Sept 12

It was norms grand opening today so we headed there in time for the 10am opening in case we could be useful. Norm was at the airport collecting a Philippines shipment of fish which China Air had kindly held up for 24 hours so nobody had high hopes of any arriving alive.
We chatted to the staff and a few customers even managing to sell one of our aminos to one lol after the threats to poison their tanks from a rival store we also patrolled the aisles just keeping an eye on things.
Norm got back about one and it was all hands on deck. We all checked the bags for signs of life quite surprised by how many had survived the 2.5 day trip. Norm's business partner Ralphy has a trick for fish that arrive in bad shape so we all got into a rhythm for a couple of hours following his protocol and of those that showed signs of life most survived the night which impressed us. We don't get many arrive in bad shape but from now on if we do, we will be following Ralphy's example.
They were shutting at 8 and it settled down by about 7 so we headed back to the house. I cooked some chicken and pasta for dinner.
Over dinner Norm began telling us how he went gem hunting in an area called Herkima. From there you can find Herkima diamonds, some just in the dirt others embedded in rocks. The peculiar things with these forms of Quartz which are over 500 million years old are they are only found within a 60 mile radius, nowhere else in the world and they naturally form as 13 sided crystals. He gave us a few and I know Dad will find them fascinating.
It was another big day so after dinner we all had another early night, well it was before midnight anyway :-)