Oh gosh..........this is such a subjective question because 'night life' may simply mean an option of something to do in the evening but sit in a motel room. If you think about it, Disney World could translate into exciting nightlife. I don't venture forth much in the evening when at home or when I am visiting my kin. My idea of a great holiday would be to be in a cabin in the boonies......but most people who travel would like something to do after supper other than going to their room and crashing in front of crappy television. It could be local live entertainment, museums, boat rides, concerts in a park with fireworks, square dancing, lectures, wiener roasts, a luau or gambling, the races, a rodeo, or bars. It is just going to depend on what the person who asks the question is looking for.

If you want some pure worm castings try placing a piece of wet burlap on the surface of your worm bed media. Cover the wet burlap with a sheet of glass and then some black plastic sheeting...trash bag works fine. In a few days the underside of the glass sheet will be covered in 'pure' castings. To avoid a messy extraction process have several sheets of glass available for rotation. Let the castings dry and they can be easily removed with one of those worthless plastic auto window ice scrapers. Like Worms4Tracy comments I don't see any difference in the commercially sold worm castings than the 'spent media' (peat moss, coffee grounds, egg shells, and blended kitchen scraps) I remove from the tops of my indoor vermicompost bins. I have a difficult time understanding why folks go to such extremes to removed worm castings only to reincorporate them into potting mixes, worm teas, and to be used as a fertilizer. I have used the grated 'spent media' for a number of years exclusively as a germination mix and incorporated into potting mixes, and it works just fine.

Beachlily, you're right. This is a digression and not about cooking at all really. I find nomenclature interesting, as well as the hair splitting, and I find that it helps to order my mind, which, in the end, also helps my cooking. Rusty, opinion respectfully understood and appreciated. It is nitpicking, and not of interest to many people, I'm sure. I have certain language bugaboos with cooking. I'm entirely aware that they're my issues, and not something that I expect others to cleave to or participate in. It doesn't bother me if people call purchased prepared food that they've doctored "homemade". To me, that just means they have a different definition of homemade. So be it. I do, however, have an issue with opened a bunch of cans and dumped them in a dish being called "from scratch". Again, I realize that my having an issue with what people want to say about their food is entirely my own problem, not theirs. In the USA, at least, there's a tradition of food snobbery in which "from scratch" demands a level of respect. I don't say "from scratch" about my cooking or baking, even when it is. If someone asks, I'll say I made the crust, or whatever, and might even use "it's from scratch" if asked about the process, but it's not a way I identify myself or my work. It goes with the kind of snobbery that insists that something hand sewn is superior to something machine sewn (not counting computer programed sewing machine work, which is its own category). Good results are good results, no matter which tools you use to achieve them. The grated cheese issue is a bagatelle: it's really all the same whether you pare it, grate it by hand, grate it in an FP, or buy it grated. The main reason for doing it oneself is that one often buys tastier cheeses than they put up pre-grated, and it keeps better as a block. Since we have that culture of admiration for the scratch cook, I think the person claiming the honors ought to be honest about it. I wouldn't think ill of anyone who doesn't put the line exactly where I do. That's why I started this thread--to learn where others put the line. But if you tell me that you made a frozen green beans, condensed mushroom soup and French's canned fried onions casserole from scratch, I'm going to think you're awfully naïve... My other bugaboo is people who don't know what the words mean extending them to mean other things. Again, totally my own issue and the world marches the way it does without regard for it. But hummus means "chickpea" not paté or puree, many hummus dishes use whole, not mashed, chickpeas, and you can't make chickpeas out of black beans. Aioli means "garlic oil", not flavored mayonnaise, and can be made without egg yolk (i.e., not like mayonnaise), but not without garlic. Some aiolis aren't sauces at all, but more like a paste or relish, but all have garlic and oil. So, I've learned a lot about how far the words "scratch" and "homemade" can extend without breaking and some points over my own lines that cooking people allow. I hope more people will contribute their ideas. And for those who just don't care, thanks for letting us know that too...

Thanks for all your responses. I have really enjoyed reading them and have thought a lot about myself and what defines me to me. I've always wanted to write a biography for my kids but I'd get bogged down in details and give it up after I'd written way too many pages on the first two years of my life. Now I'm going to write a very brief account. My parents were blank. I grew up in blank. Just the facts, you know? I was just talking to my daughter and asked her if she knew how fast her dad and I left our small home town to live two hours away in the city. And fifty years later we are still here. She had no idea. Anyway...i sent M (my daughter) your responses last night and called her this morning to see if she'd read them. She likes them a lot and I will send these new ones. She said she is feeling better about her identity and thinks it is the fact that it has only been a couple of weeks since school was out that is making it an issue at all. I think Gscience is right that this may be more of a thing with people who teach because they live and breath their job 24/7. We always thought M would be a lawyer because she was so ready to argue and run all our lives from a young age. However, after her education, all this was channeled into being a teacher and I think she is probably a very good one because she genuinely loves her students and has a lot of empathy for them as she was not a good student until she got into high school. Lars, I love personality tests and really enjoyed your account. M says she has taken the Meyer-Briggs test but has forgotten the results. I really admired the way you let all of us weigh in on the house you just bought without showing an ounce of sensitivity about our criticisms. I think you must be a man who is comfortable with who he is. As for me, I have always tended to define myself as how other people define me. I've never had a good sense of who I am. Now that I am seventy three I am beginning to change that and give value to what I think and discount other people's opinions. It's about time, right? April, I am a INFP-T. The T stands for turbulent. I've never really looked into what that means exactly. I think that is a recent addition to the test. I suspect it means that my emotions are strong and ever-changing. I react strongly to everything. My mother was that way. We all tiptoed around her and didn't tell her things because she always reacted so badly to everything. My goal in life was to not be like her. But I am. I react very quickly but I'm over it in a minute. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't show much emotion but he doesn't get over things easily. This is getting long but I really enjoy the subject and hope to hear more from all of you about it.