Mark S

I've had a client stiff me for the last two weeks that I worked for them, to the tune of a little over $4,000 which is under the maximum amount for small claims in North Carolina. (I did a great amount of work, including nights and weekends, and did a great job, but the client is losing support from their customer because they bit off more than they can chew on a project and they're lagging on the project schedule, so they're blaming me.) So, I know I can file in small claims court and I know all about the procedures and such. What I cannot find on any Web site (after pretty extensive searching) is information about how long I must wait before I can file the suit. In some states I know it's 60 days after due date, but I don't know about North Carolina.

We just had hardwood floors installed, and the installer did a good job, up until the last step ... replacing the foot rail. The foot rail they used isn't quarter-round -- it has one side wider than the other. I have always been taught that the wide side goes vertical (and I've always seen it that way), but the installers put the wide side horizontal. It just looks wrong. What justification do I have to get them to tear it out and do it correctly? Or IS it correct?

I'm needing to hire and pay some people to sit with my elderly mother in a nursing home, since she has had a stroke and can't easily communicate to the nursing home staff on her own behalf. (Basically these people will act as secondary caregivers and patient advocates.) I'll be acting as my mother's Power of Attorney (yes, I have the legal paperwork) in handling everything and using her savings to pay for these people's services. Will I need to get a Federal Tax ID (as my mother's representative) in order to withhold Federal, State, Medicare and so on? Will I need to pay for unemployment compensation, workman's compensation, etc.? And what are the differences between a "household" employee and other employees (I know there are some)? The problem with going through agencies is that they cost rather much more than hiring individuals. My mother's finances are very limited and there is no telling how long she may live. We must be very frugal with this. I need answers to the questions as I have posed them, not suggestions for alternative solutions. I have already done all my homework there, but taxes are a big unknown to me. Thanks much for any help given.

By the way, I cannot treat these people as independent contractors. For reasons see http://www.accountingpartners.com/irschecklist.sht...

My brother and I are joint Powers of Attorney for our totally disabled elderly mother (stroke victim) in a nursing home, and we are faced with selling her house as she is quickly running out of liquid assets. Yes, we know that Medicaid would take over and pay for her care without our having to do that, but that provides only a minimum level of care in a semi-private room, with nothing for extras (we have sitters to act as patient advocates since she can't speak for herself). That would not be acceptable. So -- we need a bit of advice.

1) First we'd like to TRY selling her home ourselves, although that might not be so easy to do. For that we need a good contract agreement form. I'm confused by the number and type of forms available on the Net. It boggles the mind. We need a basic form such as is normally used in a real estate transaction. Any links?

2) We need some idea of what will be necessary to sell her house as Powers of Attorney. Certainly we know that we've got to provide the POA agreement that our mother signed, but what else? Any special forms or hoops to jump through? Certainly we'll have our own lawyer present at a closing, but I mean anything other than the ordinary to look out for in a contract or a closing? I've been through a number of closings -- nothing new here -- I'm just trying to get our ducks in a row as best I can before we get up to our necks in something.

Thanks for your effort in answering.

I've never applied for unemployment in 35 years of work, and actually don't plan to, but I still need to know whether a person working on contract through an agency can get unemployment for being laid off after months of employment. Has a bearing on a potential future negotiation ....

Thanks

I'm a machine designer with varied experience, but I can't say I've had bottle capping design experience and I'm trying to figure a way to accomplish something that doesn't seem simple to me. I'm sure somebody is using a technique that's effective, but I just am not familiar with the genre. I wonder if some engineer browsing here has an idea I can use ...

This is not a normal production environment, in that the bottle capping equipment is actually supposed to be small and portable, so everything has to be rather compact. We've been using an approach involving a material inside the caps called "plastisol" which becomes putty-like at a fairly low temperature (around 140 degrees F), and we are able to form a decent thread after heating and pressing the cap on (then rolling it to be sure it's seated and cooling the cap), but the seal just isn't very tight and there doesn't seem to be a lot we can do to improve there. I'm sure there must be a straightforward way to spin an already formed thread (on the cap) tightly down on the bottle without risking deforming threads, and I'm sure it must be fairly common in use, but I've never seen such a thing. Does anyone have any experience with a mechanism to accomplish this ... cheaply? (That's so often the kicker, isn't it?) And also compactly?

Thanks much in advance.

The question is not as simple as it seems. In the US, ASME certification is required in order to sell something which is classified as a pressure vessel, and ASME certification is not necessarily all that easy or inexpensive to obtain (it can be, but not necessarily). Let's take an example: a boiler with ASME certification is connected to piping which has valves to control the flow of steam. Does the piping require ASME certification? That could probably be answered in a couple of ways ... if the piping meets a Schedule specification (e.g., schedule 40 or schedule 80) and the valve meets the same specification and it can be determined that the pressure from the boiler doesn't exceed the schedule specification then everything is probably OK, but what if something besides Schedule piping is used? Or what if the piping, tubing, or conduit is open at the end ... a steam nozzle is attached, for example? Basically I need a definition I can work to. I've looked through ASME sites and I've found a number of applicable specifications. The one that seems to be most pertinent, BPVC-VIII - 2007, costs $630. While the company I'm working for would probably buy it, I need justification even to get that far and justification to continue with design along the direction I'm currently following.

Thanks for your help,

Mark Stapleton

www.h2omarkdesign.com

Forgive the repost, please, but a deadline might be today. I've had to hire people in the last six months to care for my elderly mother, and I've never had to deal with witholding and such before. My one-man company has always been just that. (My mother's account pays my company, but naturally there's no profit involved -- I just turn the money around and pay the caregivers.) I've done the withholding every pay period using the IRS tax calculator, but the Web resources that I've found on what to do about paying the IRS (and especially the state of North Carolina, with whom it seems now I have to register first even though my business is registered with the Dept. of State) are confusing and seemingly self-contradictory in places, especially the IRS' own Web information (not to mention North Carolina's). Can anyone tell me definitively what forms I must fill out and who to send the payments to? I'm filling out W2s for the year right now and will mail them out today (Jan 31st, and with payment), but what other deadlines must I meet or have I missed? I'm pretty sure I need to send in a Form 941, and probably by today, but that's about the extent of my understanding. "The Tax Lady" answered my previous repost -- erroneously and not very helpfully. These employees are NOT household employees. They are working in a nursing home setting and acting as patient advocates for my mother, who cannot speak after having had a stroke. Regardless, whether they are considered household employees or not, they ARE employees of my company (done to limit liability, as my company has fewer assets than does my family) and I must treat the documentation accordingly. I hope someone else will answer more carefully. Thanks for any help you can give.

Trying to figure whether there is a linear inverse correlation between thermal coefficient of transfer and surface area (between mediums). Specifically, I have an aluminum manifold which is heated to produce steam (by injecting water into a chamber), and of course the steam chamber has a certain amount of surface area. If the manifold was made of stainless instead of aluminum I would assume that the surface area would have to increase in order to produce the same amount of steam, but how much I don't know. The thermal conductivity of aluminum is around 16 times that of stainless, but I don't know if that's the same ratio for thermal transfer between aluminum to water and between stainless to water. All other things being equal, I'm tempted to think that the surface area would have to increase by a factor of 16 to produce the same amount of steam (which in this and most cases -- I would think -- is likely to be impossible). I may not even be asking the right question for all I know. I've seen the equations ... I just haven't been able to make enough sense of 'em. Can someone shed more light on the relationships here? Many thanks.

Trying to figure whether there is a linear inverse correlation between thermal coefficient of transfer and surface area (between mediums). Specifically, I have an aluminum manifold which is heated to produce steam (by injecting water into a chamber), and of course the steam chamber has a certain amount of surface area. If the manifold was made of stainless instead of aluminum I would assume that the surface area would have to increase in order to produce the same amount of steam, but how much I don't know. The thermal conductivity of aluminum is around 16 times that of stainless, but I don't know if that's the same ratio for thermal transfer between aluminum to water and between stainless to water. All other things being equal, I'm tempted to think that the surface area would have to increase by a factor of 16 to produce the same amount of steam (which in this and most cases -- I would think -- is likely to be impossible). I may not even be asking the right question for all I know. I've seen the equations ... I just haven't been able to make enough sense of 'em. Can someone shed more light on the relationships here? Many thanks.

I bought a used wire welder with a spool already installed, with a regulator, but no gas cylinder, and indications from the guy who sold it was that he wasn't using gas with it. The wire, though, is .025" and my pretty strong impression is that wire that small couldn't be flux core. The wire is off-color -- kind of brownish -- however, and I wonder if that could possibly be a flux coating. ? Doesn't look like rust and it's certainly not bronze or brass wire. I can't contact the guy who sold it any more ... don't seem to have his contact info (wife deleted emails and he's not in the phone book). The sticker on the side of the spool isn't helpful at all. Anyone hazard a guess as to what material this is and whether or not I can use it without gas? Thanks for hints!!

We have a piano bench with copper feet and the feet have left green copper oxide stains on our carpet. Anyone know how to clean this stain without damaging the carpet?

Our dog got excited when she found an apple pie high on a pedestal on our beautiful Thomasville dark cherry dining table and had a ball jumping high enough to take bites. In so doing she left claw scratches along a corner and an edge. The scratches aren't deep -- I suspect they don't go through the finish -- but I don't know whether I need to refinish the table entirely or try to polish out the shallow scratches. Is that possible? If so, what sort of medium would be best to use? Polishing compound? Very fine sandpaper? Steel wool? And what to do once the scratches disappear (and the lovely finish is terribly dulled)? Shouldn't the entire top surface be polished or sanded down to the same level and then a new finish applied? Should I just take the entire finish off and refinish or are there any reasonable measures short of that which will yield good results?

What is the likely result of mixing some proportionately small amount of a 50/50 water/sodium hydroxide solution (let's say 10% or less) with a 50/50 water/propylene glycol solution in a closed container with a fair amount of room for expansion (perhaps also with pressure venting)? Lots of heat involved? Lot's of gas? Anything toxic? No answers to previous post two days ago.

Is anyone getting failure notices when trying to send out email from your Yahoo account? Specifically, I'm on Bellsouth DSL which has given its email service over to Yahoo and I'm getting failure notices trying to send to Hotmail or MSN accounts. Don't know whether other domain accounts are also problematic. Naturally, since Bellsouth was bought out by AT&T and AT&T in turn has farmed out email to Yahoo, there's apparently no way to figure who I should call or email, and of course all three (Yahoo, AT&T and Bellsouth) make it extremely difficult even to find the correct email address for support or a Web-based support email page. I'd just like to hear from the "community" regarding whether others are having similar problems.

I've never, in all my many years of work, drawn unemployment and I know next to nothing about it. I'm quitting my job (impossible situation -- a long story -- I wouldn't quit if there was a even remotely acceptable alternative). Don't know whether that means I'm not qualified for unemployment (voluntary termination). Also have no idea about the way the amount is calculated. Anybody able to fill me in before I show up at the gov'ment office?

Do the USB interface readers for SDHC memory chips have to be internally or pin different from the USB readers for SD chips? I can only find one computer (among a whole slew of them) which seems to be able to read a 4Gb chip formatted with a new cell phone. The computer has it's own reader slot in the chassis. I've tried other readers, both integral to desktop chassis, printer chassis and hand-held readers which connect to a USB slot or cable. All the computer USB slots I've tried as interfaces have been USB 2.0, so the problem doesn't appear to lie with the USB interface.

I've hired a sitter to be with my elderly mother while she is in a nursing home, simply because the nurses and CNAs don't really have time to keep people company and make sure all their needs are met. The nursing home is a very good one and the people there are very caring, but it almost doesn't matter how many employees they have or what type ... there are still going to be things that should be done that they won't have time to do. The sitter is a wonderful elderly person herself, and I feel like it's appropriate (given the litigious legal climate in the US) to assure her that she is protected from legal liability in regards to my mother's health (which is poor) and any unintentional negative impact on it which could be UNINTENTIONALLY caused. I've looked through a lot of liability release forms that can be found online and I can't seem to come up with anything appropriate. If I could find several such forms or letters that address caregiving, negligence and intent I could probably formulate something appropriate that I could run by a lawyer. Of course I'm trying to minimize cost, so I'd rather submit something to a lawyer for comments rather than have a lawyer formulate something -- the difference in the time billed will certainly be huge. TIA for any leads. 10 points (for sure) for a really good fit.

I don't seem to be successful with lucid dreaming, despite having read a book or two about it. I've had a couple, but that was some years back. I'm still trying sporadically. If YOU are able to pretty consistently enter a lucid dreaming state, what to you find helpful in accomplishing that?