snidely - thx - I bet that's why sometimes when I roll my mouse around the screen zooms in and out - I never knew why. I bet my cntrl key gets stuck at times. i know a few others do. time for a new keyboard I know. My son told me that last wk when he visited from out of state. He just shook his head at my keyboard. It's also missing a key or 2... I took some off to clean under them and lost a few... my E has the F12 'key' on it. that one had a piece break off underneath it... yeah, guess I'd better do that yet this wk before I'm caught without any keys that work. thx - I will try that (on purpose). lol!

Yes, the loss of heritage property is terrible, because it contributes to the loss of a sense of place and history that connects people to their communities in a way that no uninspired builder special can ever do. It also reduces the examples of fine craftsmanship that built those houses. I live in an historic area, and fortunately for the cause of preservation, the South was impoverished after the Civil War, and didn't really begin to recover until air conditioning. So development did less damage here than in some other parts of the country. But like everywhere else, too much of our suburban growth seems to have given us what my DH and I call the Unites States of Generica. You could be anywhere, and the lack of meaning and grace disconnects people from any sense of common purpose. So Sochi, I understand very well how much the loss hurts your soul. I hope they have whacking good insurance, and help from whatever the local heritage society and government can supply, and the stomach to restore it.

I drove through a different area yesterday, for Nick's football game, near where my sister lives and where I used to live. I am not kidding, I probably could have counted a hundred for sale signs. Maybe even more. And that is the supposedly desirable area. This is the boonies. That's the problem - this area wasn't built up during the housing boom so there isn't excess inventory. What is on the market in my range are the unsellables - one bad location (next to the biggest 24 hour gas station in town, at the busiest intersection), one has a cesspool, one is a peeling Victorian (I don't want to deal with old peeling possibly lead paint with two young children). This is the type of area where people don't move in and out of very often, they just move around and no one is moving around since there is no place to move to. There really isn't a neighboring town south (there's a big mountain) and I don't really want to go any further north but even if I did - those towns have even less to offer.

I think I've made things worse. I downloaded malwarebytes and super anti spyware which did scans. Nothing but tracking cookies were found. Anyway,and this actually made IE worse than it was,but I updated to IE 9 and now when I click any favorites they just sit and spin. So,IE is basically useless to me now. I'm thinking I could maybe use my cd's that I ordered when I first got the computer over eight years ago to put the computer back like it came but seriously I'm thinking at this point I've messed it up so bad that only getting a new computer is my answer. Really wanted to wait until the new Windows 9 or 10 came out. Now I think some aspirin is in order for me. LOLOL Really appreciate all of you guys/gals for your suggestions.