Your oven sounds like it is working fine. Baked items in a pan with sides, like brownies, won't take any less time since only the top is exposed. Roasted meats and poultry in a roasting pan will benefit a lot more from convection - they will take a little less time and will be brown on the outside and juicy on the inside. Cookies will depend on a number of factors - the kind of cookie sheet you're using and what kind of convection your oven has. If it's "true" convection with a heating element around the fan, the heat will be a bit more even than regular convection where the heat comes from a bottom element and the fan blows the air around. You'll have to experiment a little with turning the sheets. 15-17 minutes to pre-heat the oven seems about right.

Thanks David. Not sure what you meant by your last comment. There are several speed settings - maybe 3. They go up in noise as i turn the knob. I checked outside and it isnt completely closed when not running but when i turned it on and checked it outside it seems to blow pretty strong out the wide open vent. No doubt its blowing the air out! I guess that the difference between the larger area it sucks in and small area it blows out. Should the vent completely close when not operating? Don't want critters coming in.

Oh, good. So it wasn't just me! It's been too cold to do much work in my shop, and rainy. I'm really getting tired of the rain. I did manage to finish a mushroom and start another: Also, I do most of my GardenWeb browsing at work during my lunch, but for a while they started blocking Photobucket pictures. Grrrr. You definitely lose a lot not being able to view photos on this thread. But they have released the ban (maybe too many people complained). So I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's projects! BTW, I'm thinking about taking a class in darjit at my local JC. Anyone heard of darjit? From the description, it seems to be pretty much cement sculptures using armature (a technique I haven't tried yet), but with a mixture that isn't quite cement. I'm thinking it might be fun to try armature with an instructor around, instead of going it alone, like I usually do. Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

Patriciae - Jasdip said, and I reiterated for you, that the picture wasn’t good and to think of a chest of drawers. I did guess tunnel at one point but couldn’t get the L to work. As for it not being a specific place, no less so than 3, 4, 8, and 12, no? Thanks, Rusty, for solving that mystery! The only one I didn’t get ever or at all was the anchor one. (Obviously with a lot of help.) I’ll have to look that up. Like others, I was hung up on Anchorage but couldn’t get it to work. Usually I give up on the super hard ones, but this one was fun and kept my interest up. Not sure if it was the puzzle itself or the discussion. Thanks jasdip - and everyone!