Justin B

I have a 1998 Chrysler Concorde that will sometimes not start without some serious coaxing. 95% of the time, it's fine, but every once in a while, I have to fight the engine to get the car up to idle speed or to even fire up. Once the car has started and is sitting at a normal idle, it's fine and 100% drivable.

Any DIY ideas?

When I'm going between 53 and 55MPH, my car (1998 Chrysler Concorde LXi) always hums and vibrates. It doesn't affect the overall handling or performance, but it just seems . . . strange. And kind-of annoying, since my whole commute consists of roads with a 50MPH limit (thus am traveling around 54MPH).

Any idea on what could be causing this? I was thinking the engine or tranny mount, but I'm no expert when it comes to cars.

I'm interviewing for a seasonal position as a guest services agent/supervisor at a historic house/museum tomorrow. While I am a likely candidate for an "agent" level position, the employer has also expressed interest in hiring me as a supervisor, based on my previous experience within the field.

So, with this in mind, what on earth do I wear!? I'm guessing that the interview will include a tour of the property and it is forecast is for it to be in the mid-80s (I'll be interviewing at 1PM).

I don't want to show up in casual clothes, but I'm also not sure if the classic "power suit" is a viable choice, since the overall atmosphere is casual, non-business-attire (even as a supervisor) and I don't want to drench my clothes in sweat while touring the grounds.

FYI, I am a male, in my early 20's.

My range uses propane instead of natural gas and it's high time that the dated (c. 1975) thing gets replaced.

So, I know that propane creates a number of difficulties for installing a new, modern range, but I can't get a clear picture on just how much of a bearing it may have on product selection.

Home Depot refuses to hook up to a propane source.

Lowe's seems OK with it . . . maybe. Or maybe not. The people in the appliance section were slightly ambiguous about it.

A third party swears that all it takes is an adapter kit and an installer willing to do it.

A web search was no less ambiguous.

So, which is it? Not advisable, advisable only with certain models, or not a problem (so long as you fork over the extra $$$ for this mysterious adapter kit)?

I'm confident in my electrical skills and have verified that the replacement hood will both fit and use the preexisting wiring/ductwork, but is this something that is easily done by a homeowner?

I'm looking at a DIY installation guide on the Lowe's website and it looks fairly easy, but I've been fooled before.

Any input, be it from someone who has done this before or an install tech, would be helpful.

Thanks!

Saw it this afternoon, around 3:00, about 10 miles South of D.C.

It looked like a military transport aircraft but had a pair of helicopter rotor blades, one on the end of each wing?

. . . what the heck?

It moved along at a fairly decent clip and had no other obvious means of propulsion other than these two rotors (or possibly oversized props?).

I looked for an insignia, but it was painted solid white, with no markings.

I'm guessing it was a vertical take-off/landing cargo plane, but I've NEVER seen anything quite like it! I almost drove off the road staring at the thing . . .

I guess I'm looking for a Mfgr and model number for the thing, or a website with some technical data.

I am dealing with two problems in one here:

1. My front yard faces North and gets very little sun.

2. We have an outrageously large deer population that isn't too picky about food.

I'm planning on creating two plots: one is about 2' by 10' and the other is a quarter-circle, about 5' in radius.

Also, I live in Virginia, if that helps.

Given that anything is better than nothing, suggest away! Flowering plants, decorative grasses, shrubs, herbs - I don't care!

Have a small collection of 33s that are just sitting around, so I'm looking to use them in funky, creative ways to decorate a room.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

My creativity ended at framing a couple of the cooler-looking jackets . . .

So, it started out with my system randomly hanging. Earlier tonight, it started getting "delayed write failed" errors, mostly referencing my firewall, Firefox, and the Windows cache as where the writes failed.

Now, it seems to be a more generalized write error. Windows loads, albeit very slowly, and starts referencing failed writes as soon as I click on my profile to enter the password. I can get my desktop loaded, but any intensive write to the drive (maybe any write at all . . .) causes the system to reboot.

I ran SMART via the Western Digital Data Lifeguard program and it said the drive health was "good".

So, dead drive, or is there a way to fix this? Or, could it be something else?

If it helps, here are the system specs:

Pentium 4 3.4GHz

2GB DDR2 667MHz

ATI x1550 128MB video card

Dial-up modem

PCI Wireless-G card

Abit AL8-V motherboard

NEC CD-R/RW

And the (apparent) culprit is an 80GB Western Digital SATA drive.

I have a Gateway MX5970 notebook. Recently, if I use the internal dial-up modem to connect to the 'net, any small bump jostle causes it to either lose the connection or go into a BSOD, reporting a hardware error. I've tried reloading the driver to no avail.

Any other ideas? It's really annoying to have to either sit really, really still or use my desktop's wireless adapter as an access point.