AsktheBuilder.com News - December 11, 2022

Issue #1211 (I think...)

Dear ,

Is this your first Ask the Builder newsletter? If so, welcome! This one has some very interesting news in it.

I want to congratulate Mike Kegley and Paul for their excellent eagle-eye editing skills.

Early last Sunday Mike reached out to me, "Your impeccable command of the English language fell a little short this morning. LOL"

Mike and I are good friends. He's an excellent home builder from northern part of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. Mike had a distinct advantage in pointing out my editorial faux pas. All you have to do is look at his office address. If you live near there and want a fantastic home built, reach out to Mike.

Paul's message was nearly identical, "I am a fond reader of your weekly articles. Your articulate writing style is usually flawless -- however, in today's article you stated..."

In last Sunday's issue, I stated that William thought I'd send him the hill that Jesus Christ died on to pay for your sins and mine. Yep, I typed calvary when it should have been cavalry.

BTW, William reached out to me and thanked me for providing the information he needed to prevent a cage fight between himself and She Who Must Be Obeyed.

The Past Week

Several days ago I received a surprise Christmas gift in the mail. It was sent by Lucy who lives east of Memphis, TN. When I opened the small parcel, I almost cried.

Lucy had recalled that months before I asked if you had any very old dictionaries that you had no use for. 

I've started to collect old dictionaries because I don't want the people running the online digital dictionaries to get away with murder by changing the definitions of key words.

Do you realize how EASY it is for me to go back to one of my past columns on my AsktheBuilder website and CHANGE text? If you don't have an original screenshot of the page you'd have NO PROOF that I CHANGED the text.

Lucy sent the above amazing treasure to me. It was her father's vest-pocket dictionary. I was humbled that she'd choose me to be its next steward.

This tiny dictionary is unique for many reasons not the least of which it's a reverse crossword puzzle guide. I say this because many of the word definitions are short and very cryptic.

Look at the definition of octopus! No wonder it was the perfect marine animal to provide the inspiration for the game of Squid that I played with my two youngest children!

I'll take extremely great care of this compact dictionary and will leave instructions with my descendants to keep it in my family until such time as it needs a new steward.

THANK YOU, Lucy!

Amazing Photos

Mike Cyr, another good friend, sent me a link to his brother Paul's best photos of 2022. I suggest you savor his delectable eye candy.

You're Going to Need a BIG Beam

Scott visited my website this past week and asked me this question:

"I want to put some furniture up on a loft in the half of my garage with a 40-foot span. What will I need as to size of what type of beam?"

I understood his request and immediately pointed him to this amazing ebook that YOU NEED too!

If my very good friend Steve, who's a structural engineer in Cincinnati, was here, he'd most likely say, "Scott, I need to know so much more before I can size that beam for you, buddy."

I recommend you peruse the easy-to-understand ebook I'm purveying so you ensure you NEVER DO ANYTHING at your home that will cause a collapse that could KILL or MAIM SOMEONE.

Preserving Photos

This past week UPS safely delivered back to me a priceless photo album filled with Carter family heirloom photos. These are ONE-OF-A-KIND PRICELESS photos. No different than hundreds or thousands you might have at your home.

Just before Thankgiving I had sent my entire photo album to Capture. 

The timing was perfect because several months ago I had decided that a winter project of mine was to digitize the THOUSANDS of priceless MEMORIES we have here at the Carter Casa.

I wanted to do this so I could easily SHARE the photos with all my kids, grandkids, and Carter family members NOT YET BORN.

Don't you want to do the same with your photos????

I sent the album to Capture because I received an email from their PR folks telling me about NEW TOUCHLESS TECHNOLOGY Capture uses to scan priceless irreplaceable photos. Here's part of what was in the email:

"Capture, the leading photo and video digitization service, today announces the official release of its Album Scanning Service. Using the innovative and proprietary technologies the company is known for, Capture is able to scan, extract and enhance individual photos from an album without risk of damage to the photos. The Album Scanning Service starts by capturing more than 240 Megapixels of information for each scan then uses the best-in-class machine learning algorithm and is AI trained on more than 20 million photos to enhance and improve color and image quality."

Have you ever tried to REMOVE a photo from an old photo album and RUIN it as I ALMOST did a year ago? The adhesive in the photo album had bonded so well to the back of the photo paper that it started to RIP the photo apart.

Capture decided to solve the problem caused by the glue as well as the clear cellophane cover that protects the photos. They have technology that REMOVES the glare during the scan.

They don't have to TOUCH THE PHOTOS nor take them out of the album to SCAN THEM!!!!!

Here's just one of the photos they PRESERVED for me forever:

Not only did Capture do an amazing job scanning all the photos, they have the technology to IMMEDIATELY UPLOAD them to your Google Photos to safely store them in the cloud.

The other advantage to storing them in Google Photos is you can use Google's powerful facial recognition tool to sort the photos of all your family members. Do you know how many HOURS OR DAYS of time this saves?

When you send your photos, negatives, or albums to Capture, you can apply different titles to the albums or sets of photos. These titles automatically transfer as album titles in Google Photos. This is a HUGE TIME SAVER.

You can also order the digital photos to be sent to you on a flash drive. This is not a bad idea but it should just be a secondary method of storage as what happens if you LOSE the drive, have a house fire or flood, or it disappears?

This is why you need to put your scanned photos up in the cloud.

Capture offered to me TWO differet promo codes for you should you decide to have them scan your albums or even individual photos.

I'm now going to send them ALL OF MY PHOTOS to scan. I might have close to 3,000 photos, maybe many more.

Here are the two promo codes:

• Album Scanning 10% off discount code: BUILDER10
• All Other Services 65% off discount code: BUILDER65

I was blown away by the quality of the scans. I was super impressed with how EASY it was to get my album to Capture. Their order interface makes it so easy to have your photos digitized

And the COST to do the scan of my album without the promo code above was LESS than the cost of the shipping!!!! 

They scanned 90 historic photos and it cost less than $15.00 for the scanning service!

I URGE YOU TO TRY out Capture. You'll NEVER regret the Peace of Mind knowing that your priceless photos have been SCANNED and preserved FOREVER.

I DO NOT receive any type of financial compensation should you place an order. I'm sharing this with you because I am so impressed with what they did for me. They were kind enough to create promo codes so YOU CAN SAVE MONEY.

Two Tips

Tip 1: Are you doing any remodeling soon? How would you like to have a HOT water faucet in your garage? Do you realize it's not hard to install one?

Tip 2: What is the best roof ventilation known to woman or man? Do you think it's this? Are you SURE?

New Home #HACKS

This is your LAST CALL to submit a hack you have at your own home or something you WISH YOU HAD at your home. If you make a submission, you get a FREE PDF copy of my book when I release it in the next few months. HURRY.

Tim Carter

Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com

500+ Contacts in 14 Days - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over! 

P.S. Let's say you wanted to stain some interior wood. But you want it to come out perfect. Do you know the one step 99.9999% of people like you make? There's no need to beat yourself up. GO HERE and behold how to get professional staining results.