You may get better responses if you group them by topic.

I see ;-). Most of my questions have little to do with each other, so
they'd all be separate. I'll try to space them out (chronologically)
so that I don't dogpile the newsgroup.

Overall, this is a pretty good group of people with a lot of knowledge.

Absolutely. I dig around the Google archives a lot, and the S/N ratio
and level of helpful responses is amazing. I've posted a number of
questions already and gotten a lot of friendly help thus far, and
haven't been flamed yet. You've set me straight a couple of times too,
Edwin.

I'm pretty DIY with a lot of stuff- automobiles, electronics, music,
computers, etc. For some reason, "home repair" is just not something
that clicks with me the same way that "being mechanically inclined"
does, even though you'd think it should. Now, suddenly I'm a home
owner. Lots of minor stuff I'm ok with, but for all intents and
purposes, I'm a total n00b at this. I just bought my first hammer last
weekend at age 31. It's embarassing- I probably feel the same way that
illiterate adults feel when learning to read for the first time.

On the other hand, I don't want to pay someone to do something if I
could do it myself.

Ok... thanks for the tips so far, I'm going to stop gushing now ;-)

(sorry).