I agree with shrubs_n_bulbs and dcarch. While it is useful to study the aquarium community, because they are very obsessed and very knowledgeable, you do definitely learn a lot. Unfortunately there are just not too many people participating in this forum and some of the people just seem to be here to sell lamps and spread misinformation. Our local lamp salesman should have banned long time ago. (New lamps for old! New lamps for old!) FWIW in my other life, I'm a senior pathologist, who is rather obsessed with perfection himself. In my professional life and in my hobby life, I like to go all the way, understand it all to the maximum that I am able to, and apply my knowledge to the utmost. My most inspiring person is Henry Kuska, who is a member of this forum, and who applies theory, scientific method, painstaking dedication, sweat, and generosity, all tempered with what is practical, and how can resources be applied most efficiently. Henry got me started on indoor gardening, and I have been going strong ever since. I think I started out with germination of rugosa achenes about 6 years ago. For that reason I commend shrub's comments most highly, please take 100% heed of them, because I completely endorse them. My viewpoint is also a very practical one, and although I am blessed that I can afford just about any gizmo or setup my heart would desire, I restrict myself however, I don't just go out and get the "newest and the best", don't play into manufacturer's hype, learn how to recognize real data from bogus. My holy grail is "most bang for the buck". I work hard for my money, and I try to spend it as wisely as I am able. The aquarium community is very good at evaluating reflectors, that's why I bought myself some lumenmax reflectors, although they're bent metal, the bends to the first approximation if a full parabola. I recommend them. Choice of lamps: Pulse start metal halide, blows away conventional halide by a country mile, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should use probe start for growing on land. Venture lamps sold by businesslights.com have a perfect spectrum for vegetative, can be run continuously, and in that mode last up to 30,000 hours. For general growing, a ratio of 2 x HPS : 1 x MH maximizes the terrific growing power of the sodium lamp and adds the blue spectrum that is critical for synthesis of chlorophyll and to discourage stem elongation. Try to design your garden so that it has at least 3 "sides", and cover the sides with mylar. A garden illuminated by 2 lamps, and surrounded by mylar, due to reflection, is equivalent of a garden out in the open illuminated with 3 lamps. For example I built a grow-closet, and lined all 4 sides by mylar, but my next project is to have a garden across the short dimension of a room that has kind of a 8' alcove. The back and sides of the "alcove" are covered in mylar, and the front is open, for general viewing, and access to work on it. Practical things and attention to detail is always critically important. The aquarium community must grapple with very high scattering losses of water. Scattering is proportional to wavelength (why the sky is blue), and for any useful light to reach the bottom of the aquarium, it must be top heavy with very short wavelength (blue violet). Aquarium owners also grow beautiful ?coral or other vegetation, they have colorful fish, and the extremely high color lamps are essential for the esthetics. Remember, the aquarium owner is buying it for pleasure to look at, we are buying for maximum size of crop for us to eat (vegetables and fruits), admire (various ornamental plant), or smoke, as the case may be. So while I am grateful to the aquarium community, and like yourself have read over extensively the forum discussions, the bottom line is I adapt what I learn there and apply it to land farming. Also why I study the cannabis growing forum, but due to LEO, the best forum overgrow.com was shut down. If you visit plantlightinghydroponics.com you will even notice that under their horticultural lamp selection, they superimpose the photosynthesis activity spectrum with the spectal output of the lamps they sell. However, the regular horizontal 400W pulse start Venture metal halide lamp sold in the sister company businesslights.com has the exact same spectral output as a SunMaster "horticultural vegetative" lamp, but has higher lumen output and longer lumen maintenance.Paul Mozarowski.

In my opinion best advice is to seek treatment for phobia. I had a severe phobia of dogs that I had to get treated and it is very worth it and I think a lot of people that have more "socially acceptable phobias" (e.g. spiders or snakes rather than beloved dogs, people thought I was evil for being scared of dogs! even though I have been up to cottonmouths before and been fine, didn't bother me,... but as a kid I got CHASED DOWN by dogs and attacked so...). We share this world with a lot of creatures, it's something to get used to. Desensitization&exposure therapy is best to build yourself up first before you ever see one. That being said, eliminating brush piles in areas you frequent/maintain a lot, keeping it open will keep snakes out of those areas and make them favor more wild spots. Keeping things open tends to be best for the more cultivated areas of the garden anyway, to maintain airflow. ALSO snakes are often not very active in the day except after rains. They don't like being out in the open especially in the day because one of their main predators, hawks, can see them. I rarely see snakes around my house and I have a bunch of brush lol I've only seen them out at night (there's the cutest baby kingsnake but i digress). avoid times when snakes are most active and you'll be a lot less likely to see them. anyway best of luck treating your phobia, it's a hard road but very worth it to be free of it

Regarding your request for info on CRF Resales in Florida: Yes! There are 20 fabulous CRF resale retirement communities in central Florida. Perhaps the reason you have seen the CRF Resale name come up so often on the search engines is because they have been successfully owning and operating so many retirement communities for so long. They have been catering to retirees for OVER 30 YEARS and practice makes perfect! You can find out all about the communities, amenities, prices, even photos of all the homes for sale at www.CRFresales.com And, on a more personal note, my husband and I spent 47 years in the Chicago land area and decided to move to Florida to escape the harsh winters. We looked at dozens of communities during our Florida home search and during our search and CRF Communities were among the many we visited. We were impressed by the care they take in their communities, the landscaping, the activities, the amenities and the great sales managers. The home prices were excellent and the lot rents were reasonable -- considering how much nicer the communities were than the others we visited. We purchased a home in a CRF community and everything went very smoothly at the closing. We purchased through the community sales manager which really helped to streamline the entire process. We did our homework first on the internet and narrowed down locations first and then came down for about a week and stayed in several hotels, checking out all the 55+ communities. It was a lot of footwork but well worth it. We've been here in Florida now for nearly three years and just love the lifestyle! In fact, I was so impressed with the company that I applied for a job! I love working for a company that helps seniors to experience the dream Florida retirement lifestyle without spending a fortune. They have homes in just about every price range from $6,000.00 to $160,000.00 and if you want to stay active during your retirement, there is so much to do! I could go on and on but you get the idea. Just check out the website at www.CRFresales.com and then when you arrive in Florida be sure to tour the CRF communities so you can see for yourself why these communities are considered a "cut above" the rest. Good luck to you! I hope this information helps you. Here is a link that might be useful: CRF Resales

Hmmm, Ben. I think your next most important question to your mentors/instructors is to determine how often and to what extent they personally use a kitchen for other than the assembling of a ham sandwich. I have often found that if the designers of "women stuff" are men with little hands-on experience, they come up with products/procedures that leave the target audience rolling their eyes. The same may be said of women who aren't really kitchen users either. Here is an example of excellent design for actual usage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnVOympznlI The first time I saw this video, I thought, "That's how I use a kitchen!" I now own one of those sinks. I expect when I'm 80 I'll still be chopping onions in the same way. Although I don't use the white accessories so often, I do use the cutting board several times a day plus lighter weight substitutes for the bowls. I would never use a rolling cart thingy for this type of prep - on hand water is essential. I do have a 4 x 5 island, but I don't use it for cooking prep. I use it for baking prep. Baking prep essentials, mixing bowls, measuring spoons, spatulas, etc., are in the island drawers. The island is 40" from the oven and 40" from the pantry with flour, sugar, etc. An essential part of this type of island is being able to thoroughly clean it after use. Anything built in to the surface would be a cleaning issue, as well as being in the way of usable surface space. If at 80 I were still up for baking cookies and cakes, I can't see how this space usage would change. Wait, maybe one. I have a mixer lift in the island that is not as easy to use as one might wish. A better mixer lift could be useful.