It's the holiday time of year, and what better time than now to celebrate our community. This also means that it's time for our annual drawing.
This time, it's simple: you should post below saying hello to us. But don't just say “hi” --also tell us a little bit about yourself. If you're a newer forum member, introduce yourself. Tell us what you do when you're not on the forum, where you live and what your other hobbies are. If you're an old-timer, reintroduce yourself, and tell us one thing we may not know about you. It'll be everyone's chance to extend Season's Greetings to our community.
And also, if at all possible, please post a photo of yourself, at home or at work. If you don't know how to post a photo, it's time to learn, and simple instructions can be found on the following post. All entries with a photo will get double credit in our drawing.
Please post your entry as a reply here by Thursday evening, December 13 no later than 23:59 hours Schaffhausen time (11:59 p.m. to you civilians). From all entries, I will randomly draw at least 20 prize winners, assuming at least 60 forum members enter. The prizes include Top Gun USB key rings, IWC key rings, Portofino key rings, and Top Gun soundtracks.
Also there will be a few prizes awarded for especially great posts –ones thast are especially clever, interesting or humorous. Those lucky members will win the new IWC museum book, or one Grand Prize, IWC's huge image book IWC Schaffhausen: Engineering Time since 1868.
Picture Uploading - A Snappy Guide –courtesy of Shing To upload a pic to the forum, you will need to first upload the picture onto a hosting site. This can be space provided by your internet service provider (your account may already come with one with a limited size). Whatever the case, the pic has to reside on a permanently live server and cannot be on your harddrive.
Quick Step One: most people sign up for a free host at www.photobucket.com Quick Step Two: Upload your pic, preferably in 640x480 size Quick Step Three: Look for this box below and click on the URL beside IMG Code, and paste it directly in ‘Your Comment’ box when writing a new comment in the forum. Quick Step Four: check, check, check that you have successfully uploaded the pic (like I have done with the image directly above :) by using the preview button i.e. clicking on the ‘tick’, just above the ‘Your Comment’ box. And you’re done !
3,732 Discussions and CommentsMember since March 28, 2001
Hi all, my name is Paul. You see my picture that was taken right after I collected the Portofino 8 Days Handwound, last year. Quite obviously I was in a bright mood, at our favourite holiday destination, Zermatt, Switzerland.
I am 62 years old, and married to my wife Annemiek. I live in the Netherlands, and am still happily working for an energy company, looking for the right mix of organisation, people and technique on ICT Security.
One of my interests is classical music, where the highlights are Johan Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner and Sergei Prokofiev. And many others. Music is just a miracle, by existence and effect, some composers are geniuses that make me happy.
Another interest is a Chinese game probably best known by its Japanese name, Go. I used to play it a lot but, not eager to visit tournaments anymore, the last few years I replay top games from the current Chinese and Korean heroes, trying to understand what they are thinking about.
Finally, there are watches, they intrigue me without me quite understanding why. But I must not want to try to understand everything. I love great quality watches, I love them looking classically clean with a lot of character without shouting around. That lead me to IWC, by coincidence: my father leading the way by buying an IWC for my mother. My interest in IWC would not have been so persistent, had this forum not been there. So, thank you all for quite some interesting and memorable moments. I try to withstand your implicit, collective efforts to make me poorer than I want to be, with a mixed result.
Kind regards, Paul
What you do may not be so important, but it is very important that you do it well. (my variation of a saying by Gandhi)
2,248 Discussions and CommentsMember since Aug. 2, 2001
Hi All
I've been around for a while and have met quite a few of you in person, but here are a few things about me you might not have known:
1. My favorite movie is Animal House. I think I lived a part in the movie when I was college - before the movie came out.
2. While career wise I ended up President of manufacturing companies, I would have preferred to play drums for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
And for a photo, I'll pick one that includes all the things we love - good food, good watches, and IWC friends. I'm the one on the right, along with "Dzul" and his wife, the lovely Dorothy. That's the pre-Santoni 5001 on my wrist.
My name is George, and I officially, happily joined this community on June 19, 2012 when my IWC 3714-45 arrived, after many months of planning!
I just finished my BA in History, studying at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Currently I live in St. Louis, MO working at Washington University in St. Louis in fundraising management.
My interests, aside from watches (of course) include trivia: I was captain of my highschool trivia team, placing 4th in Ontario out of 400 schools, and making 3 tv appearances on TV Ontario in 2008.
Perhaps my highlight so far in my 22 years, was being interviewed and featured on CNN.com for an article about an American crime procedural, Law & Order: Criminal Intent: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/29/law.order.criminal.intent/index.html
My taste in music is perhaps eclectic, I was trained as a classical violinist and having performed as a soloist with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra when I was in 13 for their weeklong Education Series in 2003 playing the Bach Double Concerto in d minor. However, my favourite music is probably rock, folk, and a mix of the two, such as Belle and Sebastian. I once travelled more than 5 hours and waited outside for 8 hours to be one of the first in line to see the Smashing Pumpkins in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In fact if you search Smashing Pumpkins on wikipedia.org, the main picture of the band is one that I took 2 years ago when I saw them.
Hi everyone. My name is David. I'm an American expat living in Switzerland which, as many of you know, is home to cheese, mountains and parking places that are almost, though not quite, as big as the cars they are meant to contain. Oh, and I'm given to understand that they make watches here as well.
I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware (Go Hens!) - the 49th largest of the United States (he said with pride). A nice place with a maximum elevation of approximately 400 ft above sea level. From there my wife and I moved to St. Louis where we spent five years in grad school at Washington University (Go Bears!). St. Louis is a wonderful town and one of the flattest places on the planet. While there I took a serious interest in darts, or maybe it was the pitchers of Sam Adams we consumed while playing.
Next we moved to Columbus, Ohio where I was on the faculty of the computer science department at the Ohio State University (Go Bucks!). Columbus is almost as flat as St. Louis though on something of a plateau at the lofty elevation of almost 1000 ft above sea level. While there I took up woodworking as a hobby and became interested in furniture and architecture of the American Arts & Crafts movement. Ultimately, I wrote a book about the work of California architects Charles and Henry Greene.
On December 29, 2009, we arrived in Switzerland for my wife's job. Lake Geneva -- just about the lowest spot in the country -- is higher than anyplace else we've ever lived. Our home is about 1000 ft above the lake. To say that this was a type of culture shock is an understatement. It took about a year, but I fell in love with the mountains, or more correctly, fell in love with being in the mountains. It took considerably less time for me to fall in love with the cheese (l'Etivaz is made by angels, I'm sure of it). And finally, this year I succumbed to the uhren virus. With so many watch shops here, one can withstand for only so long. On the other hand, I'm still waiting for my hatred of the parking places to abate and am not optimistic. But three out of four isn't bad.
Currently, I photograph the local scenery for fun and profit and hike when possible. At some point, it will be time to move on, likely back to the US. I'll miss the cheese, the mountains and being in the heart of the watchmaking universe. Parking spots that are actually large enough to hold a car larger than a Fiat 500 will be almost enough to offset the disappointment of leaving. Almost.
Me on top of the Breithorn above Zermatt in October of this year.
122 Discussions and CommentsMember since July 20, 2012
Hi All,
My name is Todd and this me.
I'm an American expat living in Vietnam. I live here with my wife who works in one of the large hotel chains. I work in education and enjoy the work immensely.
Originally, i come from the smallish Chicago suburb of Geneva. I gave up on saying I was from Geneva because whenever I met people they thought I meant either Geneva, Switzerland or Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, which also is known for its cheese, but not watches sadly.
In my free time (and sometimes at work), I enjoy music, trivia and crosswords. But most of all I enjoy watches.
My first and only IWC (but not last) is the Portofino Automatic.
2,872 Discussions and CommentsMember since March 11, 2008Kavala,
Greece
My name is Argiris Develegas I live in Kavala Greece and work for a building and construction materials import company. My position is to help people with problems, any problems that is. I like architecture and sports and believe I have a very keen eye to details. I am married to Natassa a beautiful woman with great patience among other things. On the first picture it is me with Melina, my only daughter. The picture is from her Christening that took place last summer. The greatest thing of this Forum is that it is not about watches at all. It is about people who like and love watches, but mainly about people and most of them are great guys whose friendship I ll cherish for ever. That is the case of a friend many of us know as Roberto (second picture). I met Roberto here in the Forum exchanged some emails and found out we share many common ideas with the most important being that you cannot take yourself too seriously. So we became close friends so close that he was the Godfather to Melina's Christening. I love him and care about him very much although he tries for the opposite direction like the time he FORGOT MELINA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY, or humiliating us in SIHH last year in every possible way LOL. Jokes apart, Roberto and all my Forum friends is the best this Forum ever gave to me.
2,081 Discussions and CommentsMember since Jan. 7, 2005
Dear friends,
I’m Roberto, I was born and live in Rome. My interests are watches and, unfortunately once, skydiving, I quitted some years ago.
I would advice against doing it but, it you want, you can read my brief introduction here: http://www.iwc.com/forum/en/discussion/26881/?page=2
In short, I adore my Kiki, here’s she, on the right, in good company of my friend and forum member Jim’s companion Dorothy.
What’s new?
Well, in less than a month it’s going to be 8 years I’ve been attending this forum, I guess that’s quite something.
This forum became special to me in so many ways I could write a book.
If I look back, I see so much fun and joy I’ve experienced in this place, announcing new arrivals, deepening the knowledge about IWC and its watches, sharing the passion along with People, first known in the forum and later on, met in person. I consider many of them some of my dearest friends.
You can see some of them gloriously posing for this shot, during last SIHH:
Here’s another guy I like very much:
I could be wrong but I was told, after taking this picture, he disappeared accompanied by this woman:
This forum gave me so many gifts I wouldn’t know where to start.
I think it’s too long to mention them all and not elegant either.
IWC, our Northern Star. My favorite watch, my gladiator, my champion.
I pick up the one I consider the greatest of all which may be new to someone.
August the 26th, 2012, I became forum member Argiris’ daughter Godfather.
Me, the everlasting Peter Pan, thrown into a serious commitment due to the irresponsibility of another forum member! LOL!
Ok Argi, I’ll do it for Melina, that’s a promise I won’t ever break.
Season's Greetings!
It's the holiday time of year, and what better time than now to celebrate our community. This also means that it's time for our annual drawing.
This time, it's simple: you should post below saying hello to us. But don't just say “hi” --also tell us a little bit about yourself. If you're a newer forum member, introduce yourself. Tell us what you do when you're not on the forum, where you live and what your other hobbies are. If you're an old-timer, reintroduce yourself, and tell us one thing we may not know about you. It'll be everyone's chance to extend Season's Greetings to our community.
And also, if at all possible, please post a photo of yourself, at home or at work. If you don't know how to post a photo, it's time to learn, and simple instructions can be found on the following post. All entries with a photo will get double credit in our drawing.
Please post your entry as a reply here by Thursday evening, December 13 no later than 23:59 hours Schaffhausen time (11:59 p.m. to you civilians). From all entries, I will randomly draw at least 20 prize winners, assuming at least 60 forum members enter. The prizes include Top Gun USB key rings, IWC key rings, Portofino key rings, and Top Gun soundtracks.
Also there will be a few prizes awarded for especially great posts –ones thast are especially clever, interesting or humorous. Those lucky members will win the new IWC museum book, or one Grand Prize, IWC's huge image book IWC Schaffhausen: Engineering Time since 1868.
Good luck to all, and Happy Holidays!
Regards, Michael
mfriedberg@iwcforum.com
Last edited: 9 December, 2012 - 20:50
Picture Uploading - A Snappy Guide –courtesy of Shing
To upload a pic to the forum, you will need to first upload the picture onto a hosting site. This can be space provided by your internet service provider (your account may already come with one with a limited size). Whatever the case, the pic has to reside on a permanently live server and cannot be on your harddrive.
Quick Step One: most people sign up for a free host at www.photobucket.com
Quick Step Two: Upload your pic, preferably in 640x480 size
Quick Step Three: Look for this box below and click on the URL beside IMG Code, and paste it directly in ‘Your Comment’ box when writing a new comment in the forum.
Quick Step Four: check, check, check that you have successfully uploaded the pic (like I have done with the image directly above :) by using the preview button i.e. clicking on the ‘tick’, just above the ‘Your Comment’ box. And you’re done !
Good luck again!
Regards, Michael
mfriedberg@iwcforum.com
Hi all, my name is Paul. You see my picture that was taken right after I collected the Portofino 8 Days Handwound, last year. Quite obviously I was in a bright mood, at our favourite holiday destination, Zermatt, Switzerland.
I am 62 years old, and married to my wife Annemiek. I live in the Netherlands, and am still happily working for an energy company, looking for the right mix of organisation, people and technique on ICT Security.
One of my interests is classical music, where the highlights are Johan Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner and Sergei Prokofiev. And many others. Music is just a miracle, by existence and effect, some composers are geniuses that make me happy.
Another interest is a Chinese game probably best known by its Japanese name, Go. I used to play it a lot but, not eager to visit tournaments anymore, the last few years I replay top games from the current Chinese and Korean heroes, trying to understand what they are thinking about.
Finally, there are watches, they intrigue me without me quite understanding why. But I must not want to try to understand everything. I love great quality watches, I love them looking classically clean with a lot of character without shouting around. That lead me to IWC, by coincidence: my father leading the way by buying an IWC for my mother. My interest in IWC would not have been so persistent, had this forum not been there. So, thank you all for quite some interesting and memorable moments. I try to withstand your implicit, collective efforts to make me poorer than I want to be, with a mixed result.
Kind regards,
Paul
What you do may not be so important, but it is very important that you do it well. (my variation of a saying by Gandhi)
I've been around for a while and have met quite a few of you in person, but here are a few things about me you might not have known:
1. My favorite movie is Animal House. I think I lived a part in the movie when I was college - before the movie came out.
2. While career wise I ended up President of manufacturing companies, I would have preferred to play drums for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
And for a photo, I'll pick one that includes all the things we love - good food, good watches, and IWC friends. I'm the one on the right, along with "Dzul" and his wife, the lovely Dorothy. That's the pre-Santoni 5001 on my wrist.
Dick L.
whichwatch at roadrunner dot com
Thanks for doing this Michael!
My name is George, and I officially, happily joined this community on June 19, 2012 when my IWC 3714-45 arrived, after many months of planning!
I just finished my BA in History, studying at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Currently I live in St. Louis, MO working at Washington University in St. Louis in fundraising management.
My interests, aside from watches (of course) include trivia: I was captain of my highschool trivia team, placing 4th in Ontario out of 400 schools, and making 3 tv appearances on TV Ontario in 2008.
Perhaps my highlight so far in my 22 years, was being interviewed and featured on CNN.com for an article about an American crime procedural, Law & Order: Criminal Intent: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/29/law.order.criminal.intent/index.html
My taste in music is perhaps eclectic, I was trained as a classical violinist and having performed as a soloist with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra when I was in 13 for their weeklong Education Series in 2003 playing the Bach Double Concerto in d minor. However, my favourite music is probably rock, folk, and a mix of the two, such as Belle and Sebastian. I once travelled more than 5 hours and waited outside for 8 hours to be one of the first in line to see the Smashing Pumpkins in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In fact if you search Smashing Pumpkins on wikipedia.org, the main picture of the band is one that I took 2 years ago when I saw them.
Last but not least, a picture of my IWC:
George
IWC Portuguese Chronograph 3714-45
I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware (Go Hens!) - the 49th largest of the United States (he said with pride). A nice place with a maximum elevation of approximately 400 ft above sea level. From there my wife and I moved to St. Louis where we spent five years in grad school at Washington University (Go Bears!). St. Louis is a wonderful town and one of the flattest places on the planet. While there I took a serious interest in darts, or maybe it was the pitchers of Sam Adams we consumed while playing.
Next we moved to Columbus, Ohio where I was on the faculty of the computer science department at the Ohio State University (Go Bucks!). Columbus is almost as flat as St. Louis though on something of a plateau at the lofty elevation of almost 1000 ft above sea level. While there I took up woodworking as a hobby and became interested in furniture and architecture of the American Arts & Crafts movement. Ultimately, I wrote a book about the work of California architects Charles and Henry Greene.
On December 29, 2009, we arrived in Switzerland for my wife's job. Lake Geneva -- just about the lowest spot in the country -- is higher than anyplace else we've ever lived. Our home is about 1000 ft above the lake. To say that this was a type of culture shock is an understatement. It took about a year, but I fell in love with the mountains, or more correctly, fell in love with being in the mountains. It took considerably less time for me to fall in love with the cheese (l'Etivaz is made by angels, I'm sure of it). And finally, this year I succumbed to the uhren virus. With so many watch shops here, one can withstand for only so long. On the other hand, I'm still waiting for my hatred of the parking places to abate and am not optimistic. But three out of four isn't bad.
Currently, I photograph the local scenery for fun and profit and hike when possible. At some point, it will be time to move on, likely back to the US. I'll miss the cheese, the mountains and being in the heart of the watchmaking universe. Parking spots that are actually large enough to hold a car larger than a Fiat 500 will be almost enough to offset the disappointment of leaving. Almost.
Me on top of the Breithorn above Zermatt in October of this year.
Best regards,
David
Last edited: 8 January, 2013 - 17:49
My name is Todd and this me.
I'm an American expat living in Vietnam. I live here with my wife who works in one of the large hotel chains. I work in education and enjoy the work immensely.
Originally, i come from the smallish Chicago suburb of Geneva. I gave up on saying I was from Geneva because whenever I met people they thought I meant either Geneva, Switzerland or Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, which also is known for its cheese, but not watches sadly.
In my free time (and sometimes at work), I enjoy music, trivia and crosswords. But most of all I enjoy watches.
My first and only IWC (but not last) is the Portofino Automatic.
Regards,
Todd
Last edited: 10 December, 2012 - 13:39
My name is Argiris Develegas I live in Kavala Greece and work for a building and construction materials import company. My position is to help people with problems, any problems that is.
I like architecture and sports and believe I have a very keen eye to details.
I am married to Natassa a beautiful woman with great patience among other things.
On the first picture it is me with Melina, my only daughter.
The picture is from her Christening that took place last summer.
The greatest thing of this Forum is that it is not about watches at all.
It is about people who like and love watches, but mainly about people and most of them are great guys whose friendship I ll cherish for ever.
That is the case of a friend many of us know as Roberto (second picture). I met Roberto here in the Forum exchanged some emails and found out we share many common ideas with the most important being that you cannot take yourself too seriously.
So we became close friends so close that he was the Godfather to Melina's Christening. I love him and care about him very much although he tries for the opposite direction like the time he FORGOT MELINA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY, or humiliating us in SIHH last year in every possible way LOL.
Jokes apart, Roberto and all my Forum friends is the best this Forum ever gave to me.
Best regards
Argiris
I’m Roberto, I was born and live in Rome. My interests are watches and, unfortunately once, skydiving, I quitted some years ago.
I would advice against doing it but, it you want, you can read my brief introduction here: http://www.iwc.com/forum/en/discussion/26881/?page=2
In short, I adore my Kiki, here’s she, on the right, in good company of my friend and forum member Jim’s companion Dorothy.
What’s new?
Well, in less than a month it’s going to be 8 years I’ve been attending this forum, I guess that’s quite something.
This forum became special to me in so many ways I could write a book.
If I look back, I see so much fun and joy I’ve experienced in this place, announcing new arrivals, deepening the knowledge about IWC and its watches, sharing the passion along with People, first known in the forum and later on, met in person. I consider many of them some of my dearest friends.
You can see some of them gloriously posing for this shot, during last SIHH:
Here’s another guy I like very much:
I could be wrong but I was told, after taking this picture, he disappeared accompanied by this woman:
This forum gave me so many gifts I wouldn’t know where to start.
I think it’s too long to mention them all and not elegant either.
IWC, our Northern Star.
My favorite watch, my gladiator, my champion.
I pick up the one I consider the greatest of all which may be new to someone.
August the 26th, 2012, I became forum member Argiris’ daughter Godfather.
Me, the everlasting Peter Pan, thrown into a serious commitment due to the irresponsibility of another forum member! LOL!
Ok Argi, I’ll do it for Melina, that’s a promise I won’t ever break.
Season's Greetings to all of you!
Regards,
Roberto
Last edited: 11 January, 2013 - 11:07