Howdy all! It's granny Barb here, oldest of the TD coots. Why do I have to log on as a member here now? Even wickedcoolstuff.com remembers me from my email address. I've been visiting with you all by email cuz I thought you were all chatting away there to bypass GW new confused state. Gee I sure missed a lot! BTW I'm fine. I've dealt with paraplegia for 55 years and even a nasty surgery won't stop me, tho I may be off my feed and so on for awhile. Life goes on, and I enjoy most of it, you all especially, most of the time. I hope I can stay and watch the fun, even if I can't do up boxes while I recover. Very comforting to have friends around while healing. And they may not want to operate after all. In which case, I'll be permanently slowed down. If so, you are still a lovely bunch of gardener types to hang out with. I'll keep you posted. The deciding appt. with surgeon #2 is Feb. 3. Wow, I'm so behind! Greenhouses and businesses, kids and grandkids with good news and not so good, daylilies and orchids, kitchens and chocolate! I'm paying attention here. The brugs are growing in their pots, out of the cellar, but I did lose my favorite, Yellow Wedding Bells. The 2 cuttings I kept just screamed, rotted and passed away. I never plan to collect them, tho; all I want is a modest brug forest beside the knifophias. Doesn't matter if half of them are the same. That's the joy of lotsa land. I'll never fill it all up! Our old friend of 30 years M was here for the weekend. He's recovering from open heart surgery last Aug. and the change in him is phenomenal! He's lost 50 lbs., he's happy and agile, all rosy and the twinkle is back in his eye! He about drove us mad picking arguments over politics before. Now he tells silly jokes again! Wore me out, tho. Deni I looked up your illness. It's like my everlasting nerve pain, but with some added bonuses just to keep you guessing. You get a lot done despite. Terrific. What is going on in everybody's ponds? Are the fish ok with all this nutty weather? I think we should all post our animal pictures nefore Jan is over, as part of the Jan swap theme. Any hints on keeping raccoons out of suet feeders? It is already hoisted quite a ways up a tree. They climb, then hang on the feeder and pull everything down with them. And during this animally time, I just have to say it out loud, corner nothwithstanding: I REALLY LIKE FROGS A LOT! TOADS TOO! I do. DD Sara had an enormous toad she called Frank she used to kiss on the lips. We told her not to, but you all have kids and know how much they listen sometimes. Ol' Frank got so used to it he'd just hang there, with his legs dangling; he was about 7" long from lips to toes. Wish I'd taken a picture! Next time I'll be all caught up and post something more germane... hugs all around Barb

" but the center spark plug arrangement would be a nice "geometry" in my mind/eye - does that have anything to do with the spark plug placement? " Oh yes indeedy! When Chrysler designed its hemispherical head, they put the spark plug in the top center of the combustion chamber. The downside was that you had to go through the valve cover to get to the plugs. This necessitated adding a plug tube and sealing it at both ends, in other words, extra parts and places to seep oil, and extra cost. During the '50s through 80s, this design was avoided in many engines, and plugs sprouted from the sides of the heads. At one time, I had a 400 CID V8 with the plugs under the exhaust manifold. I had to crawl under the car to change number 7 and 8 plugs. I got a frost bite burn one winter doing this. It became painfully obvious in the '70s that the kluge fixes to meet cleaner exhausts was not a permanent solution. Engine output fell during this period and in many cases, efficiency fell too. To track what the Japanese engine makers were doing, look at their motocycle engines. Many things were tried on these engines and the sucessful stuff got incroporated into their automotive engines about 2 years after a success in a motocycle engine. Multiple valves was sold in cycle engines before these appeared in cars. Yahama was up to 5 valves per cylinder, 3 intakes and 2 exhausts, before settling to 4 valves per cylinder. Today, many car engines can be found with 4 valves per cylinder as a means to boost the breathing of small displacement engiines. Next came a pair of counter rotating weights spinning at twice engine speed to take a lot of the "buzzies" out of the 4 cylined engine. These first appeared in cycle engines, then car engines. There is one precaution one should take with spark plugs down a tube, or for that matter, any sparkplug, and that is to prevent debris from entering the cylinder when the plug is removed. If you have an air supply, its a good idea to blow out any loose stuff before removing the plug. When the plug is in a hole, shine a light down there and look for any liquid that might be lurking there. If you see any, sop it out before plug removal, because that liquid will drain into the cylinder when the plug is removed and can cause problems on startup if too much is in the cylinder. If there is any junk in the fluid that can poison the catalytic converter, it will, although the likelehood of this is small.

Hi NitePatrol: I'm so sorry of your loss to a careless driver. Do I hate it when people drive and use the cell phone! The worse drivers are the ones with cell phones on their ears. Early death of a husband will happen to all of us. Statistics showed that women outlive men by 7 years. I'm so sad by your grief, NitePatrol, and the only thing that I can say to myself if the same happens to me is, "Be a force of love, so that I can join my husband in heaven." For any loss, there is a gain, if we reach out for it. glad that you reach out, because there are many of us who care and feel for what you are going through. The best I can say is, "NitePatrol, find a gain through this loss. There are many ways: care and provide for yourself, and give yourself what your husband would want to give you right now." We can get through Anything in life if there is a reason behind it. In this senseless situation of life taken away by a boy and his cell phone, it's really hard to find a reason. But there is one: "to be a force of love, gain, and positiveness despite the carelessness, loss, and negativeness of life." NitePatrol: You can't let "Badness" win, you have to overcome it with the goodness inside you to go on loving, and doing good to yourself, no matter how much "Badness" destroyed you. "Badness" here is careless driving, be it drunken, or talking on cell phone. I'm behind you 100%. There's a book, "Hellow from Heaven" which will comfort you. I did an extensive research on Near-Death-Experiences after the deaths of my brother and father. One NDE said, "our sorrow and pain in life is like a grain of sand in the vastness of incredible joy and happiness in heaven" Yes, it's a grain of sand - best to brush it off, and focus on the ocean of relief in heaven where your husband resides. The past only hurts us if we hang on to it.

Ttod's got a point. The overall design of the bed will be submerged by the details if you paint different parts differently. If you look at your original photo, in fact, it looks at first glance like a photo of a panel and some rails, the arch is barely noticeable. But if you look at the photos SO helpfully provided by dilly dally, the overall lines of the bed are what stands out. So it depends on the effect you want. I'm also very prone to obsessing about details and making everything as intricate and special as possible, but I think there are times for a simpler look, and a fairly eclectic room just might be one of them. You might also be driven by trying to hedge your bets colour-wise and I can sympathize; ... I've finally identified that one reason I'm reluctant to pick a single colour for things is that I'm commitment-phobic! Fortunately, only in decorating :-) The option of picking out the flowers can maybe soften the blow. As for blasting, yes, it can be done with plastic beads or walnut shells and at lower pressure for more sensitive things. By the way I love your design philosophy - it's one I share. KarinL