November 30, 2014 AsktheBuilder Weekend Newsletter

Are you a new subscriber? This is NOT a normal newsletter. You'll see one on Tuesday.

It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I didn't send out a newsletter on Tuesday because of the madness of the holiday. Everyone here at my house was busy getting our home ready for the holiday feast. We hosted dinner for my sister and her family and it was a grand time.

It's now three days later and the house is quiet. There's 8 inches of snow outdoors and it really looks like winter now.

We were hammered by a wicked Nor'easter the night before Thanksgiving. A heavy wet snow caused tens of thousands of trees to fall. Hundreds of thousands of people here in New Hampshire lost power and some still don't have it restored.

The lights at my home flickered about three times, but we never lost power. Had it happened, my stand-by generator would have kicked in.

I've got a few things for you today - more as a reflection and something for you to ponder.

New Questions, Answers and People

Have you noticed lately here in the newsletter all the new questions from folks like you that I answer? I've got a bunch just below for you.

I try to spend about fifteen minutes a day with this free service. The rest of the time I often feel like I'm chained to an invisible oar connected to my keyboard that allows me to serve my ship and keep it moving forward.

Remember that scene in the movie Ben Hur with Charlton Heston? The consul is down among the slaves who are rowing his ship and he says, "We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well and live." Here's the actual scene in the movie.

Later on after the huge naval battle, Ben Hur says the same thing to the consul as they're floating on a piece of wreckage. But I digress.

The day after Thanksgiving, I reviewed some records I've been keeping. Each time I answer a question that someone's asked me, I record if they get back with a "Thank You".

I was shocked to see how low the percentage is. It's less than ten percent. Yes, I regularly check my SPAM folder for replies so errant responses are not there.

What's even more shocking is the percentage is not higher when I answer the question in less than a day.

I share this with you for one reason.

If someone does you a favor, please stop and just take a moment and thank them. It's not hard.

If the people coming to my website for help are a valid statistical cross section of the general population, then I maintain we need much more gratitude in our world.

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It doesn't cost you a penny more to do this. Amazon simply shares a small part of their profit with me for helping get you to their website.

Thanks!

The THRILL of Winning!

One of the things I did the day before Thanksgiving was to reach out and contact the winners of some of the recent games you've seen here in the newsletter.

The responses I received were very uplifting and I just had to share a few with you.

Charles Maeda replied, "Wow, how awesome! Thank you very much!"

Ron Selliers said, "Can't believe that I won, thanks and hope you are still having fun with the Hobo Railroad gang."

Andreas Wolf exclaimed, "Wow! Thanks very much Tim. You were not kidding when you said that chances of winning were high. I usually don't win anything!"

Theresa Cantrell shared, "That is so awesome! My husband is an HVAC service technician and he is claiming responsibility, says he trained me well!"

And the last one is from Francisco Corona Del Valle who lives in Mexico. His response is a keeper and shows you the magical word of technology that surrounds us:

"Yesterday I received an email from You.

It provides the result of the competition Fein Multimaster Game.

My name appears as winner of the second prize.

If I'm not mistaken, I won $ 50.00 cold cash.

I would like to confirm with you, and if true, how I can apply for the award?

Wow! I am excited because I've never won a contest.

In advance thank you very much for your attention and response.

I'm using Google translator because I do not speak English well.

I hope clearly understood my message."