I'm no fan of Clay Lightloafers, especially since his tyrades then trying to cash in on "coming out" but in fairness something's wrong here. Methinks you're upset unjustly. If they were hired, there must be something in writing about the terms. NOBODY contacted his staff about it? Why not? You can't in fairness blame him when he clearly delegates this stuff out, can you? IF your allegations are true, it's a staff issue, not Aiken. Yes, it comes under his company but not him personally. He likely didn't fall down on this. Sounds to me like the school is equally negligent in not following through. Did Aiken's people agree to provide food? Did the school require it as part of the agreement? I'd be surprised if they did. Did everyone just "assume" they'd provide food & beverage for them, thinking this was a social event? When I'm hired on an all day job I'm often not allowed to leave the site and seldom do they provide food and beverage for me. It's my responsibility to bring it or go without. The school, if not the kids' parents should all clearly know this. This is not an uncommon thing. (I'm skeptical the conditions were truly so abominable that they were getting sick short of special needs, and if so, shouldn't the kids and their parents know about that?) Again, not a "claymate" in any way, shape or form, but I'm a reasonable person. People have a responsibility if they don't get what they're supposed to get they have obligations to inquire. You need to give a chance for it to be remedied before condemning and it's wrong to condemn the wrong people. This all presupposes that they did fall down on follow-up. If they did and he breeched his contract, that's a different story, but still there's remedies. Assuming all of this is true and he schemed to take advantage of and defraud high school kids, someone should contact all the other towns since assumably he'd do the same thing to them. There could easily be a large lawsuit here. Definitely bad publicity. But somehow, I just don't think this is the case. Let's be fair, people.

Fireclay Tile is great -- I just moved from downtown San Jose (where their hq is located) and not only is the tile beautiful but the people in the showroom are so friendly. I'll have to look for photos to see if I have anything good --we used their tile on walls, floors, kitchen, bathrooms, laundry-- but we just sold that house so I might be out of luck. This was five years ago and their styles might have changed, but I'd say that if you like a very streamlined or modern look, e.g. rectified porcelain with tiny grout joints, it might not be your thing. Our old house was a 1919 Craftsman so it was a good fit. Glazes are beautiful and they have every color/finish under the sun. A lot of crazing which I love but I know others hate... If anyone's in the SF Bay Area and on a budget, I'd recommend stopping by because they also have a boneyard -- where you can get seconds and overruns for less than retail. Not as good a deal as it was 5 years ago but if you are open as to color and don't need all the trim pieces to match, you can score a deal -- I think they're selling first-quality overruns for something like $10/sq ft now. I had to forcibly stop myself from driving to the boneyard "just to look" when we finally finished our renovation. I'm so bummed I moved 45 minutes away. I got so many ideas just digging through the boneyard and browsing the showroom.

Thanks eld6161; I looked again and saw the part that says conversations, clicked on it, and momentarily saw a few posts before the screen went blank and just spun around saying 'loading' but never actually opened again. Tried it 3 times without luck - suspect it's my older Safari browser, which I'll be replacing in about a month - I'll try again then. : ( Also, still cannot access the Etsy link. Edited to add: I thought the Etsy link was for a different place! DUH - I finally figured it out.

It all depends on the brush. If it's natural animal hair, it's safe for me to use to dust wood and high gloss finishes. If it's cheap poly fibers or plastic, those brushes will eventually leave scratches and degrade the finish on wood and high gloss surfaces. If the dust is built up over time, more than two weeks, the dust adheres to the surface and needs a dust cloth to break the surface tension between dust and surface. If you don't believe me, vacuum the furniture piece then wipe down the surface with a dark cloth. My natural animal hair brushes. I have this thing about quality, even dusting brushes.