Hahaha, it's funny you should say that about the "orange flame," right when I got home I pulled out Vertrees' 4th edition book and found no record, online too... Still no luck. As a matter of fact, right after I submitted my post I was thinking "hmm I think I was had on that one" and maybe showing a little of my ignorance. :) Yes, it's really greAt watching the little babies put on a shoot here, a shoot there... But I'd say out of 30 cultivars and 10 seedlings, I have lost 2, had 3-4 almost completely defoliate, and I've seen enough leaf scorch for a lifetime (mostly from over-watering I believe; mixed with this horrible heat). Saying that, I'm going the same route as far as purchasing larger, more hardened trees from here on out. I wasn't thinking very logically, buying 1 yr old brand new grafts from the west coast with a 20 degree temp change shipping down here. I've been looking into a nursery that ships on the west coast, "Essence of the Tree". They seem a lil expensive, but from what I've read and the quality I've seen (pictures only), they must be doing something right. Beautiful trees! Also Whitman Farms looks pretty promising. Thanks for the words of encouragement, I'm hooked and have made a routine of just relaxing out back with my trees when I get off work for a good hour or so, if I don't have errands or cleaning duties ;) I'd like to hear if you find out any info in you're notes on the alleged "orange flame". It's a wonderfully tolerant tree... I just can't wait till repotting time. Thanks again Patrick.

Creek Side, The working part of your solar gain (or no solar gain) windows is the LowE coating. There are two primary types of coatings available - hard coat and soft coat; and there are three categories within the two types - high solar heat gain, moderate solar heat gain, and low solar heat gain. Hard coats are primarily florine enhanced tin oxide that is applied while the glass is still hot in the float furnace using a process called Chemical Vapor Deposition or CVD. Hard coats, also know as pyrolytic LowE, were the first coatings available and are generally thought of as High Solar Heat Gain (HSHG) although there are low solar gain versions available - often using tinted glass as part of the application. Soft coats are applied to the glass in vacuum chambers using a process known as Magnetron Sputter Vacuum Deposition or MSVD, which really doesn't mean much to anyone outside of the coating world, but it is kinda fun to say. Soft or sputter coats are applied as multiple layers of metals and metallic oxides. A typical soft coat might consist of 7 to 11 layers of different metals, but not all of the different layers actually affect the penetration of heat thru the coating. Most soft coats use silver as the operative ingredient, but other metals can be used such as titanium or even stainless steel. The layers in a soft coat are very thin - the layers are measured in angstroms or "how many atoms thick". A single layer in a soft coat might be no more than 50 atoms in thickness. Soft coats are generally considered to be Low Solar Heat Gain (LSHG) by most folks because they do perform very well in that capacity when compared to hard coats, but there are moderate and high solar heat gain soft coats available as well depending on the number of layers of silver (I am going to use "silver" when talking about soft coats simply because the vast majority of soft coats used are silver-based). A single silver coating would be a HSHG, a dual-silver coating would be a MSHG, and a triple silver coating would be a LSHG. All LowE coatings work by blocking radiant energy, primarily in the Infrared or IR spectrum, but the differences between coatings pertaining to high versus low solar gain results from what portion of the IR spectrum is blocked. First, all light carries heat. If you have a window, you are going to get heat passing thru it no matter what you do because even visible light contributes to a good bit of radiant energy gain or loss thru a window. What a LowE coating primarily does is limit the amount of heat as IR (and to a lesser extent visible) energy that passes thru the glass. Why it works is based on the fact that the infrared energy spectrum is divided into near, mid and far, and when dealing with LowE performance we are talking primarily about the near infrared and the far infrared. In simplest terms, near infrared is direct solar gain while far infrared is heat that isn't direct solar gain. When the sun shines on you and you are feeling its heat directly, you are experiencing near infrared IR. When you feel heat radiating off a stone wall that was warmed by the sun, you are experiencing far infrared. All LowE coatings work by blocking far infrared. The heat that a home's heating system puts out in winter is far infrared. All LowE coatings will block a significant portion of that spectrum resulting in keeping far infrared heat inside in winter and outside in summer. But, while coatings block far infrared, they don't all affect near infrared the same way. A HSHG coating allows near infrared (direct solar energy) to pass thru the coating while a LSHG coating blocks energy in the near infrared spectrum. Obviously a moderate gain coating is somewhere in the middle. Many folks, especially in Canada, generally consider that hard coats are superior to soft coats for high solar heat gain applications because they simply passed more solar energy than do any of the soft coats. However, there are softcoat high solar heat gain coatings that are as good or better than the best hard coats in high solar heat gain applications. Typically the lower the SHGC the better the U-value of an IG with coated glass. LSHG coatings outperform HSHG coatings in U-value performance. But in a well designed solar-home the advantage of solar heat gain could offset the slight loss of insulating value in the windows. In a high solar gain application, you want to ensure that the coating is on IG surface 3 - typically, most coatings are applied to IG surface 2, so be sure to specify a high solar gain coating on surface 3 - no matter what the window you buy. I would also suggest (and this may be already in your plans), that you avoid placing high solar gain units on any side of your home other than direct south. Adding high heat gain windows on the east or (especially) west side is very likely to offset any advantage that you gain by having south-facing high heat gain windows.

saftgeek - I hate to admit it but you are all too correct about far too many attorneys! I was a high school teacher for 20 years before deciding to go to law school and I have been deeply appalled by the how truly unethical and dishonest some lawyers are. In the six years I've been practicing law, I've run into more dishonest, downright sleezy lawyers than I met incompetant teachers in twenty years of teaching school... and people are always knocking teachers for being incompetant! Shyster lawyers make me ashamed of this profession just as incompetant teachers sometimes made me ashamed of the teaching profession. I would urge you or anyone else who has evidence of a lawyer behaving dishonestly or unethically to report them to their state bar association. It might not do any good but then again, it just might. At least in Texas, I think our state bar tries to disbar the unethical lawyers whenever they can find them. It certainly sounds like your ex-boss was exactly that type. I also truly am not trying to paint GCs as dishonest. I believe the vast majority are honest folks who do their best to do a good job when building a home and, if they make mistakes, try their best to fix them. BUT, as in all professions, there are some people building homes that are either lazy, dishonest, or so downright disorganized that the homeowner who ends up hiring one of them needs to be able to go to court and get help. And, unfortunately, the contract promulgated by the Texas Association of Builders is specifically designed to protect these bottom-feeding GCs from facing the music for their bad behaviour. The funny thing is, I KNOW that it was the TAB's lawyers who drafted the d--n contract that protects the bad builders, so when I'm knocking the contract, I'm also slamming some of the members of my own profession! I actually suspect that most builders who use the TAB form contract do so because it is available to them cheaply and they don't know any more about what it really says than the homeowner does. And, so long as there are no major problems with the build - nobody is any the worse off. But, I defy any honest person who has ever READ the TAB contract to argue with a straight face that it is a fair and balanced contract. Among other things, it requires the homeowner to waive the "implied warranty of habitability". Basically an implied warranty of habitablity means that courts have said when two parties enter into a contract for one to build a home for the other, there is an implied understanding between them that the finished home will be inhabitable. The owner doesn't have to make sure to insist that language be put into the contract SAYING that the house must be able to be lived in when comleted...the courts will assume that since the contract was for the building of a home, the finished product must be something one can inhabit or it is simply not a "home." But, just in case someone WANTS just a shell - or something like that - to be built, courts will allow the parties to agree to waive the "implied warranty of habitability". Asking the homeowner to waive the implied warranty of habitablity might be fair if the homeowner wanted to build something totally new and different and the builder said, "you know, I can build that for you but I don't think it'll be something you can live in when I get done, are you SURE that's what you want?" But, I think you would have to agree that, except in those rare instances, a house should be inhabitable, just like a car should be driveable, a suit should be wearable, and a wedding cake should be edible. Would you agree to buy a new car from a manufacturer who insisted that you agree to waive the "implied warranty of driveability"? Would you purchase a suit from a tailor who refused to warrant that it would be wearable? Would you order a wedding cake from a baker who refused to guarantee that it would be edible? Why would you buy a home from someone who refused to warrant that it would be habitable????? Nevertheless, the Texas Association of Builders - with the help of its attorneys no doubt! - realized that implied warranties can be waived and that most homeowners don't ever really read or understand the contract they sign. So they put language into the form contract that waives the warranty of habitablility on every single home built under it. That means the homeowner may think he is contracting for a turn-key home but, even if the house he gets is so defective that he cannot possibly live in it - say the sewage pipe has broken in the wall so that there that raw sewage has contaminated all the insulation - the homeowner cannot argue that the builder breached the contract by building an UNIHABITABLE house. Fair????? The TAB contract also requires that the owner agree upfront to "binding arbitration" in the event of a dispute. This doesn't sound too bad...unless you happen to know a couple of facts about binding arbitration. First, arbitration is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE than small claims court even though most building disputes are going to be over amounts small enough have brought the claim in small claims court. Second, arbitrators are selected and PAID by the parties to the dispute which means that arbitrators make more money if they are selected for more cases. If an arbitrator wants future work, they have to make sure that the party that is more likely to bring them future business is happy. Care to guess which party is more likely to NEED to hire an arbitrator for a second or third or fourth construction dispute? Some studies have shown that homeowners win less than 5% of claims that go to arbitration but win about half of claims that are tried in a court of law. Even those few homeowners who are nominal winners in arbitration almost never win enough money to actually repair their homes! The TAB contract also requires that the builder receive his final payment, in full, (i.e. NO RETAINAGE) at the time of the final walk-through even though it also specifies that a punch list of items to be corrected/completed/repaired will be made at this same time. In theory the builder is supposed to return and finish the punch list. But, WHY should the unscrupulous builder bother? After all, he has already been paid in full AND the homeowner can't even sue him in small claims court due to the binding arbitration clause I already mentioned? Do you think that is fair? I could go on and on about other clauses that are in the TAB contract but I suspect I've made my point. A builder who insists on using the TAB contract after having some of its many unfair clauses pointed out to him may not actually BE dishonest but, IMHO, neither is he the kind of straight shooter I really want to deal with. Straight shooters are willing to play on a level playing field.

Freezer Mixes Here is a link that might be useful: About.com freezer mixes