I am now the proud new owner of............

[Drew]

Eileen and I assembled it yesterday afternoon. Not the easiest due to poor, imho, directions and even with the accompanying DVD the camera work was consistently too close so you couldn't get a perspective. After several mistakes involving positioning of the "bands" (these are what connect the spring hinge to the top lid and bottom, think Faberge egg hinge), we successfully assembled the egg. We did have a cracked fire box in which the crack was perfectly straight with an even 1/8" width, we almost thought it was a design feature but a call to the dealer and short drive trip, 3 miles, we learned it was a flaw and they swapped it out on the spot for a perfect fire box. I haven't seen that kind of customer service for a long time. This thing weighs 150 lbs. and I dreaded the idea that I'd have to box the entire thing back up for return or return the fire box and wait for the company to send a new one. All in all just a 30 minute distraction. I'm smoking 10 lbs of ribs for its' debut this afternoon and I'll post a link with some pictures with taste test results.

Drew