I found this Black & White 5" Charm Squares Swap on Swap-Bot: http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/8134 ====================================== You will get 5 trading partners (US only), and you will send each of your partners 10 5' squares, so at the end of the swap you should have 50 squares. Each square can be either all black, all white or both. No solids though. Add a little note with a quick hello. Here is a link that might be useful: Swap-Bot B&W 5

A bannister painted a high gloss black enamel (think grand piano!), is stunning and really makes an ordinary bannister (I have one!) look a bit better. My spindles and risers are white - same color as all the trim in the house. The stair treads are the same color stain as all the floors. Dust typically does NOT collect on a bannister as it is "wiped down" multiple times daily when people use it.

I have both 1% and 5% white solar shades in my house. 1% in bedrooms for privacy and light control. 5% in living room to preserve some of the view and to reduce heat gain. It's a neat concept to be able to see the view through the 5% shade, but as soon as the sun is no longer an issue, which is much of the time (overcast days, trees leafed out and anytime after mid-day), I roll the shades up, because that's the view I really want to see. The sun shines through the 5% shade so much so that it hurts my eyes, so I have to position myself somewhere in the room where it is not an issue. I'm not sure how different black would be, but I've noticed that a lot of restaurants have black. I considered black, but I sort of prefer light and bright. I'm not sorry I ordered white, the view may be blurry, but the mind fills in the blanks, if that makes sense. I ordered mine from blind.com.

The spinners are good to have, and you can see me using them in the video in which the pizza came out the way it should. I have another video that shows me trying to use the spinners too soon, which should be avoided because the dough has to be cooked sufficiently before spinning the pizza. The spinners are easier to use and more efficient once the dough has cooked enough, but for me, the first turn needs to be done with a turner. If you do not have a turner, you can remove the pizza after 15 seconds using the peel and then turn it on the peel, but it's very difficult to use the peel as a turner without removing the pizza. I know you weren't laughing at me, but for me, the video is painful to watch. I have another video that shows what happens when you try to use the spinners after 10 seconds (another mistake), and so that one might appear funny to others, although not to me. I'll see about uploading it later, as it does have some good information. I don't care if people laugh at my videos - I'm used to it by now. It's just that it is never my intention to make funny videos. However, I've looked at some of my videos later and did find some of them funny. Sometimes I seem to say things without really thinking, and then I wonder later what possessed me to say them. I'm pretty good at ad libbing and can be very spontaneous, but that can be dangerous also. A lot of times I catch people off-guard when I say things that even I don't know why I say. Most of the time I try to control myself, but some people are amused when I don't. I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but I was in a short independent movie that a friend of mine in Hollywood wrote and directed, and he also did the video editing. He's done video editing for Blind Date, The Robin Leach Show, and many others, and so he's quite good at editing. Anyway, he was using my house in Venice for a location shoot and happened to ask me if I wanted to be in the movie, as he wanted to flesh it out a bit and had decided to add another character, which I was to play. I said okay, but was never given a script, and so I had to ad lib my lines in front of the camera, which took a little bit of getting used to. The movie was a mystery/crime story and therefore not meant to be funny, and so I tried to play my part very seriously. However, when the movie was shown on the big screen to an audience in Hollywood, everyone laughed when I was on screen. I found out later that I was the comic relief, although no one told me that before. After the movie was over, there was a reception in a patio behind the theater, and I got to meet people from the audience who told me that they loved my performance and wanted to know if I had been in anything else. At least they liked me, even though they thought I was funny. P.S. I fixed the link so that it does not take you to Seattle.