studio513

Since Katrina I have heard a lot about how New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt because it is subject to hurricane and flooding. My usual response is "Uh huh, just let me know when you are ready to abandon San Francisco. Or Venice. Or about 40% of Holland."

New Orleans is what it is because it has endured and lived with more trouble and disaster than any American city I know of. The people there have been burned, invaded, blown away, enslaved, and flooded. And it has a vibrant and original culture that is unequaled in this country, to say nothing of being equaled by the white-bread sterility of the suburbs we have been so busily building for the past six or seven decades.

Who is paying for it? I don't have any inside info, but I'd say Brad Pitt's foundation and the Make It Right crew are putting up the money. To my knowledge [limited] the owners are set up with an affordable mortgage on which they make payments. That sound like a problem? I don't think so.

For me, I am seeing more signs of life at this point than for the past two years. Doesn't mean that we are returning to Fat City, but there is improvement.

In general one thing that is usually missed - including by FHB articles I've seen - is jsut how localized the construction and real estate markets are. If I am in the stock market by owning shares of GE it really doesn't matter if I live in Minnesota or Madagscar. If I am in the real estate market by owning [or building] a home it makes a huge difference where it is. Northern Minnesota, where I live, has not been as hard hit as Florida or Arizona because we never wandered so far into the LooneyTunes wilderness in 2001-2005.

One of the advantages of having almost 40 years experience [gawd could that be true??...it is true] is that I've been thru some tough downturns before. This might be the worst one, but 1973 and 1982-84 were pretty ugly. And the way we build was changed by those recessions so expect longlasting changes from this one too.

Anyway, things aren't good but I've been operating on the model that you can't throw something at me that I won't do and so I have not run out of work. Also, if you are bidding and pricing like nothing has changed you are kidding yourself. Is the sky falling like some of the guys here are talking? Probably not - don't know if that will disappoint them or not.

OK, times change and organizations evolve, that will include FHB. And every new idea won't play out, we know that too. Still, there is an ever-present danger for the magazine to dumb-down to Joe Homeowner in order to pump up the circulation numbers - there are a lot more Joe out there than there are Pro. But the Pro is who the mag is for, and you'd best be focussing on that.

One feature that I'd like to see is a way for material reps to answer specific questions/complaints. One of my favorites is the apparent inability of door manufacturers and latch-n-lock guys to talk to one another. I am often getting doors that are routed for latchplates that do not fit national manufacturer hardware. Off to the store to find something that fits, maybe have to order to get it in stainless or bronze. Also, fergawdsakes why are still dealing with 2 3/8 or 2 3/4 offsets? Leftovers from the Jurassic Period.

Minnesota is where East meets West in many ways. I was trained on sidewinders, but converted to the worm drive some decades ago. Not sure if it's the same as what preople mean by "higher torque" but the worm drive delivers power more efficiently. Even high-grade sidewinders can stall out ripping dimension material, especially if a bevel is involved - the difference is in a geared drive vs a belt drive. Also having the handle behind the blade instead of over it means that you have more leverage for making those micro adjustments to keep a cut on the line.

One place the sidewinder does come in handy is making bevel cuts where there is only one aproach and the worm drive pivots the wrong way. For these situations a commercial duty cordless is a good thing to have around.

The Mag 77 cuts two pounds off a standard 77, a 6 1/2" unit will do the same. One other thing - the Skil is definitely the way to go. Everything else is either a club or a wannabee.

There is no magic bullet. Some folks are going to go thru foreclosure no matter what happens. Some who bought way more than they could afford are going to be rescued. Best we can hope for is that people who have an appropriate mortgage and make their payments are not dragged into the whirlpool by the mistakes or misdeeds of their neighbors.
If that happens and the economy responds to electroshock by coming back to life, then prices will stabilize.

Right now everybody is holding their breath, and logically so. Best thing to keep in mind is that all the good and valid reasons people buy homes are still good and valid. They are graduating, getting married, downsizing, growing a family, moving from one part of the country to another for their work. When stability returns, they will buy. They pretty much have to.

Be Cool