Big Sur

We had nice Christmas dinner with hubby's cousin down in LA and then we took of for a short camping trip at the Big Sur.
The coastline there is wonderful. I loved every moment of every hike there.
Moreover, all my fears that camping at the end of the December will be freezing cold were dispersed. At the coast itself camping was nice, a bit chilly temperatures, but still pleasant enough for nice peaceful sleep. Only cold night was when we camped on the top of the coastal mountains. And even then I did not froze.

Only extraordinary event was being stuck in a line of cars due to the slide that needed to be cleaned up. We spent an hour chatting with people from New Zealand and Mexico. It is amazing how fast one can establish contact with total strangers when you have a friendly big dog with you.
Usually the whole procedure has to start with us saying that dog is friendly and that only danger is being covered in hair and slobber. :-)  After that, we start talking about various stuff, like other dogs, weather on other parts of planet, cars (yeah, my hubby was discussing that important question with other blokes), etc.

At the end, all I can say is that I'm still in awe with the beauty of that coastline. It is mostly protected, meaning no development, so it is very easy to imagine how it was looking when it was completely wild.  Also, people who are visiting the coast are careful, so it is not littered with the trash. I even suspect that many people collect the trash which ocean throws on the shore as well. Exactly as we did as well.

Solstice party

So I went on my first winter solstice party. Although we were supposed to dress up on a theme of the stars not many people did so. At the first moment when we were going towards the house I thought my hubby and me are the only ones in costumes. But there were few more couples.
Thanks for my hubby lack of time he did went as Kirk at the end. Simply because for that I just needed to order a shirt. Of course, shirt came in the wrong size so I had to take it in. A very hard task when I could not measure my hubby before hand. So he ended up with a bit roomy t-shirt. I guess I will have to make the nice one for him later, for a next star trek dress up opportunity.
Host was a part of a band so we had live music at the party. On this other photo you can see Kirk talking with the band singer. To me it looked really like a scene from star trek original show. Singer almost looked like one of the shady characters from some ST episode trying to pull one over the captain. :-)

Pure Geekyness

So, hubby and I got invitation for this winter solstice. It is dress party, theme - Star. 

Of course, immediately I added Trek to that Star and decided to make myself an uniform like that one from Star Trek film Nemesis. Unfortunately that cannot happen simply because I got fabric too late. Now there is simply not enough time to complete that sewing project. I would need to make trousers, shirt and jacket. Too much work for just few evenings left. As the result I will make my hubby happy and go in my old uniform, the one I had on my first Star Trek convention. 

My hubby was planing to go as a brown dwarf (he was rather disappointed when he learned that Uranus is not large enough to justify “brown dwarf” classification). However, making that costume was rather demanding for someone who cannot even take a day off during the week, so at the end he agreed that I get him Star Trek shirt so that he can go as Captain Kirk. I guess that fact that his wife will go in similar kind of uniform was comforting enough for him to end up being included into Geekyness :-) 

On this other photo you can see the shirt I ordered for him. 

Visitors

So I had quite interesting visitor last weekend.

First I have to give some background. There is a cat in my neighborhood that is blind in one eye. It has no collar so I thought it is stray cat. It turned out that it is owned by one of the students.
Anyway, I started to give her water and some food before I figured out that wee girl just likes to pick where the food is tastier... (It is female according to my husband. I have not clue myself. ) And I referred to her as "Schrody" simply because it was uncertain is this my cat or not.

So Schrody likes to visit me sometimes for some treats and petting.

Last weekend a kitten appeared. At first I thought it is Schrody's offspring. Very loud orange kitten. Again, according to my husband most likely a wee tomcat. Seems like that orange cats are almost always tomcats. And in case of this little fella, it is quite obvious that my hubby is spot on.
So, this sunday, when I opened my door I got visitors. Schrody got in, and this wee orange tomcat was following her. I know that you cannot see it here, but orange tomcat "Garfield" is half size of Schrody. And apparently just got into puberty with hormones raging. He was following Schrody all the time while she was constantly hissing at him. Garfield have a collar so he ended up with his rightful owner that evening.
But boy, he was fun visitor. I was able to play with him, grabbing him and carrying him around. He was used to similar treatment from humans. Even worse one, because he was smelling nicely on some shampoo.  Cats usually do not like to be treated roughly or played with in a way they do not like. But this little fella was just to busy with his romantic pursuits to pay any attention on what I'm doing with him.
It was fun watching him chasing Schrody and loudly demanding from me and all other neighbors to stop hiding her. :-)
For me, it was a lovely way to keep my mind of the work and finally have a relaxing day.

Start

Well, up to now I was regular user of Facebook. I found it handy way to share the info and update with my friends and family that are far away from me.
Then I learned that Facebook basically treats its users as cattle, as objects to sell. And that attitude started to get to my nerves. So I reduced amount of private informations I post. Right now there is a voting going on about new policies about privacy of Facebook users. Facebook insist that  at least 30% of its users should vote for results to be binding. Voting is closing today and not even 1% of users voted. This means that new policies will be introduced. These new policies in essence strip away users right to set its privacy or to stop Facebook to sell data whom ever Facebook wish. Not something I really like to experience. So subsequently, I will kill my private Facebook account.
Instead, I will update about me here. Not only about events but also about my opinions and pondering.
I hope I will be interesting enough for you to continue reading.