October 2018 Newsletter
October 1, 2018 (Newsletters)

With views of island-studded waters and forests descending to the water’s edge, Sitka, Alaska is home to a mere 9,061 people. One of the individuals, and the focus of our spotlight this month, is Reilly Madigan of Lucky Chance Guide Service.

One of the owners of Speedy Metals, Dale Steger, met Reilly while on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Alaska. Dale visited the town of Sitka, which is accessible only by air or sea. Sitka offers incredible scenery, fishing, hiking, abundant wildlife, and Alaska’s most culturally rich history and community.

Sitka is nestled at the foot of magnificent glacier-carved mountains facing the Pacific Ocean on Baranof Island. It is on the outer coast of Alaska’s Inside Passage and lies at the heart of the largest temperate rain forest in the world: the Tongass National Forest.

While in Sitka, Dale contacted Lucky Chance Guide Service and booked a “Back Country Nature Hike” excursion and was picked up dockside by Reilly and his Springer Spaniel, Daisy.  Reilly was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. He graduated Central High in 1988 and earned a BS Degree from UW-Stevens Point '95. He proudly served our country in the Army, Army National Guard 1987-1995 and then re-located to Sitka, Alaska.

They boarded Reilly’s motor boat and made their journey to Reilly’s float boat where the two enjoyed the mountainous views and talked for a moment.

Here’s where the story gets interesting. Reilly asked Dale where he works, Dale said, “Speedy Metals”. Reilly smiles and proceeds to sing the entire “Speedy Metals” jingle word for word!

How amazing that Reilly Madigan, located 2,257 miles from Speedy Metals' corporate office in New Berlin, Wisconsin recognized Speedy Metals and was able to easily sing the jingle to the owner. After catching his breath, Reilly explained, “I listen to the Milwaukee Brewers broadcasts on Sirius radio and the internet, and knew your company by the song on the radio!"

The amazing part to this story is that Reilly lives on his boat, anchored in a remote Alaskan bay. He gets his power from a combination of generators and car batteries and yet he knows the Speedy Metals jingle by heart. That is incredible. Reilly has definitely earned his moment in our Spotlight. If your ever in Sitka, Alaska and are looking for a tour guide contact Reilly at luckychanceguideservice.com

Cheers to you Reilly, and thanks for letting us share this awesome story!

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A liquid metal droplet with flakes of aluminium oxide compounds grown on its surface. Each 0.03mm flake is made up of about 20,000 nano-sheets stacked together. Credit RMIT University

Recently, researchers at UNSW and RMIT discovered a new technique to produce aluminum oxide nano-filters cheaply and with virtually no energy required.

"[W]hen a chunk of aluminium is added to the core of liquid gallium at room temperature, layers of aluminium oxide are quickly produced at the surface of the gallium."

"The authors discovered that these aluminium oxide nano-sheets were highly porous and went on to prove they were suitable for filtering both heavy metal ions and oil contamination at unprecedented, ultra-fast rates."

Current portable filtration systems capable of removing heavy metals from water cost upwards of $100. These new aluminum oxide nano-filters, however, can be produced for as little as $0.10.

To read more about this discovery, check out the full article on Science Daily.