I know there are plenty of tea drinkers in New England, more specifically in the greater Boston/Massachusetts region. Is there any interest, anywhere, for a meeting of some sort? I have been thinking that perhaps that would be a useful and interesting thing to do, if we can find the time and, more importantly, space for such a meeting. Is there any interest?
Entries categorized as ‘Misc’
Learning old lessons
January 27, 2011 · 4 Comments
This is, according to my new blog dashboard, the 1000th post on this blog. I’m slowly going through the process of re-titling all my posts and retagging everything, because when I exported all the information from Xanga, those two things were lost in the process. Xanga’s tagging system was particularly idiotic, so it is a nice change to have a much more sophisticated way of dealing with old posts. I’m only back to early 2008, when I was living in the metropolis of Gambier, Ohio, and in the process of reading through old posts, I am relearning old lessons. For example, I actually did a video on how to wrap a puerh cake, which some of you may find useful. There were old experiments I ran with different kinds of water, which echoes a recent post on the relatively new blog Listening to Leaves. I am also reminded of how my young puerh pot used to look like, and old lessons playing with toys that I don’t own. Most importantly, memories of meetings I’ve had with friends, and teas on important occasions.
I am hoping that I’ll get this whole re-tagging business done before long, so it’ll be easier to refer to older things, which are probably not too useful for anyone else, but reading them again reminds me of things I learned over time. Keeping a blog has helped me with organizing my own thoughts about tea, and of course, preserving a record of it. Some people (Hobbes, for example) keep a physical record of it too. Either way, I think it is probably the best tea-related decision I’ve ever taken. If you don’t keep a record of your tea drinking, you should. It will make you a better tea drinker.
Categories: Misc
Tagged: administration, musings
Welcome
January 20, 2011 · 26 Comments
Welcome, all, to my blog’s new home. Please say hi, and I hope you find this a more pleasant experience to deal with than the old site. I think everything transferred here without too much of a hitch. Some things, such as titles for posts, will need to be fixed, and so will categories/tags as well as other sundry minor issues that shouldn’t interfere with your reading experience in any significant way.
There has been one change though — my feed will no longer give you the full post, but only a snippet. This is mostly to deter feed thieves who, in the past, have stolen my posts wholesale and published them elsewhere.
If you have any suggestions for how the site looks (or, for that matter, any problems with it, technical or otherwise), do let me know.
Categories: Misc
Tagged: administration
Growing culture
October 3, 2010 · 6 Comments
I didn’t realize that it’s possible to grow mold in heavily chlorinated water, which is what I get from the tap. I added some water to two glasses and put them in my storage closet for my puerh. I left them there for a few weeks, figuring there’s no reason to bother them since they had not evaporated. I went back a few days ago to check on my tea, and I saw a thin film of white and black mold on the water. Yum.
The tea, however, is fine — no evidence of mold outbreak. Not sure what to make of it, really, but this is a first.
Categories: Misc · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: storage
Teas from different places
August 12, 2010 · 2 Comments
Haven’t really been able to post anything recently, but I took a few pictures of different places where I had some tea…
No, I didn’t add sugar.
Categories: Misc · Old Xanga posts · Teas
Tagged: travel
Emails
August 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Once upon a time, everybody used Hotmail as their default free webmail address. Then, Gmail came along…. and the world has never been the same since.
Long story short, today I just re-logged into my long unused hotmail account, and to my horror, there were a number of emails from well meaning readers to which I have never responded — obviously, since I haven’t seen them. To those of you who’ve written to my hotmail address and never got a reply, I offer you my sincere apologies. If anybody wishes to write me an email, please direct your emails to my gmail account (username + gmail.com). In the meantime, I’ll have to go through my backlog of emails to try to rectify my errors.
Thanks
Categories: Misc · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: administration
Unpacking
August 5, 2009 · 1 Comment
If moving is hell, then unpacking all this tea and teaware must be the 9th level of hell.
Categories: Misc · Objects · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: musings, teaware
Moving
July 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Moving with all this teaware is hell.
Categories: Misc · Objects · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: musings, teaware
New neighbour
July 8, 2009 · 1 Comment
We have a new neighbour who just moved in a week or two ago, and they’ve already had a few kids since then
On another note, I’ll be off for a bit going on a little family vacation. I’d imagine that when I come back in two weeks, these kids will have grown some feathers already.
Categories: Misc · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: musings
Turning to the dark side
April 26, 2009 · 8 Comments
No, I still don’t drink coffee.
However, I did format my harddisk and install Linux. I was a Windows user (XP). However, it gave me a nasty crash yesterday. Some system files got corrupted. When I tried to recover the computer using the pre-installed files that came with the computer (Lenovo doesn’t give you a recovery disk) the computer can’t seem to find that either. So what that means is that I couldn’t load anything up at all.
I had two options. I could wait for the folks to send me a disk, which can take three to five days. Or, at the suggestion of the kind folks at my school’s help desk, I could use Ubuntu to boot up and recover all the documents/files I want, and then, well, wait for the recovery disk or just use Ubuntu.
I have been pretty fed up with Windows recently, and have thought of doing something about it. This was enough of an excuse for me to make the switch.
That does mean, however, that I have to install everything again, and to re-learn some things, since I’ve never used Linux extensively before. It also means I need to find the right programs for the right tasks again.
For the purpose of this blog, I need to find something that manages photos, and also does some simple editing — cropping, changing brightness, the basic stuff. I don’t like toying with the pictures too much, because I feel like heavily edited pictures, for a blog on tea anyway, takes away the original flavour of the image. This is especially true when you switch colour balances and that kind of thing. You don’t want to see blue tea leaves, which sometimes show up on vendor pages because they did too much to alter their image.
So, any suggestions on software is welcomed. Until I’ve figured this all out, however (hopefully not too long), expect low amounts of updates.
Categories: Misc · Old Xanga posts
Tagged: administration
I just want to say that I still find your blog and writing extremely relevant. Thanks!