I'm doing good for an 80 year old. Do not spend much time on garden web since the changes. I'm into African Violets now. I have two shelf units-5 shelves each. I do the RRs for leaves and have about 50 now. My hoya are outside on the patio under the roof. Get some rain when the wind blows. I've sore of neglected them. I love when they bloom though. We sit outside in the evening and the fragrance is beautiful. I wished they bloomed more often than once a year. I may bring some inside and put some of the smaller leaved ones on a shelf instead of the violets. I am on Facebook more than here on Gardenweb. I can't get used to all the changes. It was easier before because i had tabs for the hoya forum, african violet forum, and the cactus forum. Now I just go to African violets and only when we are active in a RR, which is now. Most of the violet people went to facebook. Such is the times, changing, changing. Good to see you are still with the hoya. Keep up the great work.

Hi Iggie. If I may. If the use of Back Yard Bob, reaches a point where the professional shop is forced to cut back on tooling, training, and maybe even personnel to the point that say they are no longer equipped to deal with your transmission question (which is actually already happening, one MUST have the $9000.00 factory scan tool for ONLY Chrysler to operate at the level required) then what is anyone going to do, with or without the financial resources? Back Yard Bob would never go anywhere near this level of an investment, we can only do it when we price correctly, and are fully utilized by our customers. There is a difference between price and cost. You can get a cheap price by going around us, but how do you really measure the cost of doing that? I had a customer who took her Honda Odyssey to a back yard bob to have a timing belt job done. She came back here a month later thinking she had a transmission problem, that he discovered right after doing the belt. The transmission was fine, he missed the timing marks when he did the belt. What if she totally lost the chance to ever bring her car back here because we weren't doing enough business to keep our doors open? Don't be too sure there will always be someone else, the cars got way too complicated in too short of a time. The tools are not being widely purchased and very few technicians are attending sufficient training to keep up with today's technology. The best part, is its all because most shops are actually priced to low already to afford those expenses. Now with many other people losing their jobs, and thinking they are capable of, and attempting to work at home and grab some/most of the easier work, we are getting hit with all kinds of problems when we are the second person in, (sometimes the third) with cars that have lots of parts thrown at them, that they easily may not have needed. In many cases, if someone else does a job like that timing belt in the back yard, we are faced with either turning the customer away, or completely re-doing the repair. You see, once we touch it, we are expected to stand behind the repair, fully. Meanwhile Back Yard Bob can sit back and still say he did everything right, and act like we don't know what we are doing. The Honda owner I referred to, once the car was diagnosed, was handed her keys and sent back to the person that did the work. As far as we are concerned, she does not ever have to come back. If her Back Yard Bob can't handle everything her car needs, she can take it to the nearest dealer, a sixty mile round trip. That's a real cost associated to the cheap price she got. BTW, like that Chrysler tool, I'm the only independent that has the Honda Factory tool, I won't bother going into detail right here what that means that I and the dealer can do, that no other shop, or especially anyone working at home in their garage cannot. Seriously it would take way too much time to try and look it all up and type it out. BTW, I know it sounds arrogant to turn her away, but its more about preserving the shop in one of the toughest business climates ever. We are all in, customers that don't understand that can't help us, and for the sake of the customers that do understand we have to make choices. "Nothing personal, its just business"

I have had excellent experiences with appliance dealers. One in NYC is something of a guru, he owns and runs a family business and he really, really knows his product and market. His advise was excellent. But that is rare. Where I live now we have a pretty good retailer though he's an hour away. I've only dealt with them over the phone and had very good service. But I knew what I wanted. They just did the ordering and walked me through the checklist of what was needed to install. I received so much bad/wrong/inaccurate information when I was shopping for a new fridge a few months ago I would never take the word of anyone at an appliance store for the most part. Today's customer, because of the internet and thank goodness for it, can do the research, ask the questions and fine down the choices to the point where you do targeted shopping. What I mean is that you go and look first at what you think will work for you, make notes, take photos for your reference afterwards. Then look at other things and talk to the sales people about price and options. Even with the good sales guy on my recent purchase, he was only knowledgeable about certain product lines. He had been to the Wolf/SZ factory for a "tour" and touted that fridge -- one of my 2 finalists -- because he knew it well. That was fine with me and I appreciated his input. But it didn't provide me with exactly what I required and my own inquires produced information he didn't have -- or even want to have. So I don't think the enemy is us. I don't think there is an enemy. I think there are foundational changes that have switched the responsibility from sellers to buyers. Don't know about you folks but the amount of research, checking, deliberation and shopping that goes into an average purchase these days can be overwhelming. It doesn't especially bother me because I've always done research and reporting of one type or another. But even with skills, it gets overwhelming. Or worse boring. I had to buy 3 surge protectors this week after another one of our crazy power events. My eyes were glazed over. And what arrived in the main was still surprising. You just want to go buy a stove or a fridge not take a graduate course in engineering. Unfortunately, that's not the way it's going. So forget about the old days. They are so gone. Today, it's research, a little luck, an ability to gauge quality and value and the ability to match expectations and budgets to the market. And it's not pretty.

Update: Some of the succulents I planted into gritty mix have been shriveling, which I thought was thirst, but watering didn't help... so I realized they're probably rotting. The tall sticks (which I thought were "Minima" Jades but after seeing a lookaIike at Home Depot, I think are actually Portulacaria afra) are definitely rotting away from the tips and new shoots down. :( So I think I need to pull these out, wash the old soil off the roots, remove any rotten parts, and let dry. I have a few questions: 1) if the stem is rotting, what does that look like, and how much stem/leaves should I remove? 2) Can I leave any roots if they look OK, and does drying them out kill them anyway? Or is this essentially like making a cutting and letting it callous and make new roots? 3) Once they dry can I just replant them where they were in the gritty mix? On a more fun note, I went to Home Depot yesterday intending to buy zero succulents and instead spent an hour taking pictures and purchasing 7 new ones! And to my delight, all but one had an actual species ID! Clockwise from top left: Kalanchoe marnieriana Crassula rupestris Crassula "Candy Cane" (with a warning that propagation is prohibited... how would they stop you?) Sedum rubrotinctum "Pork and Beans" Crassula ovata "Ogre Ears" Sedum rubrotinctum "Aurora" ???? that was on clearance with a bunch of very sick and damaged succulents, but it looks healthy enough to me! Here's a closeup of it - anyone know what it is? The Ogre Ears had mealy bugs so I doused all of them with 50% rubbing alcohol last night. I also watered them because their soil all seemed bone dry, which I'm learning maybe I really shouldn't need to do? :/ I want to transplant them to gritty mix today (and do it right this time! Wash off all the soil and let dry). Also at Home Depot, I think I was able to better ID some of my current succulents, like the Crassula ovata "Minima" (#8) actually being a Portulacaria afra. The original mystery plant could possibly be Sedeveria "Sorrento"? Though the leaves look bigger/fatter on this one than they were on mine: OR possibly Sedeveria "Jet Beads"? These leaves aren't bigger but they do seem fatter than what I have... Not sure either of these are it: #3 Could actually be Graptosedum "Blue Giant"? A very similar-looking succulent was labeled this at HD, but I can't find photos to confirm it online. Maybe it's actually Sedeveria "Blue Giant"? #6 I thought looked like a plant labeled Sedeveria "Harry Butterfield," but looking online, it doesn't look right to me... #18 Senecio vitalis (Narrow-Leaf Chalksticks) #19 Graptopetalum pentandrum - EDIT: Actually more likely G. superbum #22 Sedum adolphii (Golden Sedum), instead of Coppertone Sedum? Looking forward to anyone's feedback about replanting and ID'ing these! Thanks!