What is in your cup?

[cromag]

... and from first mug of tea to a small, end of day glass of zinfandel.

[CRussel]

A nice way to finish, if you aren't prone to red wine headaches.

A crap day yesterday, got bupkis done. Trying to do better today. Starting out with a blend of Peet's English Breakfast and Murchie's Lapsang Souchong.

[ProfCrash]

Cherry Coke for lunch but I have been working on Genmaicha all day.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Starting out with a blend of Peet's English Breakfast and Murchie's Lapsang Souchong.

Oooh, I'm liking this blend. Two parts Peet's English Breakfast, one part Lapsang Souchong. This Murchie's Lapsang Souchong is a very smoky version, so it isn't getting overpowered by the English Breakfast at all, but comes through well. I may do this again.

[Stitchawl]

The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train,
and there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green, grass of home.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN3ME-rgpws )

Good morning, everyone! Home again at last! We decided to take a few extra days in Singapore instead of just changing planes there. It's one of our favorite places to be. Lots of great foods (four different cultures mix together in that one little country,) the S'pore zoo is perhaps the finest example of how to treat animals properly (almost no cages... 90% of the animals are in huge natural habitats,) and good shopping. After several days on a dive boat, it's a wonderful place to decompress!

It was a very successful photo shoot, and fantastic diving. The boat is a huge affair that basically stays moored out in the general vicinity of the dive spots, so we transfer from the city to it via a small taxi boat. Because it's so large, the staterooms are comfortable, the dinning room serves incredible foods, and the 'dive deck' more than roomy enough for 30-40 divers... all of them Japanese except me! 5-6 times a day small 'Tender Boats' take groups of 5-8 divers out to the different dive spots. (That's me waving in the Tender Boat returning after a dive.) After a day or two, the big boat moves during the night to the next group of dive sites, so we are never spending more than 5-8 minutes in the Tender Boats. The boat has special areas set aside for camera equipment, so we can open the underwater housings to change memory cards/film or grease the O-rings without problems. You would NOT believe some of the camera set-ups the other divers had! Made my equipment look amateurish!

But home again, and drinking three different teas at the same time... because I can! I've got a mug of unbranded Keemun, newest Ceylon, and East India Company's "Assam" and alternating swallows with some fresh croissants. We were spoiled by the wonderful croissants in S'pore so I brought a bag-full back to eat this morning! One day out of the oven but still fresh tasting and buttery! They are the perfect accompaniment to good tea!

It was a very enjoyable two weeks, contract fulfilled, and images sent off, but there's no place like home!

Stitchawl

[CRussel]

Welcome back!

Hopefully a couple of dive pictures in the next few days. I don't get to dive any more, so I have to live vicariously.

IAC, back to work. I've got 10 days to finish this to meet my drop dead date and I'm going to do it. Somehow.

Diet coke. Should be Talisker or something good, but I need to stay awake, not doze off.

[orlok]

Sounds like a good trip Stitchawl. Ditto re the photos.

Black coffee. Of course.

[Stitchawl]

And yet another tea find! An English Breakfast tea put out by Heladiv Teas, the same company that makes the newest Ceylon tea that I got as such a ridiculously low price! I'd seen this company's packages on the shelves, but 99% of them were fruit-flavored teas, and I couldn't imagine that a fruit tea company would be selling any really tasty straight blacks or English blends. Once I tasted their cheap Ceylon and enjoyed it, I decided to give their English Breakfast tea a chance even though it's already bagged. For 150 baht, ($4.50 USD) for 100 tea bags, I figured I'd give it a try. And I'm glad I did! I had a mug of it this afternoon, and resteeped it this evening for a second good cup of tea! Very, very nice. Not the quality of Ving Joom On or East India Company's English Breakfast, but good enough to enjoy and at 1/5th the price!

Originally Posted by CRussel

Hopefully a couple of dive pictures in the next few days. I don't get to dive any more, so I have to live vicariously.

Not quite sure why, but I always find myself drawn to taking pictures of the little Clown Anemone Fish hiding in the anemones! They are just so damn cute! Here's one that was calling my name on this trip. He's not more than 2" long! The other shot is taken from the taxi boat just leaving the dive boat taking us back to Korror.

Stitchawl

[Stitchawl]

Charlie, here's something you'll appreciate as a diver...
The currents are sooo incredbily strong in these waters that if you want to just 'hang out' and watch the fish in some locations where the real action is going on, you have to actually tie yourself to the reef with a hook set into the stone and a rope to your BCD. The first time we dove these waters I didn't have a reef hook with me, and destroyed a pair of leather gloves trying to hold on with one hand while shooting pictures with the other. The photo below is NOT one that I took, but shows divers watching the sharks feeding at the Blue Corner dive site... Note their air bubbles moving sideways instead of just up!

Stitchawl

[CRussel]

That's some serious current there, Stitchawl. I've done drift diving in the Caribbean, but I have to admit it's not my favourite. It's really easy to get your group split up and end up with problems getting everyone back on board. There's always one or two. Plus, you end up having to swim a fair amount sometimes to get back to the boat, depending on the operator. But this seems like a good solution to that, especially where the fish are more interesting than the coral.

This morning I'm drinking my home-made "Scottish Breakfast" tea blend. It's a mix of Peet's English Breakfast and Murchie's Lapsang Souchong and I'm liking it a lot for a fairly gray and rainy day. I may make up a batch of this. It overcomes the limitations of Peet's Scottish Breakfast blend (which they have now reduced to a twice a year blend, only by the pound.) The Peet's version is just a bit too bland. It's neither smoky enough nor bright enough. This Murchie's Lapsang Souchong is very smoky (really too smoky for me all by itself, frankly) and the English Breakfast is quite bright with a big hunk of Ceylon in it, I would guess.

[dreams]

Welcome back Stitchawl and many thanks for sharing the photos. Whenever I see the clown fish, I think of the movie Finding Nemo . Nemo was so cute.

Finishing off some Peet's Anniversary Blend coffee and getting ready to run errands and go to work.

[cromag]

Back from the writers' group. I don't count the coffee I had there -- so, first mug of tea for the day!

[ProfCrash]

WB! Great pics

We enjoyed a day at the zoo with my In Laws and the LM. He is standing at the window holding his panda bear watching the dogs right now. The dog-in-law is a barker but he is getting along with our dogs much better. It is a pleasent change of pace. Good day

[Stitchawl]

Oh, the night was clear,
And the stars were a-shinin'.
The moon came up so quiet in the sky.
All the people gathered 'round,
And the band was a-tunin'.
I can hear them now,
Playin' "Comin' Through The Rye."

And we danced all night
To the fiddle and the banjo.
Their drifting tunes seemed to fill the air.
So long ago, but I can still remember
How we fell in love at the Roseville Fair.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAIAgdsF6n8 )

Good morning, everyone! Sunny Saturday after a night of rain that cleared more of the smog away! There's a big mug of newest Ceylon tea beside me as I procrastinate my morning's chores... working on images. Afternoon will be more fun - it's Fencing Club day! Yippee! I missed last week's fencing.

Originally Posted by CRussel

That's some serious current there, Stitchawl. I've done drift diving in the Caribbean, but I have to admit it's not my favourite. It's really easy to get your group split up and end up with problems getting everyone back on board.

Most of the dives in Palau are drift dives, and they have some very clever methods for keeping the group intact. Two divemasters with every group, one in front and the other at the rear, with a surface marker buoy dragged along so the Tender Boat can follow the group easily. That, plus the fact that virtually every diver in the group has thousands of logged dives makes staying together easy. (Groups are formed based on experience and abilities.) For the one really difficult amusement-park drift (it's so fast that you have to tie your mask on with a tether and bring along a spare in case the current rips it away, and aptly named "Pelieu Express!") the goal of the dive is to try to maintain equilibrium in the current and not breach it and go tumbling off. Every diver carries a 'safety sausage' as there is almost no way to keep the group together. At the end of the per-arranged time everyone surfaces, inflates their safety sausage off the regulator and just waits for the Tender Boat to spot them and pick them up. Most divers surface within a couple of hundred meters of each other. It's a 'do once' dive that's lots of fun!

Originally Posted by dreams

Welcome back Stitchawl and many thanks for sharing the photos. Whenever I see the clown fish, I think of the movie Finding Nemo . Nemo was so cute.

Me too, Dreams! Maybe that's why I like them so much. There are many different species of Clown fish, many different clown colors, but I like this one the best. I took this shot a few years ago, and it's still my favorite!

Stitchawl

[cromag]

That little guy just doesn't look happy at having his picture taken!