Helen and I went for another walk, this time towards the fridge-of-the-desert and round the back, sort of randomly. I’m learning how to use my camera. I’m going to have to switch to manual and advanced modes soon, to see what they can do.

But, one thing at a time. I worked late.

The Challenge has launched, though only in soft launch, to catch any glitches before it goes out to the unforgiving. Having had an attitude adjustment about the Thing That Was Bothering Me, I now find it’s not being done any more… The storm rages on-site. People were not happy.

I was so deeply into writing that, when Helen showed up to ask if I wanted to go walkabout, I had to switch my brain manually! The time just flew. There is an insane amount of news to say that the royals are supposed to be on vacation. And I’m getting, for the long hours, decent results. There isn’t time to think of anything else, though.

Helen and I went down to see my pet ocotillo from last year. She’d not been in that part of the LTVA and was suitably impressed. She sets a good pace and I end up feeling exercised, which is great.

We went to sleep and then I embarked on my traditional New Year sampler, doing a little of everything I wanted to do a lot of in the New Year. I took Mr. Penguin to the historical marker to kick off the Challenge, and finished the elusive Challenge waiver coding. I wrote and sent out a column, but the day was taken up with a lot of Examiner work as several significant stories broke. The first few days of the year are looking to be quite full.

To be honest, it’s all seeming kind of hollow right now, when I’m indoors so much on a beautiful 80-degree winter’s day.

Today I wrote about Loony Dooks; William and Kate, the teases; the return of Prince Philip; and the New Year‘s honours.

The small generator, we soon discovered, cannot handle the microwave. And, because I refuse point blank to rush around on errands on New Year’s Day, we went into town to fill up, again. We have a 25-gallon tank. We put 24.67 gallons in. Gulp! In more ways than one!

End-to-end we were only gone about an hour, and then I settled in for the evening. DH put the BBC World Service on and, for the first time in several years, I was able to hear Big Ben chime the New Year. That’s always been my New Year; I couldn’t care less about the ball in New York.

I called my Mam in the UK, but quality wasn’t very good at all and it was brief. An hour later, photos were streaming in through Getty Images and I wrote an article about New Year’s celebrations in London and Edinburgh. I later discovered that I had two featured articles in the New Year’s section on Examiner.com. That was pretty cool.

I worked on the Markeroni Challenge. I am setting up electronic waivers this year and the programming, for something so simple, has been quite hard. I got it all working, barring final testing, just before midnight, but it’ll have to wait until next year to be complete. ;)

We went into town to do shopping, get water and such later on. DH wanted some parts to finish building his new and improved solar array, and we’re also still in search of a mysteriously hard to find fitting that will let us hook the propane heater into the main tank. As it is, we refill the pony tank about once a week.

By the time we got back, I was tired, and didn’t go back on the computer. It wasn’t the most convenient of excursions, but it was better than nothing.

Morning is the best time to travel that way, as the evening light blinds me. I am learning how to use my camera, a bit at a time. Once I know which dial or button to press without thought, I’ll move to advanced options. The details are breathtaking.

DH is working hard on the solar panel revamp, drilling holes and all sorts of good stuff. For en encore, he triumphantly dug up an adapter that he’d presciently acquired many moons ago. It means we can now run our heater off the pony tank. Hooray! It is a wonderful little heater.

For me, the day just seemed to fritter away into nothingness, which always feels like a big failure. I worked on a website, though. A new website. Watch and Wait. Actually, just wait. You have better things to do just now.

Helen and John are back. Helen came over to say hello and we chatted awhile. It was nice to see them again.

I got some articles written for a client, wrote that Prince Philip got out of jail, er hospital, then went to bed to read and try to unwind.

Can you guesss what the picture at the top is?

Ant crater!

It was a nice, sunny day, so around noon I took my new camera out and read the manual in conjunction with the five dials and many buttons on the device. This is the most complicated camera I have ever had and DH is also suitably impressed. The macro blows me away.

I walked around taking pictures of stuff, then read about the Civil War. It was a pleasant, relaxing day and made up for yesterday. The picture of the chair is the first one I took with the new camera.