I read this thread feeling commiseration, sadness, joy, and respect. When I had my first garden, boy was I lucky; my grandfather never used a chemical on his property from the time he bought it in 1947. It was "virgin" in the sense it had never had a house built on it prior to that. It was pretty much partial prairie abutting a deciduous forest. He kept the back half prairie and the front half forest. With a large forest preserve not too far away, a vacant lot of 10 acres to one side, and several acres all around us that were undeveloped, we didn't have critters that had no food. They mostly left our garden alone. He taught me what to do, helped me create my own flower garden when I was three, and taught me to love being in the garden as much as I loved perusing seed catalogs on front of a fireplace in January. He welcomed every bird, snake, spider...even paying the neighborhood children for live snakes. He figured it would keep the snakes alive and might even help keep something from eating something. He did this all without fencing, pesticides, herbicides. He gardened about 1/2 acre, working in it every day for a few hours before work. We had apple, pear, peach, and mulberry trees, raspberry and blackberry canes, blueberry bushes, and grapes. When he passed away, I inherited the house. It took me a few years to come back "home" and when I did, I picked up where he'd left off. It had been about ten years since he'd gardened by that time. I started and kept a smaller garden, only working about 25'x50' space and keeping up with the fruit trees that were still growing. Other than a slug or two, and maybe a cabbage moth here or there, I saw few pests. The birds watched over my garden, as did the snakes and frogs and spiders. I grew the bird sunflowers every year as a thank you. I had no soil issues and never saw a powdery anything, a blight, or a wilt. Everything worked together to make it and exceedingly easy experience. When my sister took over our grandfather's home, I came to a large urban area. Now, I garden in containers. What I find amazing is the number of pests and problems I have. I hadn't a clue what they looked like! I am constantly looking up pictures to see if it matches the next malady. Initially, I felt like I'd never gardened before. After a particularly bleak 3rd year when I lost all tomato plants and ate maybe 3 tomatoes for a whole summer of work, I stopped for a year, thinking I couldn't do this. It was just too hard to maintain about 6 self watering containers. Each environment is different and brings new things with it. And each, a new learning experience. As someone said up-thread, it gets easier with time. And, as several others have said, it's really about the process, not just the result. After a year off, I decided to come at this again from a different perspective, admitting that I didn't really know much about containers and was trying to apply my organic soil methods to containers. I've since learned a LOT more than I thought I'd ever need to to be successful with containers, and still have a lot more to learn. But, each day when I wake up, the first place I got (after the bathroom, lol) is my deck. I look at everything, make sure it made it through the night, and marvel at how it grows. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

RG, I agree with Cynthia and Karyn. Except that I use 32-watt Philips cool white T8 bulbs instead of the 40-watt T12 bulbs. The T8 bulbs are more efficient. "Should I buy another timer and 2 surge protector power strips? Is that too much power on one outlet? Should it be on a designated outlet?" Your circuit breakers will answer that question for you. However, the timer and the surge protector power strips draw a negligible amount of current by themselves. "...so I went to Wal-Mart and bought three plastic 5-shelf shelving units..." My recommendation would have been a chrome wire adjustable shelf cart from Northern Tool. I have three of these units, and I use two of them as plant stands. (The other is used for storage, especially kitchen storage by my wife.) Northern Tool has free shipping on these items during certain periods of the year, and I have timed all three purchases to take advantage of that. Incidentally, you can position the shelves anywhere you want (in one-inch increments) on the steel posts. The pictured unit shows the bottom shelf very high from the floor, but I put my bottom shelves in the lowest position, just an inch above the big casters. That gives me the maximum space for my plants and fluorescent lights. In the past I have had disappointing experiences with plastic shelves. They have rather low strength and rigidity, and have become very "sway-backed" under load over time. The chrome steel Northern Tool shelves are very strong, and are rated for 1000 pounds total with the rubber casters. The big roller bearing casters let you move the loaded unit very easily. That's handy when you want to temporarily move the unit to access plants on the far side. I mount four 2-bulb shop lights over each shelf, which puts eight T8 bulbs over each shelf. It is convenient to hang the shop-light chains from the wires of the shelf above. I overdrive my fluorescents, to get 50% more light per bulb, which gives me the light-equivalent of 12 bulbs per shelf. That lets me grow extra large plants before setting them into the garden. Our short Maine growing season needs all the head start it can get. MM

I don't believe there is a way to hook up two modems to the wiring and have them function independently. You might be able to use one in a "repeater" mode, though, and that could possibly be done wirelessly. There are also specific repeater devices you can get to extend the signal, and that might be easier to do. I suggest you contact the manufacturer of your modem to ask what is possible with that specific model, and whether they sell a repeater device that would be easier to set up than a second router. By the way, have you confirmed that the streaming does not work well, or is that just a statement in the manual? By the way, I have a similar situation. I have a DSL modem with a 3MB signal that is connected to a router in an upstairs closet; my tv system is in the living room downstairs. I have an older DVD player without a streaming capability, but wanted to be able to stream Netflix movies. I bought the Roku wireless device that Netflix sells, plugged it in to the back of my tv as an additional input, and set up the connection in about 2 minutes. I am able to get maximum quality every time I use it unless someone else is using a computer in another part of the house, in which case picture quality drops down a little.

I think the first thing I would look at is this 55 and older situation. You should know for sure how aggessive a particular park is about enforcing the rule. If you got in there and they filed an eviction/lawsuit to remove you, would you be willing and have the resources to fight it in court? This is a possibility and it depends on the particular park. You probably could get financing from an owner who is desparate to sell. In fact you might get a good deal this way. If you ever got to this point I would suggest that you definitley pay an attorney for an hour's work to give you advice on the loan and closing documents.