I'm definitely going to take some time off.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit the McEwen-Goldcorp appeal hearing, and also have lunch at the Stockbrokers' Club where the discussion is likely to be all about the news released after the close today from the Minister of Finance that Canada's Income Trusts are going to be taxed.

That's going to crash the Toronto market in the morning. And probably hurt the CAD.

Then Thursday I'm going to put in most of the day on the book manuscript I've been working on, and Friday I'm going to meet the first of three publishers who are waiting to meet.

I just remembered today when I first met Goldcorp's Ian Telfer. He was a corp finance entrepreneur in Toronto who had gotten into a deal called Treasure Valley Explorations. He invited a few of us to breakfast or lunch at the King Eddy Hotel, I think it was.

Telfer's partner and heart of the deal was a young " remember this was early 1980's " Brazilian engineer by the name of Eike Batista. When Eike sat down beside me, I'll never forget him plunking onto the table a fist-sized solid gold nugget. This was placer gold found in the Amazon River.

Eike's father had been Minister of Mines for Brazil and he managed to get the Amazon placer gold mining permits for a new company that the Toronto boys had set up and financed for his son who had just returned from Switzerland with an engineering degree. The young engineer had figured, why pan for gold in the river with a thousand miners when you could use a huge excavation machine like a steamshovel -- or whatever they're called these days.

That company had its share of ups and downs, and finally became part of Echo Bay Mines and then Kinross, as I recall. (Remember, for four years I was in Bahamas and out of touch with this crowd.)

One day I recall watching on TV the world championship offshore powerboat races, and there was Eike Batista in his Spirit of the Amazon, a winner " world champ I believe. Good looking and personable guy.

I gather Eike returned to Brazil where he managed to secure about a one-sixth interest in CVRD (a Cara 100 company) and a major interest in Apex Silver. I also heard he became an energy "capitalist" down there and recently read how he got caught up in the political squabbles in Bolivia.

Funny how the memory works; These things just come to mind.

I remember Ian Telfer in those early years as a top quality guy, though. Remember, in the early and mid-80's, I was an acquaintance of between 800 and a thousand stock promoters, and I knew the good ones from the rest.

Obviously after 25 years, Ian knows the ropes. He moved to Vancouver where I passed him on the street about five years ago, but couldn't remember his name, unfortunately. Life moves on.

He'll be happy, maybe, with my pick of his Silver Wheaton as a Cara 100 company, but he can't be too happy with my support for Rob McEwen.

On Thursday last week, I dropped in to see Mr. Platinum at my favorite bar, Hy's in Toronto, and he was entertaining the usual mob. There was an empty chair at the table, so I asked if it was taken. Mr. Platinum said to me (and to his group), "Telfer's agent was sitting there, but I told him you were on the way, so he beat it out of here."

Funny guy.

This is the same person who introduced me to Mr Peru at the PDAC as "Bill Cara, political blogger." You remember that story? Mr. Platinum had staked half a remote Andes mountain in Peru, but nobody there knew how to record a claim, so he took his papers to Lima, the capital city. They told him he had to return to the local people to get approval, but he told the government officers that the whole local village was illiterate. So I gather they assigned him Mr Peru to help him out.

He says to me, "Can you imagine; totally illiterate?" I said, "You mean in English," and he replies, "No; in their own language! There wasn't a person in the village who could read or write Spanish!... But they sure could communicate to Mr Peru they wanted a ten-pct royalty. I told them I don't do royalties;"

I think Mr Platinum has a degree in Engineering Physics or something. One of the smartest guys I ever met, as well as funny. And, fingers into everything.

At the recent Toronto Resource Investor Show I brought him over to introduce him to a promising young company, and the miner blushed: "I think you own our royalties." It wouldn't surprise me. Once I mentioned a country where I had some high level contacts, and he replied he owned a large piece of the national electric company. And he also called me one day from a remote place to thank me for breaking the Stelco story on my blog, as he was long their bonds.

Oh, and as I had to depart early on Thursday, for my family dinner, he asked: "What time do you have to have that suit back? 7 o'clock?" Always kidding.

Yesterday I was telling a close friend: "Mr. Platinum told me he saved your life, and so I asked him which country that would be (since these miners go everywhere), and he said "All of them"."

Maybe today I'm trying to think of the good stuff. It's not much fun hearing the words, "Oh, I have to do another biopsy -- this time from your leg."

Yes, it's time for a break. I'm going to start the day off with the Bull-Board and Daily Planet threads for a couple days, and maybe write up the McEwen-Goldcorp hearing, but that's all.

The gold and silver break-outs continued today, and that's something else good to think about.