dansinger61

... for an aspiring song-writer. How much should I charge for this service.

This is a person whom I don't know personally; he's a member of the congregation where I am a song-leader. He has written a Christmas song and wants to produce a demo of it. He has already hired a studio and an arranger, so he appears fairly serious about this.

How much do singers generally get paid to record a demo track?

My fiancee is an amputee who uses a wheelchair, and my ex has decided that it is not safe for my 7 yr old daughter to stay alone with her. My ex's fear stems from the fact that she doesn't believe my fiancee could manage my daughter in an emergency such as a fire. I have explained to my ex that short of having to physically carry my daughter out of the home, my fiancess is capable of managing any other emergency, but she persists in her insistence, and is not allowing my daughter to stay with us during my visitation this weekend because of this (I have some things I need to do away from the home during this time).

Can my ex refuse to allow me to leave my daughter with my fiancee during my visitation periods based on her fears?

If it helps to clarify the situation, my ex has full custody and I have weekly visitation rights.

I have a separation agreement that has been incorporated as part of my divorce settlement. In that agreement, I agree to pay 29% of my income for "child support" (I have 3 kids). NY defines "child support" as a sum to be paid "for care, maintenance and education" of any minor children. My ex is constanly hitting me up to help her with extra expenses such as school supplies, club expenses, etc. Am I within my rights to tell her that these expenses should already be covered under the child support I pay?

I'm not one of those stingy divorced parents who doesn't want my kids to have things, but I already pay my ex a HUGE amount of money (there's alimony on top of the child support) and I can't really afford all the extras.

Tonight (Aug 19) I need to drive past Shea and I need to know if I should allow extra time for the inevitable traffic jam that will ensue if the Mets are playing a home game. Anyone know?

S. Jarvo asked a series of questions recently that I don't think quite resolved the issue he raised, and I wanted to see if a rewording would help.

Let's say I have an atom in an excited state in the middle of outer space. The atom reverts to its base energy state, releasing a single photon of energy. In what direction does this photon travel? Does it not travel in all directions due to the wave nature of light? Can a single photon travel in all directions simultaneously? And if I place an object near this atom that is a hemispherical absorber, such that half of the original light is absorbed, can it absorb only half of a photon?

New York State holds its presidential primaries on Feb 5, part of the "super Tuesday" blitz. The candidates are falling over themselves to campaign in Georgia, and Oklahoma, and Missouri, etc. And, with good reason, in California. But I have not heard a single political ad in New York, nor do I hear of any plans for any of the candidates to make an apperance in New York. With the third largest population in the country, and two major candidates being New Yorkers, shouldn't NY be a bigger prize to be courted by all the candidates? Why are we being ignored?

I don't want to know why it could happen, or what the ramifications are. But what, exactly, did this trader do that was fraudulent? And why did he do it, if he didn't profit from it?

I have a 2004 Kia Sedona. There are rear vents in the ceiling, presumably to distribute either warm or cold air to the rear seat occupants. However, I've noticed that, now that winter is here, the vents never deliver warm air; the air is always cold coming out of them.

Is this just a crappy design that I'll have to live with? Or is there something wrong with my car?

My son is 9, and is very lean. Not overly skinny, just a wiry kid (BMI = 13). When I wake him in the morning, he is EXTREMELY grumpy, to the point of crying that he has to get out of bed. He continues to be mopey and grumpy until he eats breakfast, at which point he becomes a new person (well, actually he returns to the bright happy kid I know so well!).

Is this just normal kid behavior? Or does his sudden mood change after eating indicate a blood sugar problem? Could his blood sugar drop so low in the morning that he just feels like crap, until he gets that first shot of sugar into his blood vessels?

OK, this is a very odd situation. A friend of mine was married to a man for less than 6 months before they separated. They were in the process of divorcing, but had not actually filed any paperwork when he passed away, so they were still technically married. Her husband had no family to speak of (just one uncle who really wants nothing to do with any of his possessions). So, she is stuck with the task of disposing of his ashes. She really has no emotional attachment, but she doesn't want to be crass. Any suggestions?

So, after last night's MTV VMA performance, can we finally put the last nail in Ms Spears' career and move on to the post-Spears era?

So, I had to reformat my hard drive recently. I backed up all my documents and settings prior to the reformat and then restored them after the reformat. Everything seems to be fine EXCEPT I can't find my Outlook Express messages. They SHOULD have been in my documents and settings folder somewhere, but when I opened Outlook Express, it was if I had a new installation (no messages, and no internet settings). Any help??

I met a woman online (match.com to be exact). We've had two dates, and I just don't see more dates in the future. She has sent me emails and texts, and I have been pussy-footing around the answer.

So the question is -- can I send an email to break up since our relationship is so sketchy to begin with, or do I need to call her?

Is the Nickelodeon Cartoon Danny Phantom series over? The most recent "movie" (it was only 1 hour long with commercials, but compared to the normal 12 minute episode that counts as a movie) wrapped up all the loose ends. Vlad is banished from earth. Danny and Sam are finally united. Danny's secret is finally revealed, and he is hailed as the hero. So, that's it, huh?

The Bisquick pancake recipe calls for lemon juice and baking powder (and a bit of sugar) to create fluffier pancakes. Basically, you're just adding the fizz from the lemon juice and baking powder to create air pockets in the pancakes, but it does make them cook up nice and fluffy. The problem is that my kids hate the lemon juice flavor, and I haven't been able to overcome that without adding too much sugar.

I had a thought to replace the lemon juice, baking power and sugar with a bit of coca cola. The fizz from the soda would do the trick to fluff the pancakes up and the sweetness would replace the sugar in the recipe.

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it work or will I just make a total disaster of things?

So, now that Yahoo Chat Rooms seem to be mostly toast, with no fixes in sight (only fixes that break it worse than before), does anyone have any other sites where one can engage in a chatroom?

So, I have an '04 Kia Sedona that I picked up used about 6 months ago. The car as a remote lock / starter unit. When I turn on the engine, sometimes the doors lock automatically, and sometimes they don't. I kind of like the automatic locking doors, as I prefer to drive with my doors locked, but sometimes forget.

Does anyone know what determines if the locks will lock automatically or not? If there's some sequence that I SHOULD be doing that I'm not?

Thanks.

I tried asking this of another user who had made reference to it and got nowhere, so I'll address it to the community at large.

I've been seeing a lot of references to the year 2012 lately, and the person I noted above said it is the end of the current precessional cycle. Now, it's well known that the earth's axis precesses relative to the more general "up" axis of the solar system, and that this precession takes ~25,800 years to complete a cycle.

My noted correspondent claimed that the current precessional cycle ends in 2012. How can this be? A cycle, by its very definition, is endless. Saying a cycle ends at a given point in time is like saying that a circle ends at a particular point in space! We can arbitrarily fix the end of the calendar year as December 31st, but this does not mark the end of the earth's orbit, it just marks one particular place in the orbit. Our choice of that date to end the year is completely arbitary. So how can 2012 mark the end of a cycle?