It has been a whirlwind of a January for us. It’s usually a time that is pretty quiet. Returning from the long luxurious university break and then slowly ramping up into lots of projects at work. But this January has been totally different! We had two exciting visitors — my cousin Jefferson and my Uncle Ditch! They were separated by a week, but we got to do a lot of the sight seeing and fun you do when visitors come to the Bay Area.
Half Moon Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, the Mission, Monterey Bay Aquarium… a gas station in Pescadero for tacos. You know, the usual.
But with my family, it is never, the usual.
It started with Jefferson joining us for a nice dinner outside on my birthday! It rained most of his visit, but we managed to hike around the tide pools in Half Moon Bay and drive across the Golden Gate with the convertible top down—a few small victories in a very rainy Bay Area winter. (Luckily, we had a lot of time to fight and bicker about Overcooked on Nintendo Switch!)
Uncle Ditch is a blast and always brings out crazy in us. We went on an epic taco triathlon around the Bay Area and finished it off with an entire blueberry chess pie. We did. a. lot. But really in the end, I feel such a recharge from their visits. They each inspired me in various ways and that’s so SO nice to have this time of year.
Before Ditch gleefully boarded his train to Oregon, he sat down for a mini recording session with us in the new podcast studio. I’m so thrilled about it because he retold one of my very favorite Uncle Ditch stories. I don’t know precisely how I will use it yet, other than a hidden diamond in my digital archive.
Speaking of digital archive. I’ve been on a quest this entire week to save and recover nearly lost and broken photo archives, both at work and then at home this whole weekend.
I’ve discovered that somewhere along the way, my lightroom photography database was lost and only starts from here in California (6 years). It’s a bummer and at first upsetting, but then I realized how grateful I am for Flickr. All of my original edits in full resolution are still available. The raw and discards are lost, but the finished photos remain.
Nothing is forever.
Best to keep moving forward.
P.S. Squarespace is really pissing me off about flickr integration — or lack thereof! So the actual photos are over here on Flickr. If you’re interested.
