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About kurt

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  1. No, absolutely not. I've found your input to be fairly elevated and without prejudice. Same thing with Mustola. I've never heard either of you ever say anything stupid, silly, or out of whack. I was going to stay out of it, but felt Leighton deserved a response. Now that I'm talking, you know I'm not going to shut up, so.....Regarding the rest of it, a few final points..... 1) It's real easy. You do the job and if the realtor that referred you now hates you, it's part of the gig. At last count, I've been blackballed by somewhere between 11-15 offices. In a big urban market, that can be overcome. In a smaller market, it's usually an extinction event. One reason I moved to a big city was because the small market I had started in (SW Michigan in about 1978) completely blackballed me out of existence. I would not recommend the tactic of eschewing realtors to anyone in a small market. It's small minded and a decidedly silly business practice. Go ahead and try if it makes you feel special and you have to feel special. 2) It's none of my ****ing business how anyone chooses to run their business. If someone wants to suck up to realtors and do lousy inspections, my laissez faire beliefs prevent me from judging. I really don't care. I only hope they'd try to form their report systems in line with modern journalism and presentation formats. If you're going to do something, at least make your tangible product of it's time, not a historic relic no one understands anymore. 3) Characterizing this place as anything other than a good place to learn is self referential. Intoning the memory of the guy that started this place and stating that the reason he left has anything to do with a (false) characterization is really sticking it out there. The guy that started this place and me were the only two voices in here for close to a month before anyone else even showed up. The guy that started this place been my friend for nearly 30 years, we still exchange emails and pleasantries occasionally, and if the reason the guy that started this place split was for the reasons the other guy is saying, OK, fine. The guy that started this place has reasons that are his own, not mine. Making these statements and "supporting" them with unsupported reference to 3rd parties is sort of like an Appeal to Authority in debate, which gets judges snickering and usually eliminates contestants. IOW, it's bullshit. 4) Les, Jim, and Marc are stand up guys. Conciliators. I got no problem with going to the mats and then making up. I live and work in the City of Big Shoulders and Very Sharp Elbows. I plow in straight lines. I occasionally get slapped and I occasionally deliver the slap. It's part of my day. I don't carry any baggage with it. 5) The other guy gets his wish. I spend too much time in here, partly due to habit, partly due to a sense of duty, partly because I imagined my time in the gig would be worth something to someone, and partly because this is the thing I've done for a long time. I'm checking out, and pursuing other things. I hope everyone finds their way in this business.
  2. Go ahead and post it. I want to know what it is. You don't have to ask to reprint anything I have to say related to home inspection, or really, anything. I write a lot of stuff in a lot of different venues. I've lost track of most of it. Astray? It was a 3 ring circus of nauseating implications. It carried the essential elements of great literature and onanistic fulmination. In short, a mudbath. Way better than Facebook.
  3. That's about right. It's gotten a little goofy. The "standard" is now so minutely proscribed, one could argue that even a brand new tile lined installation is dangerous.
  4. And back to the OP.... Don't let the noobs tell you how to market your business. If you wanna push to realtors, go ahead. It's not about who you market to, it's how you do the job.
  5. That's how it's worked with me, mostly. I'm an equal opportunity business person. I don't really care where the referral comes from and I don't care if they refer me again. Everyone gets the opportunity to refer me. I don't turn anyone away.
  6. 12% isn't bad for the lumber. Around here, bone dry dimensional in the lumber yard, covered, in the middle of winter is about 7-8%. In humid summer weather, I get about 12%. 51% is kinda high if it was the house, but it's not crazy for a crawlspace. Encapsulated crawls that I've been in read about 45%-50% RH.
  7. That would be good. Show up wearing these and a tool belt.
  8. Clothes dryer....electric panel on floor....wash new duds, put on dryer. Don't ask. There is no why. This is the clothes dryer. I explained our clothes dryers....they asked why we don't use these. So much simpler. Click to Enlarge 58.19 KB
  9. This is heat in rural Hubei. Everyone sits around these metal tables with gas fired heaters built into the base. Construction in China is concrete. Rabbit warren/beehives of uninsulated concrete boxes, all lacking central heat. Compound the situation with a 17th century concept of health, where all ailments can be negated if there is fresh air, so everyone keeps the windows wide open 24/7. Ambient temps outside are around 39-40degF at night, so....you know....it's about 43-45degF average inside. It's SOP for everyone to sit around wearing their winter coats and full double layers of full length underwear Family life is centered around the heat table. If the table is full, you walk around the house because to sit on any furniture is to have body heat extracted in an instant. Family gatherings take on a sort of somnambulistic walking dead of those not at the table....circling, circling around the main room, waiting for someone to get up from the heat table. So, dork super insulated padded casual wear starts looking attractive. Remember all those B&W pics from our childhood showing Chinese people wrapped in what looked like king size mattresses and padded everything? There's a reason. There's no ****ing heat. Click to Enlarge 221.99 KB Click to Enlarge 233.49 KB
  10. Only in kid sizes. In the US, I'm XL...here, I'm quadruple X, selection was limited, so I went native. I could have gone with a more understated color combo, but comic effect was lost. ("a bit dorky"....?....they're Monster Dork, ****ing shoot the lights out Dork) I'm thinking of wearing these in Chicago....maybe go downtown to a nightclub. No...wait.... set up a date on Match.com and show up wearing these.
  11. I remember you were the only individual that thought so too. There's no heat up in the places we stay, it's very rural, it's mild elevation in the mountains, and it's cold. You see guys wearing these things in the evening or weekends like casual wear. They're thick padded poly batting, like about 3/4"-1". Folks are getting a chuckle out of the Meiguoren wearing the local duds. They're warm though. I'm threatening my wife that I'm going to wear them back in the city.
  12. I finally found a pair that fit. Click to Enlarge 127.97 KB
  13. I don't solicit agents; haven't for >30 years. That said, it's different now. Imagining one is going to get started dismissing realtors is not realistic. I agree with Marc completely and I also believe in compromise. So, 1) don't waste time putting brochures in realtor offices. Actually, don't waste time with brochures. 2) figure out a presentation about something that's actually interesting and pitch it to office managers for their Tuesday morning sales meetings. After that, I don't know. I don't talk to realtors if I can avoid it.
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