Mr Info

Another interesting movie to look for this summer would be The Brothers Grimm by Terry Gilliam. It has been a long time in the making but a 20-minute preview was just shown at Cannes. No trailer yet.

I use Smugmug. The reason is ease of use but also ability to customize if you know HTML. Also, they use a yearly subscription (rather than monthly) which makes it more cost-effective than the others. Send me a PM and I will show you what I have done.

Not a lot. But you will have to add contents (75% of home cost - this value is usually non-negotiable) and liability and then determine the deductible you want to live with. Also, be sure to tell them about any security or other pertinent items (e.g., using Hardiplank instead of wood, etc.) eligible for discounts.

I have gone through this, with a much older home, and these are my lessons learned: Everything will cost more and take longer than you anticipated. You will discover some things that require repair that you did not figure into your budget. You will learn a lot about building that may be useful later on. When it is finished you will be extremely gratified. Also, since it is a revitalized district, you may want to check if there are any local or territorial incentives for restoring a house. In the states, I did this in VA and was able to get a renovation incentive of 25%, so for every dollar I put in, I got back .25. There were also real estate tax increase abatements for five years. A good deal and I was happy I researched it.

From what I am able to discern from your post, you have a potential job opportunity in any of those places. That being said, and with your wife able to obtain a nursing position wherever you move, I would say the most affordable location would be near Fredericksburg. There is a lot of history, some good parks, and you are within reasonable traveling distance of both DC & Richmond to get some entertainment. But not a lot of activity (clubs, concerts, etc.) in F'burg. F'burg is also convenient to go to the peninsula or Eastern Shore. The traffic near DC is awful and housing prices are out of sight. F'burg is a bit more bucolic if that is what you prefer. Send me a PM if you want more info. Good luck with your choice. I am about a half-hour from F'burg.

Exactly, PTR When I first read the headline, I thought this may pertain to a trade that the Redskins were trying to avoid. I would expect this from someone attempting to phonetically spell the word. Maybe it is me but if I do not know the spelling or the correct grammar usage I grab a dictionary or pull out Strunk & White's "Elements of Style". I understand that people make mistakes and commit errors. Unfortunately, most of the English that I edit seems to come from laziness. JMHO

early summer - China (business & pleasure) 2 weeks in July/August - Corsica (great European vacation spot away from the tourists)

Expression that is true for a certain part (climate) of the country. Much like the expression for corn "knee high by the 4th of July" being a regional expression in the northeast.

Certainly will say some...hope it helps. Sounds like you had a stressful day - hope you have a good night's sleep.

Good line from this movie: "It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." Ed, take note.

Bagels & lox right now, L'Chayim!

The stadium being proposed for the Jets will have a retractable roof. No outside weather distractions for the Super Bowl in NYC.

Col, I do about the same as you. I have, on occasion, brought it up to 30 or so miles but that always seems to bring about some injuries for me. Like yourself, I have also been dealing with an aggravating hip problem but only on one side. I finally went to a rehab center and found somebody that was knowledgeable and showed me some good stretching and strengthening exercises. That has helped immensely. The orthopaedic doctors with which I have discussed glucosamine/chondroitin therapy have said that it takes about 4-6 weeks for the correct bioavailability and then it only works for 50% of the people. I tried it and it did not work for me so I stopped taking it. I have been a runner for quite a while. To reduce some of the joint stress, I have been adding some biking to my exercise regime.

If so, please PM. I have a product, a patent pending, and a prototype but I have a question. Thanks

Razor Shines

I re-upped. Just from the small sample here, it looks like TD & MM may reap a larger season ticket base by installing JP as the QB.

Judging by your posts and replies to other topics, it seems you are an expert in many areas. Here's one Another in here And a whole bunch in here

It is always refreshing to see someone have a civil and considerate discourse without resorting to gross generalizations or acrimonious discussion. No one "wins" these type of discussions and there are no awards. But, I had a chuckle reading your music theory analysis about the Dead.

This is totally unrelated to the original post but may be of interest to any campers in the VA area or plan to visit VA. Kiptopeke State Park near Cape Charles on the south end of the DelMarVa peninsula is a great place to camp. It is clean, well-maintained, and reasonably sized. And the campers are removed from the RVs. You can easily walk to a private beach. They also allow fishing 24 hours from the pier. They turn on lights on the side of the pier for night fishing. From the south it is easily accessed by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel which is a real marvel. There becomes a point on the bridge where no land is visible in any direction. Because of its small size, spaces are reserved well ahead so plan if you want to camp there. A good place for a relaxing, yet fun, vacation because there is not the typical tourist craziness due to its location.

Hey, Marv's Neighbor, did you know he is selling his place in Williamsburg? Or are you Marv's Neighbor in Chicago?

Right now The Stooges are available in the free section of On Demand on Comcast. There are about 10-12 episodes out there.

Drew's wearing a Dead t-shirt, drinking beers, and having some fun. He's a party boy. Go Drew...dammit, seems like an OK guy to hang with - just wish he had "it" and we could look forward to relying on him to take the team to the promised land.

I am going to comment on this post but there are a couple others like this one, too. We looked at these resources, too, but they were more meant for the tract-type house rather than the custom house. "This Old House" is more appropriate for serious custom building than these others. But it's renovation rather than new construction. But the level of detail they are delve into is more like the research we did. Unless you are an experienced home builder, a custom home should not be your first project. Our home builder, with 30 years experience, (and his sub-contractors) had never heard of or were unfamiliar with the some of the suppliers and products we chose. Most GCs, electricians, hvac, trim people, etc. are very familiar and comfortable with the products they use. And they are good products but, in a custom home, maybe there are better products that suit what you are trying to do and they are simply not experienced with these. Now, you could hire an architect and an interior designer to do all this for you and have them work with the builder and contractors. But this book is meant for those who want something special but hiring architects and interior designers are beyond their budget.

Thanks - I had looked around and I could not find a similar book but I missed this one and I don't want to copy someone else's work. "Dreams to Beams: A Guide to Building the Home You've Always Wanted" by Jane Moss Snow. The paperback is readily available and inexpensive. But I am going to send you a PM before I buy it. I am interested in the TOC - our target audience may be different. And this book is 15 years old.

We are building a house and considering writing a book that would be entitled something like "Custom Building a House on a Budget". This is not intended as a LAMP but rather whether I should spend the time and energy on writing something that few people are interested in reading. We have been repeatedly asked by friends and acquaintances that see the house as to where we obtained certain things, who are architect was, and so on and so forth. To make a long story short, we spent a great deal of time on products, suppliers, and vendors to determine how we could get the greatest bang for our buck in building a custom house. We picked everything from the windows, flooring, and doors to the switch plates, mouldings, casings, balusters, data cabling, etc. The book is intended to be for someone acting as a GC or for someone who hires a GC. We did the latter and stayed very close to our budget by looking at most items as commodities and getting the best price for an item from anywhere around the country. If you're building a custom house you expect to have a custom builder instead of a tract builder but we plan on offering suggestions on determining the flexibility of the GC before you hire. We have had some pitfalls with our GC but they have been correctable and just helps with providing more material for a book. After viewing the thread on How old is everyone??, it appears there is a diverse population here so this may be a better sampling than our friends. I am not looking to make a buck but it would have helped us if a book like this had been available. But I do not want to write it for my own satisfaction - I have plenty of other things to occupy any free time. It may be that people are happy with letting the builder make all the decisions for them. Some people have told us just that. Thanks for any feedback. Tony