To moccasinlanding: I assure you it is Blue Mammoth I have tried in the past. To Ken: I have yet to find anything left at the door; although I had to adapt quickly back in 2011 when my mother brought to me BOTH T-Rex and Blue Mammoth. And yes I smiled and did say thank you very nicely. Having both WAS NOT my plan at that moment. She is threatening to "share" some of her Mouse Ears next summer (not sure what variety she is talking about as of yet. Honesty I do get nearly 100% sun for about 2 to 3 hours from about noon in my garden (working on eliminating that next year). 'Popcorn' simply dropped its green in August; it did have an intense gold yellow as it faded. I thought that moment was exciting. 'Vulcan' took off, and exploded into growth making every other hosta look bad last year. 'Gorgon' was a close second in that department. 'Frosted Mouse Ears' and 'Holy Mouse Ears' each seem to have settled in with polite growth. 'Xanadu Empress Wu' was planted in August, and that even tried to take off by growing leaves that were twice the size of what it came with. In short I am expecting a 86% (18 out of 21 plants) survival rate next spring with only three plants not coming up (as mentioned at my blog). Those being ... Blue Mammoth, Itsy Bity Spider, and Popcorn. Naturally they have the option of surprising me, and appearing on cue. Everything else looked in good shape when I cut everything back Mid-October for their long winter nap! Finally Ken, to be honest, I do have a few theories as to why my 2013 survival rate was 56% (from 18 hosta to 10 hosta). I can't discuss those until I see what happens next spring (2014; trying to be objective here folks). Hint keep watching my blog for a lengthy narrative on that topic there. Peter Kelley St. Paul, MN USA

Browsing through old posts and found this and had to reply. We bought our Kenmore Elite Oasis set in April 2006. The dryer was the first to need repair. They replaced the control board. Dryer has never broken since though it doesn't sense small loads correctly and they will be damp after the dryer finishes. The washer -- ugh. I can't recall the order but it's been repaired (ie we paid for the year long warranty 3x) for faulty control board, hinge snapped (rust and it did rust/fail again but wasn't worth fixing because it'd just do it again), faulty control board that locked my laundry in a wet tub for three weeks before the technician could get out and fix, and for the past six months it's been throwing the uL until finally no amount of begging, coaxing and pleading could get a cycle to finish. My husband has opened it up a few times trying to avoid calling the repairman because at this point we were fed up. We've had to repair these machines just about yearly since purchasing. Sears has refused to do anything but charge us for repairs or buy another year long warranty. That machine has so much rust throughout the insides I was shocked. The washers are absolute junk. Terrible design and Sears did nothing to make it right with those of us that were unfortunate enough to trust in their product and purchase one. We will *never* buy another Kenmore product just because of how terrible their service has become. I can understand they goofed and had a miserable design. It didn't get tested enough before release. But there was no attempt at making it right with their customers. I called before we decided to junk this machine and all they wanted to do was charge another $230 for another year warranty. That would've put our total repair costs in the $600 range. FWIW, we do know that it's an actual whirlpool product marketed and sold under the Kenmore name. Which is why I couldn't bring myself to even look at any whirlpool washers. I had my list down to two choices -- Electrolux and Samsung and opted for the Samsung because it offered more choices for less money. We are also far wiser...we not only bought a 4 yr extended warranty but I'm fully prepared to have to replace it in 5-6 years. We didn't purchase from Sears either. :P

My Maytag Bravos washer has a Wrinkle Control cycle which I use for the great majority of our nicer office and church clothes. I use the Delicates cycle for more delicate fabrics and the Hand Wash cycle for the most delicate fabrics and sweaters. I use the Medium spin with the Wrinkle Control cycle and the Slow spin with the Delicates and Hand Wash cycle. When I wash towels and jeans/T-shirts, I use the normal wash cycles and fast spin. I haven't yet had ANY problem with wrinkling OR tangling. I have found the main way to prevent wrinkles in jeans is not to overload the machine (which is emphasized in the manual). My washer does not have an agitator; it has an impeller. The clothes come out much cleaner than they did in my former conventional TL's.

I have a transmitter/receiver wire tracer - I bought it mostly to figure out which outlet is on which breaker. It's pretty cool and can definitely show the wire within the wall, but it does have its limitations. The biggie is you need to plug it into an outlet or light socket, and trace it back from there, which means you kind of have to know which outlet to check, and you never know what's being run through there - it could be wires going to another room. There's probably a little bleed-through on all lines if they're on the same 120v leg...maybe even both legs, since the neutrals are tied together. OF COURSE any junction box will depend on there being enough slack. It will also mean that the only wire needing to be replaced will be that from the break to the loads, not all the way back to the meter.