Just read this thread for the first time. I've had many experiences and yes I plainly saw the deer the first time I looked at it without reading the text, other than the thread title (which hinted at something might be there). The deer is plain as day. Cool picture. Things I have seen without going into minute details: Orbs in the cemetary - I have a photograph I took where they are all over the cemetary of varying sizes and groups (taken with film, not digital) and developed at a commercial lab. It was my Mother's graveside service. They look similar to children's soap bubbles. I read about them later, after I saw them in the picture. Graveyard dog apparition in a cemetary - a thin, or pale vision of a white German Shepard that was standing there looking at me - then turned and walked back into the woods and poof - faded out of view, before it should have been out of view. Strange animal actions when asking for proof something existed. (3 times). Twice with wild birds and 1 time involving a squirrel. Too involved to explain. Astral projection - personal experience (2 times). First time scary, second time more controlled. Entry and exit point is the back of my neck both times. Read about in detail after the experiences. UFOs (many) but I work near experimental aircraft places, but these were quite visible and nothing like any aircraft I've seen before. All different than each other, and see in different places. One was quite small and I saw it over a house in my current community. It hovered and moved in various directions then sped off and disappeared. It was a green light with no definition, other than round. Music in a haunted lighthouse keeper's house (Point Lookout State Park) - America's most haunted place with cold air wafting up from the opening in the wall area in a upstairs bedroom. They were not playing any music. My son heard it too. Link to Pt. Lookout provided by the DNR of Maryland. Lots of death and misery there during the civil war. There is a mass grave of over 3800 prisoners of war there, and unmarked gravesites as well. Also, shipwrecks. If you are in the area it is open the first Saturday in November (and there are lines). The lightkeepers house is a mirror image house, with both sides the same, double everything. Cold spots that one wants to move out from immediately. Extreme deja vu around certain people. Foggy veil in a photograph taken of a deceased person moments after death, yet ALL images taken before death, and the next day are normal. Only those taken within 2 minutes of death. A soul escaping? Fog or smoke in a photograph taken at a funeral that had the outline of a face. Lights in shrubs as a child Ghost sports car (with top down) with one driver that crossed in the path of me and another person (we both saw it at the same time) and there was no road where it went, only grass. Caused the driver to hit the brakes it looked so real (yet unreal) It was moving left to right straight across in front of our path. I don't deny the existence of anything and most of these experiences were not scary, except cold spots and astral projection. Most I felt no emotion about, it was just there and I was not trying to see any of it. Some experiences felt warming. Brand me a nut - I don't care. I've seen what I've seen and that's about all I can say about it. I don't know why I see these things (and I did not see all of them alone) and some are photographed and some not. I don't try to explain them one way or the other. CT Here is a link that might be useful: The Gosts of Point Lookout

I do talk to my plants, but I don't think they're listening. That doesn't stop me, though. As several of you have described, there are complex relationships between the plant and animal kingdoms that we have yet to fully describe. I know that a plant is stimulated by a wind or a whirring of bird wings as surely as by a human whisper or vibrating word/sound. I once heard a mystic speaking a poem about how he had begun as a mineral, and had died to become a plant, and then simple animal life, to finally become a Human. He asked, What has death ever lost him? To go a little off-topic, I think that Humans are much healthier when we are immersed in greenery. Certainly we are a benefit as stewards to our houseplants, but I think that we gain far more from them than they do from us. Gardening is therapy, indeed. And, for me, it is also natural communion - worship. I attend no organized Church - I worship only in the Green Chapel. I believe that this connects me to our most primal myth, that of the Garden of Eden, when we were but children as a species, delighting in the world for the first time, naming things for the first time, and scarcely differentiated from the earth, the plants, and the creatures around us. Thanks for the thoughts everyone, and thanks GG for the room to ramble. Josh

We all seem to be repeating the exact same thing to each other. Yes I am perfectly aware the difference between a PC BOARD, which to me is and always has been a weak spot on ANY stove that has them, VS a "light bulb" and "ignitor" and a few various items that happen to have electricity running through them. Seems as though I have explained this as good as I possibly can about 5 times now. My gripe is with the PC BOARDS, they fail quite often and are expensive to replace. The worst ones are the ones on back of the stove and when you boil big pots of water on the back burners you gets lots of moisture on them. NXR has nothing like this, neither does the Blue Star which is one of the many things I liked about both of them. They are a good mix of commercial & home range design. Yes the Blue Star does have a very nice broiler, so does the NXR. Nice infrared 1700 degree broiler, it glows bright orange almost turning yellowish so has to be at least 1700+. The 15,000 BTU double stack burners on the NXR fit my needs perfectly, I have yet to find myself wanting for more BTU's. I use mostly cast iron and a 14X23 steel griddle for cooking, someone mentioned "and zero woks" oddly enough I use my hand hammered 16" Wok all the time, just put on the Wok ring that cost a whooping $3 and it works perfectly. Depending on what I am cooking in the cast iron and griddle I almost always turn the burner on very low a few minutes prior to cooking while I get things prepared and when I start cooking the pan is hot as I ever could possibly want it. The ONLY time I really use the 15,000 BTU's to their fullest is when I use the Wok and on the Wok ring it gets hot as hell fast on full blast. Boiling a big pot of water for pasta, I just put the pot on the back burner, add my salt, put the lid on it and get my pasta & sauce ready. Long before I am ever done with that the water is boiling away. I really just do not have a need for burners putting out any more heat than what these do, using the cookware that I use in the manner I use them. 60 seconds here & there make zero difference to me. I do however like having all burners the same and fully adjustable from super low simmer up to 15,000btu Blue Star was on our list of possible stoves, however the much higher price along with all the bad reviews we saw from people that had nothing good to say about them steered us away from them. Only one with more bad reviews than Blue Star was Viking. I have only seen one bad review of an NXR and that one was clearly due to bad shipping, had nothing to do with the stove itself. Now after owning this one for awhile and using it daily if someone were to say I will trade you my Wolf/Viking/Thermadore/Blue Star etc straight across I would decline. I am perfectly satisfied with this stove in every way and for the price it was literally a steal. If being a fully satisfied customer stating fact somehow makes me a "fanboy" (term used by adolescent children) then I wear that moniker proudly.

I guess I tend to be on the "spirit sensitive" side and have encountered all sorts of activity. The earliest I remember was when I was 4 or 5, on Christmas Eve at my grandmother's old house. The room seemed full of people rustling and whispering and one woman even sat on the bed and sort of "petted" me. I stormed into the living room where the grownups were and complained that "the people" were keeping me from falling asleep and that they would ruin everything because Santa wouldn't come if I were awake. Of course, the grown-ups chuckled and advised me to go back to bed. It was quiet when I returned and I learned later that Grandmother's house had been the town funeral home and that my room was where the bodies were laid out for viewing. Visitation, indeed! As a teenager, I saw a young girl in that room with her back to me, who seemed to be unaware I was watching her. Suddenly, and I mean so fast it wasn't human, she whirled around and rushed up to me, glaring and then glided through the closet door. Yikes! Note to self: don't sneak up on ghosts. They don't like being spied upon. I lived alone in an old apartment with a disagreeable, mischievous spirit. In the sunroom, I would tie all the matchstick blinds the same length and come in the next day to find they had been rolled up and down at different heights, all re-tied. Things were always disappearing and reappearing in other locations, if at all. A friend of mine named the ghost "Lucinda Huggins" to sort of keep things light while I tried to be patient with the tricks and mild hostility I was sensing. I pretty much let Lucinda have the sun room--it got too uncomfortable to hang out in there. One time I did a calligraphy project for a friend's birthday and I left it out to dry overnight before erasing the lines. The next morning, I found that Lucinda had poured ink over the whole project and screwed the lid of the ink bottle back on. Dang! After I left that place, I was chatting with a client and learned she had lived in that same apartment. She looked at me strangely, "So....did you have any encounters with the.... little spirit?" The next old house I moved to (it would probably be helpful if I didn't keep living in old houses, lol) was full of action, all mostly harmless. There was "someone" in the living room but he/she seemed warm and inviting to me. The most active "The Boot Ghost" who walked up and down the upstairs hall very loudly. Never saw anyone, but it was nerve-wracking when you were alone downstairs wondering if it was the sound of an intruder. Then there was the "Squeezing Ghost" which was like the Old Hag Phenomenon. You'd just about drift to sleep when suddenly you were being hugged tightly by something dark and awful and...knowing. Terrifying. Got me twice and my husband 3 times, one of which he found his feet being lifted. We moved from there to a 100-year-old house around the corner and I keep my antennae pricked for any presences and there are none. Like kframe19, it feels so odd and lonely! Been here for 7 years and the only strange activity seems to be a ghost cat, which will rub against your legs if you're sitting at a table and jumps on the bed and walks across you. Infrequently I'll see a little cat-sized shadow pass by a doorway. But that's it.