When buying a Meile from other than a Miele dealer, BE SURE to call Miele and give them the serial # of the unit you are comtemplating. Failure to do so, and you could end up with a DW without any warranty. From a "Features" standpoint, I think you would be perfectly happy with the Optima, and (I believe)!!! Antss, said it was the"Best Bang for the Buck". Watch out for "Deals" on the latest Miele DW's (2011), according to another post on GW , one of the new ones got a rating of around 9 (On a scale of 0-100), so we need to find out if that was just a misprint or????? Course we can "Bash" Consumer Reports, but wouldn't it be better to do some "Diggin" and find out what's really going on, ---- In the best interest of our Garden Webbers? I'm not Anti Miele DW, I have a 2006 Optima for >5 years now and am happy with it, and it has been trouble Free. Good Luck on your Quest!! Gary

Most road noise is actually from the air trying to get out from between the tires and the road as the wheels turn so a busy road will always be noisy despite the technology used so long as rubber tires are involved. Besides, buses are just as likely to switch to biodiesel as they are to compressed natural gas or hybrids. My concerns with a busy road would be where guests would park. If the front yard is large enough to accommodate a circular driveway with parking spaces than that may not be an issue but you do need to ask yourself if your visitors will have to park a street over and walk to your home. A busy road may be an advantage if you want to hang out a shingle and work out of your home so it's difficult to say one way or the other. However, if it was me, I would go with the quieter street and smaller home, location is everything and if your kids are already old enough that busy streets aren't a safety issue then it won't be very many years till they will be moving out. Basements can be renovated very inexpensively with little more than a circular saw, a staple gun , hammer and nails.

threadleaf coreopsis.

Thanks. The asparagus concept is interesting. I have asparagus growing in my veggie garden. I asked my husband to do a close comparison and he thinks it may be. I still cannot get to the garden with my broken foot, but when I do I will take a much closer look. If an asparagus bed has popped up there, I'll be happy to cultivate it. I agree that the leaves on the first one do look like coneflower but I do not think it is due to the size. The leaves are about 6 inches wide and the whole plant is about 2 to 2 1/2 feet wide, with no center stem. At first sight I thought it was a hosta, but upon closer examination it did not seem so. The leaves are very dark green and has some purple coloring. I have coneflowers and it is not quite the same.