This MIGHT become habit... (if I keep it up for 20 days in a row)

Ok, so I've got another post.... hurray!

First off, (from the creepy old guy files) and it shames me to say this. But I watched the opener of Kate Plus Eight. And I have to say, Kate is looking hot. Can't believe I said it. But there's something about her. We're not talking her personality here, but to look at... hmmm... intriuging.... Boob job, fake tan, and a hair/makeup team, plus hooker heels and a mini skirt. Gives Milfs a good example... ARG, can't believe I'm admitting this.

Moving on!, I was finally stumped. Picked up a Slurpee on the way home from dropping the wife off (more on that later...). When I went to play for it, the cashier said $1.67, and I handed her a toonie. Thinking that I hate having a ton of loose change, I said to her "just a quarter back please". She quickly retorted "yup, all I ever asked for was a QUARTERBACK too....."

What do you say to that?

Back to the dropping off the wife thing. No I didn't give her away or sell her. (although I have wondered how much she could fetch... she's hot, smart, and gives good..... advice) In reality, she goes away on business once a month. So me and the kids dropped her off at her mom's place which is close to the airport. I'm left with the kids for a few days. I know, I know, you're all thinking... POOR KIDS! But really, they survived the last time, so thy SHOULD fair even better this time around. Oddly enough, my wife's business trip coincide with the three busiest days of our week as a family. Monday to wednesday. Two soccer training sessions, and school and all that, plus trying to work, and get a grocery trip in there somewhere. Usually we have a good time. The kids are tuckered out at the end of each day, and we're all glad to see Mom when she gets home. So we'll see how this trip goes...... Wish me luck!

Soccer news....

Ok, ok, ok.... couple of days late.... At least I'm posting.

So..... the story behind the photo above.... I need $3000.00 by October. Our soccer club has an affiliation with the BOLTON WANDERERS of the EPL. We'll be sending a few of our U12 teams and coaches over there to train and experience a world-class football club in action. We'd be staying right in the stadium (has a hotel built-in), and training daily with the reserve squad and the youth teams. If things fall into place, I'll be heading over..... Donations will be accepted!!! Here's an arial shot of the stadium.

Murphys Law

SO, it figures. i restart the blog after 3 years and immediately afterwards i can't think of anything to write about....

Some of the things I'd like to post here will be photos and stories about projects I'm working on, funny stuff my kids say, stuff i find on the internet, and all sorts of stuff like that. SO with that being said, I promise to have SOMETHING interesting up here tomorrow night! i promise!

S.

Well.... I'm back! After a 3-year hiatus, I am entering back into the blogging world. While I was pretty busy before and never seemed to have time to post, I'm actually even busier these days. But I've found I have a lot more to draw upon to write about. The kids are growing up way to fast, work is busy-busy-busy, soccer is crazy up to 4 nights a week, and then there's my insane wife to talk about... So I should have lots more to post. My photography skills have improved, and I also need a place to show off some of my work, so I'll be posting some random shots that I think might be pretty good. Hope you all can join me along on the adventure. I love comments, so din't hesitate to speak your mind!

Haven't had any time whatsoever to update the blog with anything for the last while....been way to busy, and therefore very tired. But here are some pics of more work from the last month or so....
First up, a giant Spanish-style stucco mansion. This is the before picture, I won't be posting an after picture because the owner is paying us $14,000 to repaint it the SAME COLOUR.




Second up, a military battery factory/lab floor. One of three sections I've done so far. We charged them $1200 for this one. The next one they wanted done over the easter long weekend, so we doubled the price to $2400 and said we needed more paint, plus weekend work costs more in labour. They went for it! Price gauging is acceptable when you're dealing with government contracts so I don't feel bad. The best part......24 hour labour budget - 4 hours labour cost included emulsifer wash and acid etching........BONUS!!!







More to come in the next few days...........

Well, it's been quite awhile since I posted anything here, but that doesn't mean I've been in hibernation...I've actually been quite busy. I've finished a bunch of projects, here are some pics....

Fake wood grain, these doors are actually solid MDF. Probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my painting career. The rest of the place was black and white........ the job was generally a pain in the ass, we had to be at the ferry (an hour and half away from my house at 6:15am, to catch the 10min ferry across, to be on site for 7:30am. Plus we were called out 6 different times only to arrive with either the drywallers not done, or the flooring guys in the way, or power outages (we had some pretty nasty windstorms in december). Gorgeous property right on the water overlooking the water....

This next one is a shot of the main lobby/seating area of a McDonald's Restaurant Renovation, I did the whole thing - primer + 2 coats, then they decided the drywall sucked (after I told them it did and they said paint it anyways), and skim coated the whole thing, then had me do it all over again......looks good in the end though....

Completely non-work or painting topic, but I came across this "questionaire" on another blog, and I liked it. So....I stole it. Couldn't remember where I got it, so credit goes to whom ever made it up.......feel free to steal it from me......Ask me questions and I'll add them as well.....

____________

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
1.Painter (duh..)
2.Printing Press Assistant
3.Shipper/Reciever
4.Pager Operator

FOUR JOBS YOU WISH YOU HAD
1.Helicoptor Piliot
2.Fireman
3.Teacher
4.Bartender/Pub Owner

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN
1.The Shawshank Redemption
2.White Men Can't Jump
3.Transformers - The Movie
4.Any James Bond movie

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN
1.Richmond
2.North Vancouver
3.Langley
4.N/A

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH (current or old)
1.X-Files
2.Anything on Discovery Channel HD
3.Rescue Me
4.HNIC (Hockey Night in Canada)

FOUR FAVORITE BOOKS
1.Ishmael (or any Daniel Quinn book)
2.Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
3.Surfing the Himilayas/Snowboarding to Nirvana (Fredrick Lenz)
4.Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Perzig)

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELLED TO
1.Maui
2.Mayan Riveria (Mexico)
3.Cannon Beach (Oregon)
4.Clearwater Beach (Florida)

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
1.ESPN
2.Various Blogs
3.My Yahoo
4.Future Shop/Best Buy

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
1.Pizza
2.Shepards Pie (only Mom's homemade)
3.Teriaki anything
4.Spicy Chicken & Rice (Wife's homemade)

FOUR THINGS YOU WON'T EAT
1.Peas
2.Meat Loaf
3.Liver
4.Artichokes

FOUR THINGS IN YOUR BEDROOM
1.My Wife
2.Books, Books, and more Books
3.Dirty Laundry
4.A largely ignored alarm clock

FOUR THINGS YOU WISH YOU HAD IN YOUR BEDROOM
1.Rachael McAdams
2.About 400 extra square feet of floor space
3.A walk-in closet
4.Bigger Flatscreen TV

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW
1.Jeans
2.Tshirt
3.Rolex watch
4.Wedding Ring

ONE PLACE I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1.Mayan Riviera (mexico)

ONE FICTIONAL PLACE I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1.The Shire (Lord of the Rings)

FOUR PEOPLE YOU’D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
1.Robin Williams
2.Courtney Cox
3.Eddie Vedder
4.Bill Clinton

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW
1.I need to feed the kids soon
2.My son is really enjoying his new Star Wars Lego Video Game
3.I want to be making dinner in Mexico right now
4.I'd like to be golfing right now

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE THINGS/PEOPLE
1.My kids
2.My wife
3.Golfing with the guys
4.Painting without time/budget limits

I was browsing through some old pics of work I've done, and this photo made me shudder so I thought I'd post it for all to see. This was a job that I have bitter sweet memories of. It was for a wonderful family that practically adopted me by the time I was finished. It was a simple custom "walls-only" repaint job. The owner was going to do all the prep work. He did a fantastic job. He was also a perfectionist. Meaning he would clear a room "ready" for me, the after I was done, he would get out the halogen lights and inspect it. As anyone in the industry knows, halogen lights are evil devices for customers to have in their hands. He would then proceed to re-patch any miniscule dings in the walls for me to touch up. Again, finished work, now I have to spot prime to avoid flashing, then recoat. Of course, most of the colours were accent or deep base, meaning multiple coats. Especially for touchups. This photo is of the pile of post-it note "tags" for touchups. Not for the whole house. For ONE, I repeat, ONE closet. It wasn't even a walk-in closet. I can't even walk into an Office Depot or Staples store with out breaking into cold sweats and a panic attack........

Well, the interior season has kicked into full gear, and this year it only took 4 jobs to come across the first "nut". While the customer was actually quite pleasant, and the job went rather smoothly (ie. profitable!), she did have what we might want to call.......odd taste in colour. Here are some "after pictures....... (never mind the touchup tags on the walls though...quality first!)






The woman had a number of children, one of which was shall we say "rather high-strung"..this is her bedroom.....she picked the colours........the child will never sleep.......ever again!






I shouldn't be complaining though. Job after job, we paint "normal" colours like taupes, and tans, and beiges etc. And while they all look very nice and contemporary and modern. It is kinda cool to do some fun stuff like hot pink and lime, and as you can see in the next pic, blood red dining rooms and powder rooms.....(ps - Carina, my powder rooms only take me 40 mins to do!! :-) )

Every once in awhile I come across a difficult area to paint or get access too. Generally, it is a small area of a couple of feet of soffit, or the very top of an overhang above an impossibly sloped roof. Or in this case..... 4 feet of fascia 36 feet above a garage roof. Not that difficult really, but we just couldn't get at it without doing something REALLY stupid with the ladders. So, we called 5 or 6 scaffolding companys and got the run around from all of them because the job was too small or they were too busy etc. I couldn't even get someone to come out a simply give me some advice about how to get at it......Frustrated, I ended up calling one more out of the way company with not much hope. The guy said that they don't really deal with residential stuff, and that he handles more of the large scale condo sites, etc. Ready to hang up and go home to ponder such a stupidly simple problem, he saved the day. He had his flatbed loaded up and was passing through the area in about an hour. An hour later, a large burly Harley Davidson tattooed Gorilla of a man unloaded three levels of industrial scaffolding and set it up BY HIMSELF in less than 20 minutes. For $Free$. He then informed me that he'd be back in 3 hours to pick it up, apparently he needed lunch.........I realize it may be overkill....but ya should have seen the customers face when he came home and saw this setup, all to paint 4 feet of fascia.....brilliant. Oh, and I tracked down the scaffolding guys office, and dropped off 2 bottles of wine for the help......

Insta-spray booth...........had to spray a ton of doors, shelves, and crown on a house, so I converted their basement into my own personal spray booth.............




Sadly, after sanding, spraying, sanding, spraying, more sanding and spraying and making the shelves & MDF practically look like a glass finish, the finish carpenter (who never actually "finish" anything!) mangled it all on installation, and I had to end up brush & rolling another finish coat to half of it and it ended up looking like CRAP!!! Ah well, just blame the drywaller, it's always their fault anyhow!!!

Not much to report as of lately in my world. I've been spending the last week or so just taking it easy and collecting equipment around town and getting it back into winter storage, as well as final touchups and loose-ends for the exterior season. All in all not a bad way to recharge to batteries. On the other hand, I'd like to get as much interior work done before the 2nd week of November because I'm going to Mexico (with my wife, of course) for a week or two. Who knows how motivated I'll be when I get back. The other reason I want to get as much work in is that I've finally got 2 good helpers whom I'd like to hold onto for as long as possible. You know, the rare type who are stable, reliable, & possess the least common of the senses....common sense. Not only that but they don't cost me a fortune. It seems that I can't even get entry level, non-skilled labourers for less than $12 per hour. College kids during the summer even. Two years ago we could get them by the dozen doing masking, scraping, cleanup type work for $8 to $10 per hour. Not that I don't mind paying for good help, but it just seems harder to find good people who want to start at the bottom and work their way up. I'm happy to teach and train anyone if they are interested in the trade,even as a fall-back, but if some of these kids start out making a decent wage (for non-skilled work), what's their motivation, and what's my leverage??? Anyways, they're good, we get along and they work hard.........

Well, just to be a smart-ass, here's MY last exterior paint job for the year. I wish I had taken before pictures. It was completely white, siding, trim, doors....everything. The front doors took 5 coats to get the finish looking good. Bright fire-engine red. We ended up having to go back and re-paint all the white trim because the local Benjamin Moore store mistinted (yes, mistinted) Cloud White. For those not familar with paint tinting....there are 4 drops of colourant in Cloud White. (2 yellow, 2 brown, not so difficult!). Not only that, but every paint company on the planet makes Cloud White. It's got to be the most common colour in the entire world. How do they mess it up???? Of course....I was the one who painted all the trim without checking! :-) But there isn't much difference between the two whites.












Wanna know a secret? I only painted half the front in the "new" white trim paint, the customer came home and LOVED how much nicer the new colour looked and commented on how much "cleaner" the new white was. After drying up my tears of laughter once she went inside, I told the crew that it was time to go home! I still can't believe it.

My little brother, the "cleanup artist". He likes to spend the end of the day (or project) organizing the garbage and equipment. I guess I can't complain, it's the last thing I would want to do!!!!

Here is a shot of the Morgan Place project "nearly" complete. I hate it when these projects drag on and on and on and on and on and....you get the picture. We completed three of the four sides in 2 weeks, then the WCB incident, and rain, and shortage of labour, three weeks later I am still trying to finish the inner courtyard..........End result is that it looks great, and we've gotten about 7 or 8 leads from it......

My latest project.....Morgan Place Retirement Home. We are currently about a week away from finishing. Job has been going well, sufficiently under budget (Mexico here I come!!!), except for a recent surprise visit from WCB (Worksafe BC). I officially hate them right now. Did you know that ANY work being performed on a ladder above 1o feet, you are required to have fall protection apparatus? Neither did I. Apparently neither does the ENTIRE PAINTING TRADE! To add acceptable fall protection (scaffolding, boom lifts, safety lines/harness's), you would have to add $1500-$2000 to every standard home we paint. I spent 4 days with the entire crew doing nothing but ground work. Anyone who does high volume/commercial work will understand how important correct sequencing & system painting is and how it effects efficency (ie. profitability.....MY MONEY!) Venting done......I feel better now. here's some before shots.....

Just to start off, I thought I'd simply post a bunch of pictures of stuff I've done. I'll add stories and stuff later.......here goes.......

Langley Concrete & Tile Factory (55,000 sqft tilt up w/stripes)



Langley Concrete & Tile (big-ass wall - before)



Langley Concrete & Tile (big-ass wall - after)



Korean Church (including 80 ft high cross)



KFC/Taco Bell restaurant (inside & outside, one of 4 I've done)



Military Battery Factory (12 hours in a boom lift in 33 degree sun......)



$1.3 Million dollar home in White Rock (they sold it 8 days after we finished)