Where is everyone from?

My land and neighborhood... somewhere in Texas in April.

Gorgeous Hurm! I haven't been to Texas in quite some time, lived there for a few years in the past. (Plano)

Whoah, more photos from people. Great pictures, thanks for sharing all.
 
Thanks :) I built the arbor for my wedding coming up in... <1 month.

Plano is a nice area. We get Korean food when we go there.

Oh wow congrats Hurm! I am assuming a Christian-inspired ceremony? I ask because while First Corinthians always gets used* - for admittedly good reason, it fits perfectly - I was at a wedding where Song of Songs was used, specifically the line:

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, as unyielding as the grave

In case you're still looking around figured I'd mention it, was fitting but also not one I'd heard used before.

*I read that passage, was a bit controversial since I'm not Catholic or Christian but my friend really wanted me to do it so rammed it through. :)
 
How can such a warped mind come from somewhere so beautiful? ;)

Nature is beautiful, but she can be traumatizing. ;) (Captured on the way out of my driveway)
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"The circle of life...."
 
Oh wow congrats Hurm! I am assuming a Christian-inspired ceremony? I ask because while First Corinthians always gets used* - for admittedly good reason, it fits perfectly - I was at a wedding where Song of Songs was used, specifically the line:

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, as unyielding as the grave

In case you're still looking around figured I'd mention it, was fitting but also not one I'd heard used before.

*I read that passage, was a bit controversial since I'm not Catholic or Christian but my friend really wanted me to do it so rammed it through. :)

Thanks :) I guess it will be more or less traditional. (She's planning the wedding while I remodel the house, so I don't even know what's going on lol)
 
I want to introduce here a unprecedentedly beautiful (in my opinion) site of Nizhny Novgorod Region, and my favourite place to rest and achieve inner peace - Light Lakes ("Светлые озёра" in Russian).

Light Lakes lie in the middle of the evergreen forest. They are relatively small, but very deep, being karst chasms - as some divers told me, nearly 50 meters deep. Beyond spendid scenery, their value is their exceptionally transparent and lucid water - which, when you look into their dark depths while you are swimming across them, takes a deep green colour, with shafts of sunrays piercing this emerald abyss, reflecting and playing within it. And sometimes their depth is literally abyssmal - as far as I know, there are caves deep down underwater, connecting these lakes into an united system of water-filled caverns. And the water is also soft - I don't know what word will be better than it - when you swim in it. It fondle your skin.

There are three of these lakes - the big one, the medium one and the small one, with medium one having an alternative name of Spruce Lake ("Еловое озеро" in Russian).

Here is the big Light Lake:

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The medium Light Lake (Spruce Lake):

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And the small Light Lake:

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The highly unusual feature of the big Light Lake are its floating moss islands. No joke: these are the big and wide masses of extremely thick moss, about 1,5 meter thick, freely floating on the lake water, with grass and even small trees growing on them (with their roots piercing moss mass and visible underwater), solid enough for an adult man to walk on them. Here is such island:

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What is so captivating of these places is the sense of tranquility and serenity I achieve there. Swimming in these lakes, with their soft and clear water, feels like a weightless flying. When I'm doing it, I give up any thoughts on the things that disturb me - Trump, Putin, Syria, Ukraine, skeptic-proponent battles, consensus and classic science, everything - and just give myself up to the peace and beauty. I don't know what it is like to have an OBE and reach mystical transcendence - my approach to the paranormal is intellectual, rather than experiential - but the fly-swim there, with blissful inner silence I achieve for some moments, is the closest resemblance to the disembodied spiritual journey and unspeakability of the mystique I can recall.

Wonderful sites, these lakes are.
 
Hurm...you... WHY!

I HAVE A PATHOLOGICAL FEAR OF SNAKES, MAN

Imagine a 6'5" man with his feet on his chair and holding his knees to his chest. That's me after typing this. I shuddered so hard I pulled a muscle.

F#&$!!!

Somebody hold me

Sorry :-/ Amazing how that genetic memory of millions of generations of our ancestors getting snatched and eaten by snakes really kicks in. When I stepped out of my truck to get a closer pic, he spit the squirrel back out and retreated back into the tree. He's just a harmless (to humans) King Snake, but afterwards, I started using a flashlight when walking down the driveway to check the mail after dark. :)
 
Hurm...you... WHY!

I HAVE A PATHOLOGICAL FEAR OF SNAKES, MAN

Imagine a 6'5" man with his feet on his chair and holding his knees to his chest. That's me after typing this. I shuddered so hard I pulled a muscle.

F#&$!!!

Somebody hold me

Yet you use Crocodile Gena as your avatar. Or a crocodile is a different buisness? Or Gena is too kind-hearted and smart-minded to be scary?

And now you probably understand how I identified Gena on your picture - being Russian, I watched the Soviet cartoons when I was a child! USSR has a really highly-developed child cartoon-making school.
 
I loved The Magic Pony as a child, I think it's the "Humpbacked Horse" in Russia?


The good invitation to the Soviet animation / cartoon school is the internationally acclaimed "Snow Queen", which was later bought by the Universal International and translated into English, with a live-actors-played prologue added. While the animation is pretty old - the late 1950s - it already bears the highly characteristic artisitc style which would be followed by many other Soviet animators in the future:

 
Sorry :-/ Amazing how that genetic memory of millions of generations of our ancestors getting snatched and eaten by snakes really kicks in. When I stepped out of my truck to get a closer pic, he spit the squirrel back out and retreated back into the tree. He's just a harmless (to humans) King Snake, but afterwards, I started using a flashlight when walking down the driveway to check the mail after dark. :)
Lol a flashlight.

Unless I were wearing this...
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...my mailbox would be dead to me.
 
About the peace, BTW... Did anyone noticed that he we take a small rest from the constant confrontational debate and find a solidarity in the enjoyment of the beauty of the world?

Reminds me of the Nightwish song "Riddler", with one of the best and deepest lyrics I know - the hymn of anti-intellectual mystical bliss, which a devoted (free-)thinker like me does not support as a kind of ultimate solution to the problem of existence - our intellectual and social paths are as much important as experiential ones - but still can value as one of the three ways to percieve the world, bringing its mindless yet revelatory treasures:

 
Yet you use Crocodile Gena as your avatar. Or a crocodile is a different buisness? Or Gena is too kind-hearted and smart-minded to be scary?

And now you probably understand how I identified Gena on your picture - being Russian, I watched the Soviet cartoons when I was a child! USSR has a really highly-developed child cartoon-making school.
No, it's strictly snakes; I actually like lizards. No other creature horrifies me like that. I'd rather wrestle an axe-wielding crocodile than walk past that snake.
 
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