I've wasted my life?

When we first moved here, one of my favorite things about California was the large difference in smell that a small distance in travel can make. Wales has a lot to recommend itself (chiefly, the bacon), but unless you're in one of the south-east's more urinique areas, the whole country smells like a similar mix of animals and the sea.  The Coast Range around the Bay has a smell -- eucalyptus mixed with burning VC cash? -- that's very evocative.

This isn't the same place, but it's the same area that was all snowy in the post below. Barely a trace of it now. The area definitely gets snowy in winter, though -- the top picture is pointing at the Tahoe rim, and, below it, the Boreal ski place for people who like skiing for some reason.

Lesson learned after getting surprise-blizzarded in the Sierras: my boots are no longer waterproof. Also, I wish I could hate them to death.

This place was cartoonishly pretty.

I'm just not sure about this thing.

I tell ya, nothing beats waking up at 5 in the morning and taking a left at the wrong fork. On the plus side, it only took me an hour to realize ? Still nice, though.

It's taken me a while to realize that my go-to stress response is "organize tea". I had to learn from R. Monkeys mocking me for being a British stereotype. I thought it was an offensive generalization, but it does also explain my other stress response, to forment a needless war between the princely states of Chhattisgarh then impose unequal treaties when all sides are at their weakest. It's a real Monday pick-me-up. Formal Tea Review Time: (marquee tags go here) Serendipitea has some really good teas (Mandela Masala might just be my favorite), but Buccaneer is not one of them. It's sort of a novelty tea, and (somewhat inscrutably) manages to be cloying without actually being sweet. It's less "boning one's inamorata on the deck of a purloined frigate whilst a full moon blazes overhead" and more "getting locked inside a bouncy-castle shaped like a galleon while a guy named Chad sits outside and throws nickels at you". It tastes like a couple of A Quarter To Tea's sillier "dessertey" teas. I guess maybe they're an acquired taste, but anyone who acquires them is a craven Stalinist non-tipper.

This automated Wordpress image compression sure is bad!

Eyy, I unearthed my first real camera. I used this, then switched to a Rolleiflex SL 35 M, then that stopped advancing properly, and then good digital SLRs became a thing. The Contaflex is really nice, but is sort of weird in that you can't actually see through the viewfinder until it's cocked, but it's bad for it to leave it like that. Focusing is also done with little nubs around the lens, rather than a ring. Still great to use, though.