Jack and The Banana Stalk Jack took the stand to tell his story and the Judge and Jury listened, intent on knowing the truth. His story went as follows ... You see, your Honor, my mother and I are poor. We only had a cow and two chickens plus the clothes on our backs and the landlord was demanding the rent. You gotta understand Your Honor, we couldn't pay. So I took the cow and the chickens and headed down to the market square to sell them. It was then that I was approached by a man who claimed to have a handfull of Magic Banana Seeds and that he was going to get rich by planting them and harvesting delicious Bananas for the rest of his life. I was naturally amazed that such small handful of seeds could make a man rich and when he offered me an opportunity to buy into his good fortune, I couldn't resist. And as all I had was the cow and the two chickens, I traded them for some of his Banana seeds. And my poor mother was at first in tears. But she was soon amazed after I planted the Banana seeds and of the seven I had, one grew immediately. It grew and grew, straight up into the clouds and I didn't even have to water it. About the second day, I wanted to see if there were any Bananas to be harvested, but I couldn't see because of the clouds. So I climbed up the Banana stalk. It took hours, but I finally came out on top of the clouds and was amazed to find solid ground and an enormous cabin with a wood pile outside it. Well, your Honor, I was curious, that's all. So I went up and not being able to get up to the window, I peeked in the open door. Nobody seemed to live there and I entered. I was amazed your honor. Upon looking around, I found a huge chair, by an equally huge table. And I climbed up on the chair and then onto the table, only to be even more amazed. There on the table were five huge gold coins, as big around as pie pans and as thick as ... well half as thick as that bible you made me swear to tell the truth on. I looked around some more and I found the hearth was cold and there was absolutely nobody around. So I assumed the place was deserted and could not believe my luck. With much effort I rolled each of those five coins, first off the table, then out the door and over to the Banana Stalk where I let them fall to the ground below. My mother had never been so happy. We were rich. But I felt certain there was more up there. So we bought the old shack of a house from our landlord with one of the coins and the next day, I woke early and climbed back up the Banana Stalk. As I broke through the layer of clouds I looked up and there, at the top of the stalk was an enormous bunch of Bananas and hidden amongst them was one that was made of solid Gold! I climbed up and was just pulling it loose when I heard him, your Honor. "Fee Fi Fo Fum" he roared, "I smell a scurvy thieving bum." I was frightened out of my wits. The golden Banana dropped to the ground far below and I started down the stalk. As I looked up, I saw him, this huge and horrible giant climbing down after me. I reached the bottom before he had time to and chopped down the stalk. He fell, crumpling up on the ground with his head, banging upon the golden Banana. But he was still alive, so I took out my gun and shot him, twelve times. Finally he was dead. It was self defense. And that's when the cops showed up and I was arrested. But you see, your honor, if that guy Jack could climb a bean stalk, get rich, kill a giant and live happily ever after, you gotta let me do the same. The Judge looked at him after he had finished and the Jury had rendered their verdict of Guilty. He clarified some details of the story. It would seem, Mr. Jack, that the giant wasn't much of a giant after all. He was nothing more than an elderly 72 year old retired man. Further, the wound to his head was inflicted by pistol whipping with the butt of your gun, not a golden Banana. But I will agree that the gun, with your finger prints on it, was responsible for the victim's death, although it'll never be clear, which of the twelve bullets ultiminately resulted in his demise. That fact makes this a particularly heinous crime and the Court will follow the Jury's recommended sentence. Your are therefore remanded to the custody of a State Penal Institution to await death by lethal injection. The moral of this story: If you are going to stand before a Judge and Jury in court with nothing more than a fairy tale or a fable, get a better lawyer to tell the story.

This is so interesting. I have had a Maytag double oven stove (3) in my last houses. Love them and worth the money since I'm single and really don't cook large meals. So the small top oven is used constantly, plus it has a toaster option and was able to eliminate one more "something" on my counter. Large dinners work great having the two ovens for different temp requirements at the same time. I won't ever be without one wherever I go, unless they show up with more issues like this glass thing. Thought I was the only one with oven window dust. This never happened to me 5 years ago with the same stove model...and new. I have to look at that dust every day and is the only thing in the kitchen that I see. Wonder what they did to pose this problem in the new design? The fact that Maytag was bought by GE? It is odd that many of the designs by them are having the same issue. Just looked at my ovens and the openings are quite large. With the heat that occurs when self cleaning I'd wonder if any of that dust would catch fire. Thanks for the link, was posted 4 years ago which does say something about the manufacturing changing. The response from GE was worthless though. There are a couple of things learned with a smooth top stove. One is use a razor blade to clean off tough stuff. It doesn't scratch the surface and doesn't need a holder, just gently run it across the hard cooked leftovers. The other is to gauge your cooking needs, use the time a burner takes to cool down for part of the cooking. Opted for a convection micro wave combination once and never could get the darn thing to cook right. It baked too, which did well, but apparently I'm just not a convection user. Plus using it meant there was no microwave available during cooking. A couple of years ago I saw a hint to use simple dishwashing soap for everything. Even windows. You wouldn't believe how easy things clean up and my windows sparkle. Very inexpensive. Moc, thanks for the stainless steel tips. I do use BKF. The mixture sounds interesting and will try it. I do get rid of scratches with wet sand paper used for auto paint detail. Doesn't take the stains away though. Be careful using drain cleaners on stainless steel. It has taken me 2 years to get rid of the spots from this stuff. And once the green bottle (can't remember the name) of crud remover totally ruined a new faucet from splashes. Clean up with a tooth brush works just as well on a normal basis of cleaning. Happy gardening to all. Nice to know we have common inside/outside passions.

The retiring of this thread will be a siginificant loss to the culture of the GW Kitchen Forum, in my opinion. It orginated from a community perception of the need to organize and preserve valuable shared knowledge about kitchen renos. Buehl stepped up and organized - and then faithfully maintained the thread over its many incarnations. And all of us watched out for it and threw in the needed bumps to keep it visible on the front page. We often referred newbies to it, confident it would be there for them, as it had been for many of us when we started out. This thread perfectly matched the down-to-earth, problem-solving atmosphere of the KF in a way that having most of the same content parked up in a static thread by the management will not. I will miss it. Though I can imagine Buehl will be glad of having it off her shoulders and out of her care. Thank you (again) Buehl! Liriodendron

My post got long .. here's what I wanted to say. I believe that 30 , 3 minute videos, watched one after another . which means they would have to be downloaded together.. not picked and watched from youtube.. is the best way i've learned to understand new topics i want to learn about. With this in mind if someone can help , not by using a one at a time converter. but by a bulk , 30 video downloader for Youtube or google video, I will be glad to explain why it's the best way to learn. and I'm willing to make a nice donation, of $30 or more to a charity of the choice of the person helping with the method to bulk save about 30 or 40 videos at a time. I said i would explain why in detail if you want I'm glad to do it. And i'm willing to donate because it's a good time where people need donations and I have the money to donate. and it's something i'm asking for. Thanks for listening and reading. I spent hours trying to write something useful but it got confusing and so finally you got the gist of what I meant to say. : ) All with good intentions for me, the group, and people who could benefit by the assistance of a technical helper. I posted here because people in this thread were the type who were the type I think would benefit by the type of learning I've had success with using youtube and many downloads. But what I offer is too much to suggest . . to people with not much time. That's why I needed a helper to create the downloader routine. Yes there are some already but the ones I've used are 1 at a time and that's too slow and tedious in my experience. I wanted to help everyone and this group was one I thought i could help and explain why .. : ) Be well