One Sided

If no one cares about a fight… is it really a fight? If one guy is boxing and the other is staring listlessly into space, is it a match? Don’t you need two to tango? So with that in mind we have the ever continuing adventures of the NFRC. See last week the NFRC presented at conference in Minnesota. According to press reports, a lot of the same stuff we’ve heard over the years came out… but one relatively new angle was admitted. The glazier will indeed be the “responsible” party for the implementation of this program. And so that brings us to the comments I made at the top. 97% of all glaziers know nothing of the NFRC and quite frankly don’t care. I travel the country and I ask everywhere I go… and I get the same reaction…. blank stares. (I also ask architects and they care even LESS if thats possible) So this will be interesting when the money makers at the NFRC try and stuff this Titanic down our throats and a glazier in Tulsa has no clue what this is even about. Then when they see the costs and the work added… complaining about things like the surcharge will be long from their minds. Eventually when your punched enough, you will fight… but until that sinks in… this is truly a one sided issue with one party not caring a bit…. Yet.

Then again if NFRC throws a party and no one comes.... that I can see happening... abandon ship! Woooooooomp!

Elsewhere…

-- Credit to Katy Devlin and her blog post (Click here) great stuff and yes even got me hooked in to comment. Sorry folks I can not resist. Someone once asked me why I get so pissy on the NFRC stuff… and it’s simple… because it’s wrong! They are ramming a program that has no true value down our throats… for the main reason of “because we can” Oh and the money too… believe me, if there wasn’t a ton of money involved this issue it would not still be perking along 5 or 6 years after it started.

-- Oh and I love the “protecting the public” argument… yep protecting the public from what? Keeping their hard earned money? Remember NFRC cut their teeth protecting homeowners which actually needed it... professional architects and GC's don't.

-- THANK YOU to everyone who has been reading and also commenting via e-mail or phone. Traffic has been tremendous and I am honored and thrilled. Especially since our industry is in the most boring stretch it’s ever been in news wise.

Book of the week:

The Last Great Fight by Joe Layden… keeping with the boxing theme above… but seriously… a GREAT book here focusing on the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight in 1990 and what happened to each afterwards. A tremendous read if you are into boxing even in the least. And really since the fall of Tyson, boxing is no longer the same and the fall started that night.

An EARLY TRIP TO THE LINKS!!

Yep I know I usually write more.. but we have more links this week and 2 videos!

-- Folks in the Netherlands think the world will end in 2012. I guess they could care less about NFRC eh?

-- A great breakdown here on gas, the effects from China and Russia and the Big 3. A worthwhile blogpost from the Detroit News.

-- A good feature here on what is BIM… and yes people are still asking even though its been the “hot” topic lately.

-- According to this.. the credit crisis is only ½ way done. And the offshoot of that is commercial buildings will continue to feel that backlash.

-- The Surcharge is EVERYWHERE… alert the lawyers! Even speeding tickets now feature them…

Videos of the Week

Fun one first… sent in by a loyal reader of the blog… great comedy with cats… is it me or how come you can get funnier videos with cats?

2^nd one an interesting video from the floor of congress that was sent to me by Larry… AKA "the king of Fantasy Baseball"…. Those new light bulbs come with some serious instructions huh? 5 minutes long but pretty interesting.