Maureen I sure hope you and your dh are feeling better soon and that your trip will clear up any remaining cold symptoms. I drove back and forth across southern Spain twelve times when I was working for a Spanish company years ago, and at the time I was familiar with every little bend in the road. But things will have changed since then. But here are some tips and must sees. If you need a hotel, there is nothing better than the Spanish National Paradores......the government chain of inns located in old castles and modern buildings, in some of the most beautiful and historic places in the country. The menus in their dining rooms reflect the local cuisine and I can't praise them highly enough. Here's another site with info and photos of the Paradores. Places not to miss: - the white village in the province of Almeria.....a beautiful Moorish town perched on a hill, and looking down over the Parador of Mojacar. NERJA - another charming town......albeit somewhat touristy now. The focal points are the caves and the Balcón de Europa, a magnificent viewpoint. ANTEQUERA - a beautiful medieval town. MIJAS - another lovely white village on the Costa del Sol. RONDA - another must place to visit, having one of the oldest bullrings in Spain, now a museum. A historic and beautiful place with lots to see. GRANADA - of course The famous is a MUST see. Keep your camera batteries charged and have lots of memory cards when you go! I'm sure the southern coast is now somewhat overdeveloped with holiday apartments and mass tourism, but once you get out into the villages you will still find much of that Andalucian charm. Food.....try places where the local folks are eating and avoid the eateries populated by tourists. Ask a local person....taxi or bus driver, news agent etc. where they would recommend trying the typical dishes of that area. PS....Oh and if by unfortunate chance you are stricken by "travellers tummy" (hope not)...one of the best Spanish products to help you out are tablets of "Salvacolina" available at all pharmacists. And if your cold symptoms persist, a very good remedy is a medicated hot lemon drink which comes in a box of little pouches of powder which you dissolve in hot water called Frenadol which is what I use to stop cold symptoms. No prescription needed. Good Trip....¡Buen Viaje! SharonCb

I am, of all things, a construction defect atty, usually representing homeowners suing developers. (Before you ask, I don't often do remodel cases because homeowners are usually better off working things out unless they have a truly unscrupulous contractor -- but a lot of contractors just won't work with me for that reason alone.) I am thus a terrible snob about concrete and floors :) I recently settled a large case, realized that every single appliance in my kitchen was non-functional to a degree, and decided that I deserved a new kitchen. I fell in love with azul macaubas granite, obsessed about finding the right stone without blowing my budget, scoured the internet for pix of azul macaubas in kitchens, and thus found this site (thank you, theresab, cloudswift, and others). As my tastes evolved I realized that even though I've always lived in the suburbs, I'm a country chick inside. Thus, my dream kitchen has a farmhouse sink, beadboard touches, and schoolhouse lighting, along with that drop dead gorgeous azul macaubas. I want my kitchen to have a lot of blue without putting that color on every single cabinet, floor, ceiling, walls, etc. The first thing I did in starting the remodel project was to find a Thermador stove with blue knobs on ebay for half price. I'm making decisions, with the help of this site, on faucets, lighting, and floor tile while waiting for cabinets to arrive. In my spare time, I trail run and hike, quilt, and raise teenage boys.

The only way Chili's has your addresses is if you (or someone) gave them to them. If it's a legitimate Chili's email you're perfectly safe to use their unsubscribe link. But I'm not sure it's actually coming from Chili's from the limited description given. Hijacked address lists and such are usually from people who refuse to secure their computers and it makes it tougher for everyone else. This is why I quit using any email account but the freebie webmails (unless of course for work accounts). Then it's a simple matter to close it and set up a new one when people expose me to the hassles. Computers, like cars and, well, people for that matter, require some basic maintenance and protection. Spammers are getting creative and make things look legitimate and people get fooled easily, which the scammers and spammers count on to profit. People buy or just plain send money to them. It's profitable, which is why they do it. If nobody sent them money, they wouldn't bother. Plus when people forward everything, they're asking for trouble. They give a list of addresses without using bcc and not only expose themselves but everyone in the list. Then a bunch of those people hit the forward button too, refuse to use bcc and expose that many more, and so on and so on. The forward button is the cause of a lot of problems for a lot of people. I seldom even open forwarded emails, especially from certain people. Some are only sending dumb jokes I've heard before, "warnings" that are hoaxes and political rhetoric and false anyway or are silly chain emails purporting that if you love God, you'll spam everyone you know plus 100 people.... If people can't take ten seconds to set up a new email, bcc it and clean off the extraneous characters they're rude and inconsiderate and I don't care to try to decipher the email >>>>>though ::>>:all >>>the >>>>>garbage. Are you running a good firewall? Have you run antivirus *and* anti-malware programs lately? Secured your browser? Now's a good time to do it if you haven't. Most will run in the background and many can be set up to run automatically so effort is minimal.

I'm not sure how the euthanasia of a horse with a broken leg equates with the dark side or cruelty of anything. Every year around this time PETA looks for something to grasp at to rant against horse racing. I guess this year a horse with a broken leg was the best they could find. Horses break legs in the pasture, the arena and elsewhere. The compassionate thing to do is to euthanize them. In most cases the treatment is much more cruel to a horse than death. There are good and bad trainers/caretakers/owners in many areas of the equestrian world, not just horse racing. There is a lot of cruelty going on at a lot of poorly run rescues. I was recently told of a heartbreaking tale ( with a happy ending) of a local family who retired their horse to a "rescue". They had visions of their beloved animal living out it's life in horsey nirvana. When they went to visit they barely recognized their horse it was in such bad shape. It had been put to out pasture with an established feral herd where it was bullied, denied food etc. Little to no human contact for this gentle family horse. Its coat was a mess, it was showing ribs and it had bites from other horses. The lady who told me of the story was part of a team that went to re-rescue said horse. The horse is now working as a kid's therapy horse. Singling out horse racing is easy because as Forster noted few who criticize the sport have never stepped foot into a barn, spoke to the trainers or caregivers. Most have never even attended a race. But horse racing is cruel because it was printed in some rag. Yes horse racing needs to be carefully regulated as with any other sport. But if horse racing is cruel to horses that are bred to run, than how about things parents and grandparents proudly put their kids in? Ballet, figure skating, hockey,motocross,gymnastics, sking, snowboarding, surfing, football, baseball, soccer all have risks of injury. Should we label those activities cruel as well? Or do we take the common sense stance of making them as safe as possible within reason?