FOH: A Week In Pictures.

[westg]

Early morning beach ? walk

And tonight

 

 

[inter4alia]

Chicago Toys for Tots annual motorcycle parade this morning. 

[kwsaw63]

After the great weekend in Phuket, back to work and reality ?

 

[westg]

1 hour ago, kwsaw63 said:

After the great weekend in Phuket, back to work and reality ?

 

Dose not look too bad KW ?

[Fuzz]

Had a BBQ at my place with several of the Sydney FOH crew. Smoked a farm roll given to me by @bayala

[westg]

A couppe of days hitting some seafood (Miner ) Clive and I hooked in. MoeFOH we mad ab  burgers

[Puros Y Vino]

A great weekend in Montreal. Had some heart stopping Quebec cuisine, a cigar or two hockey game and some sightseeing. 

 

 

[Hadroxity]

[Wookie]

My avatar in a regal pose and a compromised shot.

[Habana Mike]

On 12/19/2019 at 5:38 PM, Wookie said:

My avatar in a regal pose and a compromised shot.

That's a furry pussy! Ultra hirsute....

[Wookie]

1 hour ago, Habana Mike said:

That's a furry pussy! Ultra hirsute....

Old school. Not sure how he identifies...he's only 18 months. Siberian. 

[SigmundChurchill]

I spent last weekend in NYC with my wife for our anniversary.  It’s only 1/2 hour from my home, but it still feels like I got away for the weekend.

View from the room:

Times Square:

Anniversary dinner:

Nat Shermans:

 

I also managed to sneak in dinner and cigars with @ElJavi76 and some of his friends Friday night before my wife arrived. That was a blast.  Unfortunately I dont have any pics from Friday night.

[nKostyan]

One of my cigar friends is going to open a cigar lounge. Not everything is ready yet, but we have already started the" first smoke"

[nKostyan]

Had a BBQ at my place with several of the Sydney FOH crew.

What's in the Diplo box?

[Fuzz]

48 minutes ago, nKostyan said:

What's in the Diplo box?

Was wondering if somebody noticed. Take a guess.

[nKostyan]

Was wondering if somebody noticed. Take a guess.

If I am not mistaken it was already on the forum... looks like some kind of precious metal sampler

[Derboesekoenig]

1 hour ago, Fuzz said:

Was wondering if somebody noticed. Take a guess.

I thought they were fishing sinkers at first ?

[Fuzz]

3 hours ago, nKostyan said:

If I am not mistaken it was already on the forum... looks like some kind of precious metal sampler

Correct. That is @IanMcLean68's "Top 10 most precious metals in the world" sample box. 

1. Rhodium
2. Platinum
3. Gold
4. Ruthenium
5. Iridium (my personal favourite)
6. Osmium (Ian's favourite)
7. Palladium
8. Rhenium
9. Silver
10. Indium

Ian was kind enough to bring a few of his metal samples to show at the bbq. Very interesting stuff.

[ElJavi76]

12 hours ago, SigmundChurchill said:

I spent last weekend in NYC with my wife for our anniversary.  It’s only 1/2 hour from my home, but it still feels like I got away for the weekend.

I also managed to sneak in dinner and cigars with @ElJavi76 and some of his friends Friday night before my wife arrived. That was a blast.  Unfortunately I dont have any pics from Friday night.

I've got the one pic that counts Elliot. You smoking at the Carnegie. I too had a great time. Great food, cigars, but most importantly in the company of my friends. Cheers brother!

[IanMcLean68]

10 hours ago, Fuzz said:

Correct. That is @IanMcLean68's "Top 10 most precious metals in the world" sample box. 

1. Rhodium
2. Platinum
3. Gold
4. Ruthenium
5. Iridium (my personal favourite)
6. Osmium (Ian's favourite)
7. Palladium
8. Rhenium
9. Silver
10. Indium

Ian was kind enough to bring a few of his metal samples to show at the bbq. Very interesting stuff.

I have been an element collector since 2006. Those samples come from a full box set. They were only put in the Diplo box so I could bring along the precious metals to show the group. The box set is just PART of my collection, and is what started this crazy obsession. My best samples, the ones that will fit in a 7ml vial, go into the box set. I have upgraded many of the vials as newer and better samples have become available to me, so I also have around 30 vials of older samples that used to be in the box. I have enough beautiful museum grade samples in vials (both 7ml and 14ml vials), large and small ampoules, some loose samples, metal bars, crystalline metals, etc., to fill a large museum display (around 400 samples), including every stable element and a few not-so. I still need to build a display, but I don't really have the room for a 10ft x 7ft cabinet at the moment!
This is the box set:

The requirements to get in this box are: 1) at least 99% purity 2) most beautiful samples I can find. 3) full vials wherever possible.

Note that vials for elements >Americium (element 95) are empty representative vials, for hopefully obvious reasons. Too radioactive, too short lived, impossible to get, highly regulated, only tiny quantities ever made, sometimes less than the eye can see, you wouldn't want to be near them anyway, etc...

The precious metal vials are full and consist of the 6 platinum group metals, gold, silver, rhenium, and indium. For reference, the gold vial holds 100g, platinum 111g. The osmium and iridium vials hold 116g. The palladium and rhodium samples (much less dense metals) hold 60-62g. The rhodium vial hold pretty much exactly 2 troy ounces.

Anyone care to take a guess at the value of the precious metal samples, or at the box set above?

[IanMcLean68]

It was a close call yesterday, the Wollemi bushfire came through Lithgow at about 10am!

The fire approached from two fronts, from State Mine Gully from the north, and from Oaky Park to the east. After burning slowly for a few days, we had a wind change with a pick up in wind speed, and the fire raced through like an inferno.

After evacuating my mother the night before, knowing that it was inevitable that we would get hit, I made the hard decision to stay and fight with my neighbours to save our houses from the bushfire. Very scary when it came through. Hot, fast and fierce. 30-40 foot flames. Burned right up to the curb opposite the house just a few feet away, as well as right up behind our house to a creek only a few feet away from the back of the house. This is the view now from my front door:

I saw a 40 foot eucalytpus tree go up like a candle in seconds, which burned the house 4 doors up, an old fibro home, down to the ground. Watched the flames blow through the roof of this house and the windows explode out. All the fireys could do was save the house next door. The old owner resident living there had already been evacuated. I feel sorry for them when they come home to this.

I kinda feel guilty saying this, but I am glad my house is brick!

My next door neighbour and myself noticed a fire start up the side of the house next to my neighbour, two doors up from me, and we put it out. It was some rubbish up the side of the house that some embers caught. The family living there had already been evacuated. If we hadn't, we might have both lost our houses in the inferno. The fireys were too busy with the mess above 4 houses up to see it in time.

This is another picture from my front curb, looking up my street towards State Mine Gully. The tape across the road is the house that got burned down, 4 doors up on the same side of the road. We are all amazed that the two story wooden house on the right hand side survived!

Sorry, but I have no pictures during the actual blaze, only the aftermath. Too busy fighting to save our properties during the apocalypse.

Three houses in our street were lost yesterday.

EDITED: I want to take the opportunity here to thank both the firemen and police for there help and support yesterday. Thanks also to the kind fire man in the fire truck stopping outside during the blaze, whilst I was frantically hosing down the front of the house, to put out the scrub on the other side of the road and offer me a face mask. You are all legends!

[IanMcLean68]

Thanks to @Fuzz for this link. news.com.au were at the sight yesterday. I was speaking to the crew for awhile. Coverage shows the house 4 doors up ablaze (blue fibro house). Shows smoke billowing through the eves, because the fire has spread into the roof space. Only moments later, the fire broke through the roof in 20 foot flames, and the windows blew out in an explosion.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/christmas-roadtrippers-urged-to-put-off-holidays-as-nsw-act-braces-for-peak-fire-danger/live-coverage/4710a054125dc23824a2eaae00bfcac8

 

[inter4alia]

Good morning, Chicago. Don't let the naysayers in the "what do you most associate with Chicago" thread get you down, they know not of what they speak ?

[westg]

People dance as the summer solstice goes down...I am still getting used to living here

[Fuzz]

21 hours ago, IanMcLean68 said:

Thanks to @Fuzz for this link. news.com.au were at the sight yesterday. I was speaking to the crew for awhile. Coverage shows the house 4 doors up ablaze (blue fibro house). Shows smoke billowing through the eves, because the fire has spread into the roof space. Only moments later, the fire broke through the roof in 20 foot flames, and the windows blew out in an explosion.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/christmas-roadtrippers-urged-to-put-off-holidays-as-nsw-act-braces-for-peak-fire-danger/live-coverage/4710a054125dc23824a2eaae00bfcac8

 

Scary stuff, @IanMcLean68. Stay safe, but with everything scorched around you, there's really not much left for the fires to burn. With the amount of the country that has burned to ash, recovery is going to take a long time.