What's up for the weekend?

[El Presidente]

What's up for the weekend? 

It has been a wild week in Saigon with a magnificent round of Amicigar events and mid morning finishes 

Today/Saturday we have another series of events finishing with the Gala Dinner tonight. This whole week has been a spectacular. All credit to Darria and Sami of Avanti Group/LCDH HCM city. Mucho credit as well to Gino, Fernando and Guissepe of Amicigar who have steered this fantastic community for 20 years. 

Tomorrow morning Diana and I fly out to Danang for some much needed R&R. 

What's up for the weekend? 

[JohnS]

Luckily for us, we have a long weekend here in Australia on account of the Anzac Day Public Holiday, which commemorates soldiers who have served our country in military conflict.

On Friday night, my wife and I went to see our adult daughter, Sarah and she wanted to see a French movie with us because she has started to learn French recently. She is a Fine Arts student and she considers it advantageous to her future career to know the language, to which I agree, of course. She is loving it so far and she chose 'The Count of Monte Cristo', the film starring the French Ryan Gosling (in my view) as the titular character, Edmond Dantes. This is quite simply a great film, the most successful film in France in 2024. Despite the film being almost 3 hours long it flows so well...the time passes effortlessly upon viewing it, in my opinion. I've already seen the film twice so it was fun watching it with English subtitles with my wife, Eleni and Sarah and adding some more information to some of the dialogue for them. (For example, the dialogue translated as "I'll turn you in" is "I'll denounce you" and there's a common saying in the film translated as "I'm glad" which is "tant mieux" in French and is difficult to translate as it means "so much the better". It's a term one uses to explain that a bad situation has turned out well. There was also a part in the film whereby one of the characters -Dangars, was accused of making money via slavery. At this point of the film we paused watching to give some historical context as one of the ideals of the French Revolution was to abolish it, but Napoleon re-introduced it in 1804 in the Caribbean outpost of Martinique to raise capital for his military campaigns. It was finally abolished in 1848. So making an accusation of this type was personally scandalous for the times and both my wife and my daughter appreciated knowing that.)

On Saturday we plan to visit some close friends for dinner at their house. We're taking some nice wine and dessert.

On Sunday, we're planning to celebrate @jay8354's 50th birthday at restaurant in Parramatta here in Sydney. Good company, good Japanese food and good cigars. Should be a good time.

I paid a deposit on a Wedding Reception venue for my son George today. My wife, son and future daughter-in-law were most pleased.

I've just finished smoking an Arturo Fuente Hemingway Classic and a 2018 Por Larranaga Montecarlos today while learning Spanish and Italian via Duolingo. They were both excellent, especially the Por Larranaga Montecarlos as the weather was glorious today and it was replete with caramel and toffee.

I hope to further my studies in those Latin-based languages this weekend as knowing French already is a huge help in progressing more quickly in them. It's been six months almost on Duolingo for Spanish and I'm almost one-third of the way through it. I started Italian during my vacation in April a few weeks ago and I'm 15% of the way through it already. I enjoy them both immensely.

[cnov]

The weather has turned here and the mower has had its annual expensive repair, strimming, grass cutting, maybe some burning of garden stuff. I love a family day at home not doing much. 

The swallows are back nesting in the shed too. I enjoyed a 2019 PLPC while watching their aerial acrobatics yesterday, today it'll be a Royal Robusto that I haven't sampled for a couple of years while probably doing much the same. 

Smash burgers on the BBQ for lunch. 

Dinner round a friend's tomorrow, then it's back to work. 

 

[Goldeneye]

Settling in for the 4th winter this April in Alberta, weather-wise it's been a terrible month. No cigars for me due to the weather but will get in some dog walks, an indoor run, watching some playoff hockey and visiting my parents. Getting very tired of this endless winter and looking forward to spring when it finally arrives. 

[Ford2112]

Lots of this.

[El Hoze]

I have a house full of my wife’s family in from Dominican Republic. My son is excited, he gets to play domino at a professional level with the abuelas and tias all day. I have to cook for them. Making black beans and roast pork, gotta be on your A game with this crowd!! 

[unaslob]

Rainout today, but able to enjoy some SP Chan Chans in the hangar. First two out of the box. 

Tomorrow my 15yo has Sporting Clays practice for the High School Trap/Skeet/Sporting Clays team. I might embarrass myself and shoot with the team.  

[MAT]

A beautiful walk before lunch to the gardens of the local Holešov castle.

[Nevrknow]

@JohnS pic help? Again!. I know, I owe. 🤣

Made for a great Sunday!

[westg]

2 hours ago, Nevrknow said:

@JohnS pic help? Again!. I know, I owe. 🤣

Made for a great Sunday!

Nice choice with the wash down . !

[BrightonCorgi]

On 4/26/2026 at 11:20 AM, unaslob said:

Rainout today, but able to enjoy some SP Chan Chans in the hangar. First two out of the box. 

Tomorrow my 15yo has Sporting Clays practice for the High School Trap/Skeet/Sporting Clays team. I might embarrass myself and shoot with the team.  

Those are among the best-looking SP's I have seen.