Howard's Grab Bag of Fun, Part II

I have a couple of items I would like to mention, and though none of them merit their own special posting, I'll put them into the ol' Grab Bag of Fun:

• Construction on the million dollar house -- I did tell you that the final total cost for the Hothead's house will be about a million clams, didn't I? -- anyway construction will resume tomorrow after the Homeowners Association Architectural Review Board gave us their blessed approval Friday night. They added a few zingers that will add a few thousands to the cost, though they could have waived certain requirements like they had for other homeowners in the neighborhood. But after all the insults and pressure that Hothead exerted these past ten days, it's amazing that he's not being forced to rip out his foundation and start the design again from square one. Thank God for that, at least.
  
• I still haven't heard from the nice couple looking to build a new million-dollar house of their own that I interviewed with a few weeks ago. At the time I met them, and wowed them with my niceness, they hadn't yet closed on the land. That's what I was told to wait for. Now that enough time has passed that they should have bought it by now, it doesn't look too good that I haven't heard a thing. Damn it all to Hades.
• How have most of the projects I've signed to actual contracts in the past three years come to me? Internet advertising on particular specialty websites, believe it or not. I have a moderately nice and helpful website for my own firm, plus I advertise in two specialty locations that have caught the eye of most of my clients looking for a specific approach. Yellow page ads and other more traditional routes have brought me phone calls (leading to a few interviews and lots of solicitations and resumes), but not one single project yet. I'm hoping that a few referrals from happy clients will soon get the ol' waterwheel of progress turning. Which is why I've been so patient with the Hotheaded Client.
  
• Here are some links to books I've loved. You can't go wrong with any of these: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, The Fool's Progress by Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, everything by Richard Rhodes, The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler, Home From Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler, Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig. That's enough for now. When you're done with those, I'll be back with more...