list and not returned. BNR, its perfectly acceptable to pm a poster and share your viewpoint as to why you think that person should perhaps think about what they wrote. Have the discussion out of public view. I think you may be surprised that we all get emotional and write words a little over the top but after review can govern our words. I speak for myself.. Let me know when I do cross lines.. I am a person passionate about my viewpoints but I am also open minded enough to be nudged when I cross the line after posting something controversial, but please.. Let me decide that. I'm with Jeff (JL) on this topic. This board has allowed me to network and met some people that I highly respect as freinds and business people. I'm not ready to throw TGS to the dogs because I didn't agree with the way certain things transpired.

Innovative is, I agree a strong word and thats why I voted "not really". I mean you find the right stripper, you can DS it on and wash it off in a systematic fashion and be out of there before another contractor has refilled his pump up sprayer couple times. That's very time saving and perhaps takes awhile to find the right chems and suppliers but is it innovative? That may be subjective. To the guy with the pump up, maybe it is.

Richard, thats exactly my thought. This guy is so slick he has just killed his own chance for making his phone ring. Even if it does ring a job like this can't go for anything less than a couple grand. When he tells the customer this number they would be so turned off that it becomes high-pressure sales tactic time. Anyone with a lick of common sense or life experience knows this and avoids these types of baited ads like the plague.

I can teach someone how to pressure wash most things and be efficient at it in a week. Where the innovations come is in the business model. How is your closing rate? Whats the return on your advertising pieces? What are your EBITDA and are your percentages in line with simiar businesses? What kind of customer rewards program do you have in place? How updated is your mailing list for customer contact? Whats the CTR and conversion rate of your website? Whats your acquisition cost for leads? Do you have systems in place that will allow someone to step into your shoes and stay just as productive as your company is now? Etc, etc. These are the things that set a business apart. After a year or two doing decks, houses whatever, your not far away from a guy that has been doing decks for ten years in terms of efficency and skill (thanks to these boards)

all non WASP's please step to the front of the firing squad (j/k!)

I'l be over later to pick you up in TruckZilla (an emissions free vehicle)

I'm probably switching to Sprinters next year. Chris, machine at back, reels out the side door mounted at about a 45 degree angle. I use RapidReels in mine cause they are slimmer. Not the best reel but I have had no problems with two vans setup this way. For reserve (more of a float) I have a 35 gallon little square tank between the reels and the machine. When I go over to the yard, I'll snap some pics. I have a 1995 box truck for commercial and for resi-washes.

I'm not disputing higher temps, just arguing the interpretation of cause and affect. I say its a natrual event due to cyclical changes in the earths axis, etc etc

Its very tight. Portables are best but skid with the right dimensions will fit longways at the back. If you do a lot of wood, vans are fine. Housewashes and concrete, not so good because you may want surface cleaner, hot water, extension poles, etc.

Larry, the arguement is strong on both sides. In any debate that gets this heated (among the academics) two opposing sides can take the same facts and view and present them differently. The way I see it is this.. if one believes in global warming and is worried about it, what steps are they willing to take so as not to contribute to it. Its very hypocritical to be driving an 8 liter dually while saying "damn greenhouse gases"

The debate is an interesting one. Some things to consider. - Earth's 4.5 billion year history is one long story of climate change. There were several periods in history, notably the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum, which were much warmer than today. Europe experienced the Little Ice Age in the 17th century. I'm sure alarmists of that period in time also thought the world was coming to an end. - From the 1940's until the 1980's, the Earth experienced a significant cooling period, despite the fact that industrial production and release of CO2 vastly accelerated during this time. This led to political and media hypeabout global cooling, the threat that the earth was in the midst of a new ice age. - If the Earth was laboring under an accelerated greenhouse effect caused by human produced CO2, the troposphere (the layer of the earth's atmosphere roughly 15 miles above us) should heat up faster than the surface of the planet, but data collected from satellites and weather balloons doesn't support this fundamental presumption. - The human contribution to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is minimal in comparison to other natural means, including volcanic emmission and CO2 produced by animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation and the ocean. The human "carbon footprint" is vastly outweighed by all of these factors. - Some ice caps are shrinking others are expanding. The net sum of these events is neutral. The Ocean has not risen by any significant amount in 150years.

I agree with Chaz and John. Normal cyclical change.. God's will as it is. That doesn't mean we don't contribute and affect the enviroment to some degree but I don't think the world is coming to an end or anything. We would need thousands of years of real world documented data to come to any kind of realistic conclusion.

Acid is far more wicked around marine life. I tell people to skip RAD step-2 (mild acid) around water.

Thanks Mike !

Then he goes up 50% for every square foot after that. Aren't you supposed to discount as volume goes up?

This is my last ad.. Deck Cleaning and Staining by Pros not painters or handymen Like I mentioned, I do it for back links.. within a day this was on the first page of google for local searches of pressure washing, deck cleaning, deck staining etc.. I don't spend a ton of time on them but maybe I should. Do you have an example I can check out?

The only real reason to advertise in Craigs List is to build high rank back links to your site (if they even count). At the very least, you will hit the first page of local Google search with more hits. Several people have told me they called me because I was "all over the internet".

We are in an business that attracts losers. Dregg's List attracts the losers of all losers. If this guy is in your area, call him. Three and a half cents per s/f to wash a house? He is lowballing the $99 guys. It never ends in a price war until the service is so whored out there is nothing left to salvage.

I just got back from seeing Rob Zombie's Halloween. I have to mention, it took me a full ten minutes before Chris or myself were able to utter a word (it was that intense). The movie is unbelievably thrilling, scary, distubing and genius. I don't mean genius in an IFC, wanna-be artsy way. I have seen every Zombie film and while they aren't for everyone, you can tell the guy has talent. John Carpenter's Halloween is an untouchable classic in the unstoppable villain genre so when I heard there was going to be a remake I was very skeptical to say the least. When I heard Rob Zombie was going to make it, I had some renewed faith as I think his perspective is fresh. Fresh is an understatement. His tone, pace, and crescendos are wicked. Look for Zombie to become the premier horror movie director of this decade. The latest round of movie remakes are merely new faces, same screenplay and higher budget special effects. Fot the most part they are lousy. This version of Halloween takes a slightly different perspective (more towards killer than victim). It grabs you by the cajones and does not let go. Zombie avoids the traps of cliches and redundant scenes but still keeps the whole movie loyal to original. You will know what you are watching, but you will not thing "remake". The way the plot is developed, the unspoken way Zombie allows you to see the psychopathy behind Michael Myers is beyond description. Movies don't excite me all that much. Some are more watchable than others. This one took my breath away. I want to go back to the theater and see it again (which I have never done in my life) Go see it. Do NOT bring the kids.

Mr Squeegee, Another well thought out and well written point of view. Thank you.

You know how it is with movies. Some things push your buttons and for others they may think its the worst movie ever made.

Barry... BRAVO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.

The problem wiith these curing silica sealers is what Greg mentions.. You cannot get them to release from the wood (to my knowlege) The wood is basically chemically petrified. Even if one were to pre-stain the wood or tint the product it will wear. Pigment is UV sacrificial. Eventually you end up with a gray mess that you have to live with. I have heard banter here and there about water borne stains to go over these type of products but how long will that last before it peels? I think these products could be used to deter rot (as an undercoat for paint) but aesthetically they hold no value.

LOL Life without politics is GOOD... No, seriously. I hear what you are saying in your post. I'll just accept your arguement that everyone in the south is a cheap hillbilly and let you take on Scott K when he comes to kill me. hahhahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa