LOL @ this thread :) My "truck" is a red, 1995 Chevrolet Beretta (yeah, the 2 door model). It's paid for and runs great. And I can get an amazing amount of crap in there. Of course, I have serious truck envy! I'm just waiting for the F150 hybrid...though I fear I'll have a looonnnggg wait. :) This thread reminds me of a great story (sorry if it's long and slightly offtopic, but I thought you all would get a kick out of it): About 3 years ago I was in the parking lot of HomeDepot and trying to figure out how I was going to get these 3 4X5 sheets of lattice home. I had bought them thinking I could get them in the trunk or partway. (DUH!)I had just decided that I would use some rope to tie the wood to the roof, and put some spare clothes I happened to have in the car between the lattice and the car when the man in the large red dodge parked behind me came out. He said "Honey, do you need some help?" I tried to say no, but all he could do was giggle. Keep in mind it's like 830 on a Fri. night. He said, "if you don't live too far from here, I'll haul that stuff for you". Against my "better judgement" I accepted his offer--the whole way home I kept thinking--oh jeez, what is he gonna want in return? thinking the worst. We get to my house, he unloads the wood--won't let me help him --carries it up to the porch. And won't take anything but my profuse gratitude! Never got his name, wouldn't take gas $$, or a drink of water. That was the day I realized how incredibly neighborly and kind southerners can be. Where I'm from, that wouldn't happen in a bazillion years--or the guy would drive off with the wood, or come back & rob me blind. Someday when I have a truck--I hope I get to return the favor to some other hapless gardener! :)

**Frankly IMO until a car company offers these behemoths with a hybrid engine offering close to 30 mpg , I don't think anything has changed at all . A big truck is a big truck** Ditto. I'm not so easilly impressed. Whoever invented the current engine management systems around 1980 that did away with the carburetor and precisely maintains the air fuel ratio through all conditions earns a phrase like 'changing it all'. Overhead cam has been around forever. More holes cast in the head for more valves ranks up there with drilling more holes or installing more lengths of metering rods in a carburetor to meter fuel, zzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzz. The first company that comes up with the vehicle that has the same capacity as the 'push rod' engine, while getting significantly higher mpg, or better yet, doesn't use gas or diesel at all, will get my vote for 'the truck that's changing it all' title. I won't care who builds it first. Till then, we're just talking about more stuff as important as electric butt warming seats and headlights that come on and dim automatically, ect. Big deal.

To show how strong the old V8's can be....I knew a salesman who was driving 60,000-65,000 miles per year. Always had a Ford, Crown Vic V8. Claims an airplane mechanic told him that the oil never wears out that much and to just change the oil filter every 5,000 miles and then put the same oil back in. Change the oil and filter at 20,000 miles. He would keep the cars for 3 years and so would have 180,000-190,000 miles on a car. At that time, if you all remember, when the odometer hit 100,000 it would turn and start all over again at zero. So, when he traded his cars in the dealer always said, "Heh, can't give you much. 80,000 miles is a lot for a 3 year old car." Little did he know it was 180,000. Wonder how the people made out who bought those cars. The funny thing is with his method of "oil exchange" rather than "change" he claims he never once had engine related problems. So, to him, that proved that the airplane mechanic was right.

Hey Al, first of all, if you are going to alter a quote, don't provide an easy link to it. I beileve it says 1/2 ppd NOT 12 1/2ppd and it says the 1/2ppd is what the action level for radon in the home provided by the EPA is equivalen to, not exposure from granite countertops. I consider any study you or the SSFA provided samples to, or in any way contributed to, to not be reliable due to your bias. Nor do I believe the MIA should be funding or contributing to a study if it is to be considered unbiased and reliable. WITHIN the scientic community, readings are sometimes taken at face value until proven otherwise, because reputable scientists should adhere to professional standards. You are in no way a part of the scientific community and about as biased as they come. Your readings carry no weight with me. Neither would the MIAs. Even within the scientific community, results must be reproducable before they are give too much weight. Those scientists have said they WILL publish. The thing about peer review journals, though, is that it not just up to the person who does the study. It has to have been conducted in a reliable enough way to pass scrutiny by the peer review board and accepted for publication. Saying you are going to publish doesn't make it so. I hope they do, though. That would mean at lest that others in THEIR scientific field feel that the study was significant enough to share. Then, if others in that field desire, they will conduct their own studies to determine if the results are reproducable. If not, the entire debate starts again. If they are, then we have a starting point. That is a long way from you shouting from the roof tops in forums that Shivakashi should be banned or that one guy with Lung Cancer of unkown type and medical history got it from his countertop. I certainly don't have any reason to believe you would find a single hot stone and submit as many elevated samples as you could get from it that would make it seem like you were right in your calls of the sky falling, any more than I would have reason to believe the MIA or others in the industry would hide hot stones. But it really is better if you guys have no connections to the studies at all. I am sorry Al, this may be your bread and butter, but I don't plan to make it my profession. I left that one and have made NO to attempts to go back. I disliked working with and against biased people who only want to promote their own interests. I do not sell, fabricate, mine or do anything else having to do with rock, granite, solid surface or any other type of countertop. I am a nurse. I refuse to spend my day following links from the SSFA or the MIA. If there were any independent studies from peer reviewed scientific journals linking granite countertops with cancer, I am sure you would have posted to them directly by now. I did do a quick search at one time from Pub Med and could find no studies linking granite countertops to radiation or specifically to radon exposure. I did find articles noting that radon can come from building materials in general, including cement, drywall and granites, but I mentioned that myself at one time. My impression from your reaction then was the same as it is now, that your only interest in radon or radiation exposure and health risks are if it is in granite countertops. Do you also warn your customers that most elevated radon levels come from the soil, not countertops, and that radon can also come from other building materials, and that they should test their homes and act if they find elevated levels even if they purchase solid surface countertops from you? Do you only sell and install "no VOC" cabinets and carpets and adhesives? If you have a direct link to one or more scientific journals that report on radon measurements from granite countertops in buidlings, or exposure to radon or radation from granite countertops, please provide links and I will be happy to look at a couple (not even 10 so please don't provide 50 and expect me to wade through and find a few lines that you can extrapolate into something). These are specifically studies in peer reviewed scientific journals that AT LEAST test granites of the types being used AS COUNTERTOPS. Please don't waste my time by linking to articles in publications by the SSFA or MIA or any other trade journals. In my opinion, relying on studies about granite funded by the SSFA are akin to relying on cancer studies funded by tobacco companies. I have called you strongly biased, I don't recall calling you a liar. I do have some ignorance about radiation reading and testing, it simply isn't my area of expertise any more than it is yours. However, I don't consider you any more of an expert on it and I do tend to be choosy about who I let "teach me" about any subject. No insult intended but I wouldn't consider letting a guy with a kitchen business teach me about the measuring of radon or radiation or the health effects of radon or radiation any more than you would let me teach you about how to install cabinets. I want information without the "spin". I really don't expect to ever get it from you. Sue