More builder stuff

Here I go into the joys of being a builder:

I'm trying to be a better builder than I am by earning a designation in my profession. I'm trying to become a Certified Graduate Builder or CGB. This process is accomplished by taking a bunch of classes through the NAHB. Last week I took a class in Business Management for Builders. It was informative about a couple of areas that would help ease tensions in my company but my boss won't do them. Don't ask.

On Tuesday, at the behest of my boss, I went to Atlanta, GA to take a class on Energy Efficient Construction. Boy was this waste for me. The three major reasons this class sucked was that the class was in Atlanta, the book was written by Dow Chemicals, and the book was written in 2000. The details behind the reasons are as follows, the Atlanteans didn't want to hear about climates where the average temp was below 40 degrees. As the only member of the class from above the Mason-Dixon line and the youngest person in the class I was in the minority.


The second reason was that the book was hawking Dow insulation products hard and how easy they were to work with. This is a load of crap because while they aren't as cumbersome as fiberglass batts the installation time and cost per R-value is way more. As for the book being from 2000, well let's just say that in 2001 the state of Illinois switched to a higher efficiency requirement than before 2000. My company meets or exceeds the suggestions in this book in everything we do.

So how about that waste of time. The only upside is that I now have one less credit to worry about for my designation. Two down, five to go.