Arthurm, I agree with the orchid judge/orchid nursery owner. I LOVE 'EM ALL!!! Each orchid genera have their own 'MOST BEAUTIFUL' and most 'EXQUISITE' specimens. Anyway, had a recent visit to the local orchid nursery here in my country and got a glimpse of just how these orchid nurseries grow them... Mature vandas in bloom. Young vandas waiting to grow. Vandas in bloom for transport to the seller's 'orchid station.' For those who live in temperate climates and love a good challenge, growing vandas can be a very rewarding experience especially when you get them to bloom like the beauties shown below... A hybrid vanda with beautiful, violet flowers. The gorgeous, big flowers look so luscious that everytime I see them, I always feel like devouring and eating them. :) A red beauty. This hybrid vanda flowers around Christmas time here so I 'nickname' it 'Christmas' vanda. A blue-violet beauty. This vanda has delicate blue-violet color and tessellation inherited from 'Vanda coerulea', one of its parents. An orange-red vanda. One of the rarer color combinations I've found in vandas. The flowers remind me of my ever reliable, Kagawara Christie Low () though the flowers on the 'Kagawara' are much smaller. Ok, ok... I get it... No more 'vanda' photos! :) LOL! Hope you enjoyed... Cheers! :) tropical

Dawn, I agree with you and the main person involved in 95% of these heated discussuos is why I don't visit a few of those forums anymore. If it was just one or two issuse personally dear to them this I could understand. But when they feel their opinion should be the official and only one on every issue then it grates me the wrong way. Just like the DTM issue that she don't like. And has even got Baker Creek asking if they were early, mid or late season in your garden. That type of description is worthless in my opinion. Late season is 70-85 days if I remember correctly. A lot of differnce. It is like some posts I saw by a breeder and grower. He said the best and most useful is listing daylight hours required to maturity. I know you know what I'm talking about but some reading it might now. It runs along the same thinking as short, intermediate and long day onions. Basically it takes som many hours of sunlight for a plant to reach maturity. So the further north a plant in grown where the days are longer it takes less. And the as you go where day length is shorter during the growing season it takes more days. I've found that to be true for me. When getting seeds from a grower from where days are shorter during the grwoing season I substact 5-7 days from her growing times and when grown by some growers with longer days I may add 5-7 days and have found this to be very close for me. A lot more useful than say mid season. And I don't have a problem with them listing mid season as long as they continue to list DTM's. Yes we may not always agree here on everything but we disagree in a friendly way and respect the opinions or others. Off my soap box again. Better get back outside on this nice day. Pulled the mulch back in a few spots this morning and the garlic that hasn't been in 3 weeks yet is poking through the ground. Now has 5-6 inches of mulch to get through. Ground nice and warm. Some more things popping through in the cold frame. Need to plant some more that has came in since I planted. More seeds arrived today. Had to come in and look at my early Christmas presents. LOL. Hope everyone is receiving this beautiful weather. Jay

fiveinall In CA, there is a time limit of 60 months on welfare and there is no additional money to children born while aided. (the new children can get food stamps and medical/medicaid though). I completely agree with the new rules, which also require parents to either be working or in school... something leading to self sufficiency. The downside is that there are those that claim disability to avoid the work/school requirements... the most common disability I saw was mental health disorders, usually ADD/ADHD, depression and bi polar. Yet, some continued to have children, even though they knew they would not get more money. That meant the existing children were in greater peril because now a check meant for 2 people is supporting 3 or more. The check, in my opinion, isn't enough for 2, so stretching it to support more means they all suffer because of it. So, while I agree they needed welfare reform and I agree with being harsh to force people to take responsibility, it doesn't prevent some people from ignoring common sense and creating children they can't take care of. On the issue of welfare & the mental health issues claimed by welfare recipients, it doesn't surprise me when they are depressed. When you have more children than you can take care of, no job, little/no education, you have no hope and are likely going to be depressed. Personally, I think ADD/ADHD and bi polar are over-diagnosed and even if they are appropriately diagnosed, there are medications/treatments that don't have to render the person 'disabled' so they can sit home collecting welfare.

What REALLY irks me here, in the Houston area, is that a good number of DUI's that cause death/serious injuries (and a lot of those hit& runs that they eventually catch that are DUI's) are illegals who don't have licences or insurance. A recent very tragic case was a young Mom, little boy, new husband plowed into & the passersby tried valiantly to save them from the flaming car. The illegal who killed them had numerous DUI's. And shouldn't have been here in the 1st place.