tuttle, if it makes you feel any better the "greasemokey" you refer to only gets about 20% of what you are charged by a shop if that - more like 5% and the mechanic is supposed to be able to double or tripple the book rate. The rest goes to his secretary I mean boss. If I were to do mechanics again I would open a shop and hire a secretary rather than work for one, but most mechanics who work for someone else are lucky to break even after buying extremely expensive tools and are really lucky to work the entire year. On top of that most shop bosses are too cheap to buy appropriat manuals or allow their workers the time to look things up. I can't speak for plumbers but I would bet it's the same there. I still have the tools that If I'd bought 3d art apps instead would have got me 3ds, lightwave, maya, rhino, bryce,carrara and poser from the very start and gotten me to the latest upgrades. Sorry, I had to speak out for auto mechanics having been one. But the thing I did learn from all that is that it is better to charge a set fee for a given thing and in that way the faster you can do it the more money you can make given a reasonable coustomer base. Also if the customer knows how much he'll be paying going in he's more likely to be satisfied providing the workmanship itself is satisfactory . . . and a satisfied customer is more likely to return. sorry for the rant, - TJ