I have a Kodak something or other, but wanted to mention that it has a Sports mode on it. At Grandparents Day at my GD's school, I was able to take freeze photos of the kids playing on the playground, and they came out beautifully! I love it. I will have to employ it now in the garden in that mode to see if it will do the same with butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. This camera was about $150 and has a 10X zoom lens as well. It's not great at stablizing images unless you have a tripod, though. I think the Model is a Z950 or something. It is a larger camera, which I like as an older person. Much easier to handle. With the smaller models I always find myself hitting the wrong button. Susan

I love Nikon's entry-level DSLRs like this one (I still use and love the D60 I got back in 2009)...you can sneak the older (ie cheaper on the 2ndhand market) non-AI lenses on there. Have fun playing! Fill up those memory cards :D Cheers! ~Anika Here is a link that might be useful: GothicLibrarian.net

Busy day - Macbook has been crashing, got that post out in between crashes. Worked with Apple Care on the phone, think they fixed it. So yes, IR Scan during blower door test. I'm sure I will get all the details, but he said it's not uncommon, but because of the drafty house, he could not get the fan up to a certain level. Forget what that number was or the value of that number. So the house did not get that cold either. The blower was running for a long time, and the house cooled down from 70 to about 63. I expected much worse after you guys wrote about it in here. I think I expected the inside to feel like outside. Anyway, he pointed out the edges of all walls, at the corners and top rails where you can see there is no insulation. I think you can clearly see that the walls are insulated ok. Attic access panels are killers. We dont even try to fake it here, just a thin wood or sheetrock panel, we have 3 access points. He suggested buying a can of Mastic, spread it on the back and press on insulation, it would help. He suggested sealing any recessed lights, and using the spray fluffy insulation in attics. For one of the attics that has an air handler, he suggests creating a conditioned attic space by insulating the walls, but I dont think I agree with that. For the Crawl, he first suggests I stop any water entry, yes there is right now, might be hard to fix. I have two Sumps down there, but somehow water gets in, and just hangs out on the floor, never more than 1/16 inch deep, but spreads out. Then he says insulating the walls of the crawl to make it air tight, no venting. Or the other approach is to insulate the ceiling or main floor - floor. It's insulated now, but he says it's not doing anything, Its installed backwards, and only a few inches thick . He said I could go with a spray foam, a little pricey, or a real thick high R value insulation. I will share the report when it comes. Was nice having the house warm over the last 24 hours, but I used well over 300 KV in that time.

Note that "AT&T" landline phones are rebranded VTech phones and have nothing to do with either the current AT&T company or the old, indistructable Western Electric phones that the AT&T phone company used to rent out. If you compare VTech and AT&T phones with a similar feature set, you'll find they're nearly identical, but they tend to charge more for the AT&T-branded versions. Likewise, General Electric doesn't make GE phones; they're made by French consumer-electronics firm Thomson, which also makes phones under the RCA brand. I ditched the landline about 7 years ago, but when I had one I bought a used Polycom SoundStation Premier speakerphone, one of those triangular phones you see in office boardrooms. It has wired and/or wireless remote microphones and speakers, as well as three mics built into the main unit. They allow you to talk on the speakerphone with outgoing sound quality almost indistinguishable from a regular handset, and the remote mics let you walk around the room whilst talking. Callers never guessed I was talking on a speakerphone. My system would have cost upwards of $2000 new (intended for businesses), but I got mine used on eBay for a few hundred. They would be even cheaper now since offices have largely switched over to VoIP phones and are selling off their old phones that connect to traditional phone lines. The only downside was that they never made a cordless handset. But if you want a great speakerphone, check them out or their related SoundPoint series, especially the newer ones. For cordless phones, I've had pretty good luck with higher-end Panasonics, but I haven't really paid much attention to landline phones recently enough to make any recommendations. They are amongst the most frustrating items to buy, because you have no way to know how they sound until after you buy them, rip open the packaging, and try them in your home. At least with mobile phones, the major carriers have stores that let you make test calls on their phones before you buy.