Weekend was good; went to in-laws in eastern WA. Turkey was good. My wife and I laughed that one of our sons chose to eat only a spoonful of mashed potatoes, a croissant, and about four cups of gravy. The youngest had five rolls, four rice-krispy treats, three brownies, two leaves of spinach, and ab...

To be really efficient, you'll probably want to look at installing a smaller heater near your kitchen/bathroom to supplement heating the water. That way you don't run the faucets for a minute or two waiting for hot water. Or you could do what I do with showers and just get in, bear the cold for a co...

Yeah... Most houses in our neighborhood are gas with forced air. In Seattle, houses are still heated with oil or steam (if you're very close to downtown). Gotta say, that gas is the way to go. And if the gas doesn't work, it's probably due to a much larger problem than heating your house. ;) As for ...

FYI, now I'm not in DC.

Question, Sharpster, did you get a house with more than one floor?

And do they do anything different back in your neck of the woods in regards to heating in the winter?

(This Old House has taught me that many houses in the northeast are heated with steam.)

ahh.... the joys of having older kids. All of my boys want to mow the lawn for me. But they're all too young yet. My daughter was fascinated by "the big loud thing daddy was pushing around" when I mowed the lawn last. (Have to saw lawn... since "grass" is legal in WA state and I ...

I'm in dc for a couple of days.

Very cool!

Don't you mean, HAWT!!!

Yeah. They're pretty sweet.

Good machines too, when they're calibrated and operated by a competent person.

Funny thing is that I kept recalling that scene at the beginning of Office Space, with the traffic jam. And the old person beating the cars. Heh... just like that actually. Problem around here is that it's just as bad as (if not worse than) LA traffic.... the good thing about LA is that you have mul...

Ouch! All the tolls! And highway 95 if you get stuck on it is no fun. I've been back east quite a few time (DC metro area and VA) and what a mess. Good luck to you. I mostly left early enough in the morning to avoid the major traffic... One time I left late, and it took me 6 hours to drive home. Tha...

almost 5 hours every day! I'm going to a job with the Navy. More exciting things (using my brain), and it's a job where I can't take anything home with me!!!! Yay! It's also roughly 6 miles away instead of 85. Yes, since the end of April (and not counting the 7 weeks of leave I had saved up for my d...

So... you thinking of continuing Bug's story from here? Or picking up with a different part of Bug's life?

I've got to say, that even though you self-identified some faults, I still like your writing style.

Wow. After finishing this... I think I developed more of a connection with Dath than the other characters. Her story is so sad, and... brutal at the same time. Here's a question: Does Bug's sense of morality concerning the life of an innocent (the unborn queen who was removed from existence), stem f...