Not the calm before the storm, but something like that.

Over a foot as of midnight, I'm scared what it'll be in the morning.

#1, I recommend at least a once a year self-roof inspection. Look for shingles who's adhesive has gone bad, they will be loose. Look for sagging in the roof caused by bad/faulty plywood. And anything else that looks bad.

Since I hadn't noticed any issues, this became a problem (obviously).

#2 make sure to clean your gutters. This caused an ice issue for my neighbor.

As we thought the small roof fix was the solution, we had our ceiling fixed and I painted it. As much as painting can be fun, I'd rather not do it for no reason.

So that was a great disappointment for me when he roof leaked the second time and ruined a new spot of the ceiling. This time we examined the roof and determined, as we probably should have the first time, was in need of replacement.

What is the primary reason? The pitch of the roof (see Roof Pitches). It is around 3 degrees, which classifies it as a very flat roof and is not well-suited for shingles.

So now we're going to have to increase the pitch to get a steeper angle. We'll do this by raising the point of articulation of that portion of roof with the main roof (the troubled flat spot is for the addition that was put on this sixty-plus year old house around three decades ago).

This will be at least a three day project. BUT the current 5 inches of snow on the roof/ground makes things more interesting.

Tip 3, it helps to have a neighbor who is a really great guy, and a skilled contractor. He did the fix on the first issue, for an amazing price. And he'll be doing the roof pitch fix this time too.

The pictures Shingle Dip and Shingle Ridge give you an idea of what was causing some of the problems where water was pooling and doing nasty things to our house.

(download)

Click here to download:

Fixing_a_roof_leak_again.zip (1.6 MB)

A butterfly on the ground, at rest, at my favorite place in the world - Penn Yan, NY.

I'm enjoying the cold here in the DC area, but you know...

NICE!

• The greatest challenge is balance between real requirements and system constraints.
• How can one balance what users of a real system expect, versus what they would have at the outset of the system. There is a balance to be maintained between the “real” requirements, which existed before the system was in place and those that now pop into the heads of the developers and users. The odds are they might not have said the system needs x, y, and z integrated functions until they have been using it for several weeks.
• The document must be instantly useable to guide future development and testing, which is hard. An existing system has existing users, which means there will be requests very soon to change the system (either corrections to bugs, or enhancements). These enhancements might have been deficiencies to the original system design, which did not have the guidance of the user base’s requirements.
• It HAS to be valuable in analyzing and engineering future system changes; if it doesn’t make sure that future changes don’t conflict with existing functionality, it is not worthwhile.
• Requirements documents are always a challenge to write, and to be useful in general. Let alone when the system is in place and being used.
• Is the client committed to using a requirements baseline? Will they maintain it? How will they do so? Who will maintain it and use it?

She sleeps with one (on a Washington Nationals blanket no less).

There is of course the SaaS/Software decisions, as well as Open/Close system element. Here are some quick thoughts on the situation.

SaaS vs Software

• Either gives you a good bit of flexibility, SaaS is much more flexible than it used to be
• SaaS makes the accessibility of the system that much easier
• Software used to make it easier to administer on a granular level, but that's not a compelling case anymore
  

• Open source options make it easy to find a low-cost initial system to explore and test
• Either is going to require customization, and this can often mean a special consultant
• All Closed system sellers are going to claim that enhancements and customizations of Open systems make them brittle, and problematic to upgrade, which is true
• But that also begs the question of how easy is it to upgrade from the Closed system
• And which specific opens (Open or Closed) are going to allow for the export of data from the system (the "data roach motel" conundrum)
  

Any option available seems to have a rather steep learning curve, and customization challenge. These aren't particularly good reasons to avoid a CRM solution, if that is in fact in the best interest of the organization. In fact, one can argue that this is a prime example of "fail fast forward", get the implementation going so you can figure out what has gone wrong.

To me, that is what makes a low-cost initial tool something important to consider. You can readily pilot the option in a low-risk manner. But there is always the element of opportunity cost, time spent on the pilot, etc.

I was searching for some answers on LinkedIn (anyone with some good views on CRM tools for a small consulting firm). Doesn't seem to make sense unless they were timing me out of the website itself.

If you follow more that 10 blogs you end up with around 200 Thanksgiving posts to wade through in Google Reader (or other RSS reader). If the posts has real thanks giving in it, or some value to the reader - awesome.

But 200 posts thanking the readers of the blog? No thanks.

It is in the Federal Triangle metro. Air quality? Bio attack detection?