John, I thought of that palm but wondered about the lack of sunlight all winter long. What do you think of those conditions Rhizo, that's why I suggested that a Pindo be planted in a raised bed affording good drainage. I think it would be fine in a protected location with little direct sunlight, as long as it isn't sitting there all winter with wet feet. I'd also recommend that they start with the largest specimen that their budget will allow. Will a Pindo provide a tall enough canopy to sit/walk under? No, not for many, many years, unless you're willing to spend big $$$ for a huge specimen that would most likely have to be professionally installed. The best trunking cold hardy palm that will grow quickly would be a windmill (Trachycarpus fortunei), and it would indeed be more forgiving of your winter low light conditions. Two other bush, shrub type palms that would still give you a tropical look would be a sabal minor or a needle palm (Rhapidophyllum hystrix). They're not trunking, but are extremely cold hardy & would still thrive in spite of a lack of wintertime direct sunlight. If you decide to visit ColdPalms as Rhizo suggested, I would strongly recommend that you take along a good picture of the area you're wanting to landscape & of course detail the growing conditions to them as you have here. They're very knowledgeable about palms & have a huge inventory to choose from. I'm sure they would be able to help you select the right one for your location.

The short story? Upload your photos to photobucket using the "800 by 600" pixel upload option. Done. You'll get a small file size but a photo that will display well. To answer your questions, here's the long story. And I'm not kidding. It's long. Way too long: "What I'm also trying to understand is the whole process: I take a picture with my 6.1 Kodak camera. The picture size is therefore________" Your file size depends on the settings on your camera at which you are taking photos. Most cameras offer a couple of choices, like "Image Quality: FINE/NORMAL/BASIC" and/or "Image size: LARGE/MEDIUM/SMALL". Those choices will define the amount of jpeg compression that your photo undergoes and thus they will define the size of the file that comes out of your camera. Generically a 6MP camera is probably putting out jpeg photos in the 2-3MB range. "Jpeg" is a compression program. It's a program that reduces the MB file size of the program by discarding redundant pixel color information from the photo's file for similar-colored pixels in the photo. It does not get rid of or discard any pixels. It just "averages" out red/ green/blue information assigned to similar colored pixels. jpeg looks at the photo's individual pixel information and says "these reddish pixels that are next to each other in this photo are so close in color, I'm going to consider them the exact same color". So it keeps the R/G/B information for one of the pixels, discards the RGB info for the other two, and assigns that saved RGB info to all three pixels. That allows your file to be smaller without destroying the overall visual integrity of the photo when you view it. If a file were to be over-compressed...too much information thrown away...then it can get ugly looking, very blocky. "When I upload it to Photobucket it remains 6.1 or do they change it as they "store it"__________" Using the default settings on PB it'll be uploaded as a small file. A MUCH SMALLER file. You've discovered the "Customize Your Upload Options" and you can use that to get a larger and more usable file size uploaded to your PB account. More about that later. "Of course talking about a picture in terms of 800x600 vs MB is confusing. " Your photo is made up of little dots, or to simplify, "pixels". If you have a photo that is "800 by 600", that's 800 pixels or dots wide by 600 pixels/dots tall. That's how "big" your photo appears. 800 dots wide. 600 dots tall. Each of those dots or pixels is a color, all those little colored dots together make up the photo. If each of those pixels is a different color, then the file size (the "MB" or "KB") will be large because the file has to store red/green/blue information for each and every one of those tiny pixels. If you take a photo of a piece of red paper, then theoretically the photo's jpeg file size will be smaller because so many of the pixels will be the same red color. The file doesn't have to "remember" as much red/green/blue information even though the number of pixels in the photo is the same. So if you take your glorious 6MP photo that's 3000 by 2000 pixels and upload it to Photobucket at the 320 by 240 pixel option, PB is going to throw way a lot of pixels. You uploaded a detailed file with 3000 times 2000, or 6 million pixels, and Photobucket is going to throw away and discard over 5.9 million of them! Gone forever! It'll display that photo small, 320 pixels by 240 pixels, so to the eye it will still look okay at that small size. But if you try to blow up or magnify the photo, pixels will have to be created to fill in the "holes", and the color information for those created pixels will be guessed at based upon what the neighboring pixels look like. You'll end up with a blocky looking photo. So the picture can have a physical size defined in terms of how many dots or pixels make up the picture. 3000 x 2000, 800 x 600, 320 x 240, etc. The pixels define how big or small the picture will be represented on your computer monitor or on a piece of paper when printed out. The photo file size, in MB or KB, is how much information is assigned to remember the color information of the pixels that make up the photo. 6MP is a large photo and will take longer to upload than a 1MP file. It's how much space the photo will take up n your computer's hard drive. I'm going to run you through a few examples, I hope this helps to clarify: I have a 2MB photo on my computer. I just uploaded it to photobucket, during the upload photobucket automatically reduced the file size from 2MB down to 38kb. Ouch! It reduced the pixel size (or the number of "dots" that make up the photo) from 3341 x 2217 (3341 pixels wide by 2217 pixels tall) to 310 x 212. That was done using the default upload setting of 320 by 240. This file is tiny, only 38kb, so it'll upload fast. But the small file can limit the quality of the photo seen by the viewer. Here is the quality of the 320 by 240 photo: By adding a "Width=" designator to the HTML code, I can make your browser display the photo larger. Previously it showed at 320 pixels wide, because that's it's size of the photobucket file. I'll add "Width=800" to make it display 800 pixels wide. Again, it's a 38kb file size, 319 x 212 photo that's being forced to display 800 pixels wide. Where did the extra pixels come from? They were made up, their color information copied from neighboring pixels in the photo's file. Since they had to be guessed at, the photo looks blocky due to the groupings of exactly-colored pixels all clumped next to one another: The photo shows larger, but it's blockier. Now going into photobucket's upload settings I chose "Best possible quality (while staying 1mb or less)". A large file size...but not ridiculous. Photobucket uploaded my same original 2MB, 3342 x 2217 pixel photo as a 745kb file that is 2301 pixels wide by 1527 pixels tall. At 745kb it's a large file size so it'll upload slower, but with all those pixels the resolution will be quite good. When I now have gardenweb show this new photo file at its native resolution, it looks like this: Since most people have their computer's screen displays set at 800-1200 pixels wide, this 2301 pixel wide photo causes you to have to scroll left/right to take it all in. It's not viewer friendly. So now I'll limit the photo by adding a "Width=800" to the html code and it'll show better. A better size, and with nice resolution: There actually is a point to this post, and it's this: Photobucket has an 800 by 600 upload selection. If you want a "bang for your buck" upload selection, use the 800 x 600 choice. Uploading my 2MB file using the 800 by 600 option gave me a 134kb file with pixel dimensions of 800 wide by 530 tall. A very manageable file size that will upload quickly, and a pixel size that will display nicely: Still awake? Not me. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I didn't recommend a 1.5 cu ft softener anywhere in this thread. I said "just to get the 12 gpm SFR for your tub you'd need 1.5 cu ft of resin and that wouldn't accommodate your other appliances". To clarify, a 1.5 cu ft softener would only support the SFR needed by the tub and that would be ignoring any other water use in the home. During the holidays with 20 people it would be difficult to find any moment when there wouldn't be someone using water somewhere in the house like sink, toilet, bath tub, washing machine, shower, water heater, etc... understand? "Soft [not salt] water brining -- my mistake"... now more to learn... There is soft water brining with hard water regeneration and there is soft water brining with soft water regeneration. The 1.5 cu ft softener you seem to have fallen in love with only offers soft water brining with HARD water regeneration which is a good feature but not as desirable as soft water brining WITH soft water regeneration which the Kinetico offers. The 1.5 cu ft softener you seem to have fallen in love with will regenerate at 2:00 AM (in some control valves you can change the time but it MUST be during a period where there is NO water use) generating the noise you don't want to hear and do it for a longer time interval and waste unused hardness removal capacity set aside as a reserve while the Kinetico will regenerate immediately whenever the gallon count zeros with no set aside reserve capacity being wasted. The Kinetico will use less water and salt to treat an equal # of gallons of hard water than the 1.5 cu ft softener you seem to have fallen in love with which SAVES you money every time it regenerates... and the resin will last longer because it is being regenerated with SOFT water. "Previously posted information: 1.5 cu. ft. tank handles 30,000 - to 45,000 grains of hardness, using a minimum of 6 # to a max of 15 pounds of salt for regeneration. Am I missing something?" Yes you are and for the umpteenth time... the max hardness removal capacity of 1.5 cu ft of resin at the max salt dose of 15 lbs/cu ft or 22.5 lbs for 1.5 cu ft of resin is 40,000 not 45,000 The occasional use you now define is a considerable percentage of your annual water use. The additional occupancy at your home during the holidays will be a huge increase in water use for that period. If you're smart you'll buy the Kinetico 2060S OD and get what you need. The Kinetico will have a longer warranty and cost less to operate then your 1.5 cube favorite and in the long run it will cost you less than buying what you don't need.

I was typing up my response above when montana and sue responded, sorry! I do like the wood hoods but I do also like the stainless hoods. I also really like the mantle hoods. I have the same problem with granite ... I like almost every one I see. Too bad I'm not building several houses, haha ! The website for kitchensource is great. There are so many different style hoods to look at there. Thanks ! If I went with the Omega National hood (which looks just like the one that was option 3 above from the KD), what would you suggest for the looks of a custom topper ? I have played around with different ideas for that hood but have not come up with a very good one yet. According to the KD, that one has to attach to cabinets to the left and right, correct ? (we are using cherry) Got a phone call back from KD. We will save $800 by not having them provide any kind of hood, so that's money we can put towards other options if we do stainless or a different wood hood. He had an idea for the stainless hood and the problem with the duct from the ceiling not lining up with the hood's flue. His idea was to have a metal worker "box out" the top of the stainless hood to hide the pipe. I mocked it up in my 3D program and also the custom hood pictured in the original post (the hoods below may not be exactly to scale but this gives a good idea of it, and of course the wood hood would match the cabinets). (click on picture for enlarged view) Florantha, yes I posted my plans last year (link to the old thread at the top of this thread in the first post). Kudos to you for recognizing it!! I thought this day would never come when we would be almost finished building !! Interesting point about downplaying the hood. Which option do you favor or do you have another idea for venting ?