I received my box from Deb today. This is what was inside. Thank you very much, Deb. Now I need to get some potted. The flowers the neighbor weed whacked in the highway curb are trying to come back. It looks odd where the blooming Gypsophia ends, though, like the row abruptly stops. I'll be thinking about all of you. Seeds- Orange Cosmos Mammoth Grey Striped Sunflower Sparkler Radish Mimosa Vitex Chaste Tree Unknown colored Cosmos Shasta Daisy "Silver Princess" Pink Oleander Shrub/fragrant (seeds have a poisionous label) Hardcover book- "Scrapbooking with Memory Makers" Tons of ideas, pics. 118 pages package of copper plant markers Roses 1001 Gardening Questions Answered, 131 pages, hardcover Big Crinium bulb! Victoria Principal's book- "30 day plan to look and feel 10 years younger", hardcover. Caladium bulb- "F.M JOYNER" Caladium bulb- "Candidum" More seeds- Lavender '08 munstead Red Kurl Uchiki Kurl Squash Cactus flowered zinnia Lemon Balm Sweet Dumpling Squash 4 O'clocks, yellow Gourd "Straightneck Wrenhouse" Poppy "Peony red" Black diamond heirloom watermelon Zinnia "Cherry & Ivory Swizzle" Scarlet Scarlet Marigold '08 Black eyed Susan vine/Orange Thunbergia Alata "Superstar Orange" Cinnamon Basil Georgia collard greens Marigolds yellow/orange 2 baby cactus 1 Aloe vera pup, rooted 2 cactus pads- outdoor optunia Boston Ivy cutting, very nice!! Thanks again, Deb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Mars: Earth-Like Clouds and a New Type of Rock By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 13 December 2004 4:00 p.m. ET SAN FRANCISCO - NASA's Mars rovers have returned new evidence for past water, pictures of Earth-like clouds seen for the first time from the planet's surface, and a rock that doesn't look like anything scientists have ever seen. Meanwhile, officials say both robots are in surprisingly good health and could continue their science investigations for months more, despite nagging health problems. The Spirit rover, ambling through the Columbia Hills at the fringe of the Gusev crater, has uncovered a riot of rock forms and chemistries, including a mineral called goethite, which had not been found on Mars before. Goethite is common on Earth and forms only in the presence of water, though the water can be liquid, frozen or vaporous, said Goestar Klingelhoefer of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. Rover scientists presented their latest findings here Monday at meeting of the American Geophysical Union. A chunk of terrestrial goethite about the size of a can of tomato soup, passed around during a press conference, was black and shiny and weighed about as much as a can-and-a-half of tomato soup. Other findings suggest the rocks of Columbia Hills have a history that included either a meteorite impact or volcanic activity, and that water was involved at some point. Cornell astronomer Steven Squyres, principle investigator for the rover science instruments, said that just this weekend the team spotted a type of rock never seen before. Scientists haven't yet analyzed it and Squyres wouldn't speculate on what it was. But he noted that the exposed rocks of the Columbia Hills, thought to be billions of years old, reveal an extremely complex structure and range of mineral types. "We're stunned by the diversity of rocks," Squyres said. "This stuff looks like it was put into a blender." Squyres said it is clear the rocks in the hills have been altered by water, but it's not yet known if it was liquid water. Several chemical signatures suggest liquid water, he said. On the other side of Mars, the Opportunity rover emerged from the Endurance crater on Sunday after six months inside. "We're out," Squyres announced. The rover backed out of the crater, because it climbs better while going backward, he explained. Opportunity, back on the Meridiani Planum, took pictures of wispy clouds that look strikingly like cirrus clouds on Earth. "This is just a totally spectacular image," said NASA rover scientist Michael Wolff as he presented the first image. And upon unveiling the second: "I can't get enough of these." Wolff said the clouds are almost surely made of water ice. They've been spotted by orbiting spacecraft before and are known to occur near the equator -- where the rovers are -- only when Mars is at aphelion, or at its farthest point from the Sun on its elliptical orbit. During aphelion, about 40 percent less sunlight warms the planet, changing the climate, The clouds are being blown by wind. Wolff estimates they're moving at up to 22 mph (10 meters per second). Opportunity's solar-powered batteries are working at near full capacity. The system produced about 950 watt-hours upon landing at the beginning of this year. Dust and a low, wintertime Sun dropped that figure significantly at times in recent weeks. But lately it's been generating 900 watt-hours when the solar panel is pointed northward, said rover project manager James Erickson. Spirit is producing just 400 watt-hours, but Erickson expects that to improve as spring brings the Sun higher into the sky. For now, Spirit can only investigate rocks where rover drivers can keep its solar panel tilted north. Erickson said the rovers are likely to continue exploring until some mechanical failure takes them down, rather than any problem with solar power generation. Spirit is still dogged by a balky front wheel and Opportunity continues to struggle with a shoulder problem. Both have outlasted their 90-day warranties, however, and will have been on Mars for a year in January. "It looks like they'll both be around for the anniversary next month," Erickson said. Asked if they robots will still be at work in May, Squyres alluded to his hard-working team, which for much of the early part of the mission worked on Mars time, by joking that "the rovers have a better chance of being alive then than we do."

VW's "VagCom" is just their own version of a scan tool. I've never had one in my hands so I don't know exactly how much it really does. FWIW, I'll never own one either. I do have a VeDis scan tool which is one of the strongest aftermarket European scan tools available but it is still an aftermarket tool, and I just don't expect it to be 100% complete. But it's the best I can afford. (5K+ there are others that are over a $20K investment, they do more than my VeDis, but imagine spending that kind of money and in a years time not expect to even get $1000 in diagnostic labor money back while using it) It's really tough fixing cars these days when it comes to tooling and equipment. I can justify (to a degree) owning O.E. tools for some 90% of the market. (GM, Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, current model years and Honda through 2004) But even with Honda I cannot justify staying current with the O.E. tool, because at $9,000 for just Honda's since 2005 I don't see enough of them to justify any greater expense in supporting them than whatever I can get through my VeDis Asian, or Snap-On scanners. But back to doing the diagnostics on this TAC problem. Even the VagCom does not actually tell the tech what is wrong. The cars are not sophisticated enough to do that. When a problem is determined by the system, say an open in one of the circuits. The system is good enough to flag the circuit affected, and in some cases might have a code that is accurate enough to say that the circuit was "open", although most of the time it will be more like circuit open/short. The problem with intermittents is the circuit is going open/short at any point through that entire single circuit, but the diagnostic system is not capable of saying where it occured. Likewise a scan tool, displaying serial data will show what the microprocessor shows that a particular sensor circuit is reporting, but it's up to a technician to figure out exactly why a given sensor is reporting incorrectly when/if it is. Many events we deal with have a circuit that has a problem, the computer stores a code, but the circuit then just happens to operate correctly when the vehicle comes in, and we end up in a no-problem found situation. redpennies car at this point appears to provide a challenge to any technician because it is not broken all of the time. Combine that with her frustration from the expense of both related (potentially) and unrelated repairs and the fact that in a flat rate shop the techs quite often don't get paid correctly to take whatever time is required to get it to act up and diagnose it and you have a perfect example of just what fixing cars can be like for a technician as well as the public. In every real sense, my getting involved with any of these threads is time spent at work, that I don't get paid for. The techs at the VW dealership when they work on her car now in all likelyhood don't get paid for their time either unless they can justify replacing some part, that redpenny pays to have replaced. It looks like such great customer service to not pay anything to a customer when they have a complaint, but it's actually decades of a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. The price of which is starting to finally become obvious. Could I diagnose and fix red's car. Yep, no doubt. Would she really be happy if I did? Hard to say......

Sadly, the day of the economical to operate motor vehicle is over. The car or truck are slowly becoming luxuries rather than necessities - thanks to the environmentalists and safety nazis.. Other than a very expensive trip to the dealer(but some of this may be covered under warranty) the only other thing the car owner may or can do is assure that the battery is suppling the vital 12.0 volts(minimum) to the computer...