"The Trusted Mechanic" I have a couple ways to address this topic, one is shoot straight from the hip and not care about how someone else perceives this, the other is to attempt to be very "PC" and see if I can explain exactly what is taking place. No matter how this is received one thing is clear. The guy who is running the shop in such a way that you can carry in a part, and he installs it isn't long for this world as a business. This isn't the only mistake he is making, the difficult part for me right here is explaining why this is a mistake , and how I know he is making others just frommthis one incident because from the consumer POV, he is cheaper that what you would have paid for this one service. If cheaper is always better, then anyone that reads that and agrees with that should go to their boss and ask to have their pay cut by 50% Monday morning. That would make you a better employee right? Of course no one is going to do that, everyone of us feel we earn every dollar we get, and the old adage a penny saved is a penny earned. But how does this apply to the trusted mechanic? I'll make a bet one or more of the following statements apply to his business. He does not own the factory scan tool to service your Infinity completely, 100%. I'll also bet he has been to no training in the last six months, maybe the last year, maybe the last two, or five, or even ten years. It's also very likely that not only does he not have a factory tool for your Infinity, he does not own a factory scan tool for any manufacturer at all. He probably attempts to rely on a tool like the Snap-On 2500, or the OTC Genysis which are at best capable of only performing about 50% of the functions of any single O.E. tool. Oh, and that's only if he is keeping up to date with the software changes for the tools. It's likely he feels he cannot afford to always update that one tool. If I have gotten any one of those correct, and I have almost no reason to believe that I have not, allow me to continue. He very likely does not own a four gas analyzer, let alone a five gas one or has had any continuing education on what a true tech can do with one. If he does own an engine analyzer, he has not been to continuing training on it in quite some time to enhance his skills with it either. He may or may not be a multiple employee shop, but it's likely he does not provide health care for his employee's, instead he relies on each employee's spousal job to provide that benefit or else the employee needs to simply go out and find health care to provide for him/herself. I could go on and on, but let me cut to the chase. All of the above issues come from not having a sound business plan, and that of course comes from not having real business training. Your trusted mechanic does not have this training, because he would not allow anyone to carry in a part if he did. If he had solid business training, he would understand that he cannot afford to allow anyone to carry in a part and have it installed. Now if your "new" alternator fails, AZ will give you another one. Lets see where he would stand. He didn't make the kind of revenues that he should have in order to provide that service the first time and be able to re-invest in his business and his employees the way that he should be, so he darn sure cannot afford to do something else for free on top of that. Yet many, many, people that have been allowed to carry in a part have turned on the shop when the part actually failed and insisted the shop must have done something wrong when they installed it. The shop then simply re-installs the part again for free because of "customer satisfaction" issues, and takes an even deeper loss on a job he never should have done in the first place. That amounts to simply another nail in his business coffin. It also forces him to raise someone else's price in order to even attempt to cover the loss. No matter how it goes down, his shop is failing because as management he does not have a clear focus on how to achieve the goals that lie ahead not only for next week, but for next month, next year, and then at two, and five and ten years down the road. It's always depressing to see someone praise a very poor business practice like this. This practice is one that actually ensures the demise of the business. And then see them fault the dealer who has taken business management classes, spends the money on the best techs, and the schools and tools for the techs to really do the job correctly. Today he may be your very trusted mechanic, tomorrow he will fall on his face because of his poor business practices which are limiting his ability to continue to prepare for the technology that is built into cars that are already on the road. Your mechanic, do you like him enough, and trust him enough to tell him he better get his head on straight so that he will be there in the future for you? Or will you simply keep taking your "discount" and then someday wonder what happened to "Joe" he was such a nice guy and always seemed so busy.....

Hello Spareho. I don't know where you are, but my suspicion is that if you are budgeting $300/month for electric heating alone (that is separate from lighting, cooking, water heating, hair blowers, TVs and so on) you would find geothermal heating/cooling much cheaper than $150/month. We have a much smaller house than yours, so my experience is not directly comparable, but we experienced a real savings over natural gas, which is typically cheaper than electric heating, other things being equal. Should mention that we have a three ton open loop geothermal system which is less efficient than a well-designed closed loop system, as we have to pay to pump water to the heat pump. With a closed loop system, which was not possible in our circumstances, we would have saved a great deal more. If you can overcome the problem with the basement ducts and can get a properly designed and installed closed loop geothermal system for less than $30K I'd suggest looking at it very closely. Good luck, Mark

Let me ask a different but related question. If I'm only putting walnut in the bedrooms, is durability as much of a concern? Bedroom is kind of a high traffic area but probably doesn't experience as much stress as other parts of the house. My decor is modern so I'm afraid putting distressed floors in won't look right. And, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of the distressed look. I'd only be putting the walnut in the master bedroom, guest bedroom and kids' room (when I have them). Does walnut hold up pretty well in bedrooms or is it impossible to make that kind of generalization? And another tangential question. When I was planning to put wood floors throughout the house, I insisted on a 4mm wear layer to get maximum longevity. But that requirement severely limited my options. Now that I'm only considering it for the bedrooms is 4mm overkill? Can I safely lower my standards?

One more thought. The blue colors on line aren’t accurate, so you will have to see if you like them together. Since they aren’t next to each other and there are other colors in between the pieces it should work. You might need to raise the mattress a little too. It is on the lower side. A low cost way to fix this is to get a deep box spring. That will raise the mattress easily. To keep the box spring from showing, you can wrap it in a fitted sheet that is dark blue. Dark colors recede from view! Keep us posted on results. So fun!