Sorry. That was written a couple weeks back and apparently I never hit the post button. Enjoy your coffee. 
All of us here are astoundingly fortunate.
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10-4 that!
Even “poor” Broderic!
Which is worse, … beers not being drunk… or drunks not drinking beers. Hmmmm…
Peace
Bruce in Philly
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Something I learned living in/driving around/walking around a major city like Chicago - Just give the street guys a dollar. Way less uncomfortable than trying not to look at them. If they use it to buy a Six, God bless 'em.
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Rube Goldberg, could offer a solution to the recent aesthetics of chassis design.
Gather round, this story is heart wrenching,
The post office has cheated me out of a fortune… a fortune of good will. I sent a rare, valuable, record to a good man, for free and at great expense ($2.75). And it arrived broken, SOB. We will have our revenge.
Chas
Go Postal on 'em.
Most excellent.
Chas
Technivorm factory is Located in Amerongen next to Rhenen where the Pink Faun Music Servers. Must be something in this region!
Technivorm is about The standard in The Netherlands, mostly purchased with Douwe Egberts Coffee. Douwe Egberts has vouchers printed on the packaging. You cut them out, safe a year or two and could buy the Technivorm for 40-50 % (don’t remember the exact amount) less in the Douwe Egberts shops. A good business model for both Technivorm and Douwe Egberts. We still have it if we expect bigger parties of people to visit. But it can not compete with the fresh ground brew with crema. So when the De Longi, Siemens, Jura, Saeco all in one coffee machines became affordable, Technivorm had to take a hit. Glad to see they are still around though, wouldn’t use anything else for a batch coffee brew.
Go retro 1968:
Whoah! That is cool! They are amazing brewers that if not scaled up will last a lifetime. I would love to tour their factory, especially if they have little museum of all the products they have produced since the beginning.
There are a couple other machines that I like and actually do a better job with water delivery, like the Behmor Brazen, but it is in no way built to the quality level of the Technivorm. And the Behmor will certainly not last a lifetime. But, it does do a better job of extraction in my experience with both machines.
Technivorm and Pink Faun, two companies I have great respect for, but for reasons unalike. 
They sell this retro model currently as limited edition over here. Don’t know if they have a museum.
But should any of you happen to be in this part of the world, like changing flights at Amsterdam Schiphol, it’s an hour direct train connection (or rental car) to get close to Amerongen (Technivorm), Rhenen (Pink Faun) and Arnhem (Peeze, best rated coffee beans in the Netherlands at the moment).
You could plan your trip such that you spend a day for changeover and have a day of fun.
If WWII history is has your interest your in the right area for that too.
I just returned to the USA from Italy and really fell in love with the people and the culture. I also discovered I really love cappuccino. There is nothing like sitting by Grand Canal after a meal drinking a cappuccino. Anyway, I am looking to get a cappuccino machine. My budget is probably at $700 or less. Any suggestions?
When I lived in Texas a couple of years ago those were hard to find for that price level, our DéLonghi espresso / cappuccino grinder / pressure cooker al in one cost EUR 500, when it was stuck with limestone, I looked for a new one in the US but it would have cost US$ 1400. Maybe cheaper to buy at Amazon.de (German site) and see if they ship to the US. In that price range, DéLonghi, Philips/Saeco, Siemens/Bosch best options over here, the should leave room to pay the import taxes and still be at US$ 700.
For the US on this forum I think @JeffofArabica is one of the most knowledgeable guys, if not an authority on that subject. Me at he has some good suggestions.
Maybe I will up my budget a bit and go with the Breville BES880BSS Barista Touch…
Ah, yes, the cappuccino. My favorite of the milk-based expresso drinks. I start my day with three of them every morning! 
Just the right ratio of espresso and milk. These capps are essentially my breakfast.
Consumer level expresso machines are a tough category without getting up there in price. Reason being, it is very hard to achieve the three critical elements of quality espresso, which are proper temperature, temperature stability, and adequate pressure. Plus, many of the “cheaper” (under $500) machines that do achieve all three often don’t last very long as heat and pressure are tortuous on everything in its path.
That said, I do believe the Breville line of espresso machines achieve the best balance of all three under $1000. I have used just about every brand out there and still prefer manual machines over semi-auto or super-auto machines. The manual machines, such as Breville, achieve better flavor extraction, crema development, and body/viscosity. The higher end Breville models do have some auto functions, but the espresso is still brewed using traditional technology. Semi-auto and super auto machines are the ones that do the grinding, tamping and extraction automatically and within the machine. Those never quite produce as good a result with espresso as the manual machines in my opinion. However, with the Breville, there is more of a burden on the user to have a basic understanding of espresso and the parameters around its brewing process. For instance, flow. This is a function of time and volume. Too fast or too slow yields a sub-par beverage. Good thing is, none of it is all that difficult to comprehend. The biggie though is milk texturing. That is the hardest skillset to learn. With the Breville, it is manual and there is the likelihood that the auto machines that have a built in milk frothing component will texturize the milk better than someone performing that task using the manual steam wand on the Breville, unless you get the $2000 Oracle model which auto steams beautifully. Anyway, it is one of those scenarios where the Breville will compete with commercial machines in ways other more automatic machines cannot, as long as the user has the requisite skills. For many, learning these “barista” skills is a good portion of the fun and enjoyment.
I like my cappuccinos breve (dry), but have had trouble with non-commercial machines texturing the cream (or half-n-half) -do you know how the Breville is at that task?
Lots of information and choices here: