I did not trust slide rules. How did it know what it was doing, since I didn't know what I was doing when I used it? I had math anxiety. Especially since my father was a PE and hard wired for numbers. I can still remember long division. I had the teacher from H#ll. She ridiculed kids when they didn't understand things and always handed homeworks and test out top grade to lowest grade. My father and I would sit at the kitchen table and he would try to help me. He would yell, and flick me on the side of the head, I would cry, and my mother would come in and saying yelling isn't helping, dear. (Imagine my horror when I was helping ds with his math and flicked him on the head. Yikes! I was possessed by my father!) I was really stressed when slide rules came into my math class. Fortunately for my well being, calculators just came on the scene and I was saved.

Helen I think you're right about my mystery flowers being Spring Beauty. Thank you! If I planted that, I've forgotten. I planted Jane five years ago and I'd guess that it's 6 to 8 feet tall now and still not blooming heavy enough to call it showy. It gets some competition from a Tulip tree so it might be doing better by now if it was planted in a better spot. I'm ashamed - I finally broke down and bought the Canon that has a 50x zoom lol. I got a good deal on it. Best Buy matches some dot com prices now. Amazon is one and they had the lowest price so I showed them that price at the register at Best Buy and they matched it. I also had reward zone bucks to take off of the price plus another 20 for applying for a BB charge card back before Christmas so it got the price down to 340. That's more than I intended to spend but I still had some Santa cash and I "needed" a good camera. : ) It seems to be working great for macro or zooming either one, but if the camera is zoomed all the way out, it's difficult to keep the subject centered. If you move the camera even a little, you've lost sight of it. I haven't messed around with macro much yet but this one is of buds on my Mohawk viburnum and the lens was very close. I need to try it out on some bugs or butterflies.

Let's take these one at a time.... For lighting fixtures located over a tub or shower, you can only use lamp fixtures (usually recessed, with a plastic lens) that are specifically rated for use over a shower or tub. This is because this area is extremely damp and often gets wet (either from direct splashing or from condensation), causing regular lamp fixtures to quickly rust or corrode. So they make special "shower lights" - usually a round 6" recessed fixture with a white plastic lens, either flush with the ceiling or with the plastic lens dropped about 1/2" from the surrounding trim ring. And unfortunately, these are typically rated for a maximum 60w incandescent bulb, although a 23w compact fluorescent (which is as bright as a 100w incandescent bulb, once it warms up about 30 seconds after it's turned on) can be retrofitted. You'll probably need to use a "micro-mini" CFL bulb, like those from Sylvania or Philips. Your best bet here may be a shower lamp that takes a GU24 CFL bulb only, as these allow for instant-full-brightness CFL bulbs (about 32 watts) that are as bright as a 120 watt incandescent to be used. The GU24 base is a new bipin base that can accept a variety of high-efficiency CFL or LED bulbs in various wattages, but not incandescents. Brighter bulbs are likely to become available in the future, as this is where the R&D money is flowing nowadays. You can get bright heat lamps/floodlamps without a fan. Amongst the most common are these: Broan 161 - a 250w heat lamp (white or infrared), with no fan. These cannot be installed in insulated ceilings (IC), often found on the top floor of a house, unless surrounding insulation is kept 3" away from all the sides, and also must be 6" away from any side walls. Or.. Broan 163 - which has two 250w heat lamps but no exhaust fan, and unlike the single-bulb 161 can be used in insulated ceilings. I'm not sure if this one is silent or utilizes a small, quiet fan that keeps the housing cool (but is not ducted, and doesn't blow air on the people standing below the lamps). Or maybe they're silent and without a fan now - check the specs (I'm not an expert at this stuff). You can either use two 250w infrared lamps, two white floodlamps up to 250w, or one of each, switched separately or together. There may be some non-IC recessed fixtures available from traditional recessed can manufacturers like Progress, Lightolier, and Juno as well that can accept 250w heat lamps - these are typically round in usual recessed lamp style. For areas not near the tub/shower, there are lots of styles available for use in bathrooms that are rated for damp (need not be "wet") locations.

Noah You don't need to ask me for 'forgivness', rather you forgive me for sticking my nose in - I really don't want to preach but at the same time I know that you are very enthusiastic (THAT IS GOOD!!!) and you do rush to post. So I hope you take it as an advice. And I realize that you post from the phone - if you could re-read what you type, you'll find out that sometimes your sentences don't make sense because of lack of punctuation. (Spelling is another thing - but I know all about autoCorrect...) We all know you love your cacti and looks like you are growing them successfully. And it is great to have young ppl here too! I am sure that soil/potting mix dries up much faster for you than for me in 'cold' Canada. That's why there are recommendations for different ratios of materials in mixes. Rina