Robin the energy saver

I'm planning to remove a load bearing wall between my kitchen and dining room, and put a hidden Glulam beam in the ceiling, hanging the joists on it with joist hangers. Right now the joists overlap the load-bearing wall on each side a little ways (it looks like the original builders used 10' long 2x10's in an 18' wide house), but because of where I need to put the beam to line up with a basement steel beam, the joists on one side of where the new beam goes won't quite reach the new ceiling beam.

I was thinking it would be feasible to screw or bolt a length of 2x10 to each joist that doesn't quite reach, in order to extend it far enough to reach the new beam. Is this a reasonable thing to do and if so what's the recommended length of overlap and what fastening method should be used?

I will of course consult a structural engineer before starting work (I need a building permit with a structural engineer's stamp on it) but wanted to understand my options while at the design phase.

I'm writing a kids' book and my children tell me my kids' expressions are out of date - apparently kids these days don't say 'holy cow', 'wow', 'cool', 'darn', 'rats' to express amazement, being impressed, annoyance, etc.

What do 10-15 year olds say these days? Can you give at least three examples of tweenie/teenie slang that express various emotions? Please include the current saying and what it actually means!

Let's assume I am conducting a preference experiment in which a subject is presented with one of 36 possible items. The subject can either select or ignore the item. The objective is to determine the selection rate for each item (times chosen / times offered). About 500 different people participate in the experiment each day, and each day's crop of subjects are new to the experiment.

At what point would I have sufficient data to know that the selection rate for an item (times chosen / times presented) is accurate within +/- 1% (i.e. a selection rate of 3.5% as measured will in the long term prove to be between 2.5% and 4.5%)? How many total samples should I gather, and how many samples for an individual item? The average preference so far is about 3.7% and the range is 0.87% to 6.09%, with about 5400 samples gathered so far.

I am not trained in statistics so an answer that a lay person can understand would be helpful.

I live in an area where high-speed internet connections cost $600 to set up and $150 a month in fees. A neighbor who lives about a mile from me already has a system set up. Since I'm only going to live here for about eight months, I'd rather piggy back off her system if I can do it for less than the $1800 the setup and monthly fees for my own system would cost. I don't need that much speed, just better than dial-up.

Is there a way I can extend the range of her wireless network, which right now is from a Linksys G router? There is unobstructed airspace between the edge of her lawn and the roof of my house so I assume that if I could get some kind of antenna up on my roof and at the end of her lawn I should be able to capture a signal.