@beelady That second one looks like it's right up my alley! Thanks!

@Axtremus I scanned a few pages just to get a feel for what's in that bill. Very interesting and a good reference. Thanks for posting it!

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I want that greenhouse!

@AndyD said:. there's a lot of pleasure to be had wheeling through shortwave static to find some remote radio station. Radio! Radio (back in the day) was magical wasn’t it. I still listen to Internet radio (if that’s even what it’s called anymore, Pandora, Spotify). But it’s not the same. For one thing, there’s no DJ and you can skip a song if you don’t like it. I can remember listening to the radio in the car with my mom… or going to stay at my grandma’s house when I was in JH and HS, I slept in a room on the second floor and she had a radio in there. At night, I would listen to different stations. Because it was a completely different state, I always had to search around on the dial before I found a station I liked, and even then it seemed like the music and the person talking were quite different from home. It was both a little bit exciting and a little bit disconcerting. Sorry @steve-miller this thread somehow keeps making me feel very nostalgic!

@AdagioM said: I sold my digital piano several years ago. Roland FP something or other. I like the way sound runs through me from my acoustic piano way better. Same! When we moved from Japan back to the U.S., for a long time (7 years?) a digital was all I had (apartment life). After I finished grad school, I kept the digital even though I had two different uprights (not at the same time), both were kind of crummy, but I always played the acoustic pianos, even though they were not the greatest instruments. But when I bought my grand, I finally sold the digital. I knew I would never play it.

Ideas Bernard , Newby is only 45 miles from us so we must go visit. Seems nicer than Chatsworth in many ways, grand but retaining a homely warmth. Beautiful furnishings. Daniel, you may find what you want at your local auction house, used but in good condition.

My housing complex shares a wall with a Greek church. Every year they give everyone in my development free passes to their festival because they screw up our parking so badly. Enjoyable and I especially enjoyed the part about it being free for us…

I just found out that I went to college with Bari Weiss's father. Imagine my surprise! Louis Weiss (Louie to us) was sort of a class clown. He was a fellow political science major and we had the same mentor (John Agresto). The difference is that I passed the comprehensive exam in political science and graduated. Louie took two tries at it and failed both times. He had to come back the following year and fill out a secondary major (drama) and pass the comps in that discipline in order to get his degree.

@AndyD Beautiful stuff!

Link to video Just read Netanyahu's letter about it. Who the hell is he?!

We thought in the '80's (and the early to mid-80's and beyond were more like the '50's than the present times, and there was the AIDS epidemic that was hardly understood at all, too) that commerce (capitalism) was the reason we were moving forward. Everyone's money is green. I still think that there was a lot of truth in it.

@Steve-Miller I wonder if they got charged extra for data roaming...

Cosmo just came over our fence last summer while we were having a family gathering, just maybe 10 weeks old and playful as all get out. She'll turn a year Monday (as near as we can tell - we just decided our anniversary would be her birthday). She's my cat and constant companion.

The traffic is one reason we're not keen to see them move here; we live in the burbs because we aren't fans of crowds. And the disruption in terms of infrastructure improvements will be a nightmare. Mostly, though, we don't want our taxes to go up just to make the Halases and the McCaskeys richer.