Category: Uncategorized
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Forgiven, Not Forgotten
What’s something you’ve forgiven but haven’t forgotten? I forgave it. I didn’t forget it. Those are two different jobs, and I learned that on a roof before I learned it anywhere else. Forgiveness is deciding to put the ladder down. Forgetting would be climbing back up the same ladder the same way and expecting a…
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What I Told The Spruce About Checking Gutters in the Fall
Two fall gutter checks I described for The Spruce: leaking corner seams and clogged downspouts, and how to spot both during a rain.
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Small Leaks Don’t Stay Small
What life lesson did you learn too late? The small stuff doesn’t stay small. That’s the whole lesson. I learned it on roofs first, because a roof doesn’t let you pretend otherwise, and then I learned it everywhere else, slower, the way I learn most things. A ceiling stain the size of a quarter. That…
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Two Mugs, Black
What is one thing you can’t live without? Coffee. Next question. Okay, not next question. But the answer really is that boring, and I have decided to stop apologizing for it. I don’t mean coffee the way coffee people mean coffee. I am not a coffee person. I don’t own a grinder. I don’t have…
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Success Is a Roof That Doesn’t Leak
How do you define success in life? Somebody asked me that once on a roof, more or less. Not in those words. A homeowner in Acworth, standing in his driveway while I was coming down the ladder, asked me if I ever wanted to be bigger. More trucks. More crews. A name on a billboard…
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The One I Couldn’t Fix
What’s a book or movie that genuinely scared you? I tell myself I do not scare easily. I have stood on a roof in a Georgia thunderstorm, watched lightning split a sky over Cobb County, and kept working because the tarp was not down yet. Fear, in my line of work, is usually useful. It…
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It Still Measures True
What’s one thing you own that holds deep sentimental value? If the house caught fire tonight, I would not run back in for my laptop. I would not run back in for the truck keys, although Giang would probably grab those on her way out while telling me to hurry up. I would go for…
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Half a Tank, Every Time
What’s one piece of travel advice you always follow? Everybody else’s travel advice sounds like it came out of a magazine. Pack light. Learn ten words of the language. Take the road less traveled. Mine sounds like it came out of a truck stop, because it did. Never let the tank drop below half. That’s…
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I Set Goals Like I Set Ladders
Do you set personal goals for yourself? View all responses I set goals the way I set a ladder: against something solid, at the right angle, and only after I have checked what is above me. People hear “personal goals” and picture a vision board. Mine is a work order. Show up. Do the sets.…
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This World, Every Time
Which book’s world would be the absolute worst to live in? View all responses Everybody answers this one with 1984. I get it. The surveillance, the boot stamping on a human face, forever. Bad deal. But let me tell you something about being a roofer: nobody surveils the guy on the roof. In twenty years,…