586579 Fri Jan 09 15:45:17 -0800 2009 42 29 Not About Food 0 4312112 I was surprised to read in one recent thread that some college students have no access to any cooking (and cleaning) facilities in their dorms. Is this really common?? If so, I'm a little bit appalled... I didn't learn how to cook until college, really, and I know that many of us learn how to cook / cook seriously during this time. It would be unfortunate if many students did not have this opportunity. When I went to school (at the turn of the century ;), all dorms had communal kitchens for us to use, albeit pretty disgusting ones -- and my friends and i made frequent use of them, though in truth, the cafeteria food wasn't half bad. My sister and my brother, who went to very different institutions, also had communal kitchens. Just curious what other Chowhounds' experiences were -- yours and/or your children's -- if you care to share. It would be interesting to know the approximate decade of the experience, whether the dorm / school was co-ed, and whether the majority of students lived on or off campus. My college was co-ed and all the dorms were, too. Almost all students lived in campus housing. Fri Jan 09 15:45:17 -0800 2009 64215 cimui 1 4312244 I went to college in the 80s at a school where almost all students lived on-campus. The dorms were co-ed, although the school was historically all-male. There were no student cooking facilities. One issue may be the age of the buildings. I would assume that more modern dormitories will be more likely to have kitchens. The first dorm I lived in was built in 1812, the other in 1930. Fri Jan 09 16:30:00 -0800 2009 4312112 58743 alanbarnes 2 4312251 I went to college in the early 80's. The only access to "cooking" facilities was a friend on the floor who had a (illegal, according to the rules) hotplate that he could cook spaghetti. Of course, I wasn't paying any attention after the application of numerous "daquiri's" (at that point, straight rum). Fri Jan 09 16:33:16 -0800 2009 4312244 227406 JohnE O 1 4312248 Well, when I was up at the University of Kansas, 25 or so years ago, my first year in a scholarship hall, the residents actually cooked the meals as part of their scholarship, and during off-hours we could use the kitchen as long as we cleaned up afterwards, so I cooked a couple romantic meals for my girlfriend. We could even buy eggs for a nickle and cheese for a nickle if we wanted to make an omelet or scrambled eggs. CHEAP EATS! The dorm I moved into the second year (after my scholarship wasn't renewed due to my social activities) had a couple equipped kitchens that could be "checked out" at the desk and used to prepare meals. You were expected to leave them in clean condition when you returned the key. It was an international dorm, and interesting smells were always coming out of those kitchens. I think I may have used them once or twice to bake a frozen pizza or something, as I had a meal ticket in the dorm cafeteria and they actually fed us pretty well. Fri Jan 09 16:30:34 -0800 2009 4312112 91302 podunkboy 1 4312356 Went to college in the 1980s. Lived in three different dorms over four years (one year in an off-campus apartment). Approx 60% of students lived on campus, mostly freshman and seniors and a few sophomores and juniors. The school is co-ed. Facilities as follows: Dorm 1, built in early 1970s, one small ktichen served that dorm and adjoining dorm, a total of maybe 100 residents. Co-ed dorm. Dorm 2, a three story building built in the 1950s, Probably 150 residents. Co-ed. No kitchen that I recall, but maybe I missed it. Dorm 3, a converted 1920s era house with about 12 residents. Full size kitchen, living room and dining room. Co-ed dorm. In all cases, even in Dorm 3 with its full size kitchen, cooking equipment, including basics like plates and silverware, was limited which was not conducive to cooking in the dorms. Most of the student meal preparation went on at the houses and apartments of students who lived off-campus. Fri Jan 09 17:05:46 -0800 2009 4312112 248284 taos 1 4312760 I went to college this decade. The first 2 years I lived in dorms built in the 1960's, both equipped with kitchens on each floor (with stove/oven, microwave, and sink). The communal kitchens were invariably disgusting, and appliances were often removed b/c of "misuse" (like the time we had a 4am fire alarm b/c a guy microwaved his socks, in the kitchen of course, wouldn't want to make the bedroom smell like burnt elastic). Most of us also have fridges, microwaves and toaster ovens in our rooms. Oddly enough toasters and toaster ovens were "legal" but Foreman grills were not b/c they were considered a fire hazard. My 3rd year I lived in a brand new dorm. No kitchens. They kept promising we would have one, the room was there, with all the outlets and pipes capped. But the appliances and hardware never appeared. Since I graduated (but haven't moved on, my alma mater is now my employer) they renovated the dorms I lived in the first 2 years and converted one bedroom in each 4 bedroom suite to a kitchen/living area. They also built a bunch of new on campus apartments for undergrads. It's amazing how much college life has changed in just a few years. Fri Jan 09 19:45:26 -0800 2009 4312112 135311 mpjmph 1 4312768 Dorm cooking: I had a nephew who made grilled cheese sandwiches on his iron. It didn't matter as he never ironed his clothes. Fri Jan 09 19:50:34 -0800 2009 4312112 15521 Querencia 2 4323589 i've wanted to try the ironed grilled cheese sandwich ever since johnny depp made one in benny and joon (but never got around to investing in an iron). glad to hear it works in real life. Tue Jan 13 16:32:57 -0800 2009 4312768 64215 cimui 3 4323629 Then there's always fish cooked in the dishwasher....... Tue Jan 13 16:41:56 -0800 2009 4323589 90359 PattiCakes 2 4323845 Yep. Me too. Wasn't tasty, but it worked. Especially at 3 AM. Tue Jan 13 18:03:22 -0800 2009 4312768 189528 Whosyerkitty 1 4312782 My daughter is in college now, and there are no kitchen facilities to speak of. You can reserve one of the few remaining communal cooking for a club, but then you have to provide all your own cooking vessels. Well, without a regular place to cook, why would you own baking/cooking dishes? Each floor has a microwave, but my daughter doesn't consider that a kitchen at all. Fri Jan 09 19:56:58 -0800 2009 4312112 59258 smtucker 1 4312792 I went to college in NYC. Meal plans were encouraged and cooking was not (one kitchen per floor, if lucky). I ended up getting a hot plate my sophomore year and either did prepared foods from Fairway or cooked on the hot plate in my room my junior and senior year. *NB the kitchen in my junior/senior year dorm was smaller than my small NYC apartment kitchen now...1 range for 100 people. Fri Jan 09 20:00:26 -0800 2009 4312112 10216 Lucia 2 4312913 When both of my kids were in college, small refrigerators were common in the dorm room, as were microwaves. Most were owned by the students, although the fridges could be rented. Some of the dorms were not wired to accept the electrical drain posed by a fridge & a microwave, so you could rent these things called "microfridges". When you turned on the micro, the fridge would shut off. When the micro shut off, the fridge turned back on. Fri Jan 09 20:52:28 -0800 2009 4312792 90359 PattiCakes 3 4325522 Gee, where can i get one, my micro and fridge can't be on at the same time either. Wed Jan 14 09:42:09 -0800 2009 4312913 57890 KaimukiMan 1 4312927 I just graduated from college in December (BGSU) (also, just discovered this website recently and absolutely LOVE it!) and lived on-campus for two years and off-campus for a year and a half. Even though most dorms had one kitchen, you had to go to the desk to check out the kitchen key with your school ID as well as sign out any and all kitchen utensils used (not a huge deal if you knew what you needed, but a hassle to walk back and forth if you forgot something). Everything then had to be washed, dried, and returned before you could get your ID back, and it ended up being much easier to grab something from a cafeteria or the convenience stores on-campus. No grills, hot plates, hot pots (not sure why on this one) or toaster ovens were allowed, and I'm not sure whether we were allowed coffeemakers, either (exposed heating unit). Few spices and sauces were available for purchase on-campus, and the grocery stores required a shuttle or bike ride and about 2 hours of free time to get there. Once I moved off-campus, a good chunk of my food budget the first few grocery trips went to spices and basic foods that weren't easy to prepare on-campus (i.e. anything not made in the microwave). Fri Jan 09 21:00:35 -0800 2009 4312112 255790 bikerchick9999 2 4313450 I am also a BGSU grad - went there in the early '80s. No cooking facilities at all in the first two dorms I lived in (both coed by floor). The third one I lived in, also coed by floor, was the newest one at the time and had a cooktop and a sink in the lounge on every floor. No ovens. One microwave for the entire 10-story building in the lobby. We had a tiny fridge in our room and at that time we were allowed to have hot pots. No hotplates, toasters, toaster ovens, etc. though. Sat Jan 10 07:23:02 -0800 2009 4312927 133831 romansperson 1 4313000 When I moved into an MIT dorm in 1961 we were told that there was no cooking in the rooms and that we were NOT to pour bacon grease down the drains. We were next to a dining hall and the meal plan was encouraged. After I was graduated, the dorm and the dining hall were remodeled; the dorm WITH kitchens and the dining hall was made into offices. I went to college both to get an education and to become a Mature person - having to feed oneself pushes a kid toward being an adult. Fri Jan 09 21:53:24 -0800 2009 4312112 69680 rich in stl 2 4314911 There is (was?) a lot of variety in MIT dorms. My dorm in the late 80s had several large communal kitchens, each shared by about forty people. Lots of people cooked more or less seriously/frequently. Sat Jan 10 17:41:28 -0800 2009 4313000 13516 maryv 3 4337264 The same was true (in terms of variety in dorms) when I was there in the late 90's. When I submitted my dorm choices I ranked the dorm with the biggest kitchens highest and ended up in a great dorm where you shared a good-sized kitchen with the 3-5 other students in your suite. Other people prefer the amenities at dorms that didn't have kitchens, so it was apparently no problem getting into my dorm of choice... I think a lot of college students aren't used to cooking for themselves and thus like the idea of having somebody else (the cafeterias, in this case) take care of such things for them... Sun Jan 18 15:57:15 -0800 2009 4314911 111059 emmo42 1 4313095 I lived in a college owned apartment complex my freshman and sophomore year, and then we got our own apartment for my Jr and Sr year. The school did have a arrangement that we could use the dining facilities at a adjoining school few did except for lunch. Fri Jan 09 23:05:05 -0800 2009 4312112 22220 Kelli2006 1 4313382 "at the turn of the century"-- First I've heard of it referring to a recent time :) I went to school in the early 80s and like most here, had no kitchen. There were a couple old houses you could reserve to hold a private party and you could cook there, but that was special occasion stuff. So I cooked with friends maybe 4 or 5 times over the 4 years. I didn't learn to cook till I went away to grad school and lived in an apartment. Sat Jan 10 06:41:45 -0800 2009 4312112 18353 DGresh 1 4314159 I lived at home for my freshman year (01-02), then moved schools for the next five years (I finished up my undergrad in three years then later did a two-year grad program). Because I skipped out on the freshman experience I was always able to live in apartment-style "dorms" (we call them residences). During my undergrad I shared a four-bedroom, two-bathroom, one-kitchen rez apartment with three other girls. I cooked 75% of my food there and went to restaurants for the other 25%. I only ate in the cafeteria once as an undergrad. As a grad student I had a private studio apartment on campus with my own kichen. In the first year of grad school I chose the cheap apartment that only had a mini-fridge; that wasn't my smartest idea. Next year I got a full fridge. Grad students had to provide their own microwaves; undergrad apartments had them provided. My grad school apartment was connected to the cafeteria by underground tunnel which made it a little more appealing to go over for food sometimes; unfortunately the food was consistently disgusting. I don't remember much of what I actually prepared as an undergrad in our rez apartment. I'm guessing there was a lot of pre-made frozen foods. Sat Jan 10 12:12:50 -0800 2009 4312112 131149 Jetgirly 1 4314167 I went to college in the 90s in San Francisco. Probably half to 2/3 of the student body lived in dorms (mandatory for freshmen and sophomores). At least one of my dorms had a "kitchen" that was about the size of a closet and about as inviting. We had a fridge and a microwave in our dorm room, and I remember eating a lot of cocoa krispies. We eventually figured out how to make pasta or kraft mac & cheese, but that's as sophisticated as our dorm cooking got. If you lived on-campus, you were also required to have a meal plan, so there wasn't a lot of need to cook in the room. Lived off campus for two years, and learned pretty quickly to feed both myself, and large groups of hungry college boys! Lived off Sat Jan 10 12:17:19 -0800 2009 4312112 17827 cyberroo 1 4314268 I went to (and do again) the University of Virginia in the early to mid 90s. There weren't any kitchens in the dorms (there are a few new buildings in the last few years that might have some now, I'm not sure) and we weren't allowed to have any cooking appliances (microwaves, hot plates, etc.) in the dorm. There were the occasional illegal microwaves though they were pretty large then so it took quite a bit of effort to hide them. They didn't get used very often. Beyond that, we were required in our first year to buy the meal plan at the dining hall. The combination of a complete lack of facilities and having already bought the food at the dining hall made working really hard to be able to sort of cooking something in a dorm room less than appealing. Most students live off-campus but that still leaves a few thousand living on campus. Once one is past their freshman year, I think kitchen facilities show up in almost all housing. Most of the housing is not dorm style for anyone beyond freshman year but apartment style with full kitchens. There are a couple of housing situations that don't have kitchens but those comprise a few hundred students at most (total student population is about 20,000) and one has to work pretty hard to live in those situations as they're particular kinds of things so you'd very clearly know ahead of time what you were getting into. Sat Jan 10 13:01:11 -0800 2009 4312112 80141 ccbweb 1 4319184 very eye-opening! didn't realize just how lucky we were to have even our nasty little, sticky-countered kitchens. somehow, communal pots and pans weren't ever stolen, probably because the pots and half melted spatulas were really pretty undesirable. and ultimately, the lack of kitchens for some of you in college didn't impede your development as 'hounds / kitchen 'hounds, it seems. thanks again, 'hounds! Mon Jan 12 12:04:51 -0800 2009 4312112 64215 cimui 1 4319187 DD is in her junior year at Brandeis, just outside Boston. This is the first year that she has access to cooking facilities (pretty primitive). First semester she lived in college sponsored apartment with communal kitchen for 5 kids. This semester she is RA and has very small efficiency kitchen. It has been very interesting to "coach" her cooking from 800 miles away. She is learning how to shop, plan meals, cook, clean up and how to live within budget. Frankly, I think she is sopping for clothes with some of her food budget, but not going to press the point. Have bought her some cookbooks, she has transportation to local grocery stores, Whole Paycheck, TJs, Costco and other places. DD is learning how to make 1,000 things with cans of tuna or salmon, how you cannot eat the same meal 5 nights in a row (for a lot of reasons), lots of valuable skills she will need in "real" life. Very good experience for her! Mon Jan 12 12:05:42 -0800 2009 4312112 15139 Diane in Bexley 2 4319434 There is a good cookbook out there (albeit with a sexist title) called "A Man, a Can and a Plan". It's targeted at the cooking-impared, and uses a can of something as a key ingredient. Not always the heathiest, but it's a start. I went to college in the late 60's. My cooking implements consisted of an imersion heater and an iron. Mon Jan 12 13:10:47 -0800 2009 4319187 90359 PattiCakes 1 4319484 Graduated from Widener in '99. Widener used to be a military academy, and the old barracks had no kitchens. The newer dorms did have a sink and cooktop in the lounge on each floor. You could rent microfridges as well. Almost all students on campus had to be on the meal plan, which was awful. Toaster ovens were illegal, but I had one. I didn't cook much back then, but I couldn't live without the toaster oven. Frozen pizza in the microwave? No thanks! Mon Jan 12 13:21:06 -0800 2009 4312112 87282 lawgirl3278 1 4320763 Well, I am on college number 2 (after choosing to transfer). At college number 1 (fancy private school), there were kitchens on every other floor (alternated with laundry rooms). They had counter-tops, cupboards, and a sink. No stove top or oven. School number 2 (public school...surprisingly, after visiting friends, I liked the crappy better than the fancy :) ) has a single two burner electric cook top and sink thing. There is a microwave. Everything is kinda grimy looking, and the cook top doesn't work well. So, microwave it is! I have a 10 meal meal plan per week, along with 500 dollars worth of on campus food purchases. I either get take out or eat a sandwich in my room. I love to cook, but the two burner cook top isn't useful, as it's hardly big enough for a pan, and takes forever to do anything. During the early fall (when it was still nice), we would get Brie and a baguette from Wal-Mart (fancy food cheap) and enjoy it on the treed walled in patio I am lucky enough to possess. I sometimes get packaged salmon or canned chicken and have that mixed with mayo on crackers, but it's smelly, and my roommate is a vegetarian, and I try to at least not smell up the room with meat, since she's so nice about me eating meat all the time around her :) Other than that, food sucks. Thankfully my BF is moving off campus next year, and I will have a full kitchen...he already knows that I will be cooking there at least once a week. :) Mon Jan 12 20:28:23 -0800 2009 4312112 114194 milkyway4679 2 4321518 Having been responsible for managing a dorm or two during my graduate school years, university risk managers cringe when you talk about kitchen facilities in dormitories. Fire is one of the leading causes of death among college students and many are caused when student attempt to cook whether in their room or in a kitchen. Personally, I would like to see each dorm have a seperate kitchen located in an area away from sleeping rooms and a complete ban on cooking within the room. Tue Jan 13 07:15:16 -0800 2009 4320763 12471 jlawrence01 3 4323265 I don't think that is quite a logical choice though. I think that rather than banning cooking, students need to learn how to cook without burning anything down. In my current dorm set-up, the kitchen is located towards the front of the building, away from the dorm rooms. I regularly cook with the microwave in my dorm room, and myself, and my 3 roommates have had no problems. In fact, most people I know, don't have any problems. The biggest problems come from the freshmen. If freshmen had to take a beginners cooking class, I think that would be extremely beneficial. (I also see many of the foreign students having trouble...different set-up/appliances maybe?) The students who cook usually have more skills than other students, and most alarms come from students who burn things in the microwave. I think that learning how to cook a few basic dishes using what is available to you is beneficial. As a student who has a ten meal per week plan, I have to eat in my dorm room some of the time. I do not want to eat 21 meals each week in the school dining facilities, and do not want to spend the money to get takeout. I use the microwave in my room with no problem, simply because I was taught how to cook from an early age. If students had to learn how to properly use a microwave, then I think the number of problems would greatly decrease. Students also need to learn basic kitchen safety. I think every school that allows microwaves should also have a basic fire kit within the room, containing an extinguisher, a fire blanket, etc. Tue Jan 13 14:41:07 -0800 2009 4321518 114194 milkyway4679 4 4323962 I really don't want to start expecting that colleges should teach students how to cook much less how to prevent burning down a building with cooking equipment. Parents should teach their kids the basics or, at the very least, a basic home ec (or similar) course in high school or middle school. If we're just talking about microwave basics or how to do a couple of things on a stove top, it should wait until college. Tue Jan 13 18:43:16 -0800 2009 4323265 80141 ccbweb 4 4326220 The problem we had wasn't with students starting fires or setting off the alarms with cooking, but with drunken stupidity. To the drunk 19 year old mind it seems like a good idea to microwave socks at 4am to combat cold feet, or to put random stuff in the oven "to see what happens." I'm not advocating a ban on cooking in dorms. Basic life skills training is a good thing (it seems like more and more students here aren't getting it at home), but as far as the safety of cooking equipment in residence halls goes the thing we really need to do is get a grip on the binge drinking behavior... Of course, I should note that the drinking/party culture varies greatly from campus to campus. I just happened to go to a university with a lot of work hard/play hard students. Wed Jan 14 12:31:58 -0800 2009 4323265 135311 mpjmph 3 4323549 yes, i can imagine the nightmare cooking facilities might pose for university risk managers. i have to confess to maybe having set the fire alarm off once or twice in my day. (the campus fire fighters were faster to arrive than superheroes.) but you're right that a strong argument in favor of making an actual kitchen available to students (and installing good smoke detectors) is that doing so minimizes the number of do-it-yourself-over-a-bunsen-burner types and the damage they might cause. making a kitchen available might result in higher insurance payments, but not having one might increase the actual risk. Tue Jan 13 16:20:16 -0800 2009 4321518 64215 cimui 3 4323966 That sounds like a brilliant solution to me. All of the dorms at my school (I'm back for my third degree) have electronic/magnetic key cards for entry now. A separate, serious kitchen that one had to swipe their card to get into would be excellent. It could be well stocked with equipment (one, we've got an honor code and two you'd be logged into the kitchen so it's unlikely anyone would take anything) and have some real appliances. A small dining room could be right there, too so that students could cook and eat. I like this idea a lot, I may speak with one of the resident life folks about it. Tue Jan 13 18:45:48 -0800 2009 4321518 80141 ccbweb 1 4321517 I worked in res life for 3 years while an undergrad and 1 as a grad student at 2 different institutions (1 small private urban, 1 large public college town). Both had some communal cooking facilities, but both were moving away from them while I was there, removing ovens and ranges and leaving behind just microwaves and sinks or converting the spaces to "study lounges" or whatnot. There seemed to be two major factors influencing this shift: liability and dining hall contracts. When the private institution eliminated kitchen facilities altogether, they claimed the ovens and stoves on each floor were too costly to insure (though I never knew of a fire alarm being set off by them), and defended the position by saying students didn't really use them and would prefer to use the space for other things. But really, I believe the largest motivating factor is the contracts with the dining halls. While students in some dorms must purchase meal plans, many other students did not have to do so, and were free to obtain their food however they'd like. Obviously, if there are no kitchens, students are more likely to eat in the dining hall and/or purchase meal plans. At the public uni, Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, and Burger King moved into "updated" dining hall, and the kitchens were immediately eliminated from all undergrad student housing. Hmmm...trying to drum up some business? Students lacking kitchens have little choice but to spend their money in these facilities. Tue Jan 13 07:14:59 -0800 2009 4312112 201585 RosemaryHoney 1 4322159 For me college dorms were 02-04. My freshman year was a traditional dorm for Florida but had recently been renovated to have a communal kitchen on every floor with cabinets and tables, four burner stove and oven. I think there might have been a fridge. Very few of us kept any food in the kitchen, anyone used it and few people cleaned up after themselves. I did have a mini-fridge and microwave in my room. The food plan was less than stellar, but I didn't go hungry. It was common knowledge that if an event promised food, they would get more students show up. My second year I moved into an apartment style dorm, with the same equipment just only for the four people in my suite using it and keeping it clean. Microwave meals and meal plans were used often. We had a lot of restrictions on cookware, but we didn't follow it and neither did any of the RAs. My first Thanksgiving away from home was cooked in dorm kitchens that year. Passover bagels were made and then never spoken of again. My boyfriend had a George Forman grill and a dehydrator (for jerky purposes), I had a blender and we both had microwaves. The blender broke, the grill is now on a shelf in our condo (we're married now) and both the microwaves got donated to Goodwill. College is where I learned you cannot cook frozen chicken nuggets on a cookie sheet on the stove - thanks to a Moroccan student who lived with my husband and set off the fire alarms about once a month. Tue Jan 13 10:03:51 -0800 2009 4312112 152043 TampaAurora 1 4323678 I went to college in the early 90's. The freshman dorm had no cooking facilities. Am I the only one who was making ramen in a hot pot in my dorm room? :) I had communal kitchens in my dorms sophomore and senior years. One of those years, I also got the sandwich maker (like an early version of a panini maker but has triangular pockets) so I'd bring back a bread and cheese sandwich from the dining hall to make a grilled cheese snack later. Tue Jan 13 16:58:56 -0800 2009 4312112 21483 cheesepowder 2 4323839 Oh, that's so silly; you can make grilled cheese with an iron. Tue Jan 13 18:01:26 -0800 2009 4323678 189528 Whosyerkitty 2 4323980 I loved that thing, the sandwich maker, though mostly for making pancakes. A jar of pancake batter in the fridge, a couple of minutes to preheat the sandwich maker while I made coffee, a couple of minutes to make the pancakes and breakfast on the table with my second cup of coffee in less than 8 minutes. Brilliant. Tue Jan 13 18:49:30 -0800 2009 4323678 80141 ccbweb 1 4323798 Most of the dorms at Indiana University in Bloomington have no cooking facilities. My daughter goes to Earlham, and all of the dorms have kitchens on every floor. Very nice kitchens, I might add. Tue Jan 13 17:46:02 -0800 2009 4312112 11995 pikawicca 1 4325045 I went to college in New York just after the turn of the century. We were largely residential, though many of our students also commuted. As a transplant from the Midwest, I dormed with the other freshman at a location near campus, one that also came equipped with a gross communal kitchen. There were a few utensils (that often went missing), no refrigerator, but a surfeit of unidentifiable stains and smells. I only knew a few people who used it and only to make brownies or something simple. My campus housing Sophomore through Senior year more resembled an apartment than your stereotypical dorm. The building was a converted luxury high-rise and each apartment had the same basic layout as every other generic apartment built since the 1990s (parquet floors, narrow entry hall, California bar, etc.). Each apartment had a narrow kitchen, an amenity I took advantage of more than most others, though truthfully we all had dinner parties now and again. I have to admit, the boys' rooms usually had better food than the girls'. Never found out why that was. Wed Jan 14 07:32:22 -0800 2009 4312112 68363 JungMann 2 4325590 LOLOLOLLL! WHICH century? I'm sorry, but I'm old enough to still think of that phrase as the turn into the 20th. So my first thought was OMG that guy is like 120 years old! LOL! Carry on.... Wed Jan 14 09:57:45 -0800 2009 4325045 189528 Whosyerkitty