[Chad Shaw]

As a fairly recent grad (2009), I can’t disagree…while in school, I definitely jumped on the bus. 

My first job out set me straight, though- quickly realized that my job was to make the site work as intended (in that case, school grounds), not push unnecessary agendas.  I’ve been fortunate enough to find plenty of work, and now that I’m in the residential sector, the same is true here, as well: help the client figure out what they’re looking for, provide a quality product that costs what they want to spend while coordinating with all other contractors.  If they want a green roof, I’ll be the first to jump on board, but I’m not trying to force it.

If one really wants to push an agenda, maybe educating the client is the logical first step.  Help them make an educated decision rather than tell them what you think they need/want.

[Chad Shaw]

Benjamin-

Try to get a job doing something relatively close to either of the fields, save some money, travel, and think about it for awhile…no need to hurry…seriously

 

 

[Chad Shaw]

yeah, yeah, yeah….I was waiting for the trip hazard comment 🙂

The concrete will be stained, curb/ring around firepit masonry to match house, etc.- the finish details have been discussed, more interested in ideas to help make it work effectively at this point, not look pretty (but thanks for the recommendations).

[Chad Shaw]

Top of pit is near ground level, and it will be gas…I have a pretty good idea of how we’re going to construct it, but just wanted to see if anybody had any suggestions for any particular scenarios we hadn’t considered.

[Chad Shaw]

I have a Canon T1i, have no complaints, although haven’t used it as much as I would like.

[Chad Shaw]

We have a Quickbooks rep coming in soon to show us what we may be able to put together…I’ll post the results as we figure things out.  We also have developed spreadsheets in Excel, but ultimately are duplicating data (prices/materials are already set in Quickbooks); it makes more sense to keep everything together and only have to hard-enter data once.

[Chad Shaw]

Walleye Whiz- Sunday mornings at 4:30  hehehe

[Chad Shaw]

The office in which we may be making the switch is small- only 2-3 designers working on the machines.  That being said,  we aren’t too concerned about problems arising from the transition.

My concern lies in problems with a first version software on a specific operating system…it seems to me (at least on a PC) that this rarely works well without at least a few glitches.  I’m curious if anyone has experienced any technical problems.

The ongoing battle between PC and Mac users in regards to culture/image/etc is ridiculous…I just want to make sure that we don’t get hung up on issues like file incompatibility and end up spending more time putting out fires than solving worthwhile problems.

[Chad Shaw]

Thanks for the suggestions….however, the specific places where I’m considering including traffic-calming elements aren’t at intersections, making the idea of a neck-down a bit difficult. I’m not completely sold on the speed table idea; in fact, a painted crosswalk might end up doing the trick. Speed humps/tables have been considered because of the length of the drive that they would cross- the likelihood of student drivers speeding through the site seems fairly high, and something needs to be done.

[Chad Shaw]

well, alec, based upon the responses to the above question, there is sure to be some whole-hearted discussion (or bitter debate) over the mag’s content…it sounds good to me. tell me more about it over some beers?

[Author]

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