There is a company that makes a product called E T Air Ride. www.ztpuffer.com You mount this air ride system on your mower then mount your current seat on top of it. If you have a seat that slides you can still slide your seat. It raises your seat a few inches so you need to build some wood platform to support your body, no big deal. You hook the power side to the ignition switch so it shuts off when you shut mower off. John Deere dealer was helping me get the correct wire. I'm looking forward to using it as my tailbone is sore. Age has nothing to do with it. Lawnmower manufacturers don't want to spend the extra money to build this into their mowers.

Samjal, I hope you build as a big a house as you and your family want and can comfortably afford! How great that you are so close to your large extended family. Given your lack of building experience, I agree you should not manage this process yourself. You will not be able to spot subtle things being done wrong. Building a home is a tough and complicated job. You need to find a builder/general contractor you like and has a good reputation and let them do their job. It may seem like it costs more to do it this way. But I believe you actually will spend way more than you expect if you try to manage it yourself, due to mistakes and things that need to be redone and delays. Not to mention the amount of time you need to be available to manage the job and frustrations. I am still confused about the financing. If you own the land outright, great, you do not have to pay for it. But if you pay for the home build instead of financing, you need to come up with the entire cost of the build. And do not forget to leave $ for landscaping, furniture, increase in property tax once the house is built, living costs while it is being built especially if it takes longer than expected, moving costs. As far as the design, work on it until it is just right for you. Owning the land is a great headstart. Congratulations on the opportunity to build your dream home! I do look forward to hearing more along the way if you are willing to post updates. Lafdr

IDrive: NEVER EVER BUY A WD IDRIVE! Heres my story. Two doors, each purchased directly from WD local store (company owned). First installer shows up, its her 2nd job since being hired! I ordered IDrive ( HUGE MISTAKE) She had never installed an IDrive before, or a Wayne Dalton system. She had worked for other door companies. After 3 hours a 2nd installer arrived. He was to be with her orginally, but overslept (or somthing to that effect). Ok so by 3:00 pm the have the tracks in and the door panels installed. Inform me that the next day the opener guy will be here to install IDrives! Two days pass...still no installer. Finally, after rearranging my schedule they guarantee me he will be there. Since I have a garage full of tools ( more on that later) I make arragnements to have someone at my home. Again a no-show. Finally I call WD corporate. Within an hour I get a call from the local store: He will be there first thing in the morning. Another day lost, as I am unable to have someone at my home to cover for me. Well at least he shows up. Within 15 minutes he askes me who installed the doors? WD , I say, and he begins to argue with me! Turns out the install was so far out of plumb and that the I drives, he said, would not work. Mostly it turns out the overhead tracks needed to be fine tuned and raised/lowered. How do I know this? Heres where it gets fun. I tell the guy how upset I am about the service and he goes banannas on me. Ranting and raving, complaining about his drunk manager and on and on. I finally tell him he has to leave. I take pictures of the install and the subsequent repairs. I then redo the install myself. I complain to WD headquarters but to no avail - its a local issue and they will have a district manager call me. After about four hours I have the door tracks perfect. I have the openers still sitting there so since no cooperation from WD I go ahead and install them. Not that difficult to do and overall I'm pretty satisfied. Now about the refund for WD failure to install. Make a long story short: Small claims court, pictures are invaluable! Local WD must pay me for my time etc.! Corporate has to cut the check. I get a call from the office asking why they were cutting me a check for a court ordered settlement? Check you own phone records and complaints. To say they were rude isn't even coming close. They send the check ( yes it cleared). Three months later the west door IDrive acts up. I call customer service and a very knowledgeable lady walks me through the set up and viola - works perfect. Two months later the east door acts up. I call again (since I hadn't written down the entire sequence). Again the door works but she asks what part number on the circuit boards I have. Turns out WD knew that an entire production lot was faulty and I have the faulty circuit boards. They agree to replace one. This means I must use the orginal installer -their own company store. Guy shows up, muttering about IDrive crap and POS they are. Within 40 minutes he has the board installed and its working OK. He then trys to collect a service call fee from me. 20 minutes of arguing he learns this was under warranty. And he is ticked at me! Two months later...yep you guess it; the other door fails. I call WD. This time its entirley different. They have my phone number attached to technical service calls. And due to my sucsessful small claims action against they, they bar me from any help! Even their technician was stunned. So much so, he told me, once again what to do and sends me a new circuit board, under warrnaty. He tells me that they have nothing but problems with IDdrives etc. He was sorry that I had been treated so shabbily. He actually apologized for his coporate bosses actions! I install the board upon its arriveal (took about 20 minutes) and for a year both doors worked fine. Then, once again the west Idrive fails. I call tech service ( why bother with the local store?) and they tell me they are not allowed to provode me with any help (phone number). OK..I say - no problem. I wait a week and call from my neighbors house, and with the information taken from the 2nd circuit boards I am able to talk with a service tech. I am told that lot of boards was defective and that I could get a new board under warranty from the local company owned store. I had to chuckle, as the tech had no idea what I had been through. Of course I tried to get the borad from the local store and they refused. Oh I am still, as of this writing under warranty. For the past year one IDrive does not work. I am having the same reocurring problems with the second unit. Fortunately, I only need 1 side of my garage to open. Recently I called the local store and talked with the secretary. She knew who I was and I asked if there was any way I could get the door repaired. She informed that the manager had been fired, and she would figure a way for me to get it serviced as she knew how screwed I had been. She said aI would have to pay a $75 service call though. I described the problem: the motor is running but no engagement: thus no opening or closing. Local gal is qutie familiar with this problem too - motor shaft most likely has broken. "Happens all the time". Oh and before someone says the door is out of balance... its not. I have held off as I am planning on remodeling my home and will address the issue by going with another brand. Now the kicker: I am a licensed General Contractor in two states, Florida and California. I have over 30 years experience in all phases of construction. I have never had to take any supplier to court - ever! In fact, I have never had a lein filed on me, or been sued, and only once have I fired a subcontractor during the course of a project (drinking on the job). 30 years of business! The way I was treated by Wayne Dalton was disgusting. I urge you not to buy the IDrive - it is a piece of junk - even their own employees know this, and for that matter any Wayne Daltin product - period. To this day I am unable to get customer service to assist me via phone; a clear violation of their own warranty and guarantee. Despite WD firing the manager (who was resposnible for the faulty install) and the subsequent small claims suit - they hold me responsible. Remember their corporate philosophy that Wayne Dalton has for its customers. Thanks for reading this. Oh and by the way, our company no longer uses Wayne Dalton products, and I have convinced several other builders ( the local builders assocation) to not use their products. That wasn't all that hard to do --thanks WD. Somewhere in Florida.... As for what we've been installing: Liftmaster. No customer complaints or call backs. Average home value of install: 3.2 mil. Way to go Wayne Dalton!

I see bag bans as feel good legislation. Like others have said people still litter. Actually see people toss the bags they have just purchased in the parking lot. Why pay for a bag to take to your vehicle and then leave it behind on the ground? Litter is a huge issue to me. The same stores that require one to purchase a bag (for the environment) don't seem to take the time or bother to empty their trash receptacles outside their doors. They are always overflowing with trash scattered about them. In the wee hours crews come through with leaf blowers and a vacuum truck. By the time the store opens the parking lots are already littered again. Shopping carts seem to be never washed. Many "shoppers" uses them as trash bin while they stuff their and their kids faces. What they can't take one hour to shop without drinking and eating? The kids some as 10 ride in the food area of the cart. With dirty clothes and shoes. Same people don't allow shoes in their homes but they are fine with shoes in the food cart. We don't have a bag problem. We have a PIG problem. Self-centered, self-entitled people who have zero respect for the others around them. Snidely and I live in the same general area if not the same city. Our county is a pigsty. Litter and discards along all the main roadways. Now we also have homeless encampments encroaching on the suburbs. Piles of trash and, mattresses, old sofas etc. right at the roadside. But out elected officials are too busy trying to figure out what their next ban should be over fixing the existing problems. We are supposed to be proud to have the strictest bag ban in the state. However our once potentially beautiful city looks like a third world country with its litter problem. No one addresses the blight.