Hey There and Hello . . . Today is April 17th . . . The war in Iraq seems to be all but over and reconstruction and government installation are the calls of the day. As such, many questions as to how the war will and has affected the Landscape and Construction industries are beginning to be answered. With a quick conclusion to the main battle-type fighting, the call has been put forth to get back to normal and focus on the economy. Considering that the Landscape Industry has been pretty solid throughout, I think 2003 will be a good year for the business. Of course there had been a pre-war slowdown . . . However there is one statistic from the latest Housing Starts report by the Department of Commerce, that I believe says a lot about the current and future situation. In all three categories (1 unit, 2-4 units, and 5+ units), new housing starts that were authorized but not started were up 25%. What this tells me is that there are a lot of projects in which the plans are already complete, that were put on hold until the war was either over or until it progressed to a point that the investors were no longer worried. If this is true you should begin to hear from projects bidded but shelved and you should also see an increase in new bids. The bad news is that the investors may still slow down initiating future projects to allow their permitted projects to get under way. The good news is that, during the pre-war lull, demand for facilities has, and will continue to increase while supply continues to dwindle. Even if the post war situation progresses positively, we could see a situation where it takes a few years for the supply to again catch up to the demand, keeping the industry in a state of consistent work for the next several years . . . I know there are a lot of ?EUR??,,????'?????<