I live in a condo with a balcony so NatureMill was the only option I was willing to consider. At first I kept it indoors. It is odourless when the lid is closed, but there is a strong organic mushroom/sourdour odour when you open the lid to add more stuff in. It's not overly unpleasant but I'm very sensitive to smells so I moved the NatureMill to the balcony (thankfully, I have a power outlet outside). Yes, the machine can be finicky but if you FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS, it works fine. I'll admit that I burned through my first machine by not doing so - NatureMill sent me a replacement. My new moto: Nothing stringy, only 1 inch pieces of stuff (my scissors are now very active! much better than using a knife to chop things up), don't overload. If it's too wet or smells sour, I add more pet pine litter or cross-shredded newspapers and baking soda. Above all else - being patient helps. There were times when I was tinkering the inside of the mixing chamber with a screw driver and a knife trying to free up a jam, instead of waiting forty-eight hours like the instructions advised - that wasn't a good idea and contributed to my first machine's demise. If you stick to the motto, you shouldn't be getting jams. I love it when the organic waste gets cooking and really steams up! I've been using the NatureMill Pro for a few months now. We do a lot of cooking using fresh veg and eat lots of fruits so we generate a large amount of organic waste. Add to that coffee grinds and egg shells. In fact, for just two people, I find that my NatureMill is not fast enough to process the organic non-meat waste we generate. The waste from eating just one watermelon or a couple of cantalopes will keep the machine busy for at least a week. In the meantime, I generate several small bags of organic waste waiting to be processed! So I get backlogged regularly. In two months I have generated 3 trays of compost and will have a fourth in a couple of days. It's rich, black and looks like a nice soil. There is one full tray in the machine being heat-cured, and I have the contents from two trays sitting in planters on the balcony being air-cured. I intend to air-cure the compost for at least two weeks before I put it on top of my growing suger snaps and tomato plants. I can comfortable say that I've reduced my landfill waste by around 70% since I bought the NatureMill. As for the future, I'm going to add small chopped up pieces of corn cob and used kleenex tissues next.

Well, boys grow fast, and my son is going through a spurt. We were on a 50 mile ride last weekend, and it was clear that he is outgrowing everything. His bike shoes were hurting his toes and his beloved Peugeot "Leo" is definitely too small. If you know bike fit, you'll see the signs of too-small-a-bike. His heel is lower than the ball of his feet, and his head is well forward of the bars. Bigger bike shoes, that is easy enough, and done. But bigger bike - that takes more work. I built the wheels last Sunday. Started assembling the bike Monday night. Several trips to the bike shop later, we are almost done. His new bike is ridable - I've ridden it to the bike bar tonight, as a matter of fact - and we only have the bar tape and brake hoods to do. The frame is a 1974 Raleigh Gran Sport, which was Raleigh's upper-mid-range sport touring bike of the day. The International was the top-end sport tourer, the Competition was the equivalent race bike. The Gran Sport was made from Reynolds 531 double butted tubing, the best there was, at the Carlton works, where Raleigh's best models were built, save only the very tippy-top Team Professional and the Raleigh race team's Team Pros. So the frame is very nice. But the components were just adequate, even back then. Raleigh, like Peugeot, tended to save money on the boltable bits as they spec'd bikes to meet price points. The mid-1970s were an era of rampant global inflation and deep industrial turmoil in England, and Raleigh was struggling to stay afloat. So we weren't going to keep all the original components. But what just had to stay, lest we lose what makes a Gran Sport a Gran Sport, and what had to go, to make this a magic carpet ride? Gran Sport bikes, which were sometimes also called "Grand Sports", came with the distinctive GB randonneur handlebar, which is upswept on the tops and flared on the hooks. The randonneur bar is practically the signature look for the model, so it had to stay. 40 years ago, manufacturers didn't restyle their products every year at the whim of color consultants and focus groups. A successful model stayed the same for years, long enough to become a classic. So with the Gran Sport. The classic Gran Sport of the 1970s came with white handlebar tape, white brake hoods embossed "Carlton", and a black leather Brooks saddle. That is how my Gran Sport was, and how my son's will be. Today, white tape might look precious, even girly. Back in the day, white handlebar tape said "racer". The top racers rode gleaming white bar tape, which their mechanics replaced with fresh wrap every day. This was before everything turned menacing, thoughtless, paramilitary black. My Gran Sport had the standard Brooks sporty bike saddle, the black B17. My friend gave me a much cooler saddle, a Brooks Professional with copper rivets, the racer's saddle of yesteryear. It looks the same to most people, but to bicycle cognescenti, the copper rivets speak volumes. So the top of the bike - saddle, bars - will stay true to the traditional 1970s Gran Sport look. All the moving bits below, though, will be of a different era. For bike people, Campagnolo is magic. The company may be a fraction the size of the industry gorilla, Japan's Shimano. It may be conservative and slow to innovate. Its components may work no better than the equivalent Shimano group, and be barely lighter. And the "Campagnolo tax" may have you paying two or three times more, for the privilege of having Tullio Campagnolo's signature and "Made In Italy" on your bike components. But you want it anyway. You know you do. I never had a Campy-equipped bike as a kid. Hardly any kids do, unless their dads are made of money, which I'm not. But if you have patience, know your away around eBay and used bike parts, and can do your own work, you can ride Campagnolo without breaking the bank. This bike has a near-complete group - drivetrain, brakes, integrated brake lever-shifters, hubs - of late 1990s Campagnolo Veloce. Veloce is a midrange Campagnolo group, distinguished from the higher-end groups by a slightly less polished finish, slightly thicker forgings with fewer lightening holes, and no titanium bits. It looks great. So here are a few pictures of the bike in progress. The GB stem and bars. The front brakes, including my homemade drop bracket, necessary to adapt short-reach late 1990s racing sidepull brakes to a 1970s frame meant for long-reach touring centerpull brakes and larger diameter rims. Here we are, test fitting the integrated levers on the bars. I'll get the last things done tonight, and tomorrow I'll show the boy himself with his new bike, "Rollie".

Sounds like you've just about declared it dead :) If it is, it is, but I just wanted to try to narrow it down, and I didn't want to throw money around willy-nilly in the hopes of figuring out what the problem is. Your search took me to Ebay Canada. I took the liberty of changing the .ca to .com to get Ebay US, but with the same search. Why pay extra shipping if I don't have to? Like I said, I'm a novice at this, so I may not be entirely sure what I'm looking at, but from what I've noticed, I only clicked on the ones that had 3 memory slots (I have three sticks, so might as well use them), and from what I could tell, all the ones I looked at were listed as used, and total with shipping they still came darned close to $90. I did see this one below which ends in the morning (hopefully nobody here will sabotage me and bid against me!) and comes with a CPU which is slower than mine. I don't know the difference between a K8N-E and a K8N4-E. At least in the one I showed you earlier this morning, the MB was used, but the CPU that came with it was an UPGRADE to the one I have now. In fact, it's the fastest chip that can go in that board. The chip by itself (ATHLON 3400 CPU, 754 socket) is selling for $25US anyway on Ebay. I just thought overall, the whole repair would be cheaper, since I can replace my CPU for under $10, but if the going price of these motherboards means I'm going to wind up paying (total with shipping) $80-$90 anyway for a used board with no CPU, I just as well get the one with the 3400 in case my CPU is fried as well, correct? Thank you again, and forgive me if I'm being presumptuous. I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. If I'm wrong in any way, feel free to slap my wrist. Here is a link that might be useful: K8N4-E on ebay

Don't bother about what MIGHT be valuable. My family is in antique/second hand business. When they don't know the value of an object they could sell they have a decision to make: keep it and research it quickly or sell it for more than they paid for it. Think about it. How many things are you going to store because they MIGHT be valuable? If you don't know it, how have you been harmed? If you really need the money then research it right away and sell it! I hope this helps. Meanwhile, I have a cute little cupboard that I have kept for 40 years!!! planning to "do something original" with it. It is now in the donations section of the garage. How time flies!!!!!!!