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We received the final payout figure on the land, $64,034. My wife went to the bank and drew a bank check for the amount. Man I could buy a nice car with that money ;-).

One of the retaining wall contractors rang me just a short time (kudos to him) after receiving the request for quote. He was strongly emphasizing the need to have the retaining walls installed before the house was built or costs will be considerably higher. This goes completely against what I was told by our builder here. The retaining wall contractor said 'under the act' that we were to be given reasonable time to install retaining walls between levelling the land and preparing the land for laying the foundations.

I need to call our builder immediately and get this sorted out.

So I jumped on the phone and called the builder about having the retaining walls installed before the house is built. They put me through to someone who was a 'project manager'. He basically listened to my spiel, agreed with me, and then said it was up to me to negotiate this with my 'site supervisor' when we were assigned one. Blah.

We got a couple of retaining wall quotes back today and one for the paving/stormwater.

Firstly, the good news, the paving/stormwater will be around $10,200. I was expecting $10,000 for the paving alone. So this is a good thing.

Now for the bad news. I spent 30 minutes on the phone to one of the retaining wall contractors and he detailed out the problems with retaining walls in the area we are building. Most of these problems seemed to involve rock and the trouble with shifting it. If they do hit rock when putting in the walls the cost of a drilling rig to get through it is $190/hr. Ouch. Anyway the two quotes we received were:

$17,500 + allow up to $10,000 for rock drilling
$27,800 (with no allowance for rock drilling so I guess these guys are expecting it).

These quotes are $10,000 more than I was expecting when we started this whole process. Unfortunately there's absolutely nothing to be done about it as the level of the house (and thus the height and nature of the retaining walls) is determined by the local council. Of course Murphy's law prevailed and they picked the worst height for the site they could have. Oh well.

Activision Value Publishing, a division of Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that it has teamed with game developer WXP and paintball legend Greg Hastings to create the first-ever paintball game for a major video game console - Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball for the Xbox video game system from Microsoft.

Tom Kaye, the former president of one of the oldest and and respected names in paintball, Air Gun Designs, officially announced his retirement from the sport of paintball and his ownership of AGD...

On May 17, 2005 Activision, WXP, and Greg Hastings announced that Greg Hasting's Tournament Paintball MAX'D will be available for current consoles and handheld platforms this fall. Game developer WXP will provide a sneak preview of some new gameplay features, including the Breakout feature set at the 2005 E3 Expo.

Have you ever wondered how paintballs are made? Well this article gives you the low down on this amazing process of how paintballs are made. The article also has a video in it, which shows you around the Diablo paintball plant.

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AkzoNobel (AKZA; AKZOY) announced that Marya Salim has joined the company as Regional Marketing Director for its North America Automotive & Specialty Coatings (ASC) business unit, reporting to John Griffin, North America Regional Director, and Commercial Director of ASC. In her new role, Marya is responsible for all marketing activities for AkzoNobel’s Vehicle Refinish, Commercial […]

The post Marya Salim Named Head of Marketing for AkzoNobel Automotive & Specialty Coatings North America appeared first on CollisionWeek.

Axalta (NYSE: AXTA) has announced its global headquarters at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, marked by a ceremonial ribbon-cutting and an employee appreciation event. This strategic relocation from Delaware County to the Navy Yard integrates the headquarters with Axalta’s Global Innovation Center, unifying operations under the ONE Axalta initiative to enhance collaboration and streamline decision-making. “We […]

The post Axalta Celebrates Opening of Global Headquarters in the Philadelphia Navy Yard appeared first on CollisionWeek.

Classic Collision, LLC announced the acquisition of Carrillo’s Auto Body with locations in La Mesa and San Diego, Calif. For 40 years, Carrillo’s Auto Body has been a cornerstone in the heart of Normal Heights on Adams Avenue, with a second location in La Mesa “We have stood by our commitment to quality and outstanding […]

The post Classic Collision Expands into Southern California appeared first on CollisionWeek.

Submissions for the awards are open through January 5. The Women’s Industry Network (WIN) announced that nominations for its Most Influential Women (MIW) awards have officially opened. Considered one of the collision repair industry’s highest honors, nominations will be accepted through January 5, 2025. The nomination form is available online. The Class of 2025 MIW […]

The post Women’s Industry Network Opens 2025 Most Influential Women Nominations appeared first on CollisionWeek.

Jerry’s Abra Auto Body and Glass, owned by the Kottschade family, has been partnering with the Mankato Moondogs, a summer collegiate baseball team, has partnered with Jerry’s Abra Auto Body and Glass each season since 2017, with the business donating $100 to the Alzheimer’s Association for every home run the team hits. With 38 home […]

The post Jerry’s Abra Auto Body and Glass of Mankato Donates $3,800 to Alzheimer’s Association appeared first on CollisionWeek.

ASA Board Chairman Scott Benavidez and Incoming Chair Dan Stander provided insight on the causes behind the rising costs of collision repairs in a November 7 article in the Wall Street Journal. Benavidez, owner of Mr. B’s Paint and Body Shop in Albuquerque, N.M. and Stander, owner of FIX Auto Highlands Ranch in Littleton, Colo., […]

The post Wall Street Journal Article on Rising Cost of Collision Repair Features ASA Leaders  appeared first on CollisionWeek.

‘The Last King of Scotland', The Good German, A Prairie Home Companion (‘The Last show' in France) (PECC Bonus), The Painted Veil (Le Voile des Illusions)and Dreamgirls (PECC Bonus) are the final movies for PECC's 2nd season.
PECC Pezenas English Language Cinema Club presents: PECC Programme Avril - Juin 2007
Avril Ven 13 / Dim 15 (*NB 2nd week-end en Avril) Last King of Scotland Real - Kevin Macdonald, avec Forest Whitaker Best Actor (...)

If you are buying or selling you will probably want to find a real estate agent.
Here's a directory of languedoc real estate agents by town or region.

When you've seen one teen heartthrob you've seen them all. Famous for playing Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills 90210 , actress Jennie Garth is an expert at coquettish sidelong glances and flirtatious smirks. Another blonde beauty, teen pop munchkin Jesse McCartney , seems to have borrowed from Big Sister's playbook. If they were not separated at birth, they certainly have all the same faces. Fortunately though for Jesse, he doesn't have to live in Brenda's [PARTIAL POST: VISIT THE SITE TO READ THE REST AND SEE PICTURES]

Posted by Frank On 01/26/06 At 01:42 PM

A new look for ClearlyCultural.com! We will again be providing you with the latest news on cross cultural communication, as well as categorizing useful tools, resources and other information that will help you understand intercultural differences and how to apply that knowledge in informal and business settings.

Michael Prosser, a prominent figure in the study of intercultural communication, and distinguished professor of Shanghai International Studies University explains in this article that a major obstacle for Americans to learn about the real China, and the causes of the misunderstandings about China, is the lack of personal experience of the country.

A new cross cultural tool has been released allowing you to consult the Geert Hofstede 5-dimensional cultural model on the Iphone. From the CultureGPS website: “CultureGPS is a tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch that enables you to analyze behavior differences in intercultural encounters and to predict to a certain degree, which interactions evolve …

Continue reading "Iphone app Geert Hofstede’s 5 cultural dimensions"

A very interesting post on how cross cultural differences between makers of airplanes Boeing and Airbus (located in small power distance countries) and pilots from South Korea (large power distance country) caused series of dangerous situations and accidents in the late 90’s. Planes produced by Airbus and Boeing are supposed to be flown by 2 …

Continue reading "How cross cultural differences caused Korean Airlines problems"

Via the Division of Labour, This BussinessWeek article, Innovation in the Age of Mass Collaboration, describes how a conservative mining company discovered gold by opening up its proprietary database on the Internet and offering a prize: The contestants identified 110...

WHAT WOULD GANDHI DO? Fred Thompson thinks Code Pink's sanctimonious question is actually reprehensible. During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the...

My earlier post on Haskell described a small DSL for calendar apps. In this post, I will show a very simple DSL (written in just 6 lines of code) to replace (a small portion of) GNU make utility. Earlier, I...

James Kroeger makes this ridiculous claim in the post "The New Deal Didn’t Always Work, Either": Here you are guilty of conflating the two definitions of 'investment.' Rich people, generally, do not spend money on economic investments, but only on...

The Giamonster captioned this video “POV: u can’t sit right cuz your boyfriend taught u a lesson.” Looks like it will have been a memorable one! See Also:A Harsh Switching And Anal SexRiding Crop Spanked During Anal SexAnal After SpankingJoey's Anal PunishmentRosebud And Red Welts

Riley from AAA Spanking is getting double punishment in this screenshot. She’s getting her hands spanked with a heavy leather strap while she’s holding a sudsy bar of soap in her mouth: Presumably she gets a lot more with the leather if she drops the soap. See Also:Mouthsoaped And CryingHer Mouthsoaping Punishment BeginsA Rich Girl […]

There's a clear difference between simply maintaining a social media presence and actually using the platform to engage with fans and followers. Social media really is all about engagement. This post takes a closer look at that and offers some tips and information on how to go about getting more interaction going on your Facebook or Twitter.

The post Social Media is All About Engagement appeared first on Create + Design + Market.

Whether you’re just starting out and need a brand new website for your small business, or you already have a site up (but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for your business), you could benefit from determining what your website actually needs. Just having a site is not enough. Remember, a website is your most important digital asset and should be your central, online marketing piece. So putting some extra thought into that is [...]

The post How do you know what your small business website needs? appeared first on Create + Design + Market.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. (via Wikipedia).

Basically, it’s all the rage lately and I’ve done extensive testing on it to determine (1) its usefulness and (2) its pitfalls. And no, I didn’t use it to come up with the text of this post. This is really just a very quick, very broad overview and introduction to what this is and how it’s being used.

First, I’ll [...]

The post What’s all this about ChatGPT? appeared first on Create + Design + Market.