Thanks for the ideas, everyone. I've been participating in a few consumer surveys - a couple that I know are professional surveys, that aren't hooking me up for spam, I'm sure. I've been said to be a participant in a number of those so-called regular "draws for prizes", but have yet to win anything. Some regularly show name, city and picture of a number of purported winners. Actually, how about signing up for a new email address with one of the free providers, then using that as your address for a given survey company? I did, back when Yahooo only allowed a limited space. If the survey company hooked some spammers up to my address ... ... it wasn't long till my box became so full that the provider refused to accept any more messages. Which I thought sort of gave the "survey" company a hard time - but I guess that it didn't, for they probably continued to give out my address that returned mail as undeliverable, charging their clients for my "plugged, so inoperable" address. Right now I'm rather disgusted because one of my major addresses is receiving about 500 messages in about 4 - 5 days - and I can only delete in batches of 25. I think that I made the mistake of replying to some of the more useless ones. Usually a "Reply" is returned as undeliverable - and if a salesperson who came to your door with a smiling face hanging out and, full of enthusiasm, offered you a name of him/herself or his/her company, or an address, that was fake ... ... what do you think the possibility might be that you would even give a smidgeon of thought to doing business with such?? How much more so when approached on the anonymous internet? Grumm-m-mp-p-p!! Hope you all have a week free of unwanted mail! ole joyful

Let me answer some questions and address the excellent points.. weissman, this will certainly be our plan if I don't like what the guy today says. Green, yes, they did address the issue when this happened, well sort of. The one gentleman they had working out in the field for them doing this sort of work was awesome, total ocd about construction. He checked all the joists and could not find that any had moved and needed to be secured any more, everything over there was done right. They already are cross braced. Our foundation is Superior Walls, so those aren't going anywhere. We do have a whole house humidifier that we run in the winter, although last year it wasn't hooked up until very late in the Fall, after the counter snapped. The hvac guys forgot to run the water to it! We do run the air, it seems to run a lot, not constantly but it seems to be on whenever I check. enduring, no not really. Well, except for the fact that somehow the use of 3 2x6's screwed together passed code to be used as a support for a steel beam. We asked about it but the foreman told us "not to worry about it". (he's dead now, and let's just say that the people in the office would have killed him anyway if he wasn't because he should have caught that). But that group of boards started to bow, and the house did drop in that area (opposite corner of the kitchen). It's been replaced with a steel post, and the house was jacked back up. When the ocd guy saw that, he nearly fainted. He went into a panic, and went out and came back almost immediately with stuff to secure it until the post was replaced. He really thought if we got a good amount of snow on the roof, it could have gone.

I have a question for a pachy pro... I've been keeping a P.saundersii that is growing beautifully, and have germinated multiple P.lamerei... however, in trying to germinate P.geayi and P.rosulatum, I'm having the worst time! I've tried miracle grow cactus mix 50/50 with perlite, and a vermiculite/perlite 50/50 mix. Both with zero germination. They're surface sown, under fluorescents, at 70F. They keep developing fungus, but seriously NONE of my others have, and I am raising multiple succulents, adeniums, and deinostigma in the same setup. Any advice? I want to find out what I'm doing wrong. I hate killing seeds. Thanks, Jennie

jelly, I can't really tell you anything about the rules for pulling permits. I am not sure if the building department requires you to show up for your permits or if you can send an authorized representative. Essentially, a Construction Manager has a limited power of attorney, so he is authorized to take actions in the homeowner's name, but whether the building department would allow this at all is something I can't answer. I am not even sure they care about the difference between a G.C. and a C.M., in the end construction is being overseen by someone qualified to do so. Furthermore, I am not even sure if they are legally different jobs. It is essentially just a contractually created differentiation. In reality the wording of the contract creates different rights and responsibilities, other than that there may be no distinction between the two. It might be easier to think of it as a third type of construction contract. General contractors can offer "fixed price" contracts, "cost plus" contracts or "Construction Manager" contracts. Again, I really am not sure how some of the legalities work. I know a little bit about agents and their fiduciary responsibilities because I am one. I have a little experience with construction projects, but I am by no means an expert on either. I was more or less trying to keep the OP from making a costly mistake by presenting him with another possibility.