Dear Josh, So sorry that this happened to you. It may be possible that the company in question purchased (or otherwise acquired) the rights to use your photos because you posted them here. I've posted this info before, but below is the relevant portion of GW's Terms of Service. I miss all of you. However, life has dealt me some hard blows in the past months. No time to post photos, but when I do it will always be at the other place (LP). I saw this message and felt the need to respond. Cheers to everyone, Blanca By submitting content, which shall include your member name, to any "public area" of the GardenWeb Network, including, but not limited to, the forums and your personal website, exchange page and journal, you grant iVillage a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right (including any moral rights) and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, sublicense, assign, derive revenue or other remuneration from, communicate to the public, perform and display the content (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, for the full term of any Rights that may exist in such content. If you are not the creator of such content, you also warrant that the holder of any Rights, including moral rights in such content, has completely and effectively waived all such rights and validly and irrevocably granted to you the right to grant the license stated above. You also permit any visitor or member to access, display, view, store and reproduce such content solely for personal, noncommercial use.

Jane - good question. I know I can use AOL free mail. It seems to me that this summer/early fall, I kept finding issues with AOL email - and several web-savvy people (like my web designer, etc. suggested that AOL is very troublesome in it's efforts to be helpful. Now I'm having trouble remembering why I was getting so frustrated with AOL. This is what I do recall. Not always being able to view embedded images (including an email blast from a non-profit I'm on the Board of). Difficulty formatting emails - if I cut and paste word documents in the email, it gets deliverd with all kinds of extraneous punctuation and symbols. I've had neighborhood listservs reject some of my postings bc. AOL sent so much gibberish with it. I had to rewrite it to get it sent to these neighborhood yahoo-group listservs in a format that was clear. I think (I could remember this wrong), that if I use AOL's fonts, colors, formatting - it may not get delivered that way. Now I'm opening AOL mail through the firefox browser and not using AOL software. I have found that the search function is vastly inferior to the search function if I opened AOl software. Having AOL email open in Firefox, the searching for emails is highly inaccurate - to the point of being almost useless. This is probably the single biggest frustration I have with AOL (now that I"m not using their software). I don't know that it would work any better if I used the free AIM instead of opening my AOL mail in Firefox. Not quite sure if and how AIM is different. Using AOL mail via Firefox - it just handles my emails badly. It will place emails in my old folder when I've marked them as save as new. I seem to have less control over where I save my emails. It seems to almost randomly decide whether it keeps the email in the new inbox - or places it in the old folder (where it eventually disappears). And I can only access old emails for a short period before they're deleted. And the recently deleted seem available for a tiny, tiny time compared with the AOL software. Jane - if your experience with AOL mail is different, please let me know. I know that it's just been very cumbersome and un-useful since I switched to Firefox this summer. Another problem -which may not be AOL, but could be firefox - or who knows what else. If I'm looking on craigslist and I want to inquire about an item for sale, I can't manage to reply to the poster. I hit the "reply to" button, it places that poster's anonymous contact info in the to: field - but when I hit send, it says that I can't send mail with parenthesis in the BCC field. I have not added anything in the BCC field - and if I click bcc field and delete everything in it, it still insists there are parenthese in the field and won't send the email. Gee - now that I start thinking about it, I guess I can recall all the frustrations I've been having with AOL (not using the AOL software). The reason I haven't cancelled my paid AOL account is bc. I still need to resort to going through AOL software to reliably access and search old emails. I will keep a free AOL account with my current email address - just so I can be reached by anyone I forgot to inform about my new address. And for those who forget and send to the old. I still want to receive those emails. But my hope is to use it less and less often bc. it's troublesome now. A different reason for not using AOL for my professional email is that it just doesn't look professional. (I presume that's one reason your husband using gmail for his professional correspondence - it's just more professional and less amateurish seeming to clients/customers.) not2bright- I appreciate the FWIW addition. It's a little over my head - but not completely. I do have a professional website - which my webdesigner set up to forward my emails to me. I'm not quite ready for setting up my personal email like this, but the more I hang out on this forum, the more I'm willing to attempt things that I once thought were not possible. Lynn.

Stargazzer, let me clarify my explanation as I think we may be discussing two different things. "Step up basis" is not 'a state thing'. It is the IRS definition regarding estate taxes. Yes, there are many ways to deed property. But not all of them are tax-advantaged to the beneficiary. Being ignorant of these consequences can be financially painful. Now, admittedly the OP's SO is probably at a low risk for dying from this surgery! But my point was that this couple has been together for a lengthy period of time already, yet has not made a real effort to consider what MIGHT happen on that future date when something goes very wrong. Because....eventually something will. We all die, and not at the same time; that's a fact of life that is inevitable. No matter what state you live in, or how much your total and/or separate assets are, if you want your assets to go to someone else, it behooves you to find out what is the best way to pass your assets on, with the least amount of hassle and the least cost to the survivor. Loving someone, but leaving behind a legal/financial mess - or even worse, accidentally disinheriting them - is not a kind bequest to anyone. What is the point in leaving someone 50% of the house, for example, if they can't pay the taxes due upon death because the legalities ignored the tax consequences of the original joint decision? For the majority of people, setting up their legal and financial affairs properly takes very little real time, once they stop procrastinating, LOL. There are ways for SOs to leave their various assets to one another without need to resort to a Revocable Trust, for instance. And there is absolutely no time like the present for the OP to begin getting started! These are things (wills, durable healthcare POA, financial POA) that one should do BEFORE something bad happens, because you never know when Life/Chance/Luck may decide to take that freedom of choice away from you.

I have been shocked by the responses on this site that in so many ways elude to justifying the manufacturer for not finishing the job. I would have thought if any site would side with the consumer it would be this one. I have no intentions of doing business with either of them. That is not that point. The point was for others who may be considering them thru other dealers to be aware of the attitudes of River Run And Touchstone. I gave a very long background so the story would be complete with details instead of bad mouthing for spite. Touchstone products are well made if nothing goes wrong. If something does do not expect it taken care of in a timely manner. I have paid more for the cabinets then I have collected to date. I had to pay in full for them when they were delivered. I did that so the owner could get them installed on time with their contractors schedule. As a result of Touchstone not making them correctly and having to deliver 4 times to the project instead of what should be 1 the owner does not want to pay untill complete so I am motivated to get it finished. Touchstone could care less about that. Suppliers like that will put you out of business for paying for everything. I mine as well have a sign on my door that says looking for cabinets? I will buy them for you!!!!! That only lasts so long before you are out of money. I will be fine I was just so surprised the companies stated their postitions when they are clearly not professional in their approach to problem solving. Lastly..... I was in the owners house friday night till 8:30 pm installing the last delivery of doors that showed up 6:00 pm. The national sales manager told me the doors would arrive thursday when he said he was going to replace my business with another one meaning I do not sell enough of his products for him to care.... I called the owners to tell them thursday was the day and to be home if possible to finish. Thursday comes and I get a call from the plant thursday afternoon saying the truck was finally loaded and just left and would arrive to me late friday. I had to call the owners and say false alarm should be tomorrow now. The manager knew that he did not have the courtsey to explain what he meant by thursday was my day..... The owners said to me friday they never know if I am telling the truth because what ever I say will happen never does. I am always miss lead by the company I immediately let the owners know what the plan is when I get information from Touchstone to find out the day of that I was not told the right thing. I have had 3 drivers deliver the 4 times they have been there. All of them have said they hate working their and are looking for other jobs as what happens to me all happens to them and the other employees. I do what ever is possible to give the best service I am able to. It amazes me there are so many companies who have enough people to work with they do not have to do the same. This business is awfull everyone wants you to give them the world for service value and quality and always beat you down to get it. It is a struggle every day to justify your products and services are worth the purchase. Reputation is everything and easy to lose when you have a finite number of repeat clients. Most of my business is repeat with various types of professionals in the Remodeling industry. I do all I can to make what I do professional and acurate the first time. The longer I am in this business I learn that a national company does not need to do the same thing as there are many fish in the sea for them to switch to.