"Interestingly, it is a disprportionate amount of the sons and daughters of the poor and disenfranchised that bear the burden of military service. " Lakeguy, Not really sure where you're going with that. If you're implying that the US Army is taking advantage of the lower class by enticing inner-city high school dropouts to join their service (no GED required), I'd have to disagree. I don't think that taking a kid off the streets, replacing his .22 pistol and pants around his knees with an M-16A4 and BDUs and paying him $34,000 a year (or over $40k for an E-2 in a combat zone) is a bad thing. Of course when we lower the recruiting standards the end result is a sub-standard armed force, but in the fifth year of the Iraq war, with the US Army running on empty for the past two years, that's what it's come to. Say the kid decides it's not a bad career, and stays in beyond his initial 4-year obligation. At that point he's a sergeant (E-5) making $45k a year (not counting deployment pay/re-enlistment bonuses). While he's on active duty he finishes his GED, and starts taking a few college courses, and maintains a 3.0 average (being reimbursed for 75% of the fees by the government WITHOUT using his GI bill). He applies for a commissioning program, and gets his degree (using the GI bill, while being paid full time as a sergeant during college). Eight to ten years into it he becomes a lieutenant, and continues the promotions through the officer ranks, making a salary his boys back on the block could never dream of. At around 15-18 years the mustang (prior enlisted officer) tops six figures. At 20 years, he retires, pockets the pension, and takes on a secondary career as a civilian government employee for slightly more than his previous salary; he now has medical care and a steady income for life. He buys 30 acres and a few horses in Virginia, puts his kids through Georgetown, and never looks back. Culturally, it's a completely level playing field. Racial or sexual discrimination is absolutely not tolerated (the highly revered CO of the largest Marine Corps Installation on the East Coast is a black female). I can't imagine a better escape from poverty than the US military. All it takes is a strong work ethic, average intelligence, heterosexual orientation, an aversion to narcotics, and an ability to perform while scared out of your mind. Of course, the entire scenario is predicated on the fact he didn't get his legs blown off by an IED in the first year, or shot out of the sky by a shoulder-fired SA-16 in the tenth year. But that's where the love of your country and willingness to sacrifice kicks in--if it's not in you, no amount of money will get you to put yourself in harm's way, especially if you have a family. Here is a link that might be useful: enlisted pay charts

Hauling in the back of a Subaru, reminds me of hauling in the back of a 80 Honda Civid, oh the memories.... Hubby suggests getting online and find the ID56 from Purdue, it has alot of knowledge packed into a less than $50 book. No there not alot of organic knowledge, but it does tell about which veggie needs what. You can order the book from Purdue, it is well worth it. I don't know what you might have available, compost/manure wise, but I would definitely check it out. Maybe run a free ad asking for it. You might need to pay for delivery, but you would need to haul it yourself otherwise. Garbage bags, if need be. We just bought an old dump truck to haul ours, it needs lots of work, but hopefully by spring we'll have it running. I have found that it will take about a year before you see a big difference in your produce from time of application. Remember, this year was especially bad for produce, for everyone that I know. Hopefully next year will be better. Good luck.

Funny to see this pop back up! I have decided against TruSlate but our builder was asking me about it as it is being evaluated for another house he is building. Frankly, it is not much cheaper than real slate, and who knows if this system is time tested. Also, I was concerned (and so was he) about the quality of the slate actually being used. It did not seem worth it to me to use TruSlate when a real slate, 100 year proven roof, was only a few thousand more. The real market for TruSlate is for reroofs I think . . . it is much lighter than slate and doesn't require the bracing. I do know the DaVinci looks pretty good but I would worry about the newness of the product, how it would age, would it fade (they all do I think), would it curl, be discontinued, lawsuits, etc. We went through this process ourselves and decided to do an architectural shingle. We are building a high end house in a small town. Our neighborhood where we bought our lot is either cedar shake or architectural (or grand manor) shingle - no slate. I don't care for grand manor - think it looks strange. We have a two story house with a gable roof so the roof is not prominent. I personally am not offended by a nice architectural shingle (although we got great pressure from the architect to do a higher end roof). The slate was almost 100k, tile roof (i.e. low end Ludowici (which was very clunky and I didn't even like it) was 80k, Grand Manor was 48k, and architectural shingle was 18k . . . decided to either save the difference or spend it on a place I cared about, like my countertops :) Hope this helps!

I opened the TopSpeed tab, but it only had 3 choices. They were "compress graphics when I don't have a high-speed connection", "always compress graphics" and "never compress graphics". I had already made sure the "never compress graphics" box was checked. I couldn't find an option to turn TopSpeed off, so I searched for "turn off top speed" in AOL help. There were instructions for turning it off, but at the bottom it said this: "Note: The TopSpeed® / AOL® Web Graphics Compression feature on AOL® 9.0 VR cannot be turned off or uninstalled; the client will not function properly without it." This notebook came with Vista, and AOL 9.0 VR is the only AOL that will work on it, so I guess I'm stuck with sorry graphics. I should have looked for an old one with XP, I guess. On my regular computer with XP I have the "never compress graphics" box checked and it's fine.