Merry Christmas and a little explaining for absence

Off-topic Chatter
81

That… is a good one!!! . :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: … :+1:

82

I was able to get a hold of Wims wife, Anna, she says he is currently doing well health wise, but has been very busy lately. No time for BLF.

In January he got ill again and they also had a flood which requires a lot of work to repair, plus a lot of other things they need to do to get ready for the June visitors to their Mill. Plus other stuff I won’t go into that has made 2018 a very hectic time for them.

This is the way things go sometimes. You have to have your priorities straight. Family comes first. I thought you guys would like to know.

1 Thank
83

Thanks for the update. I was wondering about him lately. :+1:

84

Thanks, Jason. The Miller has done a heck of a lot for our community. I hope he comes back someday. More importantly though, I hope all is well with his life, and family.

85

Thanks for the news Jason! :+1:
I’m glad he is OK and that things are getting better in terms of health!!
I miss The Miller’s posts around and I hope he has the wish and possibility to return someday :wink:

Despite new members appear, a lot of “old/long time” members are “vanishing” lately… :frowning:

Keep us updated whenever you get some news :wink: Thank you!

86

Glad to here Wim’s busy and taking care of priorities… our hobby here is certainly not all that important to most folks as far as priorities go.

The forum has changed quite a bit over the years, used to be a family atmosphere of like minded folks helping each other out… with the influx of a lot of new members we seem to be losing that atmosphere and it’s difficult sometimes to take the changes when you’re used to it being a lot different. A much loved member used to say “It is what it is.” The group buys were successful in too big a way and it diminished our “family”. Can’t say I didn’t try to warn em of that when the group buy offerings were taken outside the forum, but here we are.

The camaraderie of the early days of the forum has dissipated in the rush to buy the latest and greatest. Will it ever get back to what it was? Should it? Remains to be seen…

I was deeply involved in the A6 and X6/X5 group buys which didn’t end up so well. The GT buy got sidetracked and is presently in limbo for outside reasons, even the Q8 buy had some bumps along the way… nature of the beast I suppose. How many of the new people are cognizant of the tradition to hold a giveaway at certain points along the way of their posting life? We now have well over 23,000 members, if some of the old traditions were still upheld we’d truly have a rich interactive atmosphere, a neighborhood of garage sales and backyard bar-b-que’s as it were. Be nice to see it like that again someday…

Edit: Whoops! I blinked! 24,932 members now! (Only 84 of which are presently online, imagine that…)

87

Very thought provoking when you put it like that, Dale. I can’t believe we have almost 25k members.

88

History of the world in a nutshell.

I hope things will get better for Wim, and for BLF.

89

Thanks for the update Jason. :beer:

90

When communities expand outside the initial enthusiasts the culture of the group general shifts as well. This happened across the knife community when FB groups exploded. It basically ruined the custom knife hobby for me. I see some of that in the flashlight hobby as well, especially with the small batch lights like Hanko, Okluma, Barrel, etc. People buying something just to take pictures of it and earn fake internet points aren’t going to be contributors to a positive enthusiast culture generally speaking.

91

Thanks for the thoughts!

Although i feel like a rather new member, my take on this is that everything changes anyway, and that doesn’t change. Everything is in motion and you can’t help it. This is IMO one of the most deceiving shortcomings of our western culture to deny that fact… but this is going far off topic. :wink:

BLF should stop producing amazing budget lights. That would cool things down a bit! :laughing:

92

Good to hear that “life is all that’s gotten in the way.

93

He did amazing work on the Q8.
Hope that had nothing to do with his current hiatus.

Come back at your own time and pace…but come back.

94

Thanks a lot for the update and for showing concern to a fellow member! Best wishes for Wim and his family, hope to see him around here once he manages to dig out.

95

Agreed, thanks for the update JasonWW! Hopefully someday The Miller can come back since he was an awesome contributor to BLF.

96

Thanks again for warm words.

Yes, it was very hectic and still is, after being sick we had the highest water since we moved here. We have the mill stream running through the house.
The previous owners had water inside each year but we found an old pipe connecting the lowest room with the mill stream and I closed that so for us we never had water inside.
here is a graph showing the amount a few town upstream: http://www.eau-poitou-charentes.org/debit-station.php?station=R1192510
The spike early January had our entire front yard transformed into a lake :slight_smile: and it did not reach the lowest door but the water was seeping through the walls, but they acted as filter so it was very clean and only in one room.
The second spike, Jan 21 pushed the water so high is actually reached the lowest door and so our lowest rooms had a foot deep water. the rushing water on the side of the house made a mess of the barns. (it was about 80cm deep in the front yard)

I am way behind because there are things needing done and it seems impossible to catch up.
And then the longer not logged in the harder it becomes for you know there is so much going on. I will try to catch up and check in daily.

97

Hey, it’s good to hear from you again. Like was said before, it’s not worth it to try and read a bunch of old posts. It’s better to just ask the people that took over for a summary (if you want to). Just keep things light and easy. :+1:

How are you not on any type of social media? Lol.

98

Glad to hear back from you The Miller :wink:
Jason is right…you gotta follow from now on, and you’ll eventually catch up things when you have the time :+1:

Get better, and I hope that all the issues on the mill can be solved so that you can rest!
Welcome “back” mate :blush:

99

Hey there The Miller! Great to hear from you, thanks for checking in. Hope to see you around here more once things settle down for you.

100

Nice to hear from you TheMiller! :+1:

Woa! That sounds like you went through some weather! It is not a simple thing to deal with elements… I hope you’ll eventually manage to get that mill to produce some electricity (for the Q8 and GT of course).

Please post some picts of the situation. :wink: