6 minutes of your life you can’t have back…

Remember way back in January the photos from Chapala with Ed, Monica, Daniel and Pat. Well I’ve been virtually wandering the planet on Google Earth again and zoomed in on Chapala. Here’s how it looked when you had to walk 1500 yds from the end of the pier to get to the water:

And if you like such things: chapala.kmz google map file

Another good night… Suffice to say today I’m not answering the phone nor checking my mail… Let alone going on the trip to Tequila with the Alemanes. R & R is very much in order.

Nanny’s house is on the market. After a lot of work from Mum, Dad, Gill, Geoff & Rog, here’s the site: maycottageksm.co.uk

So on Thursday we had our 4th anniversary and went out for a smorgasbord Italian meal at the new eatery in Downey Landing, just down the road (though, being L.A., we drove…). If you find yourself there, we recommend saving the coupon from your local paper and getting the free artichoke and cheese bruscetta dip thing followed by shrimp and chicken pasta (spicy). Bring the majority of it home in a doggy bag and you’ll have good eats for days. We also went out to Stox for breakfast with Sally famed for its coffee and hash brown (fried grated potato mass). Here’s a cut-out-and-keep guide to how we’ve celebrated so far.

1st Anniversary: Guadalajara, Italian Meal.
2nd Anniversary: On a plane coming back to CA from Amherst MA
3rd Anniv: Went back to Kronkite point where we got married for a wander and then a meal in the restaurant where we celebrated
and 4th see above…

We’ve been doing the occasional odd job round the house too even though Sally & Martin have done the lion’s share of moving work… Reorganised the garage, dug up the grape vine, painted bits and pieces in the old house, painted the roof with reflective white paint to try to bring down the ambient temperature, reminded Atticus what walks are and other small stuff. Anyroad, today, which is Sally’s birthday, we’re giving her the gift of having her house back for a few days and are heading North to visit several old haunts and see our mates, back Thursdayish.

Still have some web work to take care of, and also whether to put in a bid on a 100% Flash catalogue site. It’s a bit intimidating but I could learn some new stuff. I have an hour or so to make up my mind. I’m erring towards not quite ready for it yet but we’ll see if some toast and coffee changes all that…

In other news, Sita just forwarded me this article from the SC Sentinel, Teachers continue to flee Scotts Valley… Good to know I’m actually part of a larger tradition…

And since I might not manage much in the way of posts in the next few days. Here’s a link to a a game (click on geartaker) that I pretended to be playing as I kept an eye on the cable installation bloke yesterday. My high score’s nothing to write home about.

Friday’s trip to SCruz went great, lovely to see our sociologist/non-sociologist friends again in what might be one of our last visits (except in we’re going again in half an hour and there for graduation on Friday…). I didn’t sleep so wonderfully due to a heady mixture of garlic bread and a sweltering hotel room, so I got up at 5am and managed to catch the sunrise and greet the sealions dozing by the pier.

Here’s the set of all the pix and if you hover your mouse over the picture above, you’ll see the picture Elias’s watercolour is based on (painted in less than 90 minutes if my calculations are correct). He’s the artist behind the butterfly a while ago. One of these days I’m going to have a go at this watercolour thing and if I’m only a fraction as good as Elias I’ll be very happy.