Hello everyoneI joined the forum back in 2008, but haven't had much to say. I found the forum after I bought a brinkmann charcoal vertical smoker and was having trouble getting it up to temp. After a quick search I started modifying the brinkman and finally started getting the temps up, but it was too much of a pain babysitting it to be any fun, so I converted it to propane and started turning out some decent Q. A couple months later I picked up a kenmore vertical gas smoker on clearance for $40 and it has a lot more usable space than the converted brinkmann so it became my #1 smoker and the brinkmann was only used if I was smoking more than would fit in the kenmore. Last month I noticed the burners on the gas grill were rusting out again ( happens every 2 years) so I started looking for a replacement, and wasn't really sure I wanted another grill that was only going to last 2 years, so I was contemplating charcoal as a possibility, but not sure which way I would go this time around. A friend told me he saw a big green egg knockoff at home depot on clearance for $299 and after reading about how great they were I decided to give it a try, so now I am trying again with charcoal and so far I am impressed. I have learned a lot reading the forums and just wanted to say thanks to those who post their experiences as you have saved me a lot of frustration and definately saved my family from some bad Q.Thanks Stan