Hiring Home Remodeling Contractor Wise or Not? | Improvements

Article by Claire Schaper

Hiring Home Remodeling Contractor Wise or Not? ? Home ? Remodeling

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In this day where every homeowner in the country have saddened about some big loss on the equity of their abode, it just seemed wise to either keep it or rent it until the housing market goes back to normal. When? No one can say. But the situation is not all that bad if you where to stay in it, of course, as long as you can keep up with paying the higher mortgage interest, and just make it a future investment. Price may not be as it used to be when you first bought it, but 5 to 10 years from now, price should pick-up and you gain substantial amount of equity out of it.

Weather you decide to keep it to live on or get it rented, one thing is sure. You want to keep your place as nice looking as it should. If you are staying, this of course if you have some money to spare, you might want to consider home remodeling, re-decorating or re-arranging for a different look and feel. You can do this on your own or with the help of your family member and friends. Maybe repainting the living room and re-arranging the furniture. Taking the clutter out and make it homier organized kind of house. Re-decorating your house not only will give you this ?oh I like it? feeling, but it also gives you the sense of pride and relief that you might say to yourself, yeah, I?m glad I did not sell it. You maybe even say, well, it?s not all that bad after all. Your friends might even like it and have you do the re-decorating of their house for a fee! That?s just a thought.

However, if you really do need some cash to help you pay the increased payment in mortgage, in lieu of selling (first of all you cannot sell as the housing inventory is too high up), consider get it rented. But how can you compete with what?s available in the rental market in your neighborhood with the same layout, square footage, number of bedrooms and bath, etc? Mind you, a lot of them if they look old, rundown or even just the ordinary bare looking with no accent whatsoever take a lot longer to get a rented. Ones again, think about home remodeling or home improvement. Home remodeling does not need to be very pricey. You just need to have a clear picture of what you want done, check out the prices of materials you need, how many days will take and so on. If you are thinking of doing it yourself and you?re crunching with the time, then take a few days leave if you have some. But for those who doesn?t and cannot for whatever reason, you might want to consider hiring a home remodeling or home improvement contractor.

Hiring a home improvement contractor does not necessarily mean getting someone just down the street because ?maybe? you will save some money. The average carpenter Jose down the street can probably do the job and he?s cheaper. I don?t necessarily agree. Regardless if you?re hiring Jose down the street, or hiring a licensed contractor, there should be a few things you need to consider before deciding who to hire to get the job done and do it right with a lot less money. I say, look around, local yellow pages or Google it and look for home remodeling resource network. Most of these companies can connect you to the right candidate in your area with the following credentials: 1) they are licensed and bonded; 2) they have liability and workers compensation insurance, and 3) highest approval rating from Better Business Bureau (BBB). Most of the time, they would send you up to 3 pre-screened contractors and on top of that, this service along with the job quote is FREE for you. They will not charge you a dime as they deal directly with the contractor for whatever fee they charge. By doing this, the expense is within your affordability, the job is done to your instruction and specification and more importantly, in a timely manner.

In closing, I say whatever you decide, keep in mind some, if not all the pointers I shared with you. You ultimately decide what?s best for you. Just a hope that it is one wise and intelligent decision so it makes a long lasting productive effect for the future!

This article is an original copyright of Claire Schaper, online media specialist for All Around Home Remodeling. For inquiry, e-mail Nir Arie at lionsmarketing@gmail.com or e-mail at 818-745-5168. You can also visit http://www.allaroundhomeremodeling.com.

About the Author

Claire Schaper is Founder & CEO of a search marketing company based in San Diego, CA. She is online media specialist to many B2B and B2C companies of various industries who has more than 10 years of collective experience in multi-media advertising and search marketing. Her company specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), link building, submission services, article writing and press releases.

Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines
whereby the original author?s information and copyright must be included.

Claire Schaper

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Craving Korra & Superheroes

Hello fellow Interest Check dwellers!

Here?s the thing, I?ve been incredibly uncreative lately with my original plots. Simultaneously, I?ve become absolutely submerged in the universes of the Avengers and Legend of Korra.

My Marvel binge is at an all time high and I can?t go a minute without getting ideas I?d like to roleplay. I?d like to play around with universes, alliance ideas, and established powers, but I only want to play OC?s. I?m really open to pretty much anything, some of my favorite titles are X-men, Batman, Thor, and Spiderman Noir. If you?re looking for something a little darker, I?d also be up for something similar to Sin City and/or Watchmen.

On to Korra. I?m loving this show so far. Well, loving the music, setting, and culture. The characters: not so much. The character development and interaction was my favorite thing about the Last Airbender. It was done incredibly well and I became attached to the characters throughout all their crazy adventures. With Korra, it?s just not there for me. Everything is a little too rushed.

So, I propose a rewrite. I?d like to stick with the basic premise and Republic city as a backdrop, but other than that, everything is up for creation and discussion. I?d really like a dedicated partner for this. Also, someone who will double. Gotta have a full cast :)

Just as some general requirements, etc:
-I might disappear for three days maximum at a time without notice. Please be understanding, a close relative is in failing health.

-I will try to notify you if I?ll be gone for more than three days, please do the same.

-Let?s be friends, I?ll get bored otherwise! I?m a good listener and love to talk as well C:

-In roleplay terms, I?m fairly literate. I?ll be giving you some large posts, up to 1,300 words. -However, I?m sensitive to moving the plot along, I?d like you to be too. What I mean by this: I don?t need three paragraphs describing your shoelaces when you just need to get one line of dialogue across. Conversely, PLEASE don?t give me one-liners.

-On that subject, correct spelling and grammar make me happy. I understand a few sparse errors, but just remember that Microsoft Word is your best friend.

-Tell me if you?re not getting anything out of the roleplay, I don?t want you bored!

-I roleplay all sexualities and genders.

THANK YOU FOR READING MY MASSIVE TEXT WALL D:

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Medtronic fiscal 4Q profit climbs 28 pct

Medtronic Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings jumped 28 percent with revenue topping analyst expectations and a gain from a business sale boosting the medical device maker's bottom line.

The company also said Tuesday it took a $118 million pre-tax charge in the quarter for a fiscal 2013 restructuring plan that will trim 1,000 jobs. Medtronic employs about 45,000 people worldwide.

Spokeswoman Amy von Walter said about 250 jobs will be cut from the Minneapolis area where Medtronic is based, and most of those employees have been notified. She declined to elaborate on where the rest of the cuts will be made or from what parts of the company's business.

The company also will add 1,500 positions during the year for a net gain of about 500. Von Walter said most of those jobs will be in emerging markets like India and China, and Medtronic's U.S. employee count will remain flat or rise slightly.

In the three months that ended April 27, Medtronic earned $991 million, or 94 cents per share. That compares to net income of $776 million, or 72 cents per share, in last year's quarter. Adjusted earnings, which exclude some charges and other items, were 99 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 3 percent to $4.3 billion.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of 98 cents per share on $4.23 billion in revenue.

Medtronic also recorded a $103-million after-tax gain in the quarter tied to the sale of its Physio-Control business in January. Medtronic agreed late last year to sell the business, which makes heart monitors and external defibrillators, to private equity firm Bain Capital.

The company also said its cardiovascular business revenue climbed 9 percent to $958 million, helped in part by the launch of the Resolute Integrity drug-eluting stent, a device used to prop open arteries. Sales from the company's cardiac rhythm disease management business fell nearly 2 percent to about $1.29 billion in the quarter. Spinal business revenue fell 7 percent to $818 million, hurt by a decline in U.S. sales of the Infuse bone graft.

Medtronic was hurt last June when a medical journal alleged that the company downplayed the risks of InFuse and did not disclose millions of dollars in payments to the authors who wrote the initial studies of the product. InFuse contains a genetically engineered protein that can stimulate bone growth. Medtronic said earlier this month that federal prosecutors had closed their investigation into the product.

Medtronic also recorded a slight drop in total costs and expenses to $3.27 billion in the quarter.

For the full fiscal year, the company earned $3.62 billion, or $3.41 per share, on $16.18 billion in revenue.

The company expects 2013 earnings to range between $3.62 and $3.70 per share, with revenue advancing 2 percent to 4 percent. That would amount to revenue ranging between $16.51 billion and $16.83 billion.

Analysts expect, on average, fiscal 2013 earnings of $3.66 per share on $16.52 billion in revenue.

Medtronic shares fell 56 cents to $37.14 in Tuesday afternoon trading, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed slightly.

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Deep-sea aliens hitched ride by submarine to pristine area

Todd Haney / Field Museum

Some of the 38 deep-sea limpets found aboard the research sub ALVIN. Each is less than half an inch long.

By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com

Sure, it sounds like a sci-fi movie: Alien species deep below the ocean latch onto scientists' gear, surface and cause havoc. But it could happen, scientists reported Thursday in a study that concludes those free rides can ruin ecosystems.

"I don't worry too much about deep-sea aliens taking over," lead researcher Janet Voight told msnbc.com, "but the worse-case scenario would in fact be a fundamental change in the ecosystem" if the new species brought with it a disease or parasite.

What triggered the study was the discovery of 38 deep-sea limpets, a kind of saltwater snail, inside a suction system aboard the research submarine ALVIN. They were found just after a dive in 2004 to the deep-water hydrothermal vents along the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Washington state -- and didn't seem like limpets native to the zone.

---

Voight, who was the mission's chief science officer, said,?"I examined the specimens, and contacted my co-authors to help me understand why these limpets were apparently collected on Juan de Fuca Ridge."?

Further research determined that the limpets were from Gorda Ridge, a deep-water site 400 miles to the south where ALVIN had been a few days before the Juan de Fuca dive.

Janet Voight / Field Museum

Clumps of limpets are seen among sea worms at the bottom of Gorda Ridge, from where 38 limpets were mistakenly taken for a ride to another ecosystem.

"We realized instead that they had been collected on Gorda Ridge and 'stowed away'," said Voight, a biologist with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Most surprising was that the limpets had survived the pressure change that comes from rising 8,900 feet in a submersible.?

"Our small limpets and their associates accrued somewhere in the suction sampler, perhaps in the corrugated hose, where enough water pooled to keep them alive," the researchers wrote in their study.

So while ALVIN was busy collecting new samples at Juan de Fuca, the Gorda Ridge limpets were hiding out in the hose.

Ships and even air travelers, via shoes or clothes, are also known to redistribute species to new areas, potentially altering local ecosystems.

"In retrospect, we should have cleaned the sampling gear more thoroughly, but we honestly believed that no animals could survive on ALVIN at sea level pressure for more than a day it took to get to the next dive site," Voight said. "We were naive. This is why we are admitting to our mistake, which could have, but we don't think did, introduce this species to Juan de Fuca Ridge. We want to warn other scientists that it is possible."

Raymond Lee

Limpets easily attach themselves to other objects, as seen in this photo of research equipment.

The danger at Juan de Fuca, Voight said, is that the Gorda Ridge limpets could have established themselves, along with parasites or disease, and potentially wiped out the native limpets.

Voight doesn't think that happened because the Juan de Fuca dive was some 300 feet from any vents, which the limpets need to survive. Still, she adds, "it might be worthwhile to go back to that spot" to check things out.

The team's advice? "We urge our colleagues to assume that physiologically tough stowaways are present on deep-sea research tools and to guard against transport of non-native species by clearing hoses and rinsing containers with freshwater, or even a peroxide solution, and drying tools before transporting them to different sites," they wrote.

The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Conservation Biology.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

?

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Tips To Leverage Your Expertise As A Female Entrepreneur ...

Successful female entrepreneurs understand the necessity to develop multiple streams of income today. The first step to financial freedom is the ability to create a passive income, and to achieve this, it is their ideas and their expertise which they trade, not just their time.

Women who choose to become an entrepreneur, establishing a fully fledged or smaller home based business, and even those in the corporate world can now turn their passions into profitable income streams.

So, how do you create an active income using your expertise?

For those solo professionals in the service industry, an active income can be achieved in a number of ways including conducting seminars and workshops, public speaking, and services such as consulting and coaching. In other words, your income is earned in exchange for your time. As long as you are ?face to face? or one-on-one with your customers, you have the ability to earn. Mother nature ensures that there will only ever be 24 hours in each day, therefore a ceiling is created on the amount of active income one can earn as it is relative to the input of hours at work.

Were you aware that you can also earn passive sources of income?

Fortunately, it is now so much easier to earn additional income passively. These avenues include licensing and selling your products and programs, reports, assessments and even selling someone else?s products or services, otherwise known as affiliate marketing. All these avenues may still utilise? your expertise however and they give you the ability to create enormously profitable income streams without the need to trade your valuable time.

In other words, you have the ability to earn ?while you sleep?.

Therefore, it is important to take a check of your life, and ensure that you continue to create wealth by freeing up more of your time and switching to ways where your income is earned from more passive sources.

We, as female entrepreurs know too well the feeling of being trapped in our business, not having enough time to take care of our career, our families, friends and still find time for ourselves.

With all the tools and resources available to female entrepreneurs today, it has become easier to redesign your business around your preferred lifestyle, freeing yourself from working in your business, and instead working ?on?? the business. The perfect scenario is to work less, earn more and live your life on your terms.

Did you know that due to the popularity of the internet and especially the web2.0 marketplace, the most successful way to leverage your expertise into an extremely profitable business is turning your expertise or what you know into products and programs. In other words, you must create information products.

Information products will enable you to create instant passive income. With the right systems in place, your business can run on auto-pilot, being fully automated to let the money continually roll in even while you sleep. For your business to be automated, you will need the right technology, systems and support.

But where do you start? It all sounds easier than it is, right? As long as you have the desire to succeed as a female entrepreneur or a solo professional in business, it is important to position yourself in your micro-niche as an expert, then use your expertise to create your own information products to teach others what you know and help them solve their problems.

The following 7 hot tips will show how you, a successful female entrepreneur, the steps to model your business around your expertise, put your business on auto-pilot and create a lucrative passive income by leveraging your time, earning more whilst working less and live the lifestyle you desire.

1. The first tip is to establish yourself as an expert. Use the internet to brand yourself and become known as the expert in your niche around the globe. This will raise your profile, and have others seeking your lead and your expertise. Because you are ?the expert?, others will not only want to provide you with an active income through one on one leadership, but will be more apt to purchase your products and programs resulting in a great passive income and freeing up more of your time.

2. Design your passive income marketing funnel The marketing funnel is a process whereby you establish trust with your many prospects in the beginning by offering free reports, newsletters, audios, videos or similar. Allow them to ?taste? what you offer with little or no risk or cost to them.

This process allows your prospects to become potential clients as they may move down the funnel where you offer higher priced products or services. As they progress down the funnel, it becomes easier to sell your high end services as by now they fully trust and believe what you have to offer will be of certain benefit to them.

Don?t make the mistake of trying to sell your high end products initially. This will more than often result in losing the prospect before you have a chance to let them know who you are or what your expertise can provide.

3. Learn the skills and info-preneur strategies to create passive income Multiply your profits by creating information products with what you know and use the power of the internet to create instant passive income. Look around and see the many different ways you can package your information and sell it online. Learn about content development to leverage the content you already have from your presentations, articles and workshops. Learn marketing strategies such as article marketing, web 2.0 marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking, blogging and pay per click advertising to determine which tactics are right for you and your business.

4. Nurture your creativity Both creativity and innovation are key to thinking about new ideas and what you can do for the future of your business. It is important to block some time out in your week specifically for creative right-brain, intuitive thinking. It is during these quiet times that you will get your inspiration. Sadly, when you are constantly busy, you have neither the time or energy to come up with new ideas for writing or creating programs. And how can you create a passive income stream if you don?t have the products?

5. Use systems and automate The key to leveraging your time and expertise is the use of systems. Install a system for every function in your business to make sure that you do one thing only once, and then it should be either delegated or automated to be done in future. Systems and automation can be set up for such procedures as getting client referrals, for contact management, for delivering your newsletter, recording sales, taking payments, for your record-keeping, for marketing, conferencing, teleseminars and for product development.

It is true that everything you do in your business can and should be made into a system. Reduce the day to day tasks that zap your energy and inhibit your creativity by leveraging the power of technology and the internet.

6. Delegate Your business will plateau or even stagnate if you try to do everything yourself. Although often difficult in the beginning, it is important that you learn to delegate. Surround yourself with a great team to support and help you create your highly profitable business. Outsourcing has become a popular exercise where you can delegate those tasks you either don?t like to doing or those that take you away from doing what you are good at. Try to concentrate on the tasks that ?earn you the money?.

7. Seek a mentor and support In order to grow yourself and your business, to make more money and be as successful as your vision, you will need to seek the support of a mastermind group or a coach/mentor to motivate and drive you. Too often, female entrepreneurs are coaches themselves, and feel that this support is unnecessary. Oftentimes when their businesses are in the early stages, finances are continually being spread over to other areas and this important mentoring is ignored. Remember, even the very successful multi-millionaires continually use mentors to maintain their businesses on the cycle of success.

Finally, use collaboration with others and joint ventures to leverage your expertise. As long as you have a purpose and passion for your business, your success will continue and keep growing with your contributions and your followers.

Have a think about your business. Are you trying to do everything yourself? Are you giving yourself time to be creative? Are you making use of strategies and resources of experts that have done it before? Or perhaps you are continually trying to re-invent the wheel.

Fast track your journey and leverage your expertise to be the successful female entrepreneur that you desire to be.

Excerpt: http://www.content4reprint.com/women-in-business/7-hot-tips-to-leverage-your-expertise-as-a-female-entrepreneur.htm

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Mad Men, Episode 9: Team Building Lessons On Hierarchy, Ego ...

Mad Men, Episode 9: Don leaves behind Michael Ginsberg's ad concept

Team building lessons from the most creative, dynamic, and dysfunctional ad agency?s creative department on television today.

If you follow our articles here at the Team Building Blog, then you know that we?re big fans of The Apprentice. It is, after all, a reality television series that casts real-life business professionals, and constitutes them into teams for the purposes of making compelling television programming. In the process, we get to observe the both the best practices and pitfalls of the team building process, all at an incredibly accelerated pace.

For as much as The Apprentice is our favourite reality television programme around here, Mad Men ranks as our most beloved fictional series: compelling characters, a candid look into American culture in the 60s, and, most of all, a realistic depiction of the inner-workings of a burgeoning Madison Avenue ad agency whose success and demise hinges on delivering fresh, creative ideas to both existing and prospective clients. For as much as Mad Men is a scripted show, its producers know what they?re doing; the tensions, issues, and processes played out in the office each week are compelling and ? for the purposes of this blog ? educational.

Let?s take a look at what happened last week, in episode 9.

If you sift through the episode?s debauchery and domestic drama, you discover a kernel of team building insight. We see Donald trying to reassert his creative prowess in working on the ?snowball? ad campaign for a prospective client. His concept ? a creative play on the ?snowball?s chance in hell? clich? ? is matched in creativity by the work of new creative department team member?Michael Ginsberg, who develops a humorous series of ad images depicting respected and authoritative figures like police officers and politicians being pelted by snowballs.

Both ideas are equally compelling, but in the end, Donald decides to pitch only his idea to the client ? and wins with it. This decision, of course, leads to new tensions between Donald and Michael. It is obvious that Donald feels threatened by Michael?s work when it competes against his own ideas. While he tries to justify his decision to Ginsberg by stating that he believes that pitching two ideas is ?weak,? Michael implies an accusation that Donald made the decision based on his ego. The episode ends with Donald?s divisive barb to Ginsberg: ?It?s a good thing you work for me.?

Not a very healthy team building strategy!

The Team Building Lesson

Hurt Feelings: Don't ego-based decision will have damaging effects on the team

The tension in episode 9 of Mad Men is worth noting: while Donald is the Creative Director of his own company and seen as the real talent behind the department?s efforts, his role has become increasingly hands-off, allowing the bulk of the work to be done by the team itself. This is a typical, real-life migration that many managers and directors transition into. For as much as business professionals often aspire to achieve directorial positions, pulling away from the doing can hit their egos hard: those at the top of the organisational chart often feel the need to assert themselves as the ?best? at what their department does.

Other managers and directors always remain hands-on, and continue to be productive alongside other team members, in spite of having hierarchy over them. This can also be a sensitive situation, since business roles become blurred; team members can be made to feel as though competing with ideas against their boss might be damaging to their own career!

If you are in Donald?s position at your business, then a decision has to be made when it comes to team building and managing: are you going to be a hands-on or hands-off manager? If the latter, then a candid discussion between yourself and your team is in order: while you may be the one who gives the marching orders, those job it is to develop ideas that may compete with yours should know that they are invited to be competitive and give their very best with no fear of doing so. Then, of course, you need to live up to that promise (which can be tough, no doubt).

And if you decide to pull back from being hands-on, then understand that jumping back into the business process ? for any reason ? can be damaging to your team?s workflow and creative process. If there is a legitimate need for you to get your hands dirty on a project, again ? make sure you?re communicative with your team on why.

Don?t take Donald?s approach. While he was indeed entitled to make the decisions made in episode 9, those decisions will have negative repercussions. That will make for some good television, but not for a healthy work environment.

Thanks for reading our article! Be sure to check out Accolade Corporate Events? wide range of team building events that can help your business?s departments achieve maximum productivity.

Question: Who do you think had the better ?snowball? ad ? Donald or Michael ? and why?

Tags: Mad Men

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Team Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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