Things are changing in the home inspection industry in Washington State. Come September 1 of this year, home inspectors will be state licensed. For a large percentage of home inspectors, who are presently working in the field, to qualify to sit for the test they must complete 120 hours of state
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06/30/2009
During the 1960's an interesting phenomenon occurred. Caucasian bands and performers were sounding like African-American soul artists. In some cases, these white performers -- at least for the first releases -- were flying under the radar. They did not immediately correct any wrong impressions ab
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06/30/2009
I have written a number of posts on music and songs. Recently, I have focused on interactive music quizzes that are popular with Active Rain participants.These are usually based on the record charts -- Billboard, sometimes based on Cashbox which was a similar magazine. Recently, I have mainly loo
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06/29/2009
Two of the, arguably, most successful songwriters of the early rock era describe themselves as a pair of Jewish boys who liked to listen to and write music for the African American audience. We are talking about Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Stoller played the piano and Leiber wanted to write t
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06/28/2009
I have noticed in the past that Active Rain members seem to have a strong interest in vermin -- more so rats than mice. Whenever I post any information about rats, it seems to get more clicks than my average blog post about less "sexy" topics. An example of that would be this post from earlier i
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06/28/2009
Among the most popular albums ever recorded were Meatloaf's two Bat Out Of Hell albums. The second album was released 16 years after the original Bat Out Of Hell. Both albums had phenomenal sales. The original album, from 1977, sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. And, remember, it was n
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06/27/2009
Back in the 1960's there was a singing troubadour, folk singer, who was often referred to as the British "Bob Dylan." In fact, that was a pretty simplistic comparison in that they did not do similar songs at all. This performer did start out by singing folk and protest songs and he did play a gu
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06/26/2009
I had an interesting situation the other day. I was asked to do a "rodent" inspection. I have never before, specifically, done an inspection for, in this case, Mr Rat. However there is a first time for everything. The interesting thing is why I was asked to do this. A refinance is taking place.
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06/25/2009
Let's hear it for some of the old guys, from days gone by, who could sing and play music. I had a number of participants at the Twin-Pick trivia quiz the other day. They liked the story of 64 year-old Louis Armstrong bumping those young mop-tops called the Beatles out of the #1 position on the B
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06/25/2009
In the 1950's and 1960's, there was a man working behind the scenes in the music business. This man, while having another public persona that made him a household name, was also the head of artists and repertoires for Columbia Records. In that position he had tremendous control over who recorded,
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06/24/2009
