JIM73240Z

after barely graduating high school, i was a: bicycle mechanic full time cyclist, finally made it to cat 1 on the road and semi pro on the mountain bike, for several years which is basicly pro w/o the pay check (rode for the Plymouth Pro Team) quit after 96 olympic trials, (total BS for the olympic team selections) started out as a helper for drywall / paint contractor moved inside doing clerical for contractor learned drafting by sitting behind the design team tried to go to coledge for engineering but got bored of the classes now full time structural engineer and own my own design firm at home designing large luxury homes (2 mil and up) pay is good, hours suck jimbo

having a house value at more than what you paid for it is only good if you are selling it. haveing it appraise fro more also means higher property taxes. that being said, equity is something you can borrow on in case of an emergency, but i see lots of equity being floated at the local lakes. we bought a house for 130k, two years later it is 250k. we scavenged the equity out of it and invested the money. yes it is a higher morgage payment, but the interst is more than than the extra payment amount, so i am making money on the house. check with your local broker for more info. jimbo

ha ha. yep, i have seen some creative name calling to get past the city. have used a few of them my self. here is a good one. i designed a house with a basment. house was built several years ago. the original owner dug out the basement wall and created a little garden outside of the windows. this guy stacked the ancor wall blocks from the HD about 8' high. now the new owner calls me out of the blue because he wanted to see why the basement has flodded several times. gee i duuno. MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE OF THE GIANT HOLE THAT IS BY THE BASEMENT THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. cities are trying to protect themselves and the homeowner, but i hope at some point some common sence will prevail. dawinism. the smart will survive, the dumb will not. jimbo

no common sence either. huge $ for the city. i just had one of my clients pay 6k for engineering, 22k for plans, and 15k for permits and plan review fees. add it up boys, almost 50k before he can even break ground. he can afford it. he has a several pasta rockets and a gt3. the city had it for a month, the guy looked at it for sevreral hours and approved it. plan review fees were 3500. i wish i had those kind of billable hours. however, the city does have a huge liability on buildings. in a lawsuit, everyone gets named, city, builder, architect, engineer, sub contractors. in the end the one with the larges bank account is the one that they go after. the city. fun starts again at 8:00am on monday. jimbo

you are not the only one. the typical block fence that you see around houses technicaly do not meet code. they just look the other way. walls under 6' do not need to be engineered, but go 6" over and the footing gets to be stupid and the rebar in the wall is not nice either. if i remember right, a small 2' retaining wall and a 6' site fence needed almost a 3' wide footing. have to design it to hold back air not dirt. this is on a wall that is constructed of 8x8x16 cmu. not the crap fence block and pilaters every 10'. scottsdale, az now wants me to engineer 1' retainig walls. i have done rounds with the plan reviewers because you can by the anchor wall blocks at the HD and stack those up but not a block wall. WTF. i know i will blow a cork when i start to build my house. jimbo

i drew up the plans for clifton to go to the city with. he asked at one point if he had to have elect in there. i think all of us building a shop would need elect. i also think clifton has a problem with athourity. Clifton - "can i call it a storage shed?" Me - " uh, that is a pretty big storage shed with a garage door. i think they will see that." C - "can i say i am amish?" M - "uh, you live in ther wrong part of the country. just put it in already and be done with it." he was getting bids that were pretty high for the masonry, the building cost out here is stupid. the shop is a duplicate of what dave at azcar has in his back yard. big enough to have a large mess in. cant wait to see it there clifton. jimbo

clifton, it is time to grout the cells with the verticle rebars in. suposed to do it every 4'. let me know when you get high enough to get the ledger bolts in and i will come over to help get them in the right spot. jimbo

BUMP. it has gotten worse. jimbo

a couple of weeks ago, i took a clients 360 mondelo out for a spin. his gt3 was pretty dam fast too but not my style. cool, but cliftons is WAY faster and handle better. i ljust like the s30. simple, CHEAP, and fast as hell:twisted: jimbo

old and new. you have no idea what kind of stuff i have found back in the hills of santa fe. i would be insanly rich if i harvested a small prortion that i ran across. santa fe drug lord. i want you to meet my little friend. then there is a guy that was squating (living in a tent or shack on someone elses property for a long time) behind st johns college that always wore a dress as a statment against society. dude, get the f out, smelly tree hugin hippie. sorry, flash back jimbo

ugh, it is not getting better but worse. hippies jimbo

here is one that is cool as $hit and cheap too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhm244KqCDI jimbo

not a problem, my favorite aunt. 3 trips through chemo, kidney failure, pulled 800cc of crap out of her lungs 5 times, AND the battery in her pace maker went out over the weekend. last night her heart rate was around 160 bpm. as an ex bicycle racer, i could not keep that up for more than a few hours, let alone an 84 year old. santa fe sucked huge donkey di#$. miss the food and the mountain biking, nothing else. let the dam tree huggers have it. jimbo

yeah, i was sweating on the golf course today. i cant take too much more of these cold az days:twisted: . i do not miss those days. i grew up in casper wy. cold as a bitch there too. jimbo

sorry mike, bad drivers everywhere. in houston over christmas, gald to get out of there alive, now i've got to go back for a funeral, fitting, on the same day that anna died. jimbo

no kiding, and they cant drive. dam texans. jimbo

mike, try living there for 7 years. foods awsome, rents WAAAAYYYY to much. mountain biking is off the hook. there are so many ODD people, artists, DOE scientists ect, that make people watching fun. city different. jimbo edit: and no good strip clubs (mikelly), only one, "cheeks".

those are only in Santa Fe, off of the Plaza. opps, dont drop your wallet:mrgreen: . jimbo

check this out. http://cgi.ebay.com/John-F-Kennedy-Assassination-Shooters-Perch-Window-JFK_W0QQitemZ330085892516QQihZ014QQcategoryZ13900QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem everything has a price these days. jimbo

sounds like a personal problem. ha ha jimbo

74 degrees. got to go. i have a tee time:mrgreen: . jimbo

mazda miata? quick for what they are. jimbo

check this out. pay attention mikelly. this is not too far from you. jimbo http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Street-legal-Indy-car-Dallara-Race-car-See-Video_W0QQitemZ190077009918QQihZ009QQcategoryZ98064QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

that is the problem. the good contractors are to busy and their main guys that made them the good contractors wanted a piece of the pie and went off on their own. hired not so good workers so now there is now good contractors any more, just ok contractors. the ball keeps rolling down from there. in az, the job site is manned by non english speaking workers. not going to get into that one, but it make the job tough for everyone. good quality starts with a quality foundation. i have seen too many foundations that are not square and then the framers get to it. or basment walls that weave down the wall. some as much as 8". quality. jimbo

"what shall i do when the light turns green" ha ha. look good. jimbo