Nicole, I received your email yesterday about your plate prize being chipped. Sent you an email back yesterday. In case you did not get my email, please hold on to the shipping receipt, box and shipping material. I will call the store I ordered from tomorrow and see how they want to handle it for a replacement. If they are unable to do so, then I will send you something else. I will email you after I speak with them. Thanks for letting me know about the chip. Appreciate it! Happy Sunday...must run! Annie

Sorry. The link in the prior message is no good. Its a WMV file and what you are supposed to see is a buuch of buddies putting an airbag assembly in a small drum. A board cover is placed over the top of the drum and one of them sits on it. The bag fires and the guy is launched to the ceiling. Eveything happens so quickly that I'm not sure exactly what took place. When the smoke clears, we see a dazed guy in fetal position on the floor and when he is rolled over, he sits up and is too dazed to speak.

We had a long term customer shopping for pricing for a new boiler, indirect water heaters, oil tank and extras. They were shopping for the lowest bid, so we didn't give them an estimate. About a month later, they called the installers since they had no heat, hot water and frozen pipes, but the installers didn't return their phone calls. Turned out that the installers didn't perform emergency service, nor warranty work, plus they were too small and too busy to service what they sell. They called about 5 service outfits, but they were too busy to respond immediately, or didn't return calls. Upon arriving we discovered that the boiler was Triple Oversized, had no Low Water Cutoff, no Back-Flow Preventer, no isolation valves, no purge valves and too many other code violations and shoddy workmanship issues to list. Since they had no way of isolating the system from the domestic water, the antifreeze and chemicals mixed with the domestic water and or leaked out of the old fittings and valves. The installers also pumped contaminated oil into the new tank which plugged the fuel line, filter, pump strainer and nozzle. In addition, they failed to replace the rotted copper oil lines buried in concrete, plus had no FiroMatic valves on the tank or at the burner. They re-used a decades old oil filter with a leaking housing as well. The installers also re-used the old near-boiler piping, fittings, valves, circulators, air-scoop, expansion tank etc. Since they didn't install flo-check valves and heat traps, ghost flow from the boiler and indirect water heaters were heating zones even though they weren't calling for heat. The installers also re-used the old vent pipe and chimney thimble which rotted and fell on the floor a couple weeks later. They didn't remove the jacket from the boiler, so they crushed it and scratched it while moving it into the basement. The customer told me the installer's helper was pinned at the bottom of the basement stairs since the installer lost control of the boiler when a step broke. When I ran a combustion test, my smoke spot tester paper was charcoal black. For some reason, the installer lowered the pump pressure by 40 pounds, doubled the size of the electrode gap, pulled back the Z dimension and installed a much lager nozzle with a wider spray pattern. The customer told me the installer's helper tuned the system, but he tuned the system by sight and sound since he didn't have a pump tester, electrode gauge, wet kit or electronic combustion tester. He told the customer he'd been tuning systems by ear for over 25 years. The system was also installed without plans, permits and inspections. The burner was located 3 feet from the oil tank which is illegal, plus the installer reused a 1 inch oil tank vent pipe which is illegal as well. This customer also paid the installers in cash, so they had no receipts or documentation. To add insult to injury, the installers charged the customer about $800 additional in extras above their verbal quote. The $800 in extras brought the installation price within about $500 of what we would have charged them for a much better and much more efficient high quality installation.

Talley-Sue - yes, it was gaping. Kathy was in no condition to assess her wounds for a couple of days. She is fairly big breasted and only found the wound when she was able to take a bath a few days later. I would say the wound is about the size of a dollar coin. I even missed it when she first showed me her chest bruising but I wasn't looking that closely at her breasts just the bruising. The wound is under the breast on the outside. It actually looks like a bullet hole not that I have ever seen an actual bullet hole in someone's body. She is still finding bruises that she didn't know she had. Kathy did call her Doctor right away but like everything else you have to wait for an appointment which was today. Kathy did tend to her wounds like a nurse would do and she had a fellow nurse come and check her out. She wasn't mortally wounded so she waited to see her doctor. Kathy went to her family doctor today - he had all the reports from the hospital and he noted again where all of her injuries and bruising was. She has to go back again next week. I went with her to do some errands today and I could tell Kathy was in pain and asked her where she was feeling it the most. She said her breast and wearing a seatbelt wasn't helping any either. She said she might have to start taking a Percocet during the daytime too because of the pain. One good thing she wasn't skittish behind the wheel of the rental car. She is a little more wary of the other drivers though. We weren't out for more than a couple of hours and she had to get home because she was exhausted. Kathy has nothing but good to say about the people at the hospital and the EMT and police and good samaritans that were on the scene. If I was her I would probably be moaning and groaning but Kathy is not doing that and she is allowing us to help her. Kathy's insurance company has the police report but when she goes to see the lawyer I am sure he will get a copy. Anne