Gary’s da man as an ex girlfriend would say. She taught me all the cool saying like "this is the bomb" that always sounded dangerous to me, and "your da man", etc. That’s when I decided I need to date people closer to my own age instead of ten years younger than me, and then I found Mary and it solved all my dating problems.

I own my own business. I am a licensed and insured residential building contractor.

How's this economy affecting you Steve?

Hank, I guess I got lucky through mother nature and have been very busy.

A big hail storm hit our area July 3, 2008 and since that time we have done about 50 insurance jobs which were removing existing shingles, siding, gutters, windows, doors......basically anything exterior that the hail damaged and replacing with new.

One insurance company in particular was so happy with the good price I gave, quality of work and no customer complaints that they kept giving my name out to their insured.

We just finished the last house last week that we were awarded a contract on due to that storm. Now I have some other work that is not insurance related to do that customers are very patiently waiting for me to do.

Guess I have been very lucky, there are many others who weren't as busy as I have been.

Steve,

That is good to hear, it tells me that you are we respected as one of the thing this economy has done is weed out a lot of below par contractors. In my eyes if you made it through this mess you can make it through anything.

That's great Steve. Way too many people in this state have been nailed by the economy. Nice to hear someone is doing well. Keep up the good work.

I am a dying breed, one of the few pc guys that has not been completely outsourced to China or India.
Although I have taken 25% in pay cuts over the past 6 yrs (most recent was 15% last March) and a reduction in hours and was asked to train my replacement at HP, to which I said NO.

I build and QA test websites, and PC's. Test printers and other peripherals.

Good morning,my friend!Waving

It sounds like you take pride in what you do. And you do a good job. Two things that are hard to find in contractors now a days. Continued success to you.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that one Ms! Actually "pride" and "good work" seems to be a in-bred trait MOST of those contractors that last and are successful possess. Its usually the "new-guy" that ruins it for those that actually take this profession serious. I know in California the Contractor's Licenses are issued cronologically and most of the suspensions and revokecations are those with the newer numbers.

To ad fuel to fire of the belief that most contractors are inept are shows on HGTV like "Holmes on Homes" that find someone that might have had a bad contractor experience and then proceed to disassemble the guys work and allude to the rumor that most contractors do the same crappy work.

Watching that program in particular I can spot many techniques he and his crew use that I would never consider knowing that the end product would be substandard.