May 26

To supplement The Paradigm 360 Estimating & Project Management Glossary found elsewhere on this site I posted this from:

The Real Dictionary of Construction Terminology

Contractor - A gambler who never gets to shuffle, cut or deal.

Bid Opening - A poker game in which the losing hand wins.

Bid - A wild guess carried out to two decimal places.

Low Bidder - A contractor who is wondering what he left out.

Engineer’s Estimate - The cost of construction in heaven.

Project Manager - The conductor of an orchestra in which every musician is in a different union.

Critical Path Method - A management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control.

OSHA - A protective coating made by half-baking a mixture of fine print, red tape, split hairs and baloney–usually applied at random with a shotgun.

Strike - An effort to increase egg production by strangling the chicken.

Delayed Payment - A tourniquet applied at the pockets.

Completion Date - The point at which liquidated damages begin.

Liquidated Damages - A penalty for failing to achieve the impossible.

Auditor - Person who goes in after the war is lost and bayonets the wounded.

Lawyer - Person who goes in after the auditors to strip the bodies.

by: admin

May 04

Jim Kaslik one of my online friends and acquaintances from Fine Homebuilding Magazines BreakTime Forum (where I know him as Cloud Hidden) who designs homes as sculptural concrete forms (they’re more than just domes) posted a link in the BreakTime forums to a great article he discovered in the blue flavor web site blog entitled Pricing a Project that I think is a gem and while it’s written from the viewpoint of a design, development and consulting company there are plenty of lessons in it that building and remodeling contractors can learn from too.

In addition to reading that article on pricing I would also think that most of the building and remodeling contractors I know would really enjoy taking a look at the kind of stuff that Jim does in his practice so take a trip to the Cloud Hidden Designs, LLC web site (CloudHidden.org) and take a look at the great designs he has developed.

by: admin