Dear Jovy1097, I have Osmanthus fragrans Lour. var. fragrans in my garden in Tokyo. I have had it for 2 years and it blooms only in autumn. In fact all the osmanthus i have seen around blooms in autumn, but there are some types I think that bloom all year. what kind of osmanthus do you have? thanks in advance. You have a very nice blog, maybe I have to start a blog too.

I can only comment on the Bluestar RNB, which seems not to be a front-runner for you. But as you ask about the hot doors . . . it just has not been any sort of problem for us. The door gets very warm under certain conditions, and you might be surprised if you were to fall against it with palms flat. Surprised, but not injured at all -- our door just doesn't get hot enough to burn somebody. Moreover, if I'm baking, or roasting (or braising, etc.) while working at the range, I'm not especially aware of heat coming through the door at all. And the oven door handle stays just fine -- don't need a potholder to open the door at all. Our two younger kids had just turned 9 when we bought the range and I'd had similar questions, and had them resolved before we bought place our order. They've never had problems getting getting burnt, and neither has our small dog. Of course other kids may be younger, and things happen, but I don't see a danger from the door itself. With our range, a little kid could fall against the glass door, or poke it with a finger while looking at cookies, and not be injured at all. Startled, perhaps, but not injured. The far more significant risk seems to me to be common to any range at all: little kids need to know that a stove is not a toy, but something to be careful about. They need to know that they oughtn't to go crashing into it or leap up and grab things. They need to know that whether you buy a BS, or CC, or NXR, or GE, or a 20 year-old whirlpool from a garage sale. An open flame is an open flame; a hot coil is a hot coil; and a pot full of boiling water can scald anybody.

In response to rmol64, and anyone else who may be interested, we ended up purchasing the Whirlpool 9600 Steam Washer and Dryer pair. Here was the thought process: 1. After shopping around, and talking with a few friends, I decided to stick go with the FL Washer. The benefits seem great, and will definately be heads-and-shoulders better than our 20-year-old-Kenmores. I think the "smell" issue can be dealt with effectively by keeping the door open, and cleaning as directed by all the mfgrs. Also, I convinced myself that the FL washers would fit fine in our "pass through" laundry room. 2. Based upon recommendations from friends, on-line reviews, and opinions on this forum and others, I narrowed the choice down to Whirlpool, LG, and Bosch. I was disappointed that there was no clear "leader" in the quality/reliability perspective department. There are plenty of people who have these brands and love them, and there are plenty of horror stories from owners and service people for these brands too. 3. We ended up choosing the Whirlpool 9600's over the others for a couple of reasons... The Bosch units had less capacity. Both salesman we spoke to said that the LGs are somewhat less stable in some homes, particularly on the 2nd floor (or higher), which is a concern to me, since I don't think our house construction is super great. I was able to see a live demo of Whirlpool, and they were very quite and stable. Supposedly, the Whirlpool suspension is better than the LG, from what the salespeople told us. Lastly, I know that Whirlpool has good support in our area, and I'm not sure about LG. I've heard so much about problems with LG's service and support, I didn't want to have to worry about it, since service calls seem to be a way of life anymore with these sorts of appliances. 4. Even though we like the storage and positioning aspects of the pedistals, we decided to not get them. This was because several people were in agreement that the pedistals can tend to make the units a bit more unstable, noisy, and virbrate the house. I'd hate to spend the extra $$$ only to find out that our laundry room floor acts like a drum tuned to just the right resonnant frequency of the washer/dryer and have dancing appliances in my house! That would just be my luck! We did decide to get the extended warranty, which is something I almost never get. It just seems that washer/drier problems will crop up, so what the heck. So that's the story of what we decided. We havn't received the units yet, because our laundry room needs to be repaired before the appliances can get installed. :-)

Hello everyone, I have some ideas and questions I'm hoping someone might be able to comment on. We have decided to remove the tile. The installer is gone and we cannot get a hold of him. I can't blame him totally as the problems originate from the floor install not being level. These are my thoughts. The bottom cabinets must be off as well as the floor. In order to fix that we'd have to use shims to raise the cabinet base where the tiles slant downward horizontally. Then we have the issue of the granite not meeting the wall evenly. I hope I'm making sense because I know I'm not good at explaining. Anyhoo, unless the cabinet base can be raised, no matter what tile is put in, it's going to meet that one corner on a downward slant. (I think.) So, I'm wondering, is there some kind of material we could use that won't show the crooked walls/cabinets/tile line? As a last resort, I even thought to use bead board to cover it all up. This has not been an easy decision. I have been agonizing over this. Thanks in advance. Mary & Jeff