Kinder

Had the refunds for my 2 children’s season tickets, cheques made payable to them! That’s handy ?

That’s worked! Thank you.

I had similar as I reported earlier. When I separated the "cheque" bit from the letter it went a lot better.

Carpark!
At least thats what mine was and the letter said so.

My little ‘un, and the big ‘un.

And this 

Back to normality!

 
Stunningly lovely
 

Just unpacked my latest order from Beers of Europe.
4 x Samichlaus Classic 2 x Tongerlo Prior 2 x Waterloo Tripel 2 x St Barnardus Abt 12 2 x St Barnardus Christmas 2 x Trappistes Rochfort 10 2 x Malheur 12 2 x Bush Ambree 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Aventinus 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Hopfenweisse 1 x Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen Rauchbier 1 x Boon Oude Geuze.  
See you in a little while.
 

Igor and Aggie looking out towards Owler Bar.
Little does the big Croatian(he’s German really)know his nuts are off tomorrow.

I prefer to wait until the radiation causes triple-breasted mutations.

I love that there seem plenty of space geeks on here. Something that's going to come increasingly into the public consciousness over the next few years will be the work from Elon Musk's SpaceX to transport many tens of thousands of Humans to Mars to build the first sustainable settlement on another world. It sounds like fantasy, but the amazing thing is they're doing this in public view in Boca Chica, on the coast of Texas, and we can all watch. There are lots of livestreams and over the last couple of years a barren field has started to be transformed into a shipyard. But not for ordinary ships, for spaceships. The goal is ultimately to have completed ones roll off the production line once a week. And each will be able to take a hundred people at a time.
The optimal time for going to Mars in terms of minimizing fuel (the launch window) comes round every 26 months and the plan is to have a fleet of Starships gather in Earth orbit that will then travel to Mars together, before returning to bring more settlers for the next launch window. Tickets will cost you about $250k but there'll be high baggage charges on top I should think. The secret to the low price comes from reusability and scale. SpaceX has pioneered rocket reusability and landed 65 or so "first stages" (the main rocket booster) after orbital insertion. No other company has done any - they're at least a decade ahead of the competition, but the competition should worry because their pace of innovation is extraordinary.
The new rocket being built in Texas will be the first fully resusable craft where all of it flies again and again with minimal refurbishment, just the same as an airplane. The top section where the passengers and cargo will go is called Starship and the lower section to help boost it into orbit is called Super Heavy. In a dramatic innovation, instead of being built from an advanced carbon fiber skin these are both made from stainless steel. Making them a fraction of the normal rocket price. The Super Heavy booster is needed to escape Earth's gravity well. Once there it will return to Earth and launch half a dozen tankers to refuel Starship in orbit so it can fly much more quickly than normal to Mars (normally a spaceprobe just has enough fuel to reach escape velocity and then coasts all the way to Mars). Refuelling in orbit hasn't been attempted in the past, but is a technology we need to master to become a spacefaring species.
Because Mars is smaller, with lower gravity (one-third of ours) the Starships can be what we call "single stage to orbit" when they take off from the red planet for the return journey. We'll build factories on Mars to manufacture fuel through a process called in situ resource utilization (ISRU), which is another technology we need to master to become spacefaring. And because they can carry so many passengers at a time, the price of the trip becomes a lot cheaper as it's divided between many more people.
The Super Heavy booster will be quite similar to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just a lot bigger. So in principle SpaceX already knows how to design, build, fly and land that. They have started on the harder problem first, by developing Starship, the first ever fully resuable second stage. This week there's been a lot of work on the eighth prototype (called SN8 standing for serial number 8 ) which will probably be the first to attempt a high-altitude (15km up) test flight as the key trial of the novel landing system (the "belly flop"). Before now three different partial Starships have flown 150m on one engine only. It's been amazing to watch. Here's the Starship SN5 "hop test":
While SN8 is the focus at the moment, also partly built are SN9 through to SN14, each better than the last, and also the very first Super Heavy booster (SH1) is being constructed. There's a good chance that the first Starships (without people) will go into orbit and return next year. There'll be hundreds of test flights before they start taking crew, but I'd expect the first uncrewed Starships to leave for Mars carrying cargo and experiments either late 2022 or early 2025.
The reason SpaceX was founded was to safeguard Humanity's future by building a self-sustaining community on Mars, the aim to reach a population of a million by the end of this century. This is why the company is privately held and you can't buy shares, because shareholders might look at the amazing technology and say Mars colonization is a waste of money when we can do a lot of profitable stuff closer to home. However, NASA wants to return to the Moon by late 2024 (though after the US election this date will slip) and are contributing funds to create an adapted Starship to land on the Moon (the normal engines are too powerful for this because the rocket is so big, so SpaceX are going to add smaller thrusters higher up to do the job). However, Elon Musk has said it's easier to just go and land on the Moon than jump through all NASA's certification to say they'll allow someone to launch astronauts safely to the Moon.
I hope we'll be able to keep this thread going over the next decade while we watch developments until the first Humans get to land on Mars, and it can be a wonderful record of the progress that took us to that point.

Some very interesting looking barrel aged beers announced by Buxton today.  Some proper headbangers in there at over 16%!
 
Petrosian - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. 16.5% ABV 
Lasker - Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.  16.7% ABV
Steinitz - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Tal - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Capablanca - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 11% ABV
Rudenko - Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine. 12.5% ABV
Morphy - Scotch Barrel Dessert Beer With Raspberry. 9.3% ABV

Some very interesting looking barrel aged beers announced by Buxton today.  Some proper headbangers in there at over 16%!
 
Petrosian - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. 16.5% ABV 
Lasker - Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.  16.7% ABV
Steinitz - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Tal - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Capablanca - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 11% ABV
Rudenko - Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine. 12.5% ABV
Morphy - Scotch Barrel Dessert Beer With Raspberry. 9.3% ABV

Really enjoying the Undoing on Sky Atlantic.
Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman as the couple who have it all before it all comes crashing down.
Great stuff!

I drew out my brother in the Secret Santa at work so I’ve bought this for him from the club shop. Had it delivered this week - it’s going to be hard not to read it first! 

Some very interesting looking barrel aged beers announced by Buxton today.  Some proper headbangers in there at over 16%!
 
Petrosian - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. 16.5% ABV 
Lasker - Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.  16.7% ABV
Steinitz - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Tal - Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 14% ABV
Capablanca - Scotch Barrel Aged Imperial Porter. 11% ABV
Rudenko - Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine. 12.5% ABV
Morphy - Scotch Barrel Dessert Beer With Raspberry. 9.3% ABV

The publisher part actually came pretty much last to be honest. I had the idea late 2017 and from then on, spent two or so years just compiling interviews with anyone who I thought would have a story worth telling about the club that would add something to the narrative we all know already. So even deep into the writing of the book, I was getting responses from people like Harry Wilson and Craig Burley about being part of it. So from the original idea to the final sign off, it was around about 30 months or so in total.
In terms of the actual publisher side of things, I always felt there might be just about enough interest there because there had been nothing like it on the club before, and if it came down to it I would have looked into self publishing, but in January I pitched it to three different publishers and two of them, including Pitch Publishing (who were the ones I had in mind all the way along really) picked up on it. So then I spent the next six or seven months just finalising it, working with their team of designers and proofreaders to work out how the final book would look. But it actually worked really well because the proofreader Gareth is a former media man at the club and one of the designers is also a Derby fan as well, so there was involvement all the way along.
Was a bit odd because I'd never worked on a book before so the actual pitching process and the world of publishing was alien to me, purely because I just did this as a bit of 'fun' in my spare time! I think I put a thread on here maybe April last year sort of time mentioning it, but even then I wasn't fully convinced it would actually ever come to life.

I had 6 pints of Pedigree yesterday in a pub and two glasses of red wine at home.
My poo this morning was pretty awful tbh.

My Dad’s company sponsored Ted’s kit one season, so we may have paid for this shirt! I remember we were all invited to a game once to say thanks and we met Ted. My brother and I were so star struck but couldn’t understand his thick Scottish accent!

i am feeling the love and appreciation gents, thank you, a little bit of recognition goes a long way, that has always been my intention to share the past and to relive it for those of us who were around and for those that wernt to give them a thread to learn from, yes they are only old shirts but every one of them will hold a memory for at least one person out there, obvioulsy some of them have our deepest Rams memories engrained into the weave and the image can take you back to the  popside or the ossie end or the c stand with your mates, or sheffield or man united away or plymouth away in the cup and for some lucky ones juventus away and real madrid away !
its something i love doing, it would be great to share everything in a massive purpose built museum along with the other guys like @cstandand @Quangyand thats something that we will aim to do with the Rams Heritage Trust when things return to normal, we already have some special plans for next year, but for now i will just keep posting the shirts as a visual image of the great history and tapestry of our club for all to enjoy and take something from !
cheers gents
if anybody has any old treasures hidden away in the attic or draw then please PM me or mail directly at mail@phillowe.co.uk i am always looking to add to the collection !

Finally tried Gulden Draak quadrupel at the weekend. 
Blimey that's an acquired taste. 
Alright once you're in but tastes like someone dropped a mickey finn. 
Definitely aids sleep. 

They look superb. 

Same. Ordered 7. Along with some Sweet temptation and that collab pale/IPA they've done with some chinese(?) brewery.

I tell you now, Bielik’s gonna be back and he’s going to fold Wilson into an origami swan!
 

Now then ladies and gentleman... firstly I hope you are all well and secondly sorry for the mother of rants which is about to unfold...
As some may be aware from the ‘new parents’ thread I made last year I am lucky enough to now be the father of the most incredible little lady this planet has ever seen, also from that thread some of you may be aware that the pregnancy wasn’t all plain sailing. 
Unfortunately neither does the living side seem to be. Our daughter had corrective surgery to save her life at 1 day old... in the next 44 days before coming home she would go on to have 5 collapsed lungs, 2 cardiac arrests, 1 blood transfusion, 7 ventilations, 2 more surgeries and numerous amount of pain relief/medication.
last Friday though everything was brilliant and me and my wife were finally able to bring her home... the next few days were the best of my life and something that we were robbed of for the first month and a half of her life, we had numerous visitors and for to introduce her to her family.
on Tuesday we went to the park with our other daughter as quite understandably she was quite overwhelmed and a bit jealous about her new little sister... whilst at the park I was feeding Clara-Leisa who subsequently stopped breathing and vomited blood through her mouth and nose. I had to do CPR in the middle of the park on her as the air ambulance (absolutely amazing) and 2 road ambulances turned up. 
Thankfully I managed to get her breathing again and the incredible paramedics and drs kept her going and she’s on the mend.
i don’t really know the purpose of this post but just felt it would possibly help to have a Release.
photo’s included of how she is today as I realise what I’ve written is traumatic and we could be a lot worse...