I think part of the offense they took may also have been from the fact that they had invested a fair bit of time in working with me, and I had then turned around and not hired them after seeming to be very interested (which I genuinely was -- but I also wanted to make sure I was getting the very best balance between price and quality that I could).I don't have a lot of experience dealing with contractors, so I'm honestly wondering if I committed a big faux pas, or if Company B is just unprofessional.

Most investment ideas I see around here are very time and effort heavy, which makes logical sense. 

I tend to think a lot of the "soft" master's programs are a waste of effort and money.

I'm coming to the area to watch a hockey game and experience the night life (Ann Arbor), but I'll be in the area from Friday to Tuesday, and I am interested to speak with active investors in the area about ways I can possibly support and enhance their efforts.  

But again, you should really think about the added benefit against the time, hassle and effort required to take this step.As @Daniel Gonzalez has mentioned you can do improvement pass through as a strategy, but again you need time and money to implement this piece. 

Hi @Jeff B. ... with your background you've probably heard that a user can override the CSS style sheets in Firefox and probably in other browsers.https://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/how-to-override-css-stylesheets-in-firefox/If someone were wanting to constantly print from a particular website it might be worth the effort to set up their own user css sheet.

any advice, direction, or any type of help is greatly appreciated also, i am willing to put the time in effort into learning and helping.

I wanted to focus my efforts only on RE.  

Time for the renovation - the two upstairs floors were manageable; time, effort, a lot of paint, and some minor fixes (thanks YouTube!)

Budget is limited on my end, which severely hamstrings my efforts.