Babyface

Tengo palmeras washingtonia creciendo cerca a muros. No son grandes, pero rompen muros cuando crecen?

He tenido problemas con las yuccas, rompen los muros

With ample note bending facility. Price not the largest concern

We'd like to explore Queens some, by accessing via Subway or bus from Manhattan. Can you recommend any nice Queens neighborhoods or areas for a quick day visit? Have explored Brooklyn, would like to check Queens out next

Need digital piano w/top quality action/sound, that also looks nice for home with nice cabinetry & finish. Have looked at Yamaha YDP V-240, Kurzweil CUP-2, Kawai CE 200. Overwhelmed by the choices, don't understand some of the differences like Yamaka Arius vs. Clavinova. Any recommendations from experience?

Anyone have a recent, reputable tabulation of top cities in the world for cost of living? We live in NYC and am having a hard time conceiving of a more expensive place on the planet to live. Anyone from London don't bother comparing, I go to LON a lot and if you earn pounds it's still not comparable to this, albeit it's no bargain either. Prices (food, rent, apt. purchase) keep going up-up-up and wages keeping coming down-down-down, this city has been pretty immune from the cost-side of the recession. It is a very safe city now, because the poor have been leaving in droves since they can't afford it here. I think NYC should split off from the US, and issue it's own currency, because NYC bears very little relation any more to the rest of the U.S.

Can someone recommend the best full scale 88-key electric piano, for (i) the feel/touch of the keys of an acoustic piano (weighted keys), (ii) rapid key action, and (iii) light weight? Item (iii) not as important as (i) and (ii). The other bells & whistles keyboards sometimes have (voices, instrument sounds) don't matter, just need piano subsitute so we don't bother neighbors in our apt. building. Have a Yamaha PS-80 I've been happy with but it's 10 yrs old and worn out w/sticking keys

We're planning a trip to the Berkshires, MA. Which is the nicest town to stay in?

I just started playing the clarinet. Very easy to play EXCEPT I'm having a hard time smoothly playing sequence of 2nd octave A-B-C and back down C-B-A. Specifically, A-B and B-A. There's a very big shift in fingering but also in how you have to blow the thing. Also there's a lag in blowing B and C and sound coming out (I guess you need a sharp attack). Any helpful hints?

We have inboard marine engine, boat has been sitting for 3-4 years w/half tank of gas. Engine now sputters a lot especially at higher RPM. Pretty sure there's water in the gas, I've experienced it before. How do you remove water? Is there an additive we can put in the gas, or do we need to drain the tank?

We've lived in Manhattan for a few yrs now w/small child. I love it here, find it convenient & good for kids, but my wife wants to live in a greener place which she thinks will be more kid-friendly. She doesn't buy my arguments about all the well-tended parks around us, living 1-block from East River, etc. How anyone can be happy ferrying kids around all day in a mini-van and living in an isolated cookie cutter neighborhood is a puzzle to me. Our compromise is we look at something burb-like so long as my commute to midtown is no longer than 45 minutes. I don't think this is possible, but I hear Forest Hills, Queens is pretty close. I'm OK with blue collar places likes Secaucus or Union City NJ but my wife will expect something more upscale. She likes places like Greenwich CT which I find snobby and country club-like plus it's > 45 min away. She wants some place with a villagey-feel AND close in, but anyone familiar with this area will know it doesn't exist. I know people who commute 3-4 hrs/day round trip for this village-life fantasy. Any ideas on nice green places close by?

A guy (call him "Bob") is having problems w/wife & work because of situation with his old father. Basically Bob had no mother due to divorce & her losing custody and his father cared for him only 4 yrs of his life before sending Bob to be raised by grandmother. Bob grows up, marries, has kids. Pops retires, suffers financial setbacks (who hasn't these last 10 yrs), suffers from dementia. Pops starts spending more & more time at Bob's house, becoming dependent, and Bob's wife ends up taking care of Pops. Wife resents this - Pops requires lots of care, even suffers concussion one day falling down stairs while wife was in another room. This stretches Bob's marriage to breaking point. Wife wants them to consider assisted living, but Pops gets depressed, threatens suicide, cries: Bob feels very guilty and wants to keep Pops home. Both Pops and Bob are actually pretty well off and can afford assisted living. This also presents Bob w/problems at work; he's absent a lot dealing with Pop's issues.

As this thing drags on I'm beginning to side w/wife; seems marriage poses enough challenges and family members outside the nuclear family need to do everything in their power to support that father/mother/child unit.

Questions:

(1) Do you agree with me? Don't let Pops manipulate anymore. Of course best solution would be wife having the magnanimous heart of Mother Theresa and caring for Pops w/glee, but this isn't the case and there's simply no changing that; and

(2) Anyone else see how children of divorced parents continue to be burdened for decades, in that these older divorced parents often don't have spouses to help care for them, their adult children have to split their time w/splintered family members scattered all over the place, etc.?

I'm talking long-term, not just last 10 yrs. Drive through the grand old cities (Milwaukee, Buffalo, Cleveland, Queens NY) & see how working people lived in mid-20th century. Young people have a much harder time getting their lives started now than when I grew up. Harder for kids coming out of college to find decent jobs. Much longer to find new employment & when people do, there's usually a large salary concession. I've been lucky & realize it wouldn't take much to knock me off my little pedestal, but sometimes it seems I'm the last of the generation that had it fairly easy: come out of college, work 2 yrs and buy your first nice little house, nice job that pays well & promotes, etc. I look at pictures of my parents when they were young living in another country before emigrating, & they lived better then than they do now (although std of living in their country collapsed & worse than US). I worry about the kind of world my 4 yr old will grow up into. Parents used to expect their kids to be better off than them, but now it has reversed. I know we don't need as much as we "stuff" as we're used to, but still social stability is worrisome in a world of dimming prospects (think Germany 1930's +)

Anyway I see signs of declining std of living all around, and then on the other hand people I see others who are extraordinarily lucky...polarization.

I just pulled a bunch of little green seeds (look like small olives) from the above palm. How do I plant them to grow new trees? I know it will take "forever" as they are super slow-growing. I live in a place where these trees grow well. They are beautiful!

McCain/Palin keep talking about not pulling trips out of Iraq until the US wins the war. Anyone know what their or Bush-admin definition of "winning the war" is?

Clearly it's not about one or more warlords coming to the table to negotiate and sign terms & conditions of surrender, like in traditional wars.

Need basic (cheap) repairs so the thing is playable. (i) How do you unstick a valve? The coil spring is OK,but there's too much friction when the piston slides in the cylinder. I've tried oiling a lot, but still too much friction between piston/cylinder. (ii) How do you unstick slides? The thing is OLD but I don't want to spend lots of money on it, don't want a new one either like the repairshop keeps trying to sell me. This old peashooter is in good shape other than the above.

Need basic repairs so the thing is playable. (i) How do you unstick a valve? The coil spring is OK,but there's too much friction when the piston slides in the cylinder. I've tried oiling a lot, but still too much friction between piston/cylinder. (ii) How do you unstick slides? The thing is OLD but I don't want to spend lots of money on it, don't want a new one either like the repairshop keeps trying to sell me. This old peashooter is in good shape other than the above.

We have a 2 1/2 yr old and need to either send him to daycare/preschool, or get him a nanny. Most parents here use nannies and we're comfortable with some we've met. Any opinions on which is better, nanny or daycare/preschool? (seems everyone uses a nanny and there has to be a good reason). We've also checked with some church & synagogue programs in the neighborhood and they sound very good because of their group activities. Anyone have recommendations for what's best to do in NYC? (We live in Upper East Side). I'm assuming at his age, daycare is same as preschool.

I like books that are so vivid that they take you to another time and place, that make you live the drama of the characters. In a way after reading a good book you've lived a part of a character's life and it becomes part of you. I've read a lot of Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, some Percy Walker, and several modern English authors. I also really liked the book "Snow" by the Turkish writer Pamuk something or another. Any recommendations? Books that make you think, that carry you away, that almost make you live the life of the characters. No Tom Clancy & stuff, something more emotionally engaging. Any advice?

At work I sometimes interviewed college kids for summer internships or jobs after college. I was amazed at the caliber and polish of these kids. When I was in college there's no way I would have stacked up against these hotshots. I was incoherent, uninformed, rude, roguish, and had the polish of someone straight out of a barn or cave - and so were most of my peers. If I interviewed the young me I wouldn't hire me. Has education improved that much since the 80's? Are kids growing up faster? Or maybe finding a job is more competitive and difficult now and the kids who make it to final interviews are the superstars. When I finished college most of us found good jobs w/good companies, not slinging burgers or working at coffee shops.

We have a 20-mo old who when angry or bored, shouts the loudest, most ear-piercing screams that we've ever heard. Like Mariah Carey singing but louder. We finally got him to stop this at home by doing "time-outs" in a special chair per "the Nanny", but when away from possible punishment, say in restaurant, he screams & shrieks. Today in the subway station my wife waited w/the baby while I walked down 2 flights of stairs and about 200 feet down a hall and I could hear his tortourous sceams loud and clear. It's gotten to the point where we can't take him to restaurants and stores.

I try showing no reaction, but my wife gets very rattled and upset. She'll say "stop" but she doesn't yell back at him. We don't spank him - just time outs. Yelling & spanking would only make the situation worse.

I've been around enough babies to say this isn't normal, and he's far louder than most. we did have his hearing checked and it's OK.

How do we stop this? We're going crazy and deaf.