My guess is that it's the drive. Try this, with more than one disk: -Start Windows Media Player from the All Programs menu. -Put a disk in the drive. -Click on Play, then DVD. Or File, Open, then try to select the D Drive or whichever is the optical drive. What happens?

It depends upon how much time you have to care for seedlings before they are tranplanted into permanent spots in the garden. If you are growing garden annuals that you want blooming as soon as they go into the ground they need to be started indoors several weeks ahead of your planting date. Seed packets will offer germination information to guide you...keep in mind that the information on the back of the packet is based upon ideal circumstances. Most garden perennials do not bloom their first year from seed so they can be started anytime. Starting indoors will require care to prevent damp-off and repotting if felt necessary. Outdoor germination you will need to protect the soil from desiccation by wind and sun, the seedlings should also be protected from slugs or snails, if a hail storm is coming you can help protect young direct-sown seedlings by turning an old laundry basket over them for the duration of the storm. Direct-sown seedlings are often a tasty treat for birds and bunnies. A scarecrow and fencing can help protect the seedlings from critter damage, however a starving animal will ignore devices used to deter or scare them away. Vegetable packets offer a "days to maturity" guideline to suggest when to sow your seeds. Those days are generally based upon how long it takes to grow the first ripe produce after a seedling is about four inches high, those dates are not indicative of how many days needed to produce ripe fruit after germination. Germination requirements can vary from species to species, though some plant families may have similar requirements. If you have no seed packet to read for germination requirements then you can look up the information on the internet by typing in the plant name + germination. The information may also be found in books at the library. Winter Sowing, done outdoors, goes on all throughout winter. See the Winter Sowing Forum FAQs for information. There is also forum with FAQs for Starting Seeds Under Lights.

Thank you JDS. I dont know why I was focused on just the changes either. I have never tried to understand building codes before so this is new to me. You suggestion makes sense. I tried to print chapter 4 off the web and it wont - which I assume is a way for them to get you to pay for it. I'm not going to do that because I am getting too deep into the weeds as it is. This is a tract home and I dont want to be the customer who shows up every day with a dog eared copy of the building code. I do however want to know enough about what is required and what is above and beyond so that I can have an intelligent conversation with the builder about what is important to me including those things that I might be willing to spend money on. Am I reading the current code to say that builders have to do blower door tests and show 3 ACH or less? (402.4.1.2) If so, my approach should probably be to specify that I would like to see a lower number - something that is achievable with typical materials and maybe a more conscientious attention to detail. Does that make sense? Thanks again

stevie: you think because CA is located closer to the equator there is not a greater chance of frost when in the 40s?[...] Florida [...] To put it as you do: You think because FL is further south than CA you can assume things about the climate in the Bay Area???? First, the Bay Area isn't that far South. It's probably somewhere along the same latitude as Richmond, VA. Second, I'm going by what I know of the weather in the actual Bay Area, having experienced it for myself and also based on what people I know who live there report. Third, Farmer's Almanac, for example, lists Last Frost Date and First Frost Date in California as no chance of frost. Obviously, this is a generalization. Other sources may say first frost is around mid-December and last frost is around mid-January. It should be clear that this is not the same climate model one can use for the Eastern USA. The West Coast is a whole other animal. The ocean currents and the Rockies and other topography make most of the area behave in ways very different from the rest of the continental US. FL and CA have extremely dissimilar climates--basically the only characteristic they share is that they are warm a lot. The fact is, if you make assumptions for the Bay Area based on what the weather does on the East Coast, you will make the wrong decisions for the area and have problems growing.