I'm going to assume rutgers is happy with the initial replies on this and forget about the question. In other words, I consider this thread to be officially hijacked. If I am incorrect, please, rutgers, reply now or forever hold your peace. If you look around the Internet at other gardening forums, too many refuse to acknowledge organic gardening as a program that can work. Of those few that do acknowledge it, those associated with Rodale are pretty much stuck on compost being the only "approved" (by Rodale) material to use; and tilling being the best preparation for the soil. Some other forums are beyond any hope of science providing answers. They want to contradict anything scientific unless it specifically agrees with they they have been saying. I have played in both those arenas. Too often there are dips into pure fiction and just plain hope. I'm going to ignore the followers of Jerry Baker because they are usually not hurting anyone with their approach. In my previous message I was just comparing the GardenWeb forums with the other organic forums I have seen. I was not comparing with an ideal perfect universe. In my perfect universe, the universities would have equal amounts of organic certified soil and un-certifiable soil (never any DDT for example) for research. There would also be equal amounts of funding and knowledgeable researchers ready, willing, and able to get going. And there would at least be someone in academia listening to the masses to see what they have tried and are claiming to be working. The research on corn meal against crop (and lawn) fungal disease ceased when the lead guy died in the 90s. I'd like to know why greensand greens up St Aug turf on alkaline soil after a rainstorm and nothing else works. I'd like to know more about why a surface dusting of baking soda seems to kill crabgrass in 4 days (in southern lawns). I'd like to know more about why vinegar sprays kill plants but a soil drench seems to feed them. I'd like to know if/how plants can control and change the sugar chemistry they send to the soil in response to environmental stresses they receive. I'd like to know more about foliar feeding of proteins on plants and the plants' response to that. I'd like to see someone take a nutrition approach to soil microbes and the food they eat (deerslayer probably saw that one coming and is groaning right now). Another thing I've seen is unhealthy competition among organic academes. "My organic is better than your organic." We've had people here who play that game and we have all lost as the GardenWeb masters kicked them off the forums. I'm not just talking about one person, either. Some of us are too easily offended by different approaches. Deerslayer, I'm not taking your organic approach to task. I'm just trying to keep you honest. I apologize for the language I used where you thought I was denigrating your message. I can see that, but it wasn't meant that way. I'm a work in progress in many ways. Regarding hit-and-run posters: I've been accused of that, too. Sometimes our time budgets allow frequent visits here and suddenly we can be called away in the middle of one or more threads. That's just the way it is. I wish they had a way for us to subscribe to threads so we could see what's happening.

For those who may not have excel... http://www.openoffice.org/ This is a free "MS Office" alternative and it's quite powerful. The program "Calc" is their version of a spreadsheet. It's free, but it works as well as anything you'd pay for and it doesn't hog a lot of disc space to install it.

Lucky Star & Intelligent style are the same style & density--they just have different names based on the retailer. We have the Intelligent/Lucky Star style and we are very happy with it. It is thick & plush enough to feel luxurious--denser than alot of competitor carpets that you are used to. IMO, it's not necessary to go with one that is any denser--all density levels have the same warranty. I would stick with 60oz and upgrade your pad. Alot of people upgrade the carpet and go with the cheapest pad possible, when the pad is just as important as the carpet. Hope this helps!

I haven't been too impressed with the quality of lighting fixtures offered at the big box stores. They seem adequate for rental properties, where tenants are likely to damage them in a few years anyway. It's not for everyone, but you might try shopping garage sales in older neighborhoods for fixtures. When young folks buy old houses they often want to "update" them. They then replace high quality 40-60 year old fixtures with big box store junk. A few dollars and a little rewiring, and you have a fixture good for another 40-60 years of service. But I have to admit, you're not too likely to find track lighting this way. :)