I also have a GE smooth top range that I bought in 1995. I have loved it. Just now the burners seem to be maybe not heating as quickly. Could be my imagination. I've been looking to replace it with induction (it will then be moved to the basement to replace the circa 1970s gold electric coil top GE that is down there working awesomely!).

Morning ladies : ) As I reread my post from last night, I see so many shorthand phrasings and mistakes...please forgive my exhausted, birthday-cake-addled typing/speech : ) Then I had a migraine last night and I'm still recovering, so I may not be entirely polished and coherent yet, but there's so much to respond to...because MAN, this is an incredible thread. There are still things from before my last reply that I wanted to address, including first off a bit about why sub teaching is out of the question...our school district has gone through a huge layoff/budget reduction process this past summer, extremely traumatic and publicized. We've now got class sizes about twice the size of those that the Chicago teachers were posting as being unworkably high. Things are really bad here. In fact the largest part of my summer, which I had planned to devote to learning Spanish and finishing the house, suddenly went to helping to develop a parent/teacher alliance dedicated to dealing with the budget situation in a more intelligent, less damaging manner. Literally hundreds of teachers were laid off (and they didn't have to be--long story). So there are lots of teachers wandering around trying to find anything they can... judith, I agree with you -- the organization of this thing is extremely weird. What's happening is that the for-profit online institution (not a U. of Phoenix kind of thing--an outgrowth of a well-established 'real' university) that the 'observer' is attending is in another state, so they have had to arrange observations for the practica of students who don't have teaching posts at the moment. She doesn't have a teaching post, so the school called our organization and asked if she could 'use' our classes, with no coordination of pedagogy, no recognition of onsite supervision necessary, no nothing... My background as it relates to observations/internships: I've not only created pre-service training for adult literacy teachers, and supervised *well-thought-through* internships with plenty of communication going both ways, I've also been trained and have trained current literacy professionals in educational ethnographic observation, which this person is *not* doing. (my supervisor now doesn't even know what ethnography is) IOW, I know enough to know that everything is wrong with this lazily-constructed excuse for an observation class. running, that must have been a really striking course of events for you all. Very frustrating to order more food than turns out to be needed, I imagine! I do think it would (have been) totally fair for my supervisor to share some of the payment with me in recognition for *any possible* extra bother it might be, and that that's what I definitely would have done in her place. On a different level, wrt starting a program of my own, I'm sure that other teachers will recognize this phenomenon: the *students* have been much more generous in their recognition of my work than my millionaire supervisor has. I'm talking *amazingly delicious* labor-intensive food made and given to me for our family, large and frequent offerings of frozen home-raised, grass-fed beef, a Visa gift card, handmade craft gifts, even clothing that people have bought in styles of their country of origin...I am embarrassed to accept them because it's more than some of the families can comfortably afford--but I try to be gracious and recognize the emotions and appreciation behind them. These are folks who sometimes can't come to class because they ran out of gas and they can't afford either busfare, or to refill the tank, until the next payday. So if I do start my own literacy program, I would never be able to charge a cash fee to the learners, because I don't think that they value something less if it's free -- folks who have to scrape by, overworking in order just to have enough money to survive, recognize that we all need to help each other as much as possible, and just because something isn't tied to money doesn't mean it's worthless. And in ref. to your basic point, that I should just tell the supervisor that the 'observation' needs to stop: that's *exactly* what I decided to do this morning, rather than offer to help facilitate it, etc...I just woke up with the thought that 'this is not my issue and I don't want to expend any more energy on it -- it just has to stop because it's negatively affecting the class." I didn't say all of that in my e-mail, but rather pretty much exactly what you said, nothing more, and not with any personal or negative tone at all. We'll see what happens, but it's definitely proceeding from a solid, love-based foundation of what's best for the class, so I stand by it. And stinky, you know you never need to worry about hijacking! Like golddust, I think that threads really begin to live when they veer off into new directions and take on new energy, so feel free! It's so interesting to see how different people price their garage/estate sales -- some folks have an "I just want to get rid of it and avoid 10 trips to Goodwill" attitude, and others want to wring every last possible cent from their stuff, even if it means they sell much less. I'm a person who doesn't like to haggle too much, so if something is priced insanely highly, I'm not going to bother to counteroffer, because of the negative energy..not worth it to me, even if the sellers say "make me an offer". eh. It's all psychology, isn't it! *Now* for my day-after-birthday indulgence, since yesterday was so crazy: a trip to Benjamin Moore for some paint samples (Covington Blue is looking like an early leader) for my file cabinets, and a nice long swim session at our lovely neighborhood pool : ) Swim off all that stress...which reminds me, oakley, that was an incredibly powerful story you shared about the effects of job stress on you. I'm glad it didn't have any worse outcome. We have to remember what's most important, even if some forces would like us to forget... I've said it before, but you all are completely amazing.

We had beautiful Calacatta Gold quartzite counters & island top installed weeks ago; DH didn't like the polished look, so we paid to have the surface honed. After installation, a coat of GranQuartz sealer (413S Impregnator, I believe) was applied and left to dry overnight. The next day, I ran my hands across the surface, hoping for as smooth a feel as we experienced with the honed sample. Instead, grit. The installer (not due back for a couple of days to put another coat down, since one coat still led to water absorption) told me it might just be surface dirt/dust, and to go ahead and wipe/rinse everything down with plain water and a lint free cloth. We did as instructed, and the grittiness got worse: just like throwing water onto unsealed wood/lumber and having the grain rise up! The installer is scratching his head. I contacted one of the technical experts at GranQuartz, and he said a different GQ product (353P specifically for porous surfaces) should have been used. He couldn't explain the grittiness, but said to definitely begin by using the correct product. The initial coat of sealer was stripped with some solvent (recommended by GQ) and left to dry 48 hours. After 24 hours, I could still feel the grit. Guys came back Wednesday with a stiff brush to loosen up whatever the grit was (not sure if it's old solvent, old sealer residue, or the quartzite itself); then wiped down with acetone. Even before they left, however, I had them feel the counters and they, too, could feel the bits. Oddly, most of the time our fingers picked up no particulate matter . But when we ran a razor over the surface, something was definitely 'powdering' up and onto the razor blade. Upper left photo is a clean razor -- white fragments on the other three, after scraping various areas of the counter: Just really floored what this might be. GQ said this might be one of the unintended consequences of honing a surface: opening up the pores and possibly loosening up natural particles or even resin that may have been applied in Brazil. I don't mind at all (in fact, love!) the natural fissures and grooves we can feel from the honed surface. We knew not to expect the glassy-smooth finish that a polished surface offers. However, this grit is throwing everyone for a loop. Installer will be by Tuesday to 'lay hands' on the counter and see what we're up against.

What's "normal" for one granite, or one slab vs. the next, can change. Absolute black has very consistant and small crystalline structure. It's "normal" appearance is very smooth, with some rougher larger crystalline areas being possible. It's a minority in granite in that it's usually very smooth to the touch with no pits or fissures visible. Most granite will be anything but 100% mirror smooth. If that's one of your top requirements for your counter, then engineered stone would come nearer fulfulling that requirement than natural stone. Bianco Antico has a larger crystalline structure and isn't ever going to be considered glass smooth. It's normal to have pits and fissures running through the slabs and those areas can always be seen with the naked eye against the light, and they can also sometimes be felt. That's normal and is far more typical of most "granite" being sold today, and that's part of the charm of Mother Nature. Some stone yards inject resin into their stones both to help them hold together during fabrication and to fill in some of those pits and fissures. It's not a wrong or right approach. It's just two different approaches to stone.