1515Art

Thanks Lacky, I know I’ve alway enjoyed my time in Vegas although it sure feels good seeing green again when I’d get back home, that’s the only concern so it’s just change I’ll get used to. I’m not a gambler other than tournament poker every once in a while and even then I like the low stakes games I absolutely hate giving up my hard earned pesos gambling, so mostly the strip will be about the occasional show restaurants. My wife is from Shanghai and it’s over 100 most days from June thru September except really humid and the winters are freezing wet cold so my wife will like the weather and between the mornings and mild temps the rest of the year I think I’ll probably get way more hunting in at least that’s the plan.

My wife and I talk occasionally of leaving California for pastures more green or gold or even desert grey as the case may be and decided to do it this time instead of just talking about it.The decision did have an unpleasant catalyst of sorts to push us over the edge a surprise letter from the county assessor letting me know that a mistake in the valuation of my home was not in my favor (depending on how you look at it) and the result was around a 1200 percent increase in my assessed valuation and a tax bill for 2 years due in two installments that made me feel a little sick at first, now that I've had a little time to adjust and have a contract from a buyer on a piece of property I own Im all over the shock and am really looking forward to living a lot closer to what i hope are some decent hunting grounds a lot closer to me then it was living in the south San Francisco bay area. Only thing is after hunting nuggets since the zed came out I've got a nice little database of places I like to hunt and ill sort of be starting over except my skills should be slightly better than when I first started doing the beep, beep beep. Im looking forward to joining some of the local clubs and having the opportunity to get in some decent day hunts something just a little to distant for me right now and ive also wanted to check out some claims I have access to in Arizona, and haven't because they are just to far away now. Be fun to have a real chance to find a little space debris too, a bucket list item for sure id like to check of in my book. Ive always thought northern Nevada would be my choice but seems my wife wants the big city life and Las Vegas is her preference so I guess Im now in love with the idea of being a Las Vegas area resident if I know what's good for me, LOL. actually anyplace I can find some decent nugget hunting will work fine and wow the housing market in the Las Vegas area is something to behold coming from the California Bay area so that's a giant plus and the tax advantages are huge with no state income tax and lower property taxes. Its going to be HOT 4 month out of the year and I figure that'll be mostly indoor air conditioned time, but who knows there may be days I can tough it out and any advice from those been there is much appreciated as to this point I've only been a short term visitor and I know some adjusting will happen, in fact i was just reading a thread on the brown recluse spider that's not something here in the Bay area in California to worry about, they seem more a problem than the Black Widow I'm familiar with. If you lived there and hated it I like to know and the same if you loved it the coordinates of your favorite patches and placers would also be very helpful... 😎

Another

Possibly this coin?

The large coin my wife says is Qainlong although she is unsure of the date or denomination.

I’ve used the liquid tape to repair the wires on my Bose ear buds and the material lasts about a year under use before pealing from the ear bud wire leads. It also remains rubbery after it sets. Hot glue sticks are available in a variety of temperature and set times so you have a little control and it’s easy to use with a couple minutes practice. Ive also used heat guns and soldering irons to remelt move and shape hot glue as well as trim it away with a blade so you have wiggle room if you don’t apply it exactly like you wanted.

It’s new construction just a month ago my son and I were driving back from the gym and as we drove by the complex I’d mentioned to him for no particular reason other than the obvious that it was ready to burn. I was running around alright, chicken little, not much to do but hope and get as much ready as possible and it was going to happen pretty fast or not at all so time and packing were pretty limited. We would have lost a lot of artwork and most of my ceramics years of work both my work and friends art. It’s exciting and satisfying when everything goes according to plan but I don’t miss the stress and responsibility It took a lot of years for me to be able to relax when an emergency like these happen every beep, bell or alarm would affect me now it just feels better to watch. and... I gave all my hats away probably could have gotten a couple hundred bucks for the leather helmet be a down payment on one of them Russian coils for z.

You’d think there’d have it all covered by now it’s not like these things hardly ever happen the collar system sure sounds like a good idea and fiber is great stuff I use it with my kilns you just have to be careful with the dust.

They happen too often this city has had at least 4 of these I can remember not counting mutual aid. Don’t know for sure yet what started it usually has something to do with a contractor of some sort, the SCPD had a guy in cuffs across the street from me sitting on the corner surrounded gang banger look complete with tats under his eye, he was seen running in and out of the fire looting and word out he might have had something to do with it, but I have no idea if that’s accurate or not.

I had a front row seat standing on the roof of my garage and got to watch the fire department I used to run a long time ago do a fantastic job, I was just a spectator luckily the team did their job, nothing to do with me... probably more of a liability now?.this is a cool pic my place is to the right just off picture.

Thanks, We came out fine Just packed a few things in the car in case the wind changed then it would have been a problem with other similar new construction next door and a 150’ dry tall pine tree between us they are going to remove fairly soon, hope it’s really soon. The crews did everything right not one mistake that I could see this was one of those situations where you can only hope to contain the fire to the complex of origin and they did just a little better. It’s always sketchy in the beginning and so much happens in the first few minutes, I’ve been in these situations thousands of times (I really don’t know how many, a lot) and for me it always felt like the world around was in slow motion while doing size-up, directing resources and taking care of everything that has to happen. It’s stressful and physically draining, this was stressful and I sure don’t miss that.

It was looking kind of sketchy for a while while the large complex behind my place burned like a Roman candle we packed up a bunch of stuff just in case it spread but the crews did a great job containing everything as much as possible. Buildings a total loss, but at least no news of any injuries and no damage other than smoke for us.

Anything like a patient or or other protection preventing ml from reverse engineering the x coil and selling their own with chip?

Norvic, ya i hear what you are saying and being on ml's turf and a lot closer to all that beautiful Aussie gold i certainly defer to your location, no doubt product liability is a quagmire (gigidy?) best to avoid, although... i wonder just how much risk there is considering what ive experienced with our wonderful new/old best friend in the fields (M/L) they seem to take a very liberal approach to the warranty on the 7000 i got a brand new one without any fuss after dropping cracking the case and developing a screen line on the display ive really no idea how all that goes together in the replacement but heck they were great to me and i don't know of too many complaints although no doubt there are some. So, i think they are good on standing by the zed, the old out of warranty ones not a problem(?) and i have not much of an idea what the risks are using an iffy coil as far as damage but is the hardware cost that great in comparison to the overall price? to me the 7000 at 10K ok 8K now is more like a software license and they give you the phone (GPZ) at a small cost to cover manufacturing the way they toss replacements and i think that's smart. so risk vs gain sell a ton of high priced adaptors they pretty much already have that cost next to nothing like Simon said and give the old girl a new lease on life and sell a sh*t load more and make everybody happy vs handing out a few cell phones from time to time when one of us screws up just to give everybody confidence that expensive seat license is gonna be comfy for a long time, i know i get butt hurt easy?. my point i guess i just like to see em do it and save me the trouble of hunting down a shop or doing it myself the task is within my wheel house, im just lazy.

if Minelab is not interested in selling any other aftermarket coils for our zed's then they are missing the boat not selling us overpriced security chip enabled adaptors from technology already developed so we can buy from other vendors.

I backed into a little short metal pipe sticking up out of the parking lot pavement one time in a metallic red rental car and put a big scratch in the right rear quarter panel. When returning it I stopped at cvs and bought a cheep tube of lipstick that matched the color pretty close. Between the dirt and lipstick it passed inspection and never got a bill although if thy had looked close they would have caught it.

Australia would be the first on my list but I don’t think it’ll be my choice Africa’s not high on my list, but this situation might be unique depending on who the operation is run by, my friend couldn’t remember their company name, only the hotel they own in town so I think It’s a fairly big operation I just don’t know how open the access or if I could hunt for myself of if I could keep what I find. I told my wife if I couldn’t nugget hunt in Zambia she could go on her own but we’ll see.

I’d never venture wandering downtown LA without backup, same with the outback I’m thinking if I do go with the right group it’d be a party.

All good info for some time in the future.

Hi Paul, thanks, and I guess you are on the list now, that’s OK cause you’re not somebody until on some list or another and international gold fossicking’er has a ring to it?. She didn’t say if she was going to be getting it from Australia or Zambia although I think she was more concerned about fees coming into the United States cause when she brought the last batch of opal into the US the mine owner caused a problem using her address as his international shipping address and she got hit heavy in import taxes on unset gem stones and I think she’s trying to avoid some of the same mistakes. She didn’t say how much she was thinking of bringing in but I’d have to guess it would be more than a few ounces? Fred, next year I might need a license if I work up the nerve to go, both places I’m nervous about for different reasons, the Australian mines because it so far into the outback as to be kind of dangerous although it would be better with a big group for support. And Africa because, well... a lot I don’t know about that.

My friend is asking what the restrictions are bringing gold nuggets into the United States from a foreign country? She also wants to know what the taxes might be or if there is a broker fee or any special license? I have no idea and only wish it was something I knew from experience but my nuggets wouldn’t draw much notice, however looking online I don’t see anything that would be an issue other than possibly normal currency limits and taxes although I’ve no idea how an exact value would be placed on something like natural unrefined gold, or are nuggets treated similar to loose and/or unpolished gem stones?

I was checking and the internet says Zambia is one of the largest exporters of copper and there are videos both good and bad and articles about Chinese mining in Africa a lot of it violates environmental and labor laws. There is also a Chinese company working with the Zambia government the little I looked at was reporting Zambian minister’s praise for their sticking around while the price of copper was dropping worldwide, I hope the company I’m being told about is a legal company and doing positive things there. The story trickles to me in bits and pieces and between my being new at this and general lack of knowledge on mining and not understanding Chinese language enough to be useful in conversation beyond asking for something like a glass of ice water (side note - it’s always hard to get a glass of cold water in China, they think drinking cold water is unhealthy) so sometimes i miss a thing or three here and there as the conversations always drift off from English to Chinese usually until I’m asked a question it goes back and forth. I’m wondering exactly how they are mining in the videos I watched they show heavy equipment and open pit mines in some of the really large operations, I wonder if nugget detecting is possible in that environment/geology? Truth is I’ve more questions than answers and find it hard to imagine what this operation is all about I’m curious to find out what mining company this is I didn’t think to ask the name of the group at the time over my general apprehension about long miserable air travel and unknown dangers and sadly communication is one of my weaker skills so my apologies if this is confusing as I’m still slightly confused as well not knowing much about this yet.

The Zambia operation is gold and copper my friend says they are selling the copper to Canada, the gold is under different restrictions and I’m not sure if it can be exported? They also have a large gem mining operation recovering amethyst, opal and emerald my friend says they employ a few hundred workers, although seeing some of the mining done off in the jungle on television hundreds of workers doesn’t sound unusually large. She says it’s safe there and they haven’t had any trouble, also it’s an easy 10 hour drive from the airport to the mines and access is easy. Now my wife and our friend are planning a trip for next year... following year Australia, we’ll see. Oh, and hunting, I’m not much of a hunter but the have a hunting reserve of some sort, although I doubt I be much interested it killing anything.

Not very much I can add to this story, the owner of this gold mine/claim whatever is Chinese and I can narrow the location down to someplace in Zambia, should be easy to find from the amount of gold they are picking up I think you can see nuggets by simply flying over the area in a small airplane. The 8kg a one month total averaging 5kg to 8kg each month. Be pretty fun to go swing the zed over there although I’ve no idea the politics or dangers still fun to dream anyway. A different guy the owner of the Opal/gold mine in Australia is a gem dealer originally from China now living in Australia and his mine might come up for sale, I can only guess he is tired/bored with it and the difficulty in getting there. The gold they recovered was a bi-product of the Opal miming so the Opal mine could be playing out and may have something to do with the sale also he doesn’t really sound interested in recovering the gold???? Guess they have enough money the difficulty of getting the gold out isn’t worth the trouble is the way it’s sounding. That being the case if the stars line up and I know I’m dreaming a little here but, I might be able to get permission sometime in the future as long as he owns it. I can’t even imagine the logistics of a hunt something like that and the odds of pulling it off are to remote to think of much now.

My friend with the connection to the gold and opal mine owner in Australia just sent us some pictures she got from another friend with a mining operation someplace in Africa, The 8kg of gold from this location tests out at over 98% purity. Our friend is visiting us on Tuesday and I hope to learn a little bit more about the details, enjoy!