The Day the Internet Grew Up
these two bills were drafted by the MPAA and the RIAA and walked into Washington without an iota of conversation with the technology industry. I can’t tell you how many Senators and Representatives have told me that they were told by the MPAA and the RIAA that the technology industry was on board and that these issues would not impact the Internet and tech community adversely. This is no way for one industry to propose that Congress regulate another industry. I think it is absurd that one industry would have the arrogance to think it is appropriate to ask Congress to regulate another industry for them. And yet that is what went down on these bills.
Back in 1988 (before many of you were potty trained…), I wrote this April Fools joke for the net. the in-jokes are a bit dated, but this part sums up the attitude of the internet then, and through the years:
Note: This conference is a rescheduling of the conference originally
scheduled for October, 1988 but cancelled after the United States Department
of Commerce decided that the material was too sensitive to allow
non-American citizens to read (including the material written by the
Canadians on the committee). Because of this, the conference has been moved
to Canada, which doesn’t have a complete Freedom of Speech written into it’s
constitution, but has better things to do than worry about ways of
circumventing civil rights. Americans having trouble getting their papers
cleared for distribution at the conference should contact Professor Shikele
about setting up a direct uucp link for the troff source.
For many years, the net was too small for the authorities to worry about, and this “wild west” mentality ruled, that the rules didn’t apply. And in many cases, they didn’t. As the net has grown and gone mainstream, this attitude has continued, although increasingly, whether it’s been the companies stomped in court when they became too annoying (like Napster) or countries like China implementing massive censorship firewalls (and the accompanying controversies as companies have to decide whether to go along with them or not).
The day the net went dark over Sopa is, to me, the day the Internet grew up and became an adult. Instead of thinking we can just sneak around doing what we want in the alleys and not get caught — we now realize we need to sit at the table with the adults and talk (and argue) with them as adults. The net mobilized and forced some major and entrenched powers to back down. They won’t get caught by surprise next time, and don’t for a minute believe they’re done with this.
But, and it’s a big but — neither will we, both collectively as “the internet” and the big companies that drive the net like Google and Apple and Facebook. They clearly realize they can’t let others drive the agenda and sit on the sideline, so you can expect everyone to get more involved in the process in Washington — because like that game or not, we can no longer pretend we’re immune to it or can ignore it.
I think the entertainment industry badly misplayed their hand through arrogance, and I think they’re going to regret it.
Because I think they woke the sleeping dragon, and the dragon now has their eye on them. They won’t be able to sneak their way through Congress without a fight, and many of their allies in Congress now realize that the fight is going to require them to take sides. And I bet a bunch of them will realize the tech industry is a better side to be on.
But now is the time for those companies that represent the industry and the net to make it clear to Congress that they expect a seat at the table in future discussions. And you can bet, the entertainment industry won’t like that. Not that I care what they think…
Quick Recommendation: Gary’s Guaranteed Rooter
Friday night started “one of those” weekends. Laurie called me in from the other room, because water is flowing from under the toilet. The wax seal has failed. hint: this is not good.
Worse, our other one has been, well, offline for a few weeks because we dropped a shampoo bottle in it and it’s been on the “we can’t fix it ourselves, so we need to get someone out here to take care of this” list.
So we got everything under control, got towels down, etc. and since it was late, got to bed. In the morning, I called the plumber, Gary, at Gary’s Guaranteed Rooter. We’d used him before when we got that slab leak that needed some major surgery. He agreed to get out here as soon as he could.
And literally, as soon as I got off the phone with him, we started getting sewage back out of the bathtubs, and up around the toilets. So it wasn’t (just) a bad wax seal, but a full sewage blockage.
And hilarity ensued. And Gary got a second phone call, and re-arranged his other appointments, and generally got his butt out here as fast as he could, pulled off a miracle or two, got everything cleared up, the toilets fixed, and just because he could, fixed a dripping sink while he was here.
I know enough about plumbing (thank you, This Old House) to know when I shouldn’t be mucking with it, and enough to have some idea what needs to be done. Gary’s now pulled out butt’s out of the fire twice, and he’s not only a good plumber who knows his stuff, he gives a damn. If you need a plumber, from San Jose up the peninsula, he’s a good option to have, especially when the, um, stuff is hitting the fan. In this case, literally.
And despite short notice turning into this oh-my-god emergency, his prices are fair. His number is (650) 766-7821; it’s one you probably want to stick in your address book for that day when you really need it, because when you really need it, you don’t want to go thrashing around trying to figure out who to call…
(And now life is back to normal, although one of the bathroom rugs is a goner; all of the towels have gone through the “sanitize” cycle, and hopefully, we won’t have to worry about this for a while. We’ve been in this house since the mid 90′s, and this is the first time we’ve had this problem. Hopefully, with a bit of scheduled maintenance, we can keep it from happening again…)
Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
I’ve finally finished Walter Isaacson’s book on Steve Jobs. Having worked at Apple through much of the time covered in the book, I was curious how my view of the time and events matched up with this — the official — version, and to try to get some perspective on the man behind all of this.
I’m happy (and a bit surprised) to say that I found nothing in the book that was demonstrably wrong compared to reality as I remembered it; this is no sanitized, “remember me fondly” hollywood bio; Steve seems to have played fair with Isaacson, and Isaacson played fair with Steve.
You get Steve unfiltered. The book brings clear a complex man; not easy to work with, but not evil. Just — insensitive. I can speak to many people who cursed having to deal with him at times; and after, loved him for having brought out the best in them along the way. The Steve in the book matches up well with the Steve I came to know through living in Silicon Valley and working at Apple. He was an exceptionally intelligent person, but more so, an exceptionally intuitive man who could make that jump directly from point A to the end point, and wasn’t afraid to take those leaps without endless masses of data to justify them. He was also right often enough that he was allowed to do this, even though this can be a scary way of operating to people who aren’t strongly intuitive.
And yet I found myself fighting to get through the book. Unlike some of Isaacson’s other works, this book feels flawed and somewhat lifeless.
I don’t think this is Isaacson’s fault. Unlike some of his other biographies (I especially loved his book on Franklin), the material here is new, it hasn’t been given the benefit of time to smooth off the raw edges or any chance at perspective and consideration that helps us understand what really matters in the essence of the man. I also get the feeling that since so many of the other people involved in this book are alive, Isaacson stepped carefully through various minefields; it feels like there are punches being pulled, that people are being careful — but may not even realize it’s happening. The frustration that Bill Gates showed at some of the comments Steve made is one place where this breaks through, but even there, I think both sides watch their words, knowing posterity was watching, and I think that “carefulness” invades many of the relationships in the book.
That’s inevitable in a book like this, and I’m not criticizing Isaacson for it. I do feel like he was still grappling with the material, still really trying to get his head around the material and Steve and how to write the book, and the end result is that parts of the book, especially later parts, are missing the perspective and analysis I expect from this author. This is a book that would have been better suited to a year of incubation, giving him more of a chance to ponder and polish.
It is, however, a massive and fascinating source of material about Steve, Apple, and Silicon Valley at a seminal time where the people and companies here changed society in so many ways.
My criticisms here are minor — give the book a B-, maybe (where I’d give the Franklin book an easy A-). If you’re at all interested in what has gone on behind the keynotes and product introductions, then this is a definite read for you. But there’s a bigger, better book on Silicon Valley and Steve to be writen, but one that is going to need five or ten years for us to understand Steve in the larger context and let time help us see him after time salves some of the raw emotions so many of us have felt in the last few months.
This is a good book, but not a great book. It is, I think, the best book Isaacson could have written right now, and it’s definitely worth your time (but also go grab the Franklin book, to see Isaacson at his best).
(addendum, added later, but before publication:
One thing that struck me in reading the book was Jobs saying he wanted the book to exist so his kids could read about him and learn who he was. In similar situations, very few of us would think to call up Walter Isaacson and tell him to write our biography. Steve did (and Walter did, because he’s Steve, and this is an important book about an important person). But it seems to me there’s a deeper meaning to this; while most of us would solve this problem by sitting down with our kids and talking, at some level, Steve realized he couldn’t, that he just wasn’t wired that way. I also get the impression that because he insisted on this book being honest, and his flaws weren’t hidden or glossed over, that at some level this book was in Steve’s way also a way of acknowledging he wasn’t the greatest father in the world, and in the kind of act only someone like Steve would do, apologizing to his kids for being what he was, in public. And I think that sums up the Steve we’re seeing in the book: a very complex person who both had flaws and recognized them — but couldn’t overcome them. He was who he was. And he couldn’t just sit down with his kids and explain himself or say I’m sorry. But he could stand up in a very public display and do that — which if you think about it, is a very powerful way to show that you really mean it when you say “i’m sorry” for being what he was to them.)
the ever changing social landscape
I hadn’t planned on this nor intended to make changes, but the social landscape online keeps changing, and so I’ve been thinking through whether to make changes in my personal landscape and if so, what that means.
The big change? Google’s getting serious about the social area of the net, and they’ve started to roll out Google+. It’s bones look a lot like facebook, but it’s not a direct rip-off by any means. It’s tight integration with other Google properties like Gmail means that once you get access (it’s still in limited roll out) the friction point of dealing with it is minimal; that makes it a serious competitor to any service who’s functionality it overlaps.
And that includes not only Facebook, but through Picasa (being rebranded as Google photos) Flickr and the filesharing photo sites like Instagram. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all falls out.
Will it take on (or take out) facebook? I have no clue. It’s still incomplete, it’s still fairly empty with a lot of people outside wanting to get in, and so there’s a lot left to happen before we can decide if it succeeds or not — but it being to ubiquitous within google properties, it has advantages other sites don’t have. And honestly, after using it for a few days and getting a feel for how it operates, I’m moderately impressed, and I didn’t expect to be. It’s pretty well done, unlike Buzz and Google Wave (remember those?).
Still, there are lots of ways it could become the nets Quora, which, as Yogi Berra once said, is so popular nobody goes there any more. I was an early user of Quora and found it interesting, as it got “discovered”, it mostly became forgettable and noisy, and I’ve pretty much stopped using it beyond checking to see if Quora’s figure out how to solve these problems (answer: no).
One of the first reactions to Google+ was from Facebook, which blocked users who tried to grab their address book data out of Facebook to use it at Google. This is nothing new, Facebook has long held that data belongs not to the user, but to Facebook, but it just reinforces the reality that Facebook wants all sites to set up things so they share into Facebook, but Facebook doesn’t see a need to share back — and I find that annoying (as do many other users, like OM). Months back I decided not to create original content on Facebook for just this reason, but now, with Google+ as an alternative, this “roach motel” data model really seems like an increasingly unacceptable concept in this social universe that’s evolving on the net. This “as long as we’re in the center and in charge” is a problem, so I’m taking another step away from Facebook just to distance myself from this — I’ll continue to let my other content sources funnel into Facebook and interacting with the content of other users there, but where there are options (whether it’s Google+ or going back to the original source of data funneled in there by others) I will go to those options and interact there. and I (obviously) encourage others to do the same.
Facebook doesn’t want to play fair with the other sites out there, and now that there are some growing options, I think we should consider using them — as long as those sites DO play fair with their peers, and Google+, so far, seems to be. But it’s a good example of why you don’t want to be too dependent on services you ultimately don’t control. Especially sites that have a reputation for blocking stuff they decide they don’t like, sometimes in what seems to be arbitrary or punitive ways. (google, fwiw, is no saint here, either, and both have poor support systems for appeal and reconsideration. But that seems part for the course for social sites, sad to say — so diversify and control what you can, and don’t depend on these sites as your primary point of contact).
I’ve also, as I said, been experimenting with 500px. I’ve been increasingly — uninterested — in flickr, mostly because Yahoo seems just as uninterested. Taking a look at how Google is handing images within Google+ (using Picasa technology) and how well those images are presented and shared, it really shows how little Yahoo has innovated Flickr over the years; then when photo module of Google+ out-flickr’s Flickr, Yahoo has a real problem. And 500PX blows them all away with their beautiful design and presentation.
So I’m trying to decide if I want to stop contributing to Flickr. Most of the communities I’ve been in are at best stagnant or hibernating. There’s very little there there, unless you want to get in the race to show up on the interestingness pages (which I don’t). It’s even unclear to me if anyone cares if you’re on those pages any more.
I don’t plan on removing any content from flickr, but I may stop contributing, instead using (maybe) G+ for my “casual portfolio”. I’m thinking I might set up 500px to do my Saturday and Sunday photo posts, and Smugmug for me “serious” portfolio. Still thinking it through, but that seems like it’ll be appropriate uses for all of those services, at least once google+ fully rolls out. I don’t see flickr having a role in my social space long term unless something radical changes there soon.
And like I did last year, I’d originally planned on a blog redo for my birthday this eyar, but with everything going on at work, had no cycles. But I’m thinking of doing that when I get a chance. Duncan Davidson recently redid his blog, and I love how he built the design, especially his wonderful presentation of his photos, and I’m thinking seriously of — borrowing — from it heavily. With credit, of course.
There’s still an amazing amount of innovation going on in the online world, especially the social spaces; if you don’t innovate and adapt and adopt, you’re falling behind (as flickr has found, and they’re going to have trouble catching up again, IMHO). And if you don’t learn to share and cooperate — that’s another problem (I’m looking at you, Facebook). I have enough history and content on Flickr I can’t just leave, but I can let it hibernate. I’ve been smart enough not to over-commit on Facebook, so I don’t have a lot of digging out to pull free of that site to get to a degree I’m comfortable with. And while I think we have a lot to see come out of Google+ — unlike Buzz or Wave, I think it’s something worth wathcing, exploring and encouraging. So I will.
Wednesdays In Review: Two Bay Area Restaurants
This week I wanted to give a quick shout out to two local restaurants I’ve really taken a liking to.
A friend of mine has a sort of hobby — he likes to discover the restaurants his favorite chefs go to when they take a night off from their own kitchens. It’s an interesting way to find hidden gems, and they aren’t necessarily famous or expensive; it’s quality food that comes first.
A recent find here is Vedas Indian Restaurant, which is in Milpitas, not a town you normally think of for great restaurants. In fact, it’s a rather unpresuming place, in a strip mall on a secondary street and from the outside doesn’t look very distinctive. Inside? it’s beautiful, and it’s full of really awesome food.
We’ve eaten there twice now, and I’ve been blown away both times. They have their standard menu, but they always have specials as well, and on our last visit we found out they’d just brought on a new chef in from India, and he’s been using specials to experiment with some new dishes. We tried a couple of those experiments, a cooked chicken wing appetizer that we all loved (“this is how buffalo wings should be made!”) and a vegetarian dish that my friend raved on. They also shared a special bread that was cooked in no oil and had parsley added to the dough that was quite tasty.
Being a carnivore, I tend to eat from the tandoori and curries. This last visit I tried the Basil Murgh Makhmali Tikka, tender and moist, and the Daal, which was one of the best Daal soups I’ve ever had. They also do a mango and avocado salad that’s quite tasty. Laurie tends to eat the lamb or goat, and my friend is a fish vegetarian, so we tend to hit most of the menu over time. Everything we’ve ordered there has been astounding.
The restaurant has a very good wine list, and this last visit we had a rather nice Argentinian Malbec from Filus; that should be a hint that this isn’t a list full of generic Napa Chardonnay by the glass. Pricing on the wines is reasonable, and the servers are happy to talk over the list and help you find something you like.
The service has been fine on every visit; attentive without hovering or trying to be your best friend. We typically set our reservations for 7 or 7:30 and it’s not unusual for us to stay at the table for 90 minutes or two hours; typical for an Indian restaurant, when we arriver they’re almost empty, and when we leave, they’re packed.
Pricing is moderate; we’ve spent about $50 a head on our two visits there, including cocktails, wine and tip. Of the various indian restaurants we eat at (including Maudhuban in Sunnyvale and Mynt in San Jose) this one’s rapidly become my favorite.
If you’re looking for something more Italian and upscale, you might want to try Tigelleria Risorante in Campbell, right on the edge of downtown. This is a small place doing very well-prepared Italian dishes using organic and heritage ingredients. The dishes are generally not complicated, but they are cooked as well as the chefs can make them. Menus are changed quarterly. They do both pastas and meats here, plus they do a full charcuterie with cheese, meat and veggie boards that include both locally sourced artisan meats and cheeses and high quality, imported italian options as well. I strongly — very strongly — recommend that at some point you bring a couple of friends and you all agree to share a few boards off of the charcuterie. You won’t regret it. As someone who’s occasionally driven to speaking in tongues by a well done cheese board, their selection left me speechless and whimpering.
Our last visit, we tried their carpaccio and a gelato al peperoncino appetizer (chili pepper ice cream over arugula with aged vinegar and pine nuts); their soup was a carrot, potato and parmesan soup that was velvety and would have made a great entree, they’ll usually have a gnocchi on teh menu and it’s always been light and fluffy. Our last visit the menu included everything from squid ink noodles with shrimp and asparagus in a paprika and cream sauce to wild boar tenderloint to a seared duck breast that was cooked perfectly and was quite tasty in a wine and orange sauce. Their menu is appropriate for both vegetarians and carnivores, and as you can see, this is not your lasagna and pizza roadhouse.
desserts are just as innovative, and the wine list is extensive and they have a full bar including a selection of grappa.
Tigelleria isn’t inexpensive; we typically end up spending $100-125 a head. But for that price there’s usually two bottles of wine, cocktails before, grappa or cordials with dessert, and a full meal and a tip. The staff is well trained and attentive and it’ll be hard to avoid the owner, since she likes to wander the room and make sure everyone is happy.
It may be headed towards the “special event” price level for a restaurant, but it’s not a formal place like Manresa or Kuletos; it’s that nice combination of really great, serious food in a place that isn’t taking itself too seriously.
Because of the price, though, it’s a place we tend to visit about once a quarter to try out the menu when it changes. It is, however, a very good value for the price, and you can keep the cost more moderate by being a little less — enthusiastic — about the wines and cocktails. Still, it’s fun to once in a while just go and pamper yourself, and this is a good place to do some pampering.
(If you’re looking for more of family-style italian restaurant that you won’t mind going to on a regular basis, we really like Mama Mia’s, also in Campbell, where you can get in for a good meal and a bottle of Chianti without upsetting your bank account). I typically judge an italian restaurant by the lasagna, not just because I really like it, but because it’s a dish that suffers if the kitchen is just going through the motions, but if they really care about the food, it tends to shine. It’s quite good here, and this is a good place to come for a nice italian oriented seafood dish, because they always have one on special based on what’s good in the market).
The Challenge of a Healthy Diet
Gary Taubes, who is a Science Writer for the NY Times, has a new piece out called Is Sugar Toxic? (hat tip Daring Fireball for linking to it)
At first glance, the title sounds a bit hyperbolic, but don’t let that stop you. Taubes has been writing about this stuff for a long time and has a lot of heavy research behind his opinions. When I was previously talking about some of the things I’ve been chasing in restructuring my lifestyle, a friend of mine suggested I read Taubes’ books on the subject, which I have.
I read Why We Get Fat, and then I went off into a corner to think about it for a while. I knew I wanted to talk about it, but I wasn’t sure how. Many things he says struck home, they sync up well with how I have come to feel given the research I’ve been doing.
But the thing is, I can’t point to this book and say “he’s right”. He’s going against standard medical advice. Frankly, I’m not qualified to look at his data and say “believe him instead”, and the universe is full of people who have the real answers that the “establishment’ wants suppressed, so any time someone bucks the establishment, you need to be careful and understand the issues before buying into it.
So having told you to be skeptical — and that includes being skeptical of me — I do encourage you to read this book and consider what he has to say. His opinions struck home to me, and align well with what my study independent of him was making me think; his opinions are well backed up by studies, and those studies he’s using seem to be well-designed and well-implemented, their results seem consistent, and they come from reliable institutions. And he’s not selling a product (ALWAYS be extra skeptical when there’s a product involved); this isn’t a framework of studies based on 12 teenage girls from Cleveland looked at for four weeks.
His research and data frankly impresses the hell out of me, and he reaches back into the past to unravel how we got here and how the medical establishment ended up recommending the current dietary protocols and why he thinks they’re wrong.
The basic underpinning of Taubes work is that the medical establishment made a leap of faith in deciding that fat was bad for humans and therefore, carbohydrates are good; that this dogma was established through a few key researchers that politically others weren’t willing to challenge, and that unfortunately, there’s basically no medical studies that can be found that prove they’re right, and a growing body of evidence that the current idea of “fat bad” is flawed.
There are a growing number of people who are starting to take up this concept. It was recently written up on the Huffington Post by Kristin Wartman and she quotes a number of folks from Martha Rose Shulman (NY Times food writer) to Dr. Frank Hu (Harvard) with opinions that encourage moving away from the “low fat” movement.
I encourage you to read the Taubes piece and the Wartman piece, and if they seem to make sense to you, grab a copy of Taubes book and read it and consider his arguments for yourself. I am not saying “he’s right, do this”; but I do believe it is in your best interest to consider his arguments and make up your own mind.
Having been chewing on this (sorry!) for a few weeks, here’s my view of this. As a survivor of the 70′s “pasta and bagel” diet mentality, I’ve long felt that the blind view that fat is bad for you so eat carbs instead was flawed. My personal reaction to the 70′s diet was weight gain and a tendency towards blood sugar crashes because the carbs hit harder and fade faster. I’ve always tried to trend towards a more protein heavy diet over a classic “mediterranean” diet, and this whole “one size fits all” mentality for dietary regimes has always seemed over simplistic to me. My genetic background (northern germanic) is one not well attuned to the mediterranean diet, and I’ve never really reacted well to it when I’ve tried, so even without all of the research that’s been coming out the last few years, I’ve had personal reason to believe the dogma around dietary practices had flaws, if only because it doesn’t take into consideration basic things like ethnic and regional genetic differences — but then, it wasn’t that long ago that drug testing was done almost exclusively on white males and the reality that drugs responded differently to blacks or women or other ethnics was kind of ignored. It’s only been in the last couple of years that we’ve seen the first drugs come out specifically for blacks that take into consideration the genetic differences in how drugs are processed, and this is still a new part of the medical field.
If you stop to think about it, this medical dogma has been eroding for decades. In the 70′s, cholesterol was bad and to be avoided. Now, there are HDLs and LDLs and Triglycerides and some of these actually help the heart, and instead of tracking to a low total cholesterol number, you’re encouraged to do things to raise HDL while lowering LDL, and so we’ve figured out reality is a lot more complicated than they told us. Eggs have even been brought back from exile.
Ditto fat. Used to be, fat was bad. Now, the still yell FAT IS BAD, and then whisper “but monounsaturated fats are maybe kinda less bad”; sometimes they even admit that the poster child of the anti-fat establishment, that box of lard, is actually about 50% monounsaturated fats and maybe not as bad for you (in moderation) as they said. Especially if you swap it out for something that uses trans-fats.
And yes, there are really three kinds of fats in our world today — unsaturated fats, saturated fats, and trans-fats. The latter are manufactured by the food industry and increasingly, we seem to be finding out those are the least healthy of them all.
(interlude: interestingly enough, this new study just hit my inbox, where a high fat, low carb diet seems to protect and repair kidney damage in diabetics. By shifting to a ketogenic diet, it seems to give the body a chance to repair the kidneys in mice. Whcih is interesting, because one thing the Atkins diet was criticized for was that it puts the kidneys into ketosis and that was considered bad for the kidneys. Except if you read Taube’s book, one thing he talks about is a study of existing aboriginal hunter/gatherer societies like the australian aborigines and the Inuit, and if you study their traditional diets, they are heavy in protein and fat, not carbs, and are generally ketogenic — and that the belief that the classic “historical” diet of our genetic predecessors as being carb-centric is wrong, and part of the evidence against our current dietary programs.. it’s definitely worth reading Taube’s take on this, but this study seems to reinforce this idea)
Carbs are no longer carbs. Carbs are now complex carbs and simple carbs, and simple carbs include sugars, and a subset of sugars are the fructoses, which include high yield corn fructose, another manufactured product that’s been heavily adopted by the food industries. And even the medical establishment is telling people to eat complex carbs more than simple ones.
So the reality is, even though the high level position of the medical industry hasn’t changed, if you listen to the details, you can see how it’s eroded over the years: Cholesterol is bad (well, some kinds of cholersterol); carbs are good (well, some kinds; other kinds aren’t), and fat is bad (well, except for the kinds of fat that aren’t bad for you). And more and more of the medical researchers are starting to question and poke holes in the standard dogma.
Here’s a quick thought on the question “Is it really possible that all of the experts on health and nutrition in medicine are wrong?” — consider this. Look at the sheer numbers involved in the obesity and diabetes epidemics confronting us; they’re estimating as many as in 3 americans will be diabetic in 20 years. Ask yourself “is it really possible that this large a percentage of the worldwide population is unable to follow the instructions for eating healthy?” (which is, really, what the medical establishment and the media that echoes their messaging basically tells us; it’s our fault) — or is it possible that the information being given to these folks is wrong? And if it really is societies inability to follow these directions, what changed in the last 40 years, because up until that point, we had hundreds (maybe thousands) of years where we could. Obesity and diabetes are fairly new epidemics, and, coincidentally enough (or not) coincide with the “low fat” healthy diet teachings that led to the “bagel and pasta” diets of the 70′s and up to today. It also coincides nicely with the switch to more refined/industrial foods and the growth of high yield fructose over natural sugar, as well as the massive increase in intake of sugar as a percentage of diet.
Now, to circle back to Taube’s article on sugar for a bit: I think he’s mostly right on, but with a caveat. I disagree with his premise that sugar is toxic in two aspects. First is he lumps in “real” sugar (which is typically about 50% glucose and 50% fructose) as being as bad for you as high-yield corn syrup (which is typically 45% glucose and 55% glucose) is going to be proven wrong. There are studies coming out (here’s the most recent I’ve seen) that show that we don’t process glucose and fructose the same, and that the human body is genetically tuned to process sugars — when that ratio is thrown off and there’s extra fructose in the mix, the body doesn’t adapt and things get out of balance. This is going to be the defining reason why the high yield stuff is going to be shown to be more damaging and more fattening than “real sugar”, that ratio change is significant in how the human body processes and reacts to the food. So they aren’t going to be equally damaging, high yield corn syrup is worse for the body than sugar is — I believe. it’s not proven, but the studies are coming out, and I believe it’s a matter of time.
The second aspect I don’t agree with him on is the emotionally charged word “toxic” — he is right, but only if the substance is abused. Right now, sugar seems to be going through the same demonization phase that alcohol went through. SUGAR IS BAD. Well…
Yes, it is, if you eat too much of it. And just like eggs were demonized over cholesterol and have been returned from exile, and alcohol was demonized and has been sort of returned from exile (much of the medical establishment seems incomfortable admitting that moderate amounts of alcohol seems to be actually helpful, because they seem unwilling to admit that we all won’t end up abusing it and going alcoholic; but small amounts of alcohol and certain types — like red wine — seem to be healthful in many ways), we’re doing the same to sugar.
My view is different; I think these things IN MODERATION are going to be fine. The key is doing things in moderation. In the last 40 years or so, the typical american has gone from eating 40 pounds of sugar a year to over 90 pounds, and a chunk of that 90 pounds is the high yield stuff. There’s a very close correlation on this increase in sugars in our diet and the growth of diabetes and obesity in the culture. The link isn’t proven, but I’m convinced it will be. When we ate moderate amounts of this stuff within our diets, we didn’t get fat, we didn’t get diabetic. Now we eat way more than we should, and we do.
So I’m uncomfortable promoting the “sugar is toxic” concept. I don’t believe it is. I believe that abuse of sugars is bad for your health, and chronic abuse leads to chronic health issues. But eating a healthy diet in a healthy lifestyle (there we go, away from simple answers to complex solutions. sorry!) with this stuff in moderation within it is how to make this all work.
What does that mean for how I’m trying to do this in my own life?
I think the manufactured foods are evil; I try to minimize both trans-fats and high yield fructose corn syrup. That’s difficult to remove 100% from an american diet without extreme changes (please don’t suggest vegetarian, not gonna happen) but I steer away from them, and they play very small parts in my diet and I try to remove them where I find them and can.
I try to aim FOR healthy fats and complex carbs and AWAY from saturated fats and simple carbs. Which is tougher than it sounds, because white flours are a simple carb and you have to be careful even with “whole wheat” and how that term is used. I am not banning lard, or white sugar, or white flour from my life. But I am also not pulling out the tub of lard and a spoon. I believe if you use margarine instead of butter you’re being foolish (and research is showing I’m probably right), but I try to be rational about how much butter I use.
I try to be moderate about all this stuff. My goal diet is 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat. I try to steer towards healthy stuff; the more processed foods are, the less you should eat them. But I still drink alcohol (once or twice a week), I still eat sugar (I just don’t bathe in it), I still eat breads (but I lean towards whole wheats and lower carb versions where I can); I still eat cheese (a lot, actually). I’m still not where I want the diet to be — I’m more 35% protein, 40-45% carbs and the rest fat, and unfortunately, as a diabetic, I feel that’s too high on carbs. But if I weren’t diabetic, I’d feel comfortable taking my diet to any dietician in the universe. Which says a lot, given that five years ago, I was a burger-and-fries guy five or six times a week. Now? maybe once a month — except I rarely eat more than a few fries, because I find them rather grainy and salty (I’m convinced most fast food fries are eaten by habit, not because they remotely taste good; I’m happy to say I’ve lost my taste for them).
And having said my diet is 95% of where i want it to be, that last 5% is proving to be a terror. but I keep working on it. that’s a discussion for later, though.
So read Taubes’ article, and think about getting and reading his book. See if you agree with his arguments, and what that means for your lifestyle and diet. And then we’ll talk. This is a big, hairy, complex thing; if there’s a real sin the medical establishment has committed,it’s that they simplified this into something unintelligible, and then tried to solve all of the complex wrinkles off in the footnotes. Get yourself out of the footnotes and get informed and start figuring it out for yourself — and Taubes is a good place to start.
Only a flesh wound….
Behold the new hole in our garage.
The morning started as plumbers from about four counties all arrived at our house, in search of a slab leak. For those that don’t know, a slab leak is when your plumbing breaks, only the break is hidden under 6″ of concrete, and you get to guess where the leak is.
Fortunately, there are leak detection specialists. They have a gizmo that stuffs a sequenced electric charge onto your plumbing, and another gizmo that finds that and tells you where the pipes are, and how deep they are. They wander through your house hearing beeps (it’s the really expensive machine that goes PING!) figuring out where the plumbing is. Then they stuff your pipes with helium, and use a set of stethoscopes the size of a big can of soup (two, actually) to listen for the helium exiting through the leak. I swear it looks like the guy is dowsing….
And in about an hour, he mapped out where all the pipes are, and then he found the leak. And that made me happy.
Not because we found the leak, but because the leak turned out to be in the corner of the house, where the service enters. Right where we were seeing the water come out. And this makes me happy because the leak wasn’t in the dining room, or in the kitchen under a cabinet, or under the tile in the bathroom, or…
You get the point — if you see how this gets fixed, the place that needs fixing is best in the garage, where it doesn’t trigger major remodeling projects. So the plumbers used a saw to cut the concrete, and then a jackhammer to remove it, and after I took this picture, patched in new copper to connect the good piece to the good piece, and by about 4PM, we had water — and it wasn’t out in the front yard.
Tomorrow they’ll come back and patch the concrete, and we’ll give it a few days to harden, and then life will return to normal, at least it will once I clear out the concrete dust and the mud and all of the other debris that now inhabits the garage, and backfill the bed that used to be part of the front yard…
If you live in an eichler, this is the kind of problem you dread, and when they happen, they can become really bad really fast. If it had to happen, this problem is about as close to the best case scenario as you can ask for — so I’m happy. And it was a relatively quick fix, too.
and once they stopped jackahmmering, I even got work done…
But it’s been an interesting few days…
Happy Valentines day!
And how did you spend your Valentines day? I spent mine with the plumbers, with what we thought was a leak in the service line into the house. That’s been patched, but when we turned on the service again, the leak re-appeared. Not so good. That means we have a slab leak; this is an Eichler, it has no crawlspace, it’s on a cement pad. and in the pad is the plumbing, and somewhere it’s leaking. So soon the guys with the really expensive leak detection machine will arrive to find it, followed by the guys with the jackhammer to chew out the part of the floor over where the leak is. which is likely (I hope) either in the kitchen or dining room. if we get really lucky, it’s in the garage but somehow I doubt it..
And we have this nice hole in the front yard, slowly filling with water again…
But we have a nice new copper service line that no longer routes through the porch slab…
This is likely going to complicate my blogging schedule. and maybe vacation. And who knows what else?
oh well. nobody’s died, and that’s good.
Tip Jars and Coffee Shops
Jeff Nolan: What exactly is the tip jar at the local coffee place supposed to recognize, excellent cash register operation, and at Starbucks is it for excellent button pushing? How about the car wash, am I supposed to drop a dollar in the tip box because they dried my car really well… how about when they do a crappy job, should I pluck a dollar out of the tip box as a penalty?
Maybe it’s just me, but those tip jars mostly say “hey, we know you don’t care enough about that change to want to carry it around, we’ll take it!”
And honestly — I do tend to use it for that some of the time….
McEnery’s Market
San Jose Inside – McEnery’s Market:
Of course the Public Market will be a boon to McEnery and his partners. By investing $5 million to build a pedestrian mall, expand a parking garage, and help with the construction costs of several new structures near San Pedro Square, the City is in effect helping the private enterprise that McEnery and his partners have launched. But these investments will likely also benefit other Downtown businesses and the city as a whole. That’s how these public-private partnerships work. And as we have seen, they work.
We are hearing, in the weeks since the project was announced, from the doubters who can’t see a Public Market succeeding in San Jose. Others simply can’t get past the idea of tax dollars benefiting private businesses.
Count me as one of those people who’d love to see a thriving public market here in the south bay. Anyone who’s been to Pike Place Market in Seattle has some idea of what it can do and be — but I’m even more of a fan of Granville Island in Vancouver. Even London Quoy in North Vancouver, Granville’s smaller brother, is a neat spot for shopping and lunch.
The naysayers — mostly, they seem to not want to see McEnery benefit. If it makes financial sense for the city, we shouldn’t let the personalities involved stop it. Too bad the city of San Jose spent, what, $30 million trying to stop the county from building the theater on the fair grounds, especially since it looks like neither theater will ever get built, at least in my lifetime; it sure would be nice to have that money for projects like this.
I do, though, have questions about this public market; the area has tried this concept once before, in Mountain View at the Old Mill property, and it had this same kind of enthusiasm and it failed miserably. I’ve never seen a cogent explanation why — it wasn’t the greatest building, but was in a good area, good local population, good support, strong interest and good vendors early, lots of parking and nice access. And it failed.
So why is this proposal different and better? Why will it succeed where the Mountain View one didn’t? Before the city commits to this, I’d love to hear why this second run at the public market won’t end up like the first one, especially since, while I like the San Pedro Square area, access and parking aren’t going to be as good as the old Mountain View market had?
Zeppelin tours of the Bay Area
The Days Are Just Packed – Zeppelin tours of the Bay Area:
he zeppelin was shipped by boat from Zeppelin AG in Germany to New Orleans and is right this moment flying toward San Francisco. She just crossed the Arizona/California border, as documented on their blog
$500 per ticket for a one-hour tour. $950 for two hours.
oh, really cool. But watch out for that three hour tour.
Eichler: No Walls, On A Slab…. Run The Wires (and Water) On The Roof!
This is what the roof of an Eichler should look like. Or, at least, an Eichler with a foam roof that is a couple of years away from needing recoating.
Aside: Eichler’s, by the way, were a mid century modern design by Joseph Eichler. Mostly post and beam (though not all) with an emphasis on an open floor pan facing the outside with an open to the air atrium in the middle. Sort of Levitt-with-style for the west coast. Eichler owners get Eichler specific spam and there is an entire network of web sites devoted to Eichlers.
Fairly smooth, unbroken, sea of off-whiteness. Reflective. Waterproof. A solid roof over our heads to keep us dry, out of the sun, and warm in the winter (sort of).
Of course, being an Eichler, the roof is much more than just a shelter over the house. Since there are no unbroken walls — just windows — between the walls, almost all electrical and any re-routed plumbing ends up on the roof.
Or, more specifically, in the roof.
I feel Bbum’s pain. We also live in an Eichler, a fairly early (1956) model. Great little houses, and we’ve taken pains to try to keep the thing in as close to original state as we can (pretty much everyone in our neighborhood has either added a peaked roof or closed in the beams with a drywall celling and insulation, we’ve done neither)
On the other hand, we had to reroof shortly after we bought it, and we went tar and gravel, and don’t regret it a bit. We ALSO added R14 insulation under the roof, which was a godsend at the time and even more now (and a good reason why we can leave the open beam ceilings). My one regret there was not insulating the garage roof, too. oh well.
But the one real chore with Eichlers is running the infrastructure. With a slab underneath and a flat roof above, getting wiring and piping from here to there is a massive pain; ultimately, you either chew up the slab, mess up the roof, or open up the walls. In our case, our house was redone in the 70s with copper plumbing, so that’s not an issue with us, but I’m not looking forward to the ultimate need to rewire some areas of the house…
But I know a lot of people who really love Eichlers, and I have no regrets owning one. Too many of them have been “remodeled” until they have no personality left…
KRT Wire | 06/26/2007 | Bid to study restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley dies
KRT Wire | 06/26/2007 | Bid to study restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley dies:
The House of Representatives on Tuesday drove a stake through President Bush’s proposal to study draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the storied place some thought could once again rival Yosemite Valley.
But in truth, the idea was dead on arrival several months ago.
In a multibillion-dollar Interior Department funding bill, lawmakers pointedly declined to include money needed to study the Hetch Hetchy proposal. Bush had sought $7 million to begin studying the idea of draining the reservoir and restoring the once-famous valley in Yosemite National Park.
Forget it, lawmakers said.
“This highly controversial proposal, with a potential cost of as much as $10 billion, was not well justified in the budget materials,” the House Appropriations Committee noted.
I’m happy to hear this, although I wish I could say it was done for the right reasons.
To me, this isn’t about whether or not the idea is a valid one, but a simple fact: the national parks are currently in a serious financial bind with woefully underfunded budgets and severe deferred maintenance issues. The hetch hetchy plan (if one could give it enough substance to call it a plan) is a long-term, high-risk, spend-decades-in-court-at-best idea that’s going to waste money on lawyers and bureaucrats that are better spent on fixing up parks and hiring rangers to watch over them.
I just can’t justify spending this money on someone’s fantasy dream when the reality is places like Yosemite and Glacier and Mt. Ranier and Olympic National Park all have severe needs for these dollars to fix up what already exists and is in use by people on a daily basis (or would be, if it wasn’t closed due to storm damage, lack of maintenance or no rangers to patrol).
Maybe someday. This isn’t a piece of land we need to buy to save from developers. this is a piece of land that was developed decades ago that maybe someday we CAN recover, but right now, our focus ought to be on taking care of what we already have that needs our attention.
This idea, frankly, isn’t about restoring hetch hetchy. It’s about keeping lawyers employed for the years it’d take for this to trudge through the courts and the various sides duke it out. And that’s a bad use of funds…
Yosemite Blog » Blog Archive » Late Night Rockfall Rattles Curry Village
Yosemite Blog » Blog Archive » Late Night Rockfall Rattles Curry Village:
“A small rockfall occurred at 2:53 am on Saturday, June 9 behind Curry Village. The release point for the rockfall was ~550 meters (1800 feet) above the Valley floor, at the top of Staircase Falls. A rock about 20 cubic meters in size (60 tons) fell down the path of Staircase Falls, sweeping additional debris down with it.
It’s easy to think of these things as simply entropy in action, until you realize you were there just a few weeks ago, and you know where this happened…
A not-so-quiet (to those there) reminder that Yosemite Valley isn’t tamed, merely occupied.
To the Edge of the World….
So, it’s my last working-day of freedom, and I didn’t want to face the crowds on the weekend, so I spent today out on the coast, driving to half-moon bay, and I ended up starting by heading up to Montara, which is about as far as you can go these days up Highway 1 because of the slide on Devil’s Slide (which they are still saying is months from opening, if it ever does, because they aren’t sure there’s any support left to rebuild the road on — and it’s still sliding).
Now, as you leave highway 280 to 92 to go to Half Moon bay, there are signs warning of the closure. there are signs on highway 92 as you go over the hill to the coast that it’s closed. It’s been in the news on and off for months, because of the inconvenience and business impact. And as you drive north on highway 1, there are multiple signs warning of the closure, most in bright highway orange with flashing lights. (yes, I’m leading you somewhere….)
So I’m at the point where the road closes, a parking area on Montara State Beach, taking pictures of the coast, and some of the flowers, experimenting with my macro lens and a 12mm extension.
And suddenly this moving van drives up. It sees the big “ROAD CLOSED” sign across the road and stops.
And I suddenly hear this voice yelling “Hey! Can I get through there?” at me.
I have to admit — all I did was shake my head, because if I’d opened my mouth, I’d have fallen over laughing — how could anyone have gotten there and not noticed ANY of the signs?
Um…. okay.
And, of course, Caltrans has been working on a solution to Devil’s Slide — and it has been held up in various forms by opposition over cost, over environmental impacts, etc, etc, etc.
Caltrans first recommended replacing Devil’s Slide with a new route in — get this — 1958. And now they’re piecing it back together again, since the final solution that was (more or less) agreed to (in 1996) won’t be ready until 2011.
The mind just refuses to accept how some things get bogged down in the political process. 38 years of fighting?
Mars as we didn’t quite see it…
It’s not exactly as we saw it, but the Hubble took a gorgeous shot of Mars as it reached it’s closest proximity to mother earth.
So last night, a group of us grabbed our scopes and headed off looking for dark, clear skies. we ended up on the top of Mount Hamilton, pretty literally in the shadow of the Lick Observatory. I pulled out the etx-90 and a set of big binocs, my friend hauled out his Meade (my ETX would, basically, be his finder scope), and we spent some time celebrating our neighbor’s close visit.
Seeing was good. Despite the wind (which added a nasty jitter to the scopes), on my scope I was able to get a good disc, and make out some detail of the polar icecaps and some minor detail of the edging around Mons Olympus using a 12.5mm lens and an 80a filter (which gave me the best results). My friend’s sturdier and bigger scope allowed them to resolve out most of Olympus Mons and see some other surface detail.
Seeing survived about an hour, and then we had some moisture stream into the upper atmosphere and things degraded. We still experimented with filters and the like for a while, but the best views were the early ones.
We also had a great view of the brush fire in the easy bay hills, which was going great guns (unfortunately), and seemingly not at all knocked down for the evening. We were upwind of it and some ways away, but in the binocs, it was an amazing sight. And on top of that, the Milky Way was in full force, so we spent some time remembering what the sky looks like when you aren’t blinded by civilization around you…
All in all, an awesome, fun evening. After months of threatening, it was great to finally break out the scope, even if Mars isn’t the most dramatic planet, even when up close and personal. With a scope like the ETX, you don’t exactly get Hubble shots, something that can be a real disappointment to someone who doesn’t understand how this stuff really operates (my view of Mars was, more or less, about the size of the head of a match….).
So, when was the last time you saw the stars, anyway?
Hiring a contractor….
Since we’ve decided who is going to paint the house (finally. yeah!), a few thoughts on how to hire a good contractor…
The key thing to remember, I think, is that any time you are hiring a contractor to do something, whether it’s paint your house or replace a toilet or whatever needs done, is to understand enough of what’s happening to know whether or not the contractor is doing a good job. In this situation, you are your own general contractor hiring a sub-contractor, so you need to understand what you’re hiring out.
Most good contractors will take the time to explain things you don’t understand; take advantage of that, but be aware that if you already know you won’t be accepting a given contractor’s bid, you’re wasting his time. That’s part of the reality of bidding a job and contractors factor that into their pricing, but it’s no excuse to abuse the relationship. you’re better off going back to the contractor you ARE hiring to ask questions you still have. of course, if you honestly aren’t sure who to hire, or whether the job is being bidded properly, you should keep asking questions until you do.
My first thought: “everyone” tells you to get three bids. Well, life’s not that simple. I have accepted the first bid. I’ve accepted the seventh bid. What’s important is that you keep talking to contractors until you find one you’re convinced will do the job properly for a price you feel is fair.
For instance, three weeks after we closed on the house, the furnace went kerplooey. We contacted a number of companies, and ended up working with one that could deal with the problem quickly at a good price. That led to further work — we’ve completely replaced the HVAC system, including reducting the house, and have done a couple of thousand in plumbing to the place since we’ve arrived. We don’t bid any of this out now, we call these folks; they aren’t the cheapest, but they’re wonderfully reliable, their work is first class, their systems are quality, and I can trust them. It makes no sense to go bidding for what we need these days.
Or when we re-roofed. One company has done seven or eight of the roofs on the block — the Eichler is a bit of a specialty, being a flat roof, and residential tar and gravel isn’t exactly common. But to get a sanity check on the price, we brought in a second company to bid; it was 40% higher, without the roof insulation we’d gotten added into the bid. No brainer, we went with the first company, and the R14 under the tar and gravel has made a huge difference to the livability of the house (and our energy bills… we had to spec up the air conditioner significantly when it was replaced because of the heat gain from the roof. Now, the airco is pretty bored, except on really hot days…0
And in one case — our first run at patio and hardscaping, we just gave up and put it off. That was during the high point of the dot com stuff, though, when every subcontractor was booked eight months in advance (or worthless), and people wouldn’t even come out to look at smaller jobs, and if they did, priced them high enough to make sure you wouldn’t accept their bids. ugh. These days, it’s a lot easier to find good subs…
So my point is — get as many bids as you need to get the right guy. To do that, you need to know enough about the job to know what a good one is, right? If you don’t, the sub ought to help you understand what needs to be done, but don’t completely trust them to tell you the entire truth. Try to find an uninvolved third party to help you understand what’s going on and/or evaluate bids with you.
So, here’s how I found our painting contractor. For the last year or so, I’ve been keeping an eye on paint jobs I’ve seen in the area. Residential, commercial, it didn’t matter, I just watched for jobs I liked, and tried to find out who did them. Some contractors put signs up, many have signage on their trucks or vans. it’s usually pretty easy. I tend to think contractors that use trucks with no signage at all are hiding something, because why not advertise (in many cases, they’re either unlicensed, or they’re small groups that are hired out by bigger companies as sub-sub-contractors. more on that later).
I also asked around to find out from folks I knew who were getting paint jobs who they used. In a few cases, I did it to make sure that company got thrown OFF my list (for instance, a house across the street was being repainted so it could be sold. the painters came in and prepped one day, did the main coat the next — and it rained a little that night. Next morning, they came in and did the trim. IMHO, that house needed at least 48 hours to dry before it should have been painted again — and the trim is already peeling, less than a year later. A company I definitely wouldn’t hire…). Also, I throw out companies who’s company vehicles are in bad shape. A contractor’s truck is going to be used (and used hard), and going to show wear, but a there’s a difference between a truck that shows use and one that (in the case of a painter) looks like it’s rented out weekends for paintball contests. A sloppy truck is, to me, sign of a sloppy work ethic, and that is a short walk from a sloppy job. If a sub doesn’t care about how their trucks look — what will my place look like?
I specifically look for small to medium, family or individual owned contractors who use their own crews. With big companies, you can get lost in the noise, and it’s hard to find someone who stands up and will be responsible. Many times, those big companies will hire out smaller companies to actually od the work — they’re effectively brokers, not contractors. This isn’t necessarily bad, since we did the front door that way through Home Depot and I thought the sub did a great job, but you lose some control, and you’re depending on the company hiring subs that will live to the company’s standards. the busier a company, the more likely that won’t happen. Basically, I want to know who the owner is, and how well he’ll back up the work. The closer you get to the owner of the firm, the better.
Remember that most contracting work is subjective (paint, which deals so much with color, is exceptionally so). A technically good job where the colors are off isn’t a success any more than perfect colors put on badly. So don’t minimize the need to be sympatico with your contractor on colors. A good contractor will help you get the colors you need, not necessarily the ones you want.
As I was watching paint jobs, one company kept showing up. I swear half of the jobs I saw that I really liked were done by this one firm. So they got called first. The owner came out two days later, surveyed the house, and wrote up the bid. We spent about 20 minutes discussing the prep work needed (easily 10, maybe 15 years since the last paint job, stucco with some settling cracks, a few other joys), and then another 20 minutes on paint colors, especially on the porch, we’re I’m rebuilding into a (hopeful) focal point.
He brought up certain aspects of the prep that would need special focus, and explained why he felt they ought to be done. he suggested upgrading to an Elastomer paint (basically, it covers and fills micro-cracks in stucco, and then stretches so they don’t come back), and went into some detail of what the house needed. His company is medium sized, about 50 people, but all work is done by employees, and supervised by foremen who are promoted up through the company. Those are very important guarantees to me that what the bidder says will be done, will be done. And then everything he suggested to me verbally was writen into the bid as documentation for the foreman.
The downside: he was about $700 more than I’d hoped, and about $1000 more than I wanted. Oh, and his trades vans are impeccably clean. You don’t have to wash them weekly, but it doesn’t hurt..
The second company was similar to the first — I’d seen a few jobs I liked, they advertised on the jobs. About a 70 person company. I got a full-time bid writer, not the owner. To be fair, I give all bidders the same job; even if something comes up with an earlier bid I want to adopt, I don’t add it to later bids. I want to see if other subs will come up with the same (or similar, or better) ideas. If not, you can always have them adjust the bid later — they won’t mind, and it’s fairest to all.
The second bidder had pretty much the same prep work specced out, which gives me confidence that this is what the house really needs. His bid differs slightly in a few ways, and in one major way. He doesn’t propose the elastomer paint; instead, he bids priming the entire house.
The third company I called out I called cold out of the yellow pages. I enjoy a bit of randomness, to make sure I’m not pre-judging myself into a corner. Small group, four employees, one crew. He was a no-show for his appointment (which happens); he called two days later, and it was a root canal that went bad, and he was in the emergency room. Like I say, stuff happens, so we rescheduled (but don’t expect me to call and ask why you didn’t show up.. but a contractor that calls, I’ll talk to).
We talked over the job, given the same premise as the first two.
final bids:
Bid #1: 3,600
Bid #2: 4,900
Bid #3: 1,900
Same job: $3,000 difference. Makes you wonder, huh?
I really liked the third contractor — but I don’t believe he properly bid the amount of prep work this house needs, and I don’t think his crew is really up to doing it. So while he’s the low bid, I’ve eliminated him — but I’m recommending him to my neighbor, who wants her house painted, and which is in good shape bcause it’s been painted three times in the last five years (thanks to two sales…). She’s so tired of white on white, and that crew is perfect for her house. Just not mine.
The difference between bid 1 and bid 2? Once you sit down and break down the bids, bid #1 and bid #2 are exactly the same price — except bid #2 added a full prime coat to the house.
And both bid #1 and bid #2 have bid a job that’ll do what we need — get the exterior fixed up, and get a quality paint job on it.
But IMHO, I’m convinced #1 will do better prep, and is dealing with the house through prep and with a better paint, while #2 went with a lower quality paint and a more labor intensive solution. It’s not wrong, it’s a different philosophy. Either way, we’ll end up with a well-done house. But the 2nd bid is more profitable for his company than the first bid will be to his company.
Which is why you need to know what kind of job you’re having done, and how it ought to be done. There’s not a thing wrong with that second bid, except that it’s slanted more to the contractor’s benefit than mine. If you don’t know any better, it can cost you a couple of thousand dollars and you’ll be happy with the results…
Of course, before I fully commit to bid #1, I’m going to ask him his opinion of the full prime, and see what he says. I think I know what the answer will be…
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