I've had Intelligentsia's website open in my browser for a few weeks now. Honestly its not that far, once work lightens up a bit I plan on taking a trip there. I found a posting that spoke about the best roasters in the US, I was looking at places near me and skipped over Intelligentsia because on that list it says Chicago. I think I found out they have LA locations when read over and over people speaking the wonders of their Black Cat espresso. Rest assure when I get some time I'll be over there... and on the same note, I plan to spend some quality time with my new Classic. I have many questions about that machine... but haven't had enough time to spend with it to really know what to ask.

I do have a wish to learn and understand better... it seems that all the training course available are crazy expensive ($500 for a day). That makes sense for someone training their coffee bar employees, but that's an impossible sell for me personally. Jones Roaster in Pasadena is a pretty popular place locally and they offer a much more reasonable class. I have thought about taking this: http://www.thebestcoffee.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95&products_id=769
Other classes here: http://www.thebestcoffee.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=95&zenid=34eb2673de04f571bba7593d93ba45d9
The nice thing about those is you get to learn on your own equipment.

Thanks for the advice and push to get educated. Its something I want to do.

This just happened to my Mahlkonig Vario! My normal espresso position is Macro one click down and Micro about 5 or 6 clicks down. Today I found this position is not giving me the normal grind size. I adjusted it finer to Macro all the the way up. No change in the grind size. Both Macro and Micro all the way up - still no change to the grind size!

Is this time to clean the grinder? Does the grinder setting get loosen over time? Or should I recalibrate the grinder?