Must be all beef. Prefer a toasted bun but will eat a steamed one. I will not eat a hot dog on a cold bun under any circumstances. Boiled or steamed I like them with pickle relish,pepper relish, yellow mustard ,red onion,tomato and shredded cheddar. Grilled (almost burnt) I like them on a toasted bun or french roll with brown mustard and sliced dill pickle. Sometimes I like the the same way as above too. I really miss the New England style buns.They don't sell them in the West any more. With those I like the bun buttered and grilled with a grilled frank and just a bit of yellow mustard. They don't need anything else. Love a good chili dog on a toasted bun with red onions and shredded cheddar. Weird thing about me. Hot dogs on a plate without a bun I eat with ketch-up. On a bun I can't stand ketchup.

Interesting - I'm already full of self-recrimination about how this job was handled, both on my end and that of others, so it's hard to hear from third parties how I've bungled it. As a newbie it's hard to know how to make it happen. I guess the better approach would have been to let someone else run the job, soup to nuts, and just pay more for their services. I thought I could handle it, and learn quickly, and I was wrong. I'm an attorney (write contracts, so am leery of contracts, I realize how little they are worth and the people behind them are more important), and a lot of people think what I do is hard to understand - well, compared to the contracting business it's easy! When I say I'll be there at 2 - I mean 2 not 4. At least in NYC 2 is just a ballpark time and it really means, whenever I can get there, maybe 2 maybe 2:45. And I've found that most contractors follow that approach here. Most contractor candidates just bid out a door, maybe a type of door, but not a specific product. Not one person said to pick out a door ahead of time, and had they done that I would have had no idea what type of door to pick anyway. I'm relying on professionals for that. This is a temporary kitchen job; I've got appliances either delivered or being delivered. I just have to buy cabinets and countertop and backsplash but that doesn't have to be part of the GC's job and in fact it wasn't part of his bid. My goal has been to get the basics done, so I can get a tenant on our lower floor and apply for a loan so I can finish the job with the proceeds. If we don't get approved for a loan we can still finish, just on a tighter budget. I guess my original question comes back to, what to do when you have lost confidence in your GC, do you try to get it back, do you muddle through, do you fire them. I don't want to fire this guy, he's in the thick of it, I just don't want to use him for anything someone else can do that doesn't require a permit - and he's almost done with the part that required a permit. We'll close out the job (he has to do the floors, install the appliances, and turn a window into a door and he's mostly done; all but the window-door conversion should be done in a week and then we wait for the door to come; he's also putting together a laundry area and that's an add-on and since we really could use a working washer/dryer we're not pulling that from him) I guess the harder part is, once we're done with this guy we're not really done. Then I have to get cabinets and sink ordered and installed, and then get a countertop ordered and backsplash installed. I guess there's an end in sight. But with filthy floors, dust all over, no washer/dryer it's hard to see the end game. So yes I messed up thinking I was up to the challenge of being on the front line with the contractor. Perhaps some contractors, yes, but mine no, so yes he's getting the blame, perhaps unfairly. In the end, perhaps we needed an architect to just run the job, and yes an architect getting paid by the project not the hour. The architect I liked best is hourly, and a number of people have had problems with him for that reason, he ended up overcharging them and they either couldn't finish their job or complained to him about his fees and got them reduced. I took the tack of, using him less and adding stress on myself. Not a good approach.

You haven't been in the middle of this project very long for all of that work to be completed. And I'm not sure why you want to paint your deck. That does nothing but create a lifetime of maintenance issues for you. Decks should be stained, not painted. And that should wait about 6 months for the pressure treated lumber to dry out enough for the stain to stick. Stain it too soon, and it will all come off. Combine paint, and doing that too soon, and you'll be painting it every year rather than staining it every couple of years. Did you have the structural engineer's report about redoing all of those window openings and wall openings? That should have told you what wall depth was possible and wasn't. If the wall needs to be reinforced for support, that will add depth to it. If it didn't need to be reinforced, then that should have been spelled out as well. Did the contractor talk with the engineer directly about the requirements? Lots of contractors have poor communication skills. That's not unusual. It would be unusual to have poor construction skills and poor communication skills and still be a licensed and insured contractor who gets decent references from people who've used him before. What does your written contract say about parting of the ways? The written word rules. Did he pull the permits? Or did you? If he pulled the permits, you need to talk to your local codes office and see if it's possible to transfer them to a new contractor or if you will have to apply for entirely new ones. If you aren't careful, you can have a lien placed on your home by the contractor. Getting someone new may be difficult. Most contractors do not like to come in in the middle of another's job, so you may find it difficult to find someone to pick up the pieces here. They don't know if the homeowner or the contractor was a problem, and they'd rather not take the chance that it was you. Checking out a contractor's license, insurance and references and past work does help to prevent getting the duds. Not always though. I'd recommend trying to communicate with him about your expectations as the first solution. However, some of those expectations are a tad unrealistic, so I'd also recommend that you talk to some other neighbors who've had renovation work done to be able to get some perspective on exactly how long things take and how expensive it is. You are in one of the most expensive locations in the country, with some of the most difficult to access property which makes it hard for contractors to get work done. It takes twice as long, and twice as much money to do the same project in NYC as it would in a suburb with plenty of parking and plenty of room for materials to be delivered, etc. And if it does come down to a parting of the ways, you will want to be sure you do it correctly so that you don't create more problems for yourself. It might be worth it to consult a construction attorney before you go down that path...

I have always been interested in training animals. I have enjoyed clicker training my donkeys, but the first animal I trained with a clicker was in 1972 when I was going to school to be a vet tech. We had to teach a conditioned response to an animal and I taught a cat to sit up. I had read long ago that animals don't reason, but I think they do, at least to some extent. One of my dogs is a terrier of some kind. She looks like a cross between a scottie and a dachshund or maybe a schnauzer and a dachshund. She has a long body and short legs but a square-ish head and a rough coat. I found her dumped on the road...when she was about five months old, so I don't really know anything about her. Except she is stubborn. Every time I would leave, she would follow my truck out the gate. I couldn't send her back. If I forgot to put her inside, she would get out and run down the road when I left. My other dogs go back when I tell them. There are 3 gates to go through and it is time consuming and aggravating to have her run off and I had to go catch her and bring her back to the house. So, I put a big crate by my gate with a pad for her to lay on and a water bowl. It was in the shade. If she followed me out the gate, I caught her and put her in the crate. I didn't think that would break her of it, but it saved me from having to take her back to the house, especially if I was in a hurry and short on time. I only had to do that a couple of times and when I told her to go back....she did it. She never followed the truck again. It's like putting the bulldog in the trailer for chasing the mule to excess. She recognizes that she did wrong. I am more of a cat person.....but my vet asked me if I would be willing to raise 7 orphan puppies (like I had so much free time. LOL) The reason he asked me, he knows I can tube feed, and the puppies were weak. His tech was already raising a litter of pups and a litter of kittens. Some other women were supposed to take a couple of the puppies to raise but that fell through and they brought them all to me. So far I have just found a home for one. I haven't really tried very hard because I am picky who gets them. I bottle fed the little stinkers for 3 weeks and you bond with them. You have to be so careful who gets an animal because there is so much meanness in the world. I always wanted to train my donkeys and take them around to nursing homes, etc. to do tricks for the residents. I would love to train the puppies to do some tricks too. I know how much I would miss my animals if I had to live where I couldn't have them any more. So that is something I have been thinking about doing....if I end up keeping some of the pups. Well, I already know I am keeping two of them.....................