A great smiley face, Mocc! I particularly like that he's got a Karl Malden/W.C. Fields/Richard Nixon shnozzola goin' on. I don't believe I've seen that particular emoticon before. : ) Maybe I'll name 'em after famous Bobs, Starting with my first 'Guacamole' I purchased. Then on down the line.. 1. Bob Solberg 2. Bob Marley 3. Bob Axmear 4. Bob DeNiro etc.....Or just number 'em. Famous Bobs aren't exactly popping into my head. I'll have pics of 'em when they leaf out. They dodged the frozen bullet from last week that turned unfurling shoots to goo. Don B.

I must second gardengal's enthusiasm for the Pacific Northwest! Truly a paradise for growing many, many types of plants, and the climate is so moderate which allows for a lot of diversity in planning your garden. Unfortunately, I am now living in Finland - which is comparable to Zones 3-4, and am practically having to learn how to garden all over again, LOL! Before moving here with my Finnish husband (the things we do for love!), I spent the last four years happily living and gardening in SW Washington State, and it was absolutely marvelous. I had little trouble with both insect and animal pests, nor did the climate and weather ever pose much of a problem. If anything, the extra rainfall in spring and fall, even showers throughout summer, proved to be quite a boon to both my flower and vegetable gardens... Truly, PNW looks lush and green ALL YEAR LONG! Don't let the misconception that "it's always raining in Washington" mislead you into thinking the more heat and drought-loving plants wouldn't do so well in the area... The PNW, as gardengal stated, can get pretty hot and dry in the summer time, but not to any extremes that would make it unsuitable for more delicate plants. PNW has a very moderate climate that gets a taste of everything, thus allowing for a huge range of gardening potential... Roses, hostas, ferns, and rhodos all thrive, just as do tomatoes and melons, even 'dry climate' favorites like succulents and some cacti do pretty darn well. Overall, it's just such a versatile climate, and an absolutely great area to live in. Lots of nature and wildlife, great fishing (especially salmon), thick and lush forests and rich meadow and farmland, friendly people, great clean air... And EXCELLENT gardening conditions!!! What more could one want? Aside from PNW experience, I spent my whole life living and gardening in Northern California - Menocino and Humboldt regions - and this would be my next suggested 'perfect' gardening area. Great weather and moderate climate, similar to PNW, but less wet and hotter summers, and the only real bad pest problems I encountered were the persistent deer.. but, I admit I was living in the 'wilderness' so it's quite natural to encounter 'wild' problems. Well, good luck in your search, and I just hope you consider the Pacific Northwest as a possibility because it's really such a lovely place to live, play and garden.

Hi Zep, I went ahead and upgraded to mp10 for my system. It seems nice so I'll go with it thanks. Unfortunately I still can't get the songs onto my pos mp3 player, there must be something wrong with it is all I can figure. I am able to rip songs from my cd's fine but the whole transfering them thing just isn't working. I am going to try the mp3 player in another computer at work tomorrow and I'll go from there. Remember we've had this thing for a few years just sitting in a closet with how to speak german on it so its no big loss. I'll go get another simple yet fairly inexpensive model at w-mart to learn on. I'm not giving up on this because I'm tired of listening to the boring elevator music the local station plays here in the middle of nowhere. Thanks, Neal

This is an update about my Carrara marble discoloration in wet areas research. It's been 16 days now since I stopped watering my modules and brought them back to my garage. I heard some people at The International Surface Event in Las Vegas were probably laughing of such bogus "garage experiments". Well, I would be glad to do it in any other facility rather than in my garage and deck but at same time I am pretty confident that same testing done in a high-end laboratory would have similar results. At this point, two 3x3 modules I have discussed the most are showing the most clear results. As I said earlier, one is sealed and grouted with epoxy and the other is unsealed and grouted with sanded grout. The sealed module remains badly discolored after 16 days (!) of not taking a single "shower". The unsealed module looks just great. Other 3 modules (2 sealed and 1 unsealed) look pretty much normal. I watered all modules only 5 or 6 times. I think they will start showing more after 15-20 times. One sealed module with 2x2 hexagon that looked slightly discolored is now back to "normal". After 16 days though. I think the sealed 3x3 module looks the worst because epoxy is blocking moisture to evaporate through grout joints. Sealer is blocking the pores on top and epoxy is blocking the sides. As I promised, I will not hide any information and will post everything about the testing. After I came back from Las Vegas, the unsealed 3x3 looked very good except for a few areas along two borders. Those areas remained dark even a few days after. That puzzled me because rest of the module looked great and uniform. After doing a little investigation I found another interesting detail. When I installed the floor tile I left a 1/4" to 3/8" perimeter joint free of mortar and grout. Than I installed my 2" border tile on top of it and sealed the change of plane with a 100% silicone sealant. I didn't pay enough attention to a few holes that appeared in silicone. It looks like water just poured through those holes inside the perimeter joint and after 5-6 "showers" saturated very well that side of module (about 3 tiles from the border). I removed the border tile and after a few days the discolored line in the unsealed module dried out. I did same thing with the sealed module just to be fair and after almost 2 days there are no major changes in drying process. That brings me to a conclusion that the perimeter joint has to be filled with a silicone sealant even in a non-sealing application. That way water won't be able to fill the sides of the marble floor and saturate it's edges. As far as I learned, marble is generally less porous than granite and when it gets saturated with water it can't dry very quick. I checked TCNA 2018 Handbook and found out that a few methods with natural stone and coated glass mat water-resistant gypsum specify that all penetrations, corners, and abutments to dissimilar materials have to be filled with a flexible sealant. I don't know why other methods don't mention that but only those. I am going to construct and test 3 more modules with pre-fab shower trays: - epoxy adhesive, pre-seal, epoxy grout, final seal; - epoxy adhesive, pre-seal, sanded grout, final seal; - epoxy adhesive, sanded grout, non-seal. Then, we will start constructing and testing the mud bed modules. Also, I already ordered one product that I believe will help us to "miraculously" heal our "wounded" 3x3 sealed module. It will be very exciting to see same module being back to normal. I believe we can do that. At least we will try! I will keep you posted! Many times real science started in "the garage"! Read [Why I am doing my Marble discoloration in wet areas experiment[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/why-i-am-doing-marble-discoloration-in-wet-areas-experiment-dsvw-vd~5619547) Read [Marble discoloration in wet areas experiment (part 1)[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/marble-discoloration-in-wet-areas-experiment-part-1-dsvw-vd~5619536) Read [Marble discoloration in wet areas experiment (part 2)[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/marble-discoloration-in-wet-areas-experiment-part-2-dsvw-vd~5619539) Read [Marble discoloration in wet areas mockups[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/marble-discoloration-in-wet-areas-mockups-dsvw-vd~5619531?n=1) Pavlo Starykov, Vancouver, WA CTEF Certified Tile Installer, Certified Stone & Tile Inspector, member of the National Tile Contractors Association