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We feed the wild birds and now have an escaped parakeet coming in to the feeders. Need some ideas on how to capture the little dickens as it won't be able to survive the winter outside here in N. Central PA, USA. He/she flies very well and is happily hanging out with the house finches.

Is there any food or treat that your 'keet absolutely loves that might help lure the bird into a cage?

Right now I have a bird cage nearby but letting all the birds get accustomed to that. They know when something changes around the feeders and it takes them a day or so to settle back down. Planning on putting food in the cage as the next step and progressing from there. He/she will let you get about 6 to 8' from it before flying off right now but netting would be next to impossible.

It is rather funny to hear a line of parakeet chatter in amongst the other birds songs and stranger still to see a yellow and bright green parakeet feeding at the feeders with the house finches.

Any suggestions? Wild birds I have a lot of general knowledge on but domesticated ones, not so much.

Hubby and I were talking last night and he came up with a question that I had no clue. I'm the geek of the pair and used to work in the auto industry which is probably why he asked me to begin with.

There seems to be a trend towards larger wheels and tires on some vehicles. Used to be 15" was big. Now you are seeing some vehicles with as large as 21". Our new Element has 16", sister in law has a CR-V with 17" and a friends new Dodge pick up has 21"! We drove Jimmy's and Blazers for years that took 15" wheels and tires and for a long time that was considered big.

Or is it a gimmick to push the consumer towards more expensive tires? A design decision or is there something "scientific" behind it?

I have a Frigidaire Gallery Electric stove and the oven really malfunctioned this afternoon! I had put a couple of chickens in there for dinner a few minutes before. Stove started beeping; glad it did! The oven was scorching hot and only the top element was on.

We had to resort to turning the breaker off to get the thing shut off; the touch pad did nothing. I'm more than reasonably handy and I also do a lot of my own computer hardware work installing drives, boards and such. From what I've found on the Net, it seems to be the Electronic Oven Control. Is that a DIY job or should I suck it up and pay the service call? I'm not worried about the repair guy ripping me off, I've dealt with him for years and he's always great!

And truthfully, if it's something he knows I can fix, he'll tell me to come get the part but I can't get in touch with him until tomorrow morning and I will stew about this all night if given the chance. Money is really tight and I need a big service call bill like a hole in the head!

Thanks!

I have a ton of fresh herbs like Lavender and Lemon Balm in my garden along with a lot of great smelling flowers. How does one capture their fragrance for use in cologne or home made perfumes or oils?

When putting down self-stick vinyl floor tile, do you need to pull up the vinyl sheet goods already down on the floor? The surface is smooth, no holes, no bumps just needs replaced because the vinyl sheet goods were not properly installed around the tub/shower and we have a water staining issue. The installer didn't caulk at all!

I sure could use come ideas here! My 13 year old son is doing horrible in 7th grade (Jr. High)! It's not that he's stupid; he's far from it. Even he admits he's lacking motivation or the want to. I've talked, I've yelled, I've taken away the computer and his video games, assigned extra chores. It's the same thing, he promises to do better, manages to get the grades up to passing for report cards and then falls apart again.

Any ideas on how to get this kid to get motivated? I am seriously considering holding him back a year because apparently he is not mature nor responsible enough to handle the less structured learning environment of Jr. High.

He's never been a good student even though he is more than capable. He does have a non-verbal learning issue but it's not that severe and we have worked and worked with him as to the best things for him to do to make learning easier for him. I'm just not seeing any effort at all and if he does make an effort, it's 1/2 hearted.

Any ideas? I sure could use some. I'm about to "show" him what kinds of jobs you get without an education and have him spend a morning shoveling manure at a friends farm...... Should I?

Our kitchen sink drain line needs replaced. The idiot who put it in didn't use the correct rating of PVC or enough pipe strapping and it's all wharped. One T fitting (pipe and vent) is leaking. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing wasn't done right and the sink drains like caca! Experienced DIY, working with PVC pipe not an issue. How does one figure out the amount of grade/drop needed for a drain line? Any suggestions or guidance?

Thank you!

Are the new quad cores worth the investment? Son will be using it for games; Halo, Command & Conquer series, surfing the Internet and so forth. Or go with a beefy Duo core and up the graphics card to 512 mb or 1 GB and use more RAM?

I know that most of the software available now doesn't fully utilize the Quad, that's part of my dilemma!

320GB My Book External Hard Drive and XP won't pick it up. Used to work fine until I moved things around. Have tried different USB cable, different USB ports.... Any suggestions?