mthomas1

As for battery life, I had to buy an extended battery for my HTC Evo 4G - just as I did for my BB Tour, and for every "smart" phone I've ever owned - it's just the nature of the beast, and 4G only makes things worse.

For the last few years, I've just given up and given my life to GOOGLE - used their e-mail, contact, calendar and to-do lists, backed up locally. Each of the GOOGLE apps is unquestionably inferior to some other application I've used in terms of that module's individual functionality, and there are things about each GOOGLE app that are *really* annoying. BUT.... In that time I've gone through a variety of phones running Palm, Blackberry and now Android, and moved from Verizon to Sprint. 1) All the information moves seamlessly between my desktop and my phone. 2) All the information has moved seamlessly between various phones and carriers when I upgrade . 3) I keep a spare phone, and WHEN (not if) my phone is lost or damaged I turn on the spare, move the number over, and everything is there. For me, the key has been: 1) To keep existing e-mail addresses and forward them to a central GOOGLE mail account while never giving out that e-mail address. (G-Mail replies from my choice of personal and business addresses). GOOGLE serves as a sort of "communications hub" and I screw around with it as little as possible - any "experimentation" is with other apps (ex: visual voice mail) pointed toward GOOGLE. 2) Making use of a *limited number*of third-party add-ons to add critical functionality to the base GOOGLE applications (for example, a POP checker, so that G-Mail checks mail every three minutes), and then dropping them as GOOGLE adds functionality. I'm pretty sure that in five years most all of my business communication and record keeping functions will be integrated into GOOGLE - that I'll set up a contact, insert it into the scheduler along with the inspection address, set the phone on the dashboard, and have the GPS guide me to the inspection while keeping track of the mileage and inserting it into GOOGLE's version of Quicken, etc. And that I'll finally be able to concentrate almost entirely on inspection and reporting rather than fooling around with a half dozen vendors and applications trying to cobble up a reliable small-business communications and record keeping system. Sure, it's only going to be "good enough", and I'm going to wish that it had the better ability to do this or that as some previous version of some software I used back in the Late-Neolithic "PDA" era. But it's gonna' be good enough, and I'm gonna' love it compared to the previous alternatives.

The thing about on-site reporting and multiple inspections per day (someone above mentions three) that bothers me is this: what happens when you encounter a property that needs more time than budgeted? (Several recent REO nightmares come to mind). Hard to believe that anyone is going to postpone/cancel the next inspection, seems to me what is going to happen is the the inspector is going to triage, hit high liability items, "do the best job they can", and move on to the next inspection. Likely, the resulting inspection is "good enough" in the sense the the client will be made aware of major issues and the inspector's liability will not be greatly increased - and perhaps the inspection was "good enough" compared to the competition that the client received reasonable value for the money. And likely, the client will be unaware that under other circumstances they would have received a "better" inspection from the same inspector. But speaking just for myself, I would sure hate to have insufficient time to complete my normal inspection routine without cutting corners, plus the pressure of having a client standing there tapping their feet while I finished the report for on-site delivery, worrying all the while about the traffic between this inspection and the next one as the clock ticked on. YMMV.

Re: Multiple grounded conductors under a single terminal: http://paragoninspects.com/articles/pdf ... utrals.pdf

Having tried many alternatives, I finally settled on a combination of Syncplicity and Genie Timeline.

In just show clients this, and let them make up their own minds about whether poorly controlled runoff can erode roofs. Click to Enlarge 56.37 KB

Glad you took her advice, I know several other people with "borderline" symptoms of a possible heart attack who walked into the ER and ended up having likely life-saving angioplasty.

All I can say is WOW. This is great news.

All I can say is WOW. This is great news.

I love my TK45. But in part, I have to admit, cause it's... well... so COOL looking...

I use floor + cardinal direction, where needed I use something like: "in the the second bedroom from the north, off the west side of the second floor hallway" - the way I have my report writer set up it's no more than two clicks to build any such location descriptor I need, or a I can just type it freehand. When on a diagonal street or for properties which are well square of square on the lot there is a note at the front of the report stating something like: "For proposes of identifying locations, the front of this property (abutting Clybourn Ave..) is assumed to face to the west. I've also made up a set of compass roses I can insert into pictures if I *really* need to do so, but I very seldom use them. On a few occasions I've pulled pull down the GOOGLE Sat view of a property, inserted it, and marked roof locations or similar, or designated identifying letters for various structures or units at a multi-building condominium. Whatever works, basically.

Things ARE blowing around today, found this on a Chicago rooftop this AM: Click to Enlarge 49.86 KB Click to Enlarge 59.7 KB

I use syncplicity: http://www.syncplicity.com/ which not only provides a backup on their servers but allows me to keep several PCs in sync - I can start a report at a coffee shop with a WiFi connection, seamlessly finish it on my office PC, and have it constantly updating to my backup office PC so that if the primary PC goes down I can finish on the backup. I also have an arrangement with a client in a suburb about 25 miles where we use Syncplicity to mirror each others data to a PC in our respective offices - if either of or offices burns down or there is an extended power outage, we can work immediately on the PC in the other office to keep our businesses up and running. In addition, I also use Genie Timeline locally, so that I have the ability to quickly restore previous versions of my data. So for around $250 a year I have a "Corporate Level" disaster recovery plan, complete with a off0-site "Shadow Data Center".

I've used an X&C for four years with no problems. I do try to make it a habit to hold down each rung as I extend the section above, and try to make sure its fully extended and locked before extending the section below. The slippery feet on the X&C IMO are significant hazard on some surfaces, and one to which I've not found a solution.

I asked Markus Keller about this at lunch yesterday, and he says that this is common in older homes in parts of Germany - and that there was a low slatted fence at the bottom of the slope to hold back the coal. Went back and took a look at the photographs and sure enough, you can still see the bottom plate: Click to Enlarge 42.47 KB

In that part of Evanston, everyone's castle is built on sand - literally. There was no garage present, or curb cut, but there could easily have been one there in 1890, and if so it would likely have been on that side. It's possible, I suppose ,that the builders excavated a shallow foundation, and then dug a slope down lower into the center of the basement, where there was clearly a gravity furnace at one time. I expect Kurt will be along eventually, to lift the vail.

Today's inspection, Evanston IL. South end of the basement is sloped downwards 42" in 10 feet. The sloped portion extends half way down the east side of the basement (see panorama). In the center of the sloped area on the east wall is a ramp in the center extending down from a window located 4" above current grade. The rest of the basement is conventional. My first thought was "coal bunker", but it would have been an enormous ""L" shaped area around 24' on each side. And why slope the floor (feed an "iron fireman?"... but to build an entire end of the basement that way? The ones I've seen abandoned had a square or rectangular bunker a with a horizontal screw at the bottom.) The house has grown like Topsy and now has a 2nd floor and rear addition, but there was a plate hanging on the wall which I assume depicts the original configuration. Click to Enlarge 50.17 KB Click to Enlarge 28.12 KB Click to Enlarge 58.65 KB

Mine is a ClimaTech CM2000: http://www.climatechsafety.com/CM2000.html but there are several other brands as well. I have two sets of cooling packs, I just toss them in the cooler along with lunch, snacks and drinks the same way you would an ice-pack, and put them back in the freezer in the garage at the end of the day - in fact I use them as "super ice-packs" even if I'm not taking the vest. The vest is very effective, and even though it is cooling your torso only, you feel cooler everywhere, and you can can control the cooling rate by adjusting the tightness of the vest with the side webbing (which is adjustable while wearing). The external vest's mesh is pretty stiff, but IMO that's a small price to to pay for extending my comfortable time in a really hot attic by 3-4X.

This time of year, I do love my Cool Vest - I just toss it on over the Skiller when I head into an attic. The Skiller is actually quite light and thin, I wear it over short-sleeve wicking hiking shirts in the summer, and it's fine. What I wish I could wear on super-hot days are shorts, but they just don't work for me in nasty city crawl-spaces and attics....

I carry two bags into the property, one for tools, one for knee pads, respirator, drop cloth and the like. A flashlight, outlet tester, tape measure, camera, voice recorder, 6" rule (for picture scale) and two moisture meters go into a Skillers Vest: at the start of the inspection, and other stuff goes in there as required. (I have several of the older version without the Velcro tabs to hold the pockets shut, if I a have to buy new ones I would probably cut them off).

I would suggest that since the contractor (according to your client, anyway) has expressed his willingness to do so without charge, that the client request that he perform such an inspection - including a full, written report of his findings - and accept responsibility for its accuracy and completeness in writing. And if he won't do so, ask him to explain why...

1) The bubbles go flat after a while. 2) Flammable w/ toxic out-gassing.

Some of those harnesses have a foot loop on a short length of strap you can drop to support yourself in a standing position, taking much of the weight off the rest of the harness. http://www.millerfallprotection.com/fal ... ety-device

If you actually have no assets, or assets of little value, you probably won't even get sued. Back in the day when I used to hang glide I knew a guy by the name of Bill Bennett who manufactured hang gliders. Obviously, people who used the products occasionally got seriously hurt or dead, and the accident victims or surviving spouses were often determined as sue - being paralyzed from the neck down for life or losing a loved one is the sort of thing that tends to seriously tick people off. Bill just told they the truth: the only asset in his name was a hang glider company, and its only assets were a stack of aluminum tubes, some simple fabrication equipment, some nylon cloth and some industrial strength sewing machines, all of it used, and all of which he would probably buy back at auction for pennies on the dollar when the business was liquidated because its only value to anyone else with salvage and scrap, at which point he would just start another hang glider company. The lawyers would look into the matter, discover he was telling the truth, and tell their clients "If you want to go forward you're going to have to pay cash on the barrel head, because there's no way my fees will be covered by Bennett's assets. And even if you succeed, it's going to be virtually impossible to extract the judgment from him." OTOH, there is no way to protect 'your' assets, you genuinely have to transfer them completely into the control of someone else prior to the event that triggers the suit - so you better really trust your wife, or your husband, or your child, or whoever - because if they tell you to take a hike and retain the assets, you have absolutely no recourse (other than the decision of the court to distribute some portion of the marital assets to you as part of a divorce settlement) to recover them. The case of the home inspector who is being sued for negligence as a result of an inspection they personally performed is somewhat different because you will be personally liable for at least a portion of the judgment, but again if you actually have no significant personal assets as I understand it you are unlikely to be sued, if for no other reason than an attorney will see little prospect of being paid for their services.

Denbeigh Super Chauvinist Mk IV