More Lessons Learned -February 7-16

February 7, 2012  This week I learned how to make an end dam.  You can buy drip flashing to go above exterior windows and doors… it comes 10 feet long and you cut it for the width of each window.   But the new building code now requires that at each end the flashing be folded to create an end dam.  Without an end dam the wind can blow the water sideways and it might get in behind the siding.

To make an end dam is kind of like origami, except it is a little trickier to fold sheet metal than paper.  I watched this video many times to learn how to make the template, trace the pattern on the flashing, then cut it out and fold it properly.  It really is cool to get it right and create an end dam that does not need caulking to prevent leakage.  

This is a lesson learned for a change that wasn’t learned the hard way.

February 8, 2012  This Quote of the Day is a wake up call to anyone who doesn’t have their head in the clouds. 

“Total credit market debt in the world has gone from $80 trillion to $200 trillion in the last ten years, an 11% annual rate, while GDP has grown by 4%.”

“This cannot continue.  It’s a simple matter of arithmetic,” said Kyle Bass, of hedge fund Hayman Partners.

February 9, 2012  Q.  What is the fastest way off an Italian cruise ship?  A.  Follow the captain. 

February 10, 2012  I have been waiting for a chance to try out my new Wagner paint sprayer and decided the conditions were perfect today to see how it worked for pre-painting some shingles for siding our new addition.  It takes paint directly from a one-gallon pail and sprays it on what you want to paint. 

And if you don’t follow the directions it can spray paint where you don’t want it… another lesson I learned the hard way.

When I hooked up all the parts and assembled the unit for the first time the directions said to use a wrench to tighten the hose connections to the spray gun and to the compressor unit.  I did it as tight as I could by hand.  I am pretty strong… right?  Wrong!  Hand tight is not the same as wrench tight.  


After priming the unit and getting the hose filled with paint, I switched the unit onto spray.  Instantly there was paint spraying everywhere.  Quickly I put my hand over the fitting to the nozzle to cut down the spray from that source while I came to the realization I had to turn off the power switch.  I couldn’t get it turned off fast enough before we were both pretty well sprayed with paint.  


We were both a mess!  I wish now I had a picture of us... we were quite a sight!  The only picture I ended up with was of the painting site after all was done and washed up.

We were set up in the parking area by the cottage… so we had to come back to the house to get cleaned up, change our clothes and wash off our good running shoes.  Shirley put our clothes into the washing machine right away.

Then we went back to our painting project with wrench in hand.  I tightened the two fittings and now the paint came out in only one place… the spray nozzle.  It didn’t take long to spray the shingles... 

And then we carried the shingles into the cottage to dry.

February 11, 2012  “Behind every great man is a great woman telling him he is not as great as he thinks he is.”  Isn’t that wonderful?  I am just so delighted to have a “Great Woman to keep me in line!”

This reminds me of one of my most favorite quotes by Erma Bombeck.  “You would worry a lot less what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” 

February 12, 2012  Today Shirley and I completed the revamping of our address books for our Mac computers.  There was no simple way to import them from Microsoft Outlook… plus we needed to do a major edit of both of our old lists.  Then Shirley and I merged our Contact lists together.  We each printed hard copies of our old Contacts, went thru them together and crossed out all names that we have lost touch with.  Tried to update the changes to addresses where we had new information and deleted those names of those who passed away… or we lost touch with.  Life goes on. 

The most beautiful thing was that we both focused on getting the job done TODAY.  With one eye on Phil Mickelson playing the most amazing round of golf at Pebble Beach on TV, we forged ahead, dividing the lists up and each taking a part to do the data entry.  Before the golf tournament was won, we also won.  I phoned Rob Sauter, our local Apple tech support guy and in just a few minutes he taught us how to merge all of our address book entries on multiple computers.  It was so awesome!  And it happened so fast and easy.  We just emailed our updated lists to each other, did a “merge” and in just a few minutes we had four Apple computers and our iPhone all updated with the same list of Contacts.  Once again we proved you can teach an old dog new tricks.

February 13, 2012  This Quote of the Day was a new thought to me. 

'There is one peculiarity about mass psychology in that when you are in a bubble, you can't see it. Bubbles are invisible when you are inside the bubble,' said the charming Jim Dines, of The Dines Letter.


Something to think about, eh?


Photo and quote credit to the John Thomas newsletter, the Mad Hedge Fund Trader.

Accomplishments this past week include completing the last item on the structural  engineer's deficiency list... I had to double up the top cords on a couple of trusses that were cut off when making way for the new addition to over lap the existing garage. This is a major milestone... marking the end of any further engineers inspections and he can now sign off to the CRD Building Inspector.

After several weeks of anxiety over the best way to install and wrap the windows with 1x4 cedar trim boards, the inspectors asked me to do one window so they could see how I wanted to do them before getting them all installed wrong.  This week James Robertson, CRD Building Inspector gave me two thumbs up in less than a minute.  He liked it... so I am free to go on putting in the rest of the windows.

We had to wait for a few days to get some help to take this larger piece of granite off the truck and get it in place in the laundry room.  A young man, Dan Phillips, came up on Tuesday evening and about 15 minutes we got this slab off the tractor and into place in the laundry room.  Could not have done it without him.

An hour later I had the faucet installed and the sink back in place with a new strainer/waste fitting.  We still plan to replace the cabinet doors... but there is no panic on doing that right away, as part of that program will involve purchasing a new stacking washer and dryer.

On Thursday Dan came to give me a hand with installing more windows, but it rained all day and we didn't want to get wet... so we finished putting in the last couple of pieces in the main garage ceiling and then we insulated the garage ceiling by noon. With no break in the rain we ended up insulating more of the studio for the rest of the afternoon.

Learn Something Every Day -Feb 1-4, 2012

February 1, 12  Today Shirley and I put 4 windows in the wall closest to our house.  We are still learning how to use the Blue Skin product and perfecting the technique of applying it correctly.  It was not until a couple of days later when I went up to check how we were going set up scaffolding to get the four windows in place on the dormer above that I realized some of the corners on the Blue Skin were peeling up. 

Lesson learned: the primer must be sprayed wide enough before using this peel and stick product.  It is kind of like using contact cement. You don’t get the full affect without having the adhesive on both surfaces… and you have to wait 3 minutes after spraying the primer before putting the Blue Skin in place.

February 2, 12  If you are ever looking for a good deal on a major purchase at Home Depot, check to see if there is a capital “C” after the SKU number where they print the price… that is a clue that the item has been discontinued… and can be bought for less.  I have been shopping around for an air stapler to put the cedar shingle siding on the house.  I ended up getting a Bostich staple gun…original list price $459… reduced to $349.  I offered them $250… and they came back to me with  $275.  It kind of reminded me of the old days of buying or selling real estate. 

February 3, 12  We picked up the granite counter tops yesterday… but getting the heavy slabs into the house is a bit of a trick for the two of us.  So I built an elevated ledge out of 2 x 4’s with a 2 x 6 top plate that was the same height as the cabinet where the granite was going and attached it to the frame of our appliance dolly. 

From the truck we slid the slab onto the extended front-end loader of the tractor.  I could then drive it over to the front door and eliminate having to take the thing up any stairs on a dolly.  We used a couple of wooden dowels (cut up old broom handle) to roll the slab off the tractor loader so one end was received on the 36” high ledge on the dolly.  Shirley managed the dolly and I carried the other end of the 55” long slab as we walked it thru the front door and into the pantry.  

It was pretty neat to lay the granite over on its side and slide it right into place on the cabinet between the refrigerator and freezer.  Worked great. The pantry is now officially finished.  Yesterday I caught Shirley standing in the room with a huge smile... just looking around.

February 4, 12  This past week we had a meeting with Bob White, our financial planner and insurance guy from Kelowna.  We came to know Bob since he basically inherited our account from Jerry O after he passed away five or six years ago.  Jerry O sold us each sizable full term life insurance policies… an amazing feat since for most of my life I considered buying any life insurance a total waste of money.

I had sold Jerry and his wife Myrna a lot in Peachland on Lipsett Ave when I was a realtor, and then Honeybear Homes, a building partnership with Mark Albrecht, built a house for them.  Jerry sized me up as a potential insurance candidate and thru his kindness and persistence eventually sold us each one million dollar whole life insurance policies.

As we sat down together in the Beacon’s Landing Restaurant in Sydney the first thing Bob handed me was a page out of Jerry O’s files.  Attached to the page was an envelope with several newspaper clippings Jerry collected over the years that we were involved with him.  What an incredible flashback of memories!  It was amazing.  As I thought about Jerry… no longer with us in person, I looked at those clippings and my mind was flooded with fond memories. 

With those clippings I learned something about Jerry O… how his attention to details about his clients endeared them to him.  He was one of the top insurance salesmen.  And I have to say that he made the process of being sold most enjoyable.  What these newspaper clippings told me is that Jerry O didn’t stop “selling himself” after he won our business.  He never missed a birthday and often gave us a music CD or a movie DVD… like “the Waking of Ned Devine.” 

"You don't close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise." -Patricia Fripp


These are just a few of the clippings Jerry had saved in his file on me.

The two large condo buildings are Chateau on the Green and the Ponderosa Golf course is in the foreground.  This is the view from Chateaux on the Ridge... a 40-unit condo project.

There was a time I let my hair grow and not my beard... and I didn't always wear a cowboy hat.

In 1999 Acorn Homes offered a variety of products and price ranges from affordable condos in The Falls At Glen Canyon to luxury homes at Sunset Beach in Kelowna.  Leisure Village was an 80 home adult community, Morningside was a four phase single family and duplex community in Glenrosa, and Shannon Woods was seven phases with 175 single family homes and 42 condos in Fairway 3. 

We had a lot of fun raising money to build two homes with Habitat for Humanity... and our annual golf tourney basically was the main source of raising money and contributions from our main trades and suppliers.  As developers we gave the building lot, and most all of the rest of the materials and trades were donated.  The first home that we did in Shannon Woods was built in 5 days.  The foundation was ready for the building blitz beforehand and the main deck was in place, and from there the walls went up the roof was on the first day, the plumbing and electrical went in and it was insulated by day two. On day three the drywall went in with a crew of 18 guys... the board was on in the first hour and the tapers started by 9 AM.  With lots of heat and fast setting mud, the whole house had three coats with sanding between each coat... plus the ceilings were sprayed with Spantex.  Day four the doors and finishing went in and the house was painted... and day five the cabinets and flooring went in... the finish electrical and plumbing was done and by noon all that was left were some final touch ups.  Outside the landscaping and irrigation was completed on Friday afternoon and the turf was in place.  Dennis Kort, Acorn's main project supervisor, took a week of his vacation time to manage this incredible feat.  Truly a very memorable experience for all involved... it was a lot of fun.

The Cove Resort went thru a pretty controversial development approval process... as the property already had zoning for the existing Lakeshore Villa cabins.  But initially the Regional District asked me to include the Dobbin property and the Gellatly Nut Farm property in our first comprehensive development scheme... and that really opened up a can of worms.  At that time the property was still in the Gellatly family, and this brought a lot of pressure from the community to save the famous farm as a heritage park... which I totally agree was the right thing. 

So now instead of a 20 acre development, we focused on our 7 acre property.  The scaled down plans now had only 150 hotel suites and rooms... still a huge project compared to the 29 unit Lakeshore Villa operations that were there.

Our plans to build the orphanage in Mexico were in the newspapers more than once.  I don't remember ever clipping out the news stories... my mother used to do that... and Jerry O, unknown to me was doing it too... but I had other things to do.


"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.  It is the life in your years." -Abraham Lincoln