I'd probably answer "less than an hour." My DH went thru this & the state had a "rehab specialist" who suggested he could work as a cashier at a service station! The judge told him he'd never seen one offering a cot so DH could lie down after an hour. (He had already had 3 back surgeries & quad. bypass.) Our attorney had another court appearance that day so couldn't go with us...first thing Judge said was "let the record show they appeared w/out benefit of an attorney" & it was very first sentence in our award letter...however the fee was with held anyway & it took over a year to recover that amount! Also failed to receive check for minor child; DH went to SS office with son's birth certificate. Not enough...they wanted more!! My DH asked "Do you want me to bring the kid in so you can SEE him in person?" No, records from his pediatrician, day care & on & on! Another six months before those checks came. It was a nightmare! One pc. of advice...take copies of all of your records & give S. S. ONLY the copies. They tried to keep some of ours. Sure hope your luck is better than ours! Suzi

I am really sensitive to noise, so I feel for you, Florantha. I hope that the solutions you're exploring end up being straightforward and affordable. Noise is a big issue in our entire downstairs, not because of plumbing, but because the main air conditioning panel is in our living room, halfway up the wall where the stairs lead to the second floor. When the blower turns on, we have to turn the tv up 2 or 3 "clicks" in order to continue to hear dialogue. Plus, the washer and dryer are just behind the stairwell, in the hallway between the garage and the living room. DH and DD are constantly forgetting to close the door that insulates the living room from the washer and dryer noise, even when both machines are running. At cooking time, sometimes my DH and my DD get into a "sound war" without being conscious of it. She turns the tv up because he's turned the vent hood on, and then he turns up his radio in the kitchen... rinse, repeat, till he calls her to set the table and she shouts "WHAT?" Meanwhile, I drive them both crazy by turning the tv off, the radio off, and the vent hood down. That's me, the sound-sensitive one! Oh, and they feel slighted when I retreat upstairs or outside with the cordless phone, because I cannot concentrate with the tv or the radio going in the background. One really nice thing about our new kitchen is that our vent hood has four speeds instead of two, so it's not necessary to go to airplane-turbine levels of sound just to boil some water. Another odd thing -- we have an undercabinet radio (with a CD player and an audio in thingy for the iPod). We had a mixup with the undercabinet lights, and at first there were fluorescents installed. They caused tremendous interference with the radio! We had them swapped out for Xenon lights -- no interference. Of course, we got better sound quality, but worse energy efficiency, by making that swap. (The Xenon throw off a lot of heat onto the counters, like halogens.) I'm hoping that since we love the kitchen so much, we'll spend more time in the family room together, and less time in different rooms with noisemakers going!

I've always wanted one of these! We have them at work and I love them. The one on your link is 228 dollars. Where is it for 100? I'd love to add one to our kitchen!

Yes, strangely enough, I have heard about a theramin. The frequency of sound produced is controlled by the capacitive coupling between the player's hand the an electrode in the instrument. The capacitance changes with the distance of the player's hand from the electrode. The theramin was an experimental instrument constructred when electronic engineers and inventors were tinkering with applying electronics to musical instruments. The electrified guitar and bass guitar are fine examples that came from that period. The theramin was a novelity that never moved beyond its inception stage and did not become popular. It makes interesting sounds, but is msuically deficient compared to what can be done with other instruments. Most of the note changes on a theriman are slurred. It is almost impossible to sharply change from one note to another, or to produce 'plinked' notes, a common device used in most conventional instruments. The first theriman was made using vacuum tube amplifiers.