Rick Damato

It is Sunday morning and I have just returned from a little jog with a few thousand of my closest friends at the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer. This was the second annual event and since it is in my old stomping grounds at Jacksonville Beach, Fla., thought I might as well give it a spin.

In spite of the continuing struggles of the nation's economy, the 2009 International Roofing Expo (IRE) will go down as one of the best.

My Blackberry began buzzing early last week while I was attending the International Roofing Expo with the sad news that Millard Fuller had died in an ambulance on the way to Albany from Americus, Ga. Friends all over knew Millard Fuller was one of my heroes.

Greeted in the morning by a panel of industry superstars at the keynote address and complemented in the afternoon by nearly 400 companies showing off the newest trends, the International Roofing Expo opened Tuesday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center with a pledge for better times ahead.

When you consider all the good things that can come from a down cycle in the economy, it is hard to be depressed about it. I am not referring to silver linings, but golden opportunities.

All this talk about stimulus plans is making me crazy. I hate to be so cynical (not really - but it does not feel 100 percent right sharing it with you), but using the words “federal government” and “solution” in the same sentence makes me suspicious.

It would be business as usual for me to add a P.S. to this editor’s note reminding you that it is not too late to sign up to attend the International Roofing Expo (IRE), which runs concurrently with three days of the NRCA convention next month. Most of you would agree, however, that business is anything but “as usual” right now.

Last January I put forward some resolutions for 2008. It would be easy to hit the restart button and start over, but I choose to hit the rewind button instead.

It would not amaze anyone to learn that I am a fan of magazines. My first subscription was to Boy’s Life back when I was around 11 years old. The sub probably cost less than one lawn mowed or whatever other manual labor I managed to peddle back in the old neighborhood.

According to a report in the Sudbury (Ontario, Canada) Star a roofer was caught practicing some bad business and wound up in the pokey for 30 days. Seems he took a homeowner’s money as a deposit for work he never managed to begin.