Well that really sucks hope you can get there later this winter. Maybe there will be another show sometime soon. A few of our nights have been cool but the days are great! We BBQ'd game hens on the grill a few days ago. DH grills and uses the smoker on a regular basis and does a great brisket. Its funny, there are eagles and buzzards here that show up and circle around every time when he is smoking the brisket (it smokes slowly all day) LOL! I told him maybe that was a hint that his food stinks...I was just kidding of course, cause it is awesome, but its still funny! I told dh that I am gonna go tour several of the botanical gardens in S. FL in March for my bday. So we are planning to do that then and hope to look at some property then as well.

You don't have to run away from here. You have a pretty good understanding of cars at this point and that's important. I have to deal with situations all of the time, where the only thing some people are thinking about is saving themselves money, and they totally forget what "fair" really means. Fair is always something that works for BOTH parties. I can't tell you why "BrakeMax" didn't see a gaping hole in an "air intake hose". I suppose you are either describing the plenum hose between the air cleaner and MAF sensor, and the throttle body, or some other vacuum hose, or a hose that directs air for the IAC. I can envision quite a number of different systems, and I don't have specifics on exactly what vehicle you own. So I'll stick with the plenum hose, since an air leak between the MAF and the engine will severely affect performance. A DPFE will give you a check engine light, but have little or no effect on performance. I won't rule out the possiblity that the plenum hose simply finally completely failed after the DPFE was looked at. They do have to flex constantly, and are a common failure item. There are several master mechanics on this forum. I looked at that web site. It looks pretty good. But still taking a code, and then asking advice about what could be wrong, is still leaving the wrong impression. Follow this. 2002 Pontiac Grand Am with a 3.1l Auto. It's setting a code P0101, that is a Mass Air Flow Sensor performance code. This car is owned by a family friend, who happens to work at an Auto Zone! They pulled the code and wanted to replace his MAF. Jason chose wisely and brought the car to me to test first. By monitoring scan data and taking snapshots for playback I was able to measure the reported volumetric efficiency (VE) of the engine. VE is the measurement of the actual amount of air the engine can pump. For example, a 3.1l engine at 5000rpm should easily pump 160grams or air per second at wide open throttle. Jason's MAF sensor was reporting 90 to 105 grams per second, and struggled to get over 4500 rpm. VE measured 55%. Well that's why it had a P0101, the computer knows how much air the engine should be pumping, based on throttle opening and rpm. At this point, there are still several possible causes for the code. A bad MAF is clearly one of them. Funny you should mention it, but a torn plenum hose would do the same. Some type of an engine mechanical issue could do this, heck even a very bad air filter could actually have given the same findings. But there is one more, how about a restricted exhaust? The test for this is to remove the front O2 sensor, and install a gage and actually measure the back pressure. The spec allows for a maximum of 1.25PSI, and that's under a load. Simply speeding the engine up in neutral had this one building 14 PSI. The fix was to replace the catalytic convertor, which was still under the 8yr/80,000 mile warranty at the dealer. No one, reading a forum would effectively lead the poster to that diagnosis. There were more details uncovered during the testing that helped make the decision to measure the back pressure. One of them was by watching the long term and short term fuel trims on the scan tool while driving the car. If the engine was actually getting more air than was being reported, then they would have been shifted way positive, because the engine would have been too lean. But because the MAF was actually reporting how much air was truly entering the engine, they were reasonably close to neutral. I can remember when I first started working on cars, I was 14 when I tore down my first Chevrolet 350 to put a cam in it, and had a valve job done on it. My grandfather had given my dad the car because it was running so bad. BTW, that wasn't my first engine job, I did a head gasket in a lawn tractor a few years before that. The thing here is there are people who are born with the ability to do this work. I suspect you are one of them, just like I am. It's not easy work, and most of the time the pay actually stinks, especially when you keep dumping huge pieces of your paycheck to buy more and more tools. But if someone really likes fixing cars, there is a freedom there that few other fields can offer. Now do you know why it's hard to find a good motorcycle mechanic? Probably because it's too hard for them to make enough money to stay in the field long enough to get really good at it. Running a repair shop, cars or motorcycles is expensive. The overhead eats some 60% of the gross profit, and then the wages and benefits start coming out before the owner finally gets his/her piece of the pie. Your couple of quotes about how much something was going to cost you if a shop had done the work, fails to show exactly how much profit the shop would have actually made if they had done it. In short, less than $125/hr of profit would have me working for free. That's how much it costs to run a shop like mine. That means, I would have to diagnose, and repair your air hose problem in about 35 minutes based on the numbers you provided, and be hard into the next job, or else I would not actually make any money at all. I invest heavily in O.E scan tools and software. That's one of the reasons it's so expensive for my shop to operate. The facts are, if I could double my parts mark-ups, and double my labor tomorrow, (and still stay busy) and then throw all of that money into more software and O.E scan tools and I'd actually still be losing ground. In 1993 I had one scan tool, a Snap-On MT2500. I could work on anything that showed up at the door. Today that same capability would cost more than 1/4 million, and the updates, and software licensing for the tools would continue to eat tens of thousands of dollars each year to continue to support them. You are correct, you don't have to be overly mechanically inclined to do some repairs. You do have to be very gifted for many others. Plus anymore you just about need a business degree to balance the pennies so that you have a chance to be there for the customer in the first place. The others that post here have seen some of my diatribes like this one. If you want to learn about cars stick around, just give us some room to earn a living. We should not have to apologize for trying to do that. ASE CMAT L1 30yrs exp.

Sushipup, The new menu is strange, at best, for a coastal New England inn. Who, pray tell, comes to Mystic for a Cajun roasted sweet potato??? Look what Irving did to our wonderful, local (as in 1/2 mile away) diver scallops. You've got to be kidding! Blue crab with sriracha aioli? Cripes! People could stay home & find that on a menu. It's not New England & especially NOT Mystic. The new menu looks just like any ordinary semi-upscale northeast restaurant. Even the menu wording is unappealing, to me. It reads just like 1,000 other places 100 miles west. Zip local character. The only thing positive I have to say is that the lobster crepes have been returned to the menu (Robert Irving removed them)! Those crepes are delicious & iconic to Mystic. By local demand, they never actually disappeared but after Irving was through customers had to make a special request to get their crepes. They were shortly returned to the printed menu. How's the food? To be fair, I don't go to restaurants anymore & take-out service wouldn't do it justice even if it is good. I just don't like the new choices compared to the old menu. Irving stripped all local flare so there's no appeal or reason to give it a try. Just another restaurant. You can see the restaurant, pre Irving, in the Inn's video. They also caught our home & boat in the video. We're practically spitting distance. It's a lovely property & will be a shame if it sinks. /tricia Here is a link that might be useful: New Menu - Floodtide

Love #1. Kingston Brass? I have it but with the lever handles. It seems a good quality, is noted on the large side but not overly so, imo. That said, seeing your vanity etc I think the more tailored modified version of #3 is a better fit from what I can gather from your styling of the bathroom. It is simpler and more masculine, to the point like the handsome bath . #1 is quite feminine for the above bathroom, imo. I also think the sleek modern one at 17:43 would look good but like the feel of the other with the old world natural limestone. PS. The higher arcs are more comfortable, imo. This post was edited by snookums2 on Sun, Nov 23, 14 at 14:24