Walks, Snow, Mystery
Origami star on our paper tree.
December was sparsely decorated and rainy.
Our stocking weren’t hung due to lack of chimney, but a handmade cardboard tree and dangling glass balls decorated an otherwise normal living room.
Mushrooms sprung from every dead stump.
I hardly worked on either personal or professional projects, though I did re-theme J’s blog.
Due to the weather, long bike rides were avoided. But oh how I strolled!
The start of a Headlands hike.
Bunker Road tunnel.
Angel Island seen from a scenic snacking spot.
Eucalyptus.
The tip.
Sorry, no Mt. Tam today.
VOR navigation beacon.
Zombie hedonist sign painters strike again.
The Internet Archive keeps it classy.
Everything must be bold.
Clement Laundry.
A Lucky Strike Christmas.
Birds on a building.
City Hall.
Hip to be squares.
Symmetry.
I only go to the coolest clubs.
J’s new look.
I’ve had too much time alone at home.
Grass on a hot steel trunk.
Approaching Diana.
Feeling ancient.
Dew drops on nasturtium.
¿Verdad?
Dew web at Lands End.
Another dew web.
Sunset on Lands End.
Pierced petal.
Misty Mile Rock Beach.
Coastal trails.
The rock labyrinth installed by created by Eduardo Aguilera in 2004 and recently restored.
Shafts of light.
Perfect mushroom specimens on the crook of a tree.
More mushrooms at the base of a stump.
My birthday LEGO set!
I always obey masking tape.
The spire.
Wreaths of the fallen.
Hooked on crack.
Mario’s world.
Sunrise.
Ivy.
Botanical dangle.
Sunrise.
For Christmas, J and I went and stayed at a quaint cabin resort south of Lake Tahoe. Fragrant wood burned in the black metal stove, snow fell outside. We enjoyed puzzles, hot cocoa, and the frozen food from our overachieving refrigerator.
We had planned on two days of skiing/snowboarding, but it started snowing heavily while we were on the slopes. We barely made it back to the cabin that evening before the roads were closed.
The next day, we couldn’t go back without chains, and since it was Christmas there was no source of chains. We sledded instead.
On our checkout day, we tried again, but the road to the resort was still chains only.
We cut our losses and went sledding at a rather tame, and crowded, family sledding park.
Lesson learned: If it’s snowing in Tahoe, carry chains.
Two birds a’ grooming.
Rocks and trees.
Cabin couture.
Our snowy Christmas cabin.
Footsteps.
Winterized.
On the way to the slopes.
Sled barn.
Our sledding hill.
Winter wonderland.
Searching for a wifi signal, we found this river instead.
Long exposure water detail.
The moon.
The day after I got home, I realized that I had lost my portable hard drive that I use as a physical backup of all my files.
It’s not the only backup I have of my stuff, but I take it with me everywhere in case my apartment gets robbed or burns down.
Well that backfired big time, as I think I left it in the cabin.
This drive has a copy of everything I’ve ever made on my computer: 10 years of photos, work files, art, writing, maybe a few docs with my social security number, etc. My whole private life, basically. All this stuff out there somewhere gives me a sick feeling.
I normally keep the drive in my camera bag, but like a genius, I decided to hide the drive at the bottom of a basket of hand towels in the cabin bathroom. The logic was that if someone broke into the cabin when we were out sledding, they wouldn’t find it there.
On the morning we checked out, I “remember” going to the bathroom, getting the drive, and putting it my camera bag. Then I “remember” J asking me if I got my drive, and me actually looking at it in the pocket and saying yes.
But I lost it, or left it behind.
The drive wasn’t in our rental car. If it had been in the pocket of my camera bag, the odds are super low it could have fallen out in the car anyway. It was also nowhere in the apartment.
I called the resort multiple times, and they said that housekeeping hadn’t seen it. There were new guests in the room, and I’m not sure they ever had the guts to ask them if they found a hard drive hiding in the bathroom or not, but they checked the basket when they left and didn’t see it.
So now, I will have to wonder what happened to it.
The worst case scenario is that either housekeeping or the next guests found it and are taking joy in rooting through a lifetime of my files searching for ways to ruin my life or credit.
The best case scenario is that when housekeeping came in, they dumped the whole basket in with the rest of the dirty towels and ended up destroying it in the wash without even noticing. And if they did notice it after washing, they might have been too ashamed to tell the manager.
Considering years of my life is already online on this blog and social media, concerns about privacy are a little silly. But this loss was uncontrolled, and the mental blip that caused it makes me worry I might be losing my mind.