Service Companies

No one goes around planning to get into trouble that is likely to lead to litigation. However, the truth is that no matter how carefully or defensively a person tries to live. Some trouble will occasionally and unavoidably show up. You could get rear-ended in traffic by a careless driver. There’s the possibility of getting unfortunately mixed up in some illegal racket at work. Or the unfortunate occurrence of a criminal attack on your home or person. All of these scenarios require the services of lawyers and other legal professionals. Even making insurance claims and securing severance packages may need the intervention of the gentlemen of the bar.

A good number of lawyers may claim to be able to handle any case for you. It is, however, important to know that lawyers have specialities and specific areas of expertise. Just like you wouldn’t want a foot doctor doing brain surgery, you want the right type of lawyer for what you need. This article is a quick guide to 3 significant types of legal services available and how to know which one to employ for different circumstances.

Corporate Law: This is the aspect of law that relates to businesses, corporations, companies or organizations. Apart from just instances when you have to sort legal problems arising at work or business. A corporate lawyer is someone you should contact when trying to set up a business. This is even more important if the business involves partnerships or joint ownership. You’ll need the legal services of a corporate law professional to set up terms and conditions. They’ll also give sound advice on how to run the business without running afoul of any existing laws. Corporate lawyers will also help you successfully navigate severance package payment issues and other employer-employee problems.

Criminal Law: Here is the part of law that we all hope we don’t have anything to do with. We cannot, however, wish away the existence of probabilities. It is, therefore, safer and more logical to have pre-emptive knowledge. Criminal lawyers as the name imply will assist you in the event of any crimes. Either you’ve gotten implicated in a fraud, or you got defrauded by someone and seek redress in a court of law. These legal professionals are grounded in the dictates of the law about crime. They will make a strong case for you or against the plaintiff(s) or defender(s) – whichever the case may be-. Criminal lawyers will also give you accurate advice on what legal steps to take. Especially as concerning issues like plea bargaining and others.

Law of Torts: A basic definition of torts is simply “civil wrong”. It involves any case that has to do with causing hurt and harm to another individual. This harm results in legal liability to the individual concerned. Various cases of torts include getting your car bashed in traffic (or bashing someone else’s car). Getting a prescription from a doctor that results in the worsening of your medical condition. A Torts’ lawyer would help you utilize the law to get redress for your wrongs or avoid getting treated unfairly.

This is not an exhaustive list, there are other aspects of law which you should learn about so as to stay safe and informed

If you need your car repaired, try Blue Ridge Sports Cars Ltd. They do a good job and are honest. We have been taking our Volvo to them since moving to Baltimore from the Severna Park area.

The nice thing is that they will recommend what needs to be done. We have taken our car to Firestone for tires but they come back with a laundry list of things that they say needs to be done. They even told me that I needed new brake rotors one time and I believed them, but asked to save the rotors. When I showed the rotors to the auto repair shop, they said that they were still perfectly good and couldn’t believe that Firestone had replaced them. They said to keep them for future use.

The Volvo is getting older, but being a Volvo, it has been hanging in there pretty well. But when some things have gone bad, Blue Ridge has called around to junk yards and other places and been able to find replacement parts at much lower prices than if Volvo parts were purchased. In some cases they say that you need to go with the Volvo parts, either for safety or that is the only place you can get them, but generally they can get you a deal.

There have been times when they got one part replaced and it came with several other parts attached and they said that had significantly longer life expectancy than what I had and because only the one part was paid for and not all the attached parts, I had saved hundreds of dollars. Not like when my wife goes to a sale and saves me money by buying a bunch of stuff.

Crazy thing is that I had been going there for several years and one day got to talking with the owner, Don, and found out that we had been in the same class in high school. Obviously I am not recommending them because of that since I had been going there for several years already when I found it out and was already a happy customer.

This time of year, lots of people are out raking. Some people do it themselves and others hire companies to come in and do it for them and others do kind of a combo.

If you are doing it yourself, we hope you don’t have a lot of oaks. We lived in one house that had a lot of oaks around it. Besides there being a lot of leaves, they were a pain to deal with. Some leaves are very soft and easy to rake. Oak leaves are very stiff. That isn’t so bad, but what make is a lot worse is that their stem is also very hard and stiff and it tends to have a curve to it. So, if the curve is facing down, it tends to get caught in the grass and not want to move when you rake it. Even more so with a blower. You can sit and put a blower on a single leaf and it will just stay there stuck in the grass.

One thing that can help with doing the raking job yourself is a holder for the bags. It makes the job so much easier. Some fit inside the bag and hold it open. When the bag is full, you pull the holder out. Others you put the bag inside of it. Whatever the design, it is a great time saver.

Some people just use the lawnmower to chop up the leaves and leave them on or in the grass to provide nourishment for the lawn. If you just leave the leaves on top of the grass without chopping them up, they will tend to kill the grass under them.

The hybrid method is to get the leaves to the curb. Then a company comes along with a truck with a giant vacuum attachment. They suck up all the leaves into the truck and charge a nominal fee to do this. If you have an old bedspread, they are very useful. Or you can buy a tarp. You rake the leaves onto the tarp and then drag it to the curb and dump it. Then go back for the next load until you are done and call for the truck to come.

Raking grass can be a good excuse to get outdoors and get some exercise. And unlike shoveling heavy snow, it doesn’t usually lead to heart attacks. But some people are too old or sick or just don’t want to be bothered. In that case, you can get people who come in with blowers and rakes and clean up all your leaves for you and cart them away. Of course, this costs the most, but is the easiest to do. You just write a check.

Wicklein’s Water Garden is considered one of the best pond installation and repair companies in the Baltimore area. We bought an old house that was originally built in 1930. The original owner used a lot of the latest materials. They had some outdoor lamps on the house made out of copper which wasn’t new, but another two on the porch combined aluminum and copper. Cast aluminum was a new building material back then.

Concrete Was New and Exciting at One Time

Believe it or not, so was concrete. The fireplace is lined with brick, but the sort of French Provincial style hood above it (you couldn’t really call it a mantle) is made of cast concrete and above that is wood. Most people don’t realize it is concrete until I point it out and then they are amazed.

House Problems

The heating system from day one was forced hot air and not radiators. This was very cutting edge for the 1930s. You would think that this would make it easy to add air conditioning. Alas, you would be wrong. Since heat rises, they didn’t need returns on the second and third floors. The only returns were on the first floor and in the basement. When air conditioning was added, this meant that the air conditioning on the second and third floors was very inefficient. We had to figure out a way to get a return up to the upper floors. We gave up for the third floor and installed a heat pump instead.

Unfortunately, they decided to use galvanized pipe instead of copper pipe. Big mistake. The copper pipe would still have been fine. The galvanized pipe was shot. The only good thing is that in the 1930s the pipe would have probably all been the same size and you get water temperature changes in the shower when someone flushes the toilet. The new way is to use larger diameter pipes and decrease the size as you move further away. So no problems while you are in the shower.

The electric system was state of the art for 1930 but not now. With computers and cable and TV it was totally antiquated. So the entire electrical system had to go. If you think plumbing is bad to replace, try electrical. Plumbing goes to just a few rooms. Electrical goes to every room and almost every wall. What a project.

Pond Problems

There is a pond outside. Although it had water, there were cracks in the walls and some of the flagstones that were around the edges in a border were coming loose. A pipe that went to the pond hadn’t been drained in the winter and froze and needed to be repaired. The light in the pond was full of water and no longer functionings.

Solutions

The company came in and drained the pond into a number of large plastic tubs. They tossed the gold fish into the tubs and cleaned out the slime and fish poop from the bottom. Then they took out some of the lily pads that had overgrown. Then they dried and cleaned the pond. Next they patched the cracks, parging the insides where necessary and cemented the border stones back into place. They said fixing the light in the side of the pond would be too expensive so they sold us some small lights that sit in the pond and a wire comes out and plugs in to an outlet.

So then we needed to call in an electrician for the extra plugs to redo some of the wiring. One of the things we needed a plug for in addition to the pump for the fountain was a new device they sold us. The water runs from the pump through a hose and then through this contraption where the water is bombarded with UV light to kill the algae and stuff so the pond doesn’t get dirty and cloudy as fast.

Then they suggested covering the bottom with small rounded stones. Some the size of pea gravel but most an inch to 3 inches long. Most were sort of egg shaped and not round. It looks pretty good, but makes cleaning the pond more difficult.  All in all though, the pond looks and performs much better than it did.