Hi, everybody! I'm new to this whole greenhouse business, but my experience to date may be useful to you. About two weeks ago I ordered a greenhouse on Ebay. It is 7x7x15, so quite sizeable. It cost $125 delivered to my porch. When I opened the box, the parts looked like junk and I thought, "I've been stung once again." Not so. My wife, with some limited help from me and a neighbor, had the thing erected in a half hour, perched over two existing raised beds. In the greenhouse or hoophouse, I now have growing potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, carrots, leeks, lettuce, mustard, radishes, flowers, and onions. I'm also doing a dry run on seed starting of tomatoes and peppers. So far, so good. The hoophouse has weathered driving wind and rain. It is secured with big, jagged stakes from big box at $1.00 apiece, to which I hooked baling twine running to the ribs. It gets to the high 90's in the day, but the temps fall quickly at night, suggesting the need for a heater of some sort. I plan to try out a small space heater to see if it helps. The plants are all flourishing. Everything new, as in seed potatoes, onions, nasturtium and sweet peas seeds, e.g., jumped out of the ground. This thing is a blast, plus I get compliments on its appearance from discriminating neighbors. I'll post a pic if Mrs. Baby will show me how. Misterbaby (just outside Memphis).

I needed to mount a TV above the fireplace because it was really the only place in the room it could be viewed by everyone and not in the way. The mantel of our fireplace is rather high (almost 6 feet) which would put the center of the TV well above a comfortable viewing angle. I spent months searching for a TV mount that could lower the TV to a decent height. I quickly discovered that anything motorized would cost several times what I paid for the TV. Beyond that, there were 2 options: Omnimount or Down and Out by Dynamic Mounting (http://www.dynamicmounting.com/index.php). The Omnimount is cheaper ($200-$300 vs. $400-$500) but an inferior product for my purposes. The Down and Out mount is much thinner (protrudes ~4 inches from the wall) and can lower the TV much farther (~30 inches!). I should also say that I have engineering degrees and tend to do all my own work. I thought about making my own mount but was a bit surprised at both the cost and level of difficulty. The Down and Out was fairly simple to mount on the wall and works VERY well.

Casey, yes that is the case I believe, that I should need no extra plugins for a digital-TV-ready set. I do get both analog and digital versions of all the channels. We've found them through trial and error. The issue I have is the numbering scheme on that TV is different. Sorry if I was unclear. I just used an example of a channel that is on a different spot on the dial. The digital TV B goes up to the high 3 digit channels. I only have the digital starter pack so the QAM channels are the ones from the basic set. I just want to be able to dial them up without having to hunt for them, by using the numbers on the published channel guide. Casey, I will try your suggestion and see if it works. Thanks all!!! --Karen

After 10 years of Direct TV and Dish prior, I opted out of all due to the ongoing increase in cost. $10 for local channels, 10 each for 2 recievers, and whatever else is added. It came to 90+. I now have an HD antenna on the roof, TIVO at $12 a month. It works great for me, but I'm not far from the towers. One local channel is still having a problem once in a while which has nothing to do with where I'm located. Also, I connected the PC to the reciever and stream movies or TV shows free. The streaming has become a large base, a couple of the sites will show when the new shows are ready. Or you can go direct to the TV station site. I watch anything now that once was DTV and all free with only short blip commericals. Even Showtime streams their latest at no charge. I have to be patient though as the shows are available a week late. You wouldn't "have" to have TIVO or an antenna since the shows aren't coming in for you. Just be aware that DTV will upcharge and continue when that year is over. I just got sick of paying so much for all and it seemed like 90% wasn't even of interest. Sat is a toss up with cable unless the cable is in ground. It wasn't unusual to be tramping through the snow to clear off of dish. Cable was a problem with wind since it was stretched from a telephone pole to the house.