When I read about all the people on here that are involved with sidewalk trashed plant scooping I've come to the conclusion that we are the normal ones and it's the people that do not trash pick that are different. Or is it they are indifferent? Back a number of years (before trash pickup) when we HAD to bring our own trash to the dump, my wife would accuse me of bringing back more stuff than what I left with. Well yeah!! Now I ride my electric bicycle around the neighborhood and fill my bike basket with tossed goodies. The batteries will take me around 25 miles before running down but I can still pedal back. The silent running bike is great for spotting goodies. If I find something I can't carry on the bike I'll go back and get the pickup truck. I've even found an old abandoned citrus grove over run with pines and oak trees in my bike travels around two or three miles from here and will bring back the bike basket filled with oranges. Great for juicing. Lou

Cute stuff - I have been a whole lot of things!

Oh gosh I am so sorry I posted and then disappeared for a week. Ok lets see and thanks for all the responses I'll try to answer all questions best I can! I'll give verbal answers and then try to work out getting pictures posted sometime in the next day or so. Steam Oven info: The steam oven requires a single cold water plumbing line into the oven. So actually very simple, although its a lot easier when you are doing a new build than a remodel (a crawl space would probably help ease remodel pains.) No drain required! I can't tell you a cost because it was buried in our overall plumbing bid, sorry. I DID have to remind both the plumber and builder about 15 times to plumb it tho even though we noted it specially in the plans. Just not on their usual list of to dos. On the reliability front, we read and read and read and concluded (with some level of uncertainty still) that Kitchenaid had finally replaced the component that was burning out during the clean cycle of their ovens and that if you bought a new one, you should be ok. BUT we haven't dared run the clean cycle yet :-) and I still felt guilty buying their product when they had gone for years without admitting and fixing the problem. We bought an extended warranty for both the oven and for our GE Profile Fridge just in case. And we bought from a local well reputed appliance dealer who we felt would honor the lemon guarantee also. But we do use the oven almost daily with no problems 2 months in. As you'd hope! We paid $3200 for the single oven, which was a definite splurge, and cheaped out on some of the other appliances going the scratch and dent route with those. Advantium info: You have to switch from a metal tray to a glass tray when using microwave or oven. The trays have grooves and fairly easily catch on the metal turntable mechanism, and both trays easily wipe clean. We have a drawer under the oven in which we keep the tray not in use, and the stand you are supposed to add in to do broiling. So far, no one has forgotten to switch the trays, and the oven gives you a digital reminder when you set the cooking times to use the metal or glass tray. If you were only to buy this one oven, I'd be sure and get the 120 which has a larger size interior than the 240. Read through the dimension info carefully. This one was a craigslist buy, about half retail, you find them regularly on craigslist and ebay. We also got our gas cooktop (Dacor 5 burner) off ebay, one third retail. This one was a lower risk, since there is so little that can go wrong with a gas cooktop mechanically. Island info: Upper counter is 4'6 across and 8' long. The long side is fine, the 4'6 width is insane. The upper counter is 43" off the floor so to start with, if I'm standing on the floor I can reach about 2' of the 4'6. Even if I lean out while standing on the stool, I can't come close to the far edge. I think we should have held it to about 3' deep. On top of that width, there is another 2'5" of lower counter width which holds our cooktop and funny caboose sink/wet bar. So when standing at the stove, I can only just barely reach the edge of the higher counter to put something up there, and then its too far away for anyone to reach from the other side. However it does hold a LOT of junk. notebooks and scanners and mail and coupon clippings and pan lids and the dog treat jar.... you get the idea. (slobs? us? oooops.) There is also a lower counter on the backside which is the cutting and food prep areas wrapping around from the cooktop side. Imagine an L shaped lower counter wrapping two sides of the higher counter. The backside lower counter is where the cutting board is with the bins, and that section is actually another couple of inches lower than the rest of the L. So we have three counter heights on the island, 43" height eating/piling things surface, then 36" height with a corner "wet" bar, a cooktop, a prep area with the advantium below, and then a 30" height butcher block. The pics will come next. thanks for your patience. I hope this made sense so far.

lids will be stored in a space sectioned off in the front of the drawer. saute pans will be stored in a divided pull out (stored handle up). so... how much depth should i allow?