[...]... produced.) Needless to say, if the general contractor you hire is insolvent, you may never see your deposit again Check the firm out before cutting a check Payment terms Contractors want to get paid as work is completed Ask for milestones rather than weekly payments Never let the contractor get ahead of you in 22 The Know-it-all’s Guide to Life payments If the contractor goes belly-up and skips town, chances... Try to give the contractor the sense that you will be a dream customer: calm, rational, pleasant, and resolute Don’t waffle or seem tentative; if the contractor thinks you are a flake, he isn’t going to give you his best bid After thanking the contractor for his time, gently mention that you are getting “a couple of other bids” and you look forward to hearing his thoughts The contractor is on notice there... letter word can be added to the front of each of these words to make new words? LINE BORN BOARD LESS 3 What one other word can be formed using all the letters in TOASTER? 4 What is the next number in this sequence: 2 5 7 12 19 31? 5 Dog is to bird as spider is to: snake squirrel worm raccoon Answers: (1) John is 36 years old and has worked for 10 years; David is 25 years old and has worked for one year;... alone Rather than hunger for work, very low bids frequently result from incomplete understanding between the homeowner and the contractor Or worse, lowballers can try to win the business and jack up the cost with “extras” later Really high bids, in contrast, sometimes indicate the contractor has more attractive work on his plate If one bid is more than 20 percent above or below the others, there is... continue to do their part, too As former U.S Rep L A (“Skip”) Bafalis once said, “If you put a bureaucrat in the desert and hand him $1,000 with orders to spend it, he would— even if he had to buy sand.” Some might say a more effective strategy would be to send Congress to the desert instead How to take the cure 25 How to take the cure Suffering from a chronic case of the gout? Irregularity? Bad case of. .. years, to just two weeks every four years Next to Bath, Baden-Baden (Baths-Baths) is probably the most famous spa town in the world, and why shouldn’t it be the Romans founded it, too Located in the foothills of the northern part of the Black Forest, Baden-Baden has been the summer playground and place of rejuvenation for rich Europeans since the late 19th century If you get bored with the waters, there... more than a few days, you should ask for one, because it puts the risk of poor estimating on the contractor, not on you As a rule of thumb, the more parties involved, the more important it is to have a fixed price If you are dealing with a single specialty contractor, such as a painter or plasterer, hourly rates will do With a general contractor and multiple subs, there are too many opportunities for... brings with it the chi-chi 26 The Know-it-all’s Guide to Life trappings of modernity in the form of (ahem ) a five-story stone and glass spa smack in the middle of the old Roman baths Well, even if the spa doesn’t measure up, Bath is a perfectly preserved 18th-century city loaded with historical sightseeing Regular trains run to and from London’s Paddington Station Ireland If you are looking for a completely... contractor 21 you selected Sometimes their choices actually are better or more costeffective to install Other times, contractors are merely trying to fatten their profits through a better deal from a particular vendor If the logic sounds fishy, ask the other contractors what they think Remember, you are the one who will have to live with it; be adamant if you feel strongly about a specific material or. .. consists of a warren of bathing rooms decorated in elaborate faux-Roman detail, with marble, statues, frescoes, and handpainted tiles Friedrichsbad employs the original Roman method of taking the waters Bathers first acclimate themselves to the water in the tepidarium, then hop into the steaming caldarium to get the circulation going, and finally, take a bracing dip in the icy frigidarium to seal the pores . 1 How To The Know-it-all’s Guide to Life How to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or just plain fantastical things By John T. Walbaum THE. 07417 www.careerpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walbaum, John T. The know-it-all’s guide to life : how to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or. 2. Self-help techniques. I. Title: How to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or just plain fantastical things. II. Title. HQ2037 .W35 2003 646.7—dc21