I was skimming through my WordPress Reader and came upon this prompt by curioussteph at Ragtime Daily Prompt. You can click on the link to check out what’s happening and join in the fun. Todays prompt is FISH. Since I grew up on fishing boats and still work on them occasionally, I figured I should have plenty to say about fish and a few good photos, so here are a couple…
I took that one while I was wandering along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. There were thousands of these catfish swimming around near the ferry docks. I suppose people coming and going on the boats must feed them. I saw a few people fishing nearby, I wonder if it would be safe to eat the fish in this river. It didn’t look very clean, I doubt it would be healthy.
I took that one on the Galata Bridge in Istanbul. I wasn’t doing the fishing, but the entire bridge was crowded with locals who were. On the bottom level, there were restaurants serving up the catch. I’m not sure what kind of fish they are, but the silver ones look like some kind of mullet.
Does anyone else hate this new WordPress (with the blocks) as much as I do?
It makes it SO much harder to write a post. It makes me spend so much more time and energy to write one. It makes it so frustrating. It makes it much less enjoyable to get on here and so I don’t want to blog as much. Maybe even not at all.
Does anybody see any advantage to this new system?
I was bored and looking at my WordPress browser and came upon this new challenge. It’s Monochrome Monday XIX from Hadd Hai Yaar. You can click on the link to see what everybody has come up with and join in. 🙂
I took this photo of a vulture in November, on a photo safari with GEP. There was a whole bunch of them feeding on a kill some other predator had recently finished with. There were 3 different kinds of vultures, I’m not sure what type this one is (anybody know?). It was fascinating watching how they interacted with each other. Watching and waiting for their chance to move in and get their share. Fighting over scraps and challenging newcomers to the scene.
I’m still new to photography, so I don’t know how I managed to get this shot to come out so nice. Most of the rest I took of these birds did not. I took it with a Panasonic Lumix ZS70 which I had just bought for the trip. F 6.4, ISO 1/320. I almost always leave my cameras on automatic, so pretty sure it was for this shot too. One of these days I’ll have to read the manual. 😉
Cee always has great photography challenges going on. This one is for her Fun Foto Challenge- Pairs. Pairs of anything at all. Like or unlike. Click on the link and see what everyone else is posting. Join in. 🙂
Here’s my entry…
pair of ornamentspair of tulipspair of lions
I love taking photos! I take them everywhere, of everything. If only I could do something with them. I ran out of room on my walls a loooong time ago. 😉
I haven’t been online much lately. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling in the real world instead of spending time in the virtual world. I’ve been loving it! Now that I’m back home again I’ve been able to catch up a little bit and take a look around the blogosphere. Cee always has great photography challenges going on. This one is for yesterday’s flower of the day- waterlily challenge. Click on the link and see what everyone else is posting. Join in. 🙂
I’ve always loved waterlilies. I’ve been trying for years to photograph them. We don’t have many of them around SE Texas where I live. I can never get a good shot, they’re always so far away so my photos turn out blurry. I got this nice shot in Hoi An, Vietnam. I was there for a writing workshop. We went out a few times for ‘research’ during the week. This waterlily was in a pot outside of a bookstore we were looking at and ducking into during the rain. So far, it’s the best I’ve ever got of a waterlily. 🙂
Thanks to another blogger’s post (with some great poinsettia photos) on Cee’s FOTD page, I was reminded of these photos I took of Monet’s famous waterlily paintings at the Orangerie in Paris. It was just wonderful, to be completely surrounded by these huge, wall to wall paintings of his.
Well, it’s over- 2018 is done! Hard to believe isn’t it? To start 2019, I’d like to say thank you for sticking with me- I know I haven’t been very consistent on here lately. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything. Writers block or just plain laziness? Both, I think. Last year seemed to drag on forever, but now it seems to have gone by so fast.
I have to say, I’m very thankful that 2018 was better than 2017. My computer wasn’t giving me near as much trouble (until just recently- I wonder if the bats have returned). I was able to get a little bit more work. Not enough, not nearly enough to satisfy me and get me to the point of being comfortable, but enough to survive on. I was even able to dig myself slightly out of the hole the last couple of years of basically no work had put me in.
I actually had work every month last year (except Nov-Dec when I decided to take my long planned trip instead of hope for work). It wasn’t all offshore, well paid work. Some months, the only job I had was my role player gig at Maersk Training. But even that little bit kept me from having to use up the last of my savings.
I also sold a couple of articles (with photos) and paintings. That was a real boost to my confidence (tho not so much to my bank account).
I was able to take that 2 month long trip and still come out a couple thousand dollars ahead of where I was on New Years Day 2018. 🙂
So, I’m thankful, very much, that 2018 was better than 2016 and 2017. I was able to get enough work and even to take a couple of trips (not including work). In March I went to Roy Stephenson’s travel writing/marketing class in Seattle. In September I attended GEP’s Travel Writing & Photography Workshop in Austin. I spent November and December traveling around the world, stopping in Paris, Tanzania, Bangkok, Vietnam and Cambodia.
I may be ‘greedy’, but I’m really really really hoping that 2019 turns out to be even better than 2018. I sure as hell don’t want a repeat of 2016-2017 which just sucked! I hate being broke and watching everything I’ve worked so hard for just slowly disappear.
I hope things will pick up offshore so there is more work this year and the agencies actually have more than a single job to fight over! It feels great to get 3 calls in a day from 3 different recruiters, but it really sucks once you talk to them and realize they’re all pitching the exact same job.
I don’t know what to think now. I had a job lined up before Christmas. It was supposed to start on the 3rd. Friday I asked about details and was told the job was cancelled. 🙁
I got another call yesterday. It sounded like a good job, but I felt I had to turn it down. I just don’t feel confident that I could handle the particular position on offer. I’m hoping tomorrow will bring some business. There have been some hopeful signs in the news lately.
I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions this year. I never seem able to follow through on them. They’re always the same: lose weight, clear out the house, write more. I never make any lasting progress.
Instead, I think about the things I would like to do. Top of the list this year: get residency visa for Mexico and make that first move, find a decent room-mate (which will make that move to Mexico SO much easier), take my bicycle in to get it repaired and adjusted so no more excuses to ride, have at least one garage sale and get rid of unused stuff cluttering up my living room!
If I manage to cross those things off my list, and if I manage to find enough work to strengthen my finances a little more, I’d love to do some more traveling. Next big trip I’d like to take is a cruise to Antarctica. 🙂
How about you? Do you have any New Years resolutions? Any trips planned? Where would you most like to go and why?
I’ve been busy traveling so haven’t been spending much time online. Last night I took a look at my WordPress Reader and saw this post from Cee. She always has these great challenges for all of us to get involved with and she has some fantastic photos on her blog.
Today’s (Dec 8- yesterday) flower of the day is “tulips”. I haven’t seen any of them lately, but I was in La Conner, Washington in April for their annual Tulip Festival (actually I just missed it but the flowers were still blooming and I got some wonderful photos).
I might be a little late for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week, but I’m jumping in anyway. I just got in from work (offshore) where I have minimal internet access and I’m ready to catch up. Here are a few photos of ‘things people drive” on the water…
PS- there’s one of me ‘driving’ in there. I don’t get to do as much of it as I used to since I’ve been working more as a DPO than anything else. Dynamic positioning takes all the fun out of ‘driving’ a boat. 😉
Here’s a challenge from sonofabeach96. He’s taken over the Which Way Challenge and has been doing great so far. It’s always cool to see what everyone comes up with on these challenges. So here’s my entry…
I took these photos of the ferry boat on a trip up to Washington State (they have a great statewide system of ferries that really helps you get around). I had gone up there for a writing workshop with Roy Stevenson. After the workshop, I decided to do a little traveling around Washington.
I drove up from Seattle to La Conner for the tulips, stopped to take a quick look at my old stomping grounds in Anacortes, drove over Deception Pass and then took this ferry over to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.
It was a gorgeous ride on the ferry and then driving on through the forests and around the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula. I was only a little disappointed that the snow was still so deep up at Hurricane Ridge and I couldn’t go hiking up there.
The beaches along the Pacific Coast were stunning. I wish I had more time to spend exploring. I love hiking around the forests, mountains, and beaches- especially when the weather is as temperate as it is up there. I really enjoyed finding so many beautiful places to walk around and then cool little towns with mom and pop shops. I found some fantastic restaurants with food I normally wouldn’t eat (absolutely delicious fried Brussel sprouts at Seeds). I loved seeing all the interesting art. I even bought some to bring home.
I found a new challenge through my WordPress Reader (and Cee). It’s called the Ragtag Daily Prompt (RDP). I’ll give it a try. Here’s mine for today on truck…
I’ve always liked trucks. I’ve had one of my own for years. I drove a 1973 El Camino until I overheated the engine and froze up the block. I loved that old car! Sometimes I felt like Fred Flintstone since the floor was rusted out so bad. The bed was just about useless for hauling anything because of the huge holes rusted through the metal. It leaked so bad when it rained, even hitchhikers didn’t want to ride with me. 😉
When I couldn’t justify buying a new engine, I got a 1983 El Camino. I kept it for a few years until I got tired of having to fix one thing or another every time I got in from the ship and bought my first ever brand new car (truck). A 1997 Ford F-150.
I’m still driving that one. It’s already a ‘classic’ at 21 years old. I’ve been trying to baby it as much as possible but she’s definitely starting to show her age. After buying this one new and seeing just how much of a rip-off a new car is, I will never buy another new car again in my life! I need to make this one last until I don’t need a car anymore. Practically speaking, that means until I can get my ass out of Texas!
I need to move somewhere I don’t need a car! Right now, Mexico is looking pretty good to me. 🙂
Transportation is the theme for this week’s Sunday Stills challenge. “Commute” can also work, pun intended, which means to travel some distance regularly between one’s home and one’s place of work, school or vocation. Or, by definition, to travel as a commuter.
OK. So here goes.
My ‘normal’ job, my profession, is: merchant mariner. I am a US Coast Guard licensed Master Mariner and also a certified Dynamic Positioning Operator (DPO). So I spend most of my time working on ships. Since the last downturn in the price of oil (2014) has decimated the amount of work out there, I’ve had to try my hand at anything else I could find. I’ve been working as a role-player during maritime emergency training, teaching maritime courses, writing, and painting. Since then, my commute has been ordinary- just driving. It’s much more interesting when I’m sailing.
Since I live in a smallish town on the coast of Texas, my commute almost always involves first driving to an airport (or port) in Houston. Almost all of the offshore work in the Gulf of Mexico is concentrated out of Port Fourchon, LA now a days. So, I fly into New Orleans, meet up with other crew members for a ride down to Fourchon. From there we will either ride a crew boat or helicopter out to the vessel we’ll be working on for the next 3-4 weeks.
If I’m sailing “deep sea”, I’ll drive up to the dock where I’ll meet my ship (usually) in Houston. I’ll stay onboard for 2-3 months. They’ll fly me back to the airport in Houston. I’ll take a cab back to wherever I left my car when I joined the ship.
USNS Mendonca in Corpus Christi
If you want to join the challenge and see what everyone else has done, click here.
Thanks to Son of a Beach for continuing to run the Which Way Photo Challenge when Cee let it go. These things are always interesting to see what everyone comes up with and fun to join in.
So here’s my entry to this week’s challenge…
Night shot of a bridge crossing the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey. I was on a dinner cruise, was hoping to go under that bridge but we turned around to go back to the dock a couple of miles from it.
This one is of the Galeta Bridge in Istanbul. I walked across it one day. Went to Asia on the bottom level, where all the restaurants are. Walked back over to Europe on the top level with all the fishermen.
Join in on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. This week’s theme is: pastel colors. Here’s my entry…
I took this photo while out sailing with friends off Puerto Vallarta a couple of years ago. It has some beautiful pastel colors. I was taking the TEFL course and this was one of the perks. I still haven’t gone to teach English, but I have done some teaching of maritime subjects and getting more comfortable in front of a classroom. 🙂
Here’s my entry to another challenge from Cee. It’s for the Flower of the Day series. I took this at Moody Gardens a while ago. I couldn’t get the lighting right, but I like how it turned out anyway. 🙂
Check out what all the other flowery posts over at Cee’s blog.
I haven’t been able to get online much lately, so I haven’t been keeping up with any of the bloggers I usually do. Cee always has some really great challenges going on. This week she’s asking us to come up with photos (or whatever) to fit “lime or light green“.
I got a job for 3 weeks on a ship with very limited internet access. It was really a pretty interesting trip, but I’ll have to tell you about it later cause I’m heading back there tonight. I’ll be gone for another 2 weeks. Hope to be able to get online during this hitch, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear from me for another 2-3 weeks.
I’m SO glad to finally have some real work again! Not to be greedy, but now it would be really nice to have some sort of schedule. Three years of being on call and ready to jump on any offer is getting old.
I thought I might catch up with what’s been happening and why I was gone for so long.
I got off the Epic Explorer in late January and recently realized I hadn’t posted since then. Sorry! I got busy and caught up in other things and just got distracted.
I started teaching again only a few days after I got home. First Lamar State College in Orange, then San Jacinto sent me up to teach a class for Hornbeck Offshore (where I’ve been applying to work for a couple years now). I drove all the way to Port Fourchon and stayed aboard their vessel for a week to teach the crews of 2 of their vessels a Tankerman PIC course. After that I was back teaching at San Jacinto a course in Leadership & Management. I went to a pre-hire class in Houston for Spencer-Ogden and then taught a Search & Rescue course for San Jacinto again.
That all kept me super busy through the whole month of February and into March. Luckily, I got a call to go to work the next week. Spencer-Ogden finally came through with a ship for me! I say finally because they told me they had a job for me back in February of 2016. I came back from Mexico in order to take a UKOG physical expecting to recoup the money with a job, but it fell through. They didn’t have another opening until this one- almost 2 years later.
So, I got lucky and had a job for a month. It actually worked out to be a little longer. I went out as DPO on the drillship Discoverer India. the first week of March and didn’t get home til mid- April. We were all busy as hell. The ship had been stacked for quite a while. It was a real job getting her ready to go back to work again. There were all kinds of checks and tests that had to be done and signed off on for the clients approval.
We finally got most of what we had to do finished and were able to depart. Figuring we could finish up what we had to on the way. We left the anchorage just South of the LOOP on April 3, and arrived at Port of Spain, Trinidad on the 14th.
It was a pretty uneventful voyage. We had decent weather all the way. The Loop Current slowed us down a little, but we made good time otherwise. I was a little disappointed in how little sea life I saw this trip.
We saw a few birds- gulls and gannets, a couple of egrets and pelicans. But for the entire voyage, I did not see even one fish, dolphin, whale, turtle, jellyfish, ray, or anything else that lived in the ocean. Usually, we’d see schools of fish every day, pods of dolphins riding our bow wake, maybe even a whale over the course of a week. I saw nothing for over a week, I really felt the loss. It made me wonder why, did something happen? It made me sad.
I cheered up once we got closer to Trinidad. It was cool passing by the Caribbean Islands. One evening passing by the Caymans, I had an entertaining radio conversation with one of the watch keepers from Cayman Traffic. I would have loved to take up his invitation to come closer so the islanders could wave at us, but that kind of thing is not really a good idea. Remember Captain Schettino and the Costa Concordia? Continue reading →
It’s a long story. I’m going to start this out by joining in on Linda G Hill’s SoCS. Her theme for this week is “reservation”.
It’s hard to acknowledge that I haven’t posted on here since early February, when I got off work on the Epic Explorer. I hadn’t realized its been that long. I really thought I had been posting more often than that. I’ve been so busy, it just got too easy to let the blogging slip out of mind.
I’ve even had reservations about starting back up again. It’s been so long, I’ve gotten out of the habit of trying to write something fairly frequently (at least weekly) and keep up with what my favorite bloggers were up to. It’s so easy to let it go when I have so many other things going on, and even when I don’t- I just don’t feel like doing anything.
I don’t like to be so negative all the time, but it’s been really hard to try to come up with something positive to say. I’ve always been one of those to see the ‘glass as half empty”. At this point I’m probably ‘clinically depressed’. Here I go again, running off into the so easy to fall into trap of thinking of all the negatives. I’m still out of work, still broke, still trapped here with no money to do anything. There’s still really not much hope of finding work, so no hope of escaping the trap. What am I going to be able to do with myself?
I really don’t think there’s any point to life, other than to live it the way YOU want to. Why bother if all you’re going to do all day every day is what someone else forces on you? I’ve tried my whole life to find ways to live my life according to my values. I work hard, and save what I can so that I can enjoy my time off. Since I’ve been laid off (without any help from unemployment after paying into it for 40+ years), I’ve tried to find other ways to make some kind of income still doing something that I didn’t consider pure torture. I’ve always liked the arts, so I’ve been trying to transition into working in some way with that sort of thing.
I’ve been writing, painting, photographing. I’ve tried to find ways to earn an income from all of those things. So far, I have had a few successes. I’ve won prizes for my photos and for my paintings. I’ve sold a few articles. Few and far between and not nearly enough to pay the bills. It’s hard to concentrate enough to work on this sort of thing when I’m spending so much time and energy looking for a ‘real job’. One that will pay the bills.
won “Honorable Mention”
I tried last night to think of what I have to be thankful for. Mostly in the past. I came up with a few things I can still be thankful for right now. I still have a roof over my head and enough money to keep it for at least another couple of months. I still have my health (in general, tho not good enough to be able to keep working for much longer). I have a few good friends I can always count on. I have rental properties that will bring in enough income to survive on for at least another month. I have internet access again (tho it is still screwed up, just not as bad as it has been). My truck still runs, even at 21+ years old. Without it I wouldn’t be able to get to the few and far between jobs I have been able to get over the last 3 years.
I spent so much time and effort, my whole life, to be able to just live and enjoy life. I did all the things we’re told we have to do. I studied hard, got good grades, went to college, got a good job, a great career. I even went back to college to get a BA degree (in math- which has proved totally useless). I saved as much as I could. I invested what I could spare. I worked hard at every job.
And after all that, what happened? Like hundreds of thousands of others, I was thrown in the trash heap when my company felt it had to satisfy their stockholders.When the price of oil dropped like a rock, the oilfield dried up. When that happened all the shipping jobs were immediately taken. Seafarers around the world are hanging on to any job they can find.
People around the world are clamoring to take captains jobs for $150/day! The STCW has given owner/operators the ability to go for the lowest common denominator- they’re all hiring the cheapest crews they can find. Apparently you can live like a king on $150/day in the Philippines, or India, or Ukraine. Who in America can survive on that? You spend decades and tens of thousands of dollars for your license (and the enormous amounts of responsibility you get with it) and then throw it away for that kind of wage? It’s been almost 3 years now with no hope of getting a ‘real’ job again.
I hate to think that I have wasted my entire life, working my way up the hawsepipe, doing everything ‘right’ and still to end up in the exact same place as I would have if I had never made any effort at all to improve my life. It sucks! But it seems to be reality.
Yes, I’ve had reservations on posting like this and depressing you all. I’ll hope that even this kind of post is (somewhat) welcome after being out of touch for so long.
I’ve been trying to keep up with the Just Jot It January challenge, but since I left to head offshore it’s been getting harder and harder. The internet was out most of the day yesterday and due to my upcoming change in position, I don’t think I’ll have access to blog again until I get home. It might not be until next Wednesday. 🙁
I was supposed to be getting off and heading home tonight. Last night the office called and asked if anyone was willing to work over. No one was. So I stepped up.
After crew change tonight, I will go from being mate on here to being galley hand. So, I will change watch from working noon-midnight, to working 1800-0600. Instead of standing watch on the bridge, I will be washing dishes, laundry and sanitation.
Haha! I get to suggest today’s prompt for the Just Jot It January challenge. The word for today is: liberty.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but liberty is very important to me. In fact, I completely agree with Patrick Henry when he said “Give me liberty or give me death!”.
I would really rather be dead than to ‘live’ without liberty. I really don’t consider it living if I don’t have the freedom to live my life in the way I choose to. In fact, I consider it a long, drawn out slow death. A death of my creativity, of my happiness, or my loves, of my life. I don’t think I’m out of line at all. In fact, I can quote all kinds of things that show that America was founded to promote liberty and that it is the ONLY legitimate purpose of our (or any) government, is to protect and promote the liberty we all were born with.
Let’s define our terms…
noun, plural liberties.
1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
Looking at that definition, can anyone seriously argue that we have NOT lost most of our liberty in the United States over the last few years? How many people can read the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights and argue that they do NOT argue for the liberty of all men (and pleeease remember the times they were written in)?
How can a country specifically formed ONLY to protect our natural rights (liberty) turn around to such a degree? To the point where that government, formed ONLY to protect our liberty instead spends all its time (and our money) to violate our liberties every chance it gets?
I’m perfectly aware that most people couldn’t care less about the loss of liberty we’ve suffered in the United States over the last few decades (and increasingly since 9/11). I hear from almost everyone that they don’t care what anyone does to them as long as ‘it keeps them safe”.
Really? Safety is all important? I don’t think the people who say that have really considered what they’re saying when they say that. After all, liberty is not really the sort of thing you can divide up. You’re either free or you’re not. It’s like you’re only a little bit pregnant. No, you either are or you’re not. You either own your own life or you don’t! If you don’t, then someone else must and you have become a slave.
Government is nothing but the monopolized use of force. If you study how governments came about, that’s very obvious to see. When you give up any of your powers to the government, you are ‘agreeing’ that they have the right to use force against you (whether you agree to it or not). And (they say) you don’t have the right to protect yourself against it!
At this point, we have given up almost all of our freedom. All of our liberty. We have very, very little of our natural rights left that we can exercise fully. You think I’m exaggerating? Try going to a law library and taking a look at the Federal Register!
Hundreds of thousands of pages of incomprehensible legalese. Shelves of big fat books full of ‘laws’ we’re all supposed to know and obey. How could that possibly equal freedom?
George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, not as a roadmap. But left him choking in the dust by 1985! Our ‘big brother’ doesn’t only keep an eye on us from our home TV sets, he tracks our every move through our cell phones! He uses the EZ pass (toll roads) to keep track of where we go in our vehicles. He can tell our habits through tracking our spending on our credit/debit cards. He can get all kinds of information through our ‘smart’ devices. He’s already testing driverless (completely controlled by government) cars. And we can’t fly anywhere anymore without government permission (TSA)!
Big brother has already convinced fearful parents to chip not only their pets, but their kids and their parents! Scientists have already invented pills that inform your doctors if you take them or not. Soon they will report all your health information. Cashless societies are on the way, where every dollar you spend will be tracked (to cut down on tax cheats).
Just think of how the government controls everything now a days. What, if anything, don’t they have their hands in? They regulate the food you eat, the drugs you take, the doctors you can talk to about your health issues. Oh yeah, they also regulate what your doctors can say (and your churches if they want to remain tax free which is a form of coercion).
Free speech? Not so much any more with all the ‘political correctness’ BS going around. If I like Trump for one thing, I do love him for the fact that he is most definitely NOT PC! They regulate the amount of water you can use to flush your toilet and the type of light bulbs you can use in your house (forcing dangerous mercury filled bulbs to replace previous incandescent bulbs).
Think you can choose what jobs you’d like to work at? Nope, big brother is enforcing hundreds of regulations restricting the rights of people who choose to work in professions as diverse as hair braiders, to animal massagers, to interior designers, to merchant marines. They’ve manipulated most businesses in the country to coerce us into submitting to giving up our rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Do you call it freedom to be forced to beg permission from the government in order to go to work?
I don’t! I don’t call it freedom because it ISN’T!
Think you can just pick up and leave? “If you don’t like it here, you can just go back to where you came from?” Well, I would if I could, but I came from HERE! I grew up in the good ol’ USA. I believe 100% in the principles this country was founded on “LIBERTY and justice for all!”.
I believe everyone, everywhere in the world SHOULD be able to exercise those same liberties we here in America are promised. But the fact is, America is the only country, anywhere, ever in the history of the world to form specifically in order to promote and protect the individual rights of all of us.
I wish the American people would wake up and take back our freedom before its too late. I don’t think we have much time left to turn things around.
Sorry to all the democrats who think its all Trumps fault. Or the republicans who blame it all on Obama. Fact is, it’s ALL of our political ‘leaders’ fault! And ours, for continuing to believe that any politician from either of the mainstream parties will ever change anything! For the last 100 years (at least), they’ve ALL conspired to strip us of our liberties and give themselves more power and control.
It’s sad how easily they manipulate us. They keep us divided and fighting over such stupidities as the word “shithole” and how many ‘illegal’ votes were counted. It’s time to stop wasting our time fighting each other and come to understand who we really SHOULD be fighting. Look beyond the party lines. I can promise you, you will find the same people are running things on both sides.
There is nothing to be gained by continuing to support these political parties who want nothing more than continued CONTROL. I want my freedom back! Do you?
Today’s prompt for Just Jot It January is: silence. Something I don’t get too much of normally.
When I’m out at sea, there is always the rumble of the engines in the background (we hope). Then there is the noise of people wandering the passageways, flushing toilets, watching football, etc. The sound of the winches starting up, or the containers slamming the deck, or the anchors letting loose, or the thrusters ramping up. It’s very rarely silent out here.
Even on a sailboat (which I much prefer- except that they don’t pay), there is very rarely actual silence. Yes, it is much quieter, but there is still the sound of the wind in the sails, the shushing of the waves against the hull, the tinging of the halyards on the masts, occasional calls on the VHF radio.
I’m not sure I could deal with real silence for very long. I think it would drive me batty!
Sorry but the internet is not working well here tonight. I don’t want to keep trying to write something interesting and have it not work. I’ve been trying to check my email since about 1700. Its 2230 now and still getting nowhere with it.
I don’t really get much time to get online out here. So, for SoCS, I’ll keep it short and sweet. I had planned to continue on with the post from yesterday (about the octopi) and use another word with ‘oc’.
I have been preoccupied with my occulted occupation on the ocean. 🙂
It’s been a rare occurrence lately that I’ve had the occasion to enjoy spending time on an ocean-going ship.
Sadly, I have not seen any octopi (yet) on this voyage.
Todays Just Jot It January prompt is: words that start with “oc”. I always found octopi to be extremely interesting creatures. I like to watch them at the zoo. They’re super smart and curious. There is a large variety around the world (about 300 species), from tiny little ones the size of your thumb to the giant pacific octopus, where one was measured at 30 ft across it’s arms!
Check out the video for a quick introduction to the octopi. 😉
I found a new photography challenge tonight (thanks to Cee for leading me to it). Nancy Merrill’s Photography blog is running the Photo a Week challenge. This week the challenge is to come up with a post using ‘crowd‘.
Here’s how it works:
Each week, I’ll come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.
To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
Come back here and post a link to your image in the comments for this challenge.
A ‘dazzle’ of zebras. I was very lucky to travel to Tanzania on a photography safari last year. The scenery, the amazing animals and the beautiful people we met made the trip unforgettable.
I wish I could go back. I’m doing what I can to save up for another trip to Africa. I don’t know when I’ll be able to go, but hoping by the end of the year.
Today’s prompt for JusJoJan is revolt. Unsurprisingly, that is one of my favorite words. 😉
I want to (and sometimes do) revolt against all kinds of things: forced use of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, no smoking laws, Taj Mahal school buildings and giving kids computers and tablets in school (causing sky high property taxes), insane drug laws, stupid piss tests, government restrictions on earning an honest living, stupid laws of all sorts.
I really can’t understand why Americans have changed from a population that would rise up and revolt against the greatest military power in the world over a tiny tax on ONE item (tea), to a population that willingly submits to tax rates of 50% and up on all earned income. To a nation with so many laws, thousands and thousands of pages worth of incomprehensible legalese- nobody even knows what they are.
We’ve turned into a police state. One where the cops can cite you for any of a hundred different laws you’ve broken. Whenever they want to. You think you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about? Read “Three Felonies a Day“. Take a look at the website over at the Institute for Justice for just a very few examples, a tiny sample of the abuse that so many innocent- yes innocent! people have had to suffer at the hands of ‘our’ government.
Remember the famous quote from the Holocaust…
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The same process is ongoing- right NOW.
No, I don’t necessarily mean they’re coming to kill us off next week. What I mean is what Martin Luther King Jr said…
More and more people are being turned into ‘criminals’. People who haven’t done anything wrong. They have hurt no one. More and more people are being displaced. More and more people are being shoved aside, wasted and destroyed. All because we have allowed ‘our’ government to run rampant all over the world.
Why aren’t people revolting against this? I would love to! The only thing that stops me is that I’m not stupid enough to put a target on myself in front of the government goons!
From a country whose beginning was all about FREEDOM, individual LIBERTY and JUSTICE for all, we’ve degenerated into a country where ‘our’ government seems intent on nothing more than violating our rights and stealing more of our freedom (and money) every day.
WHY aren’t the people up in arms? Why aren’t the people revolting? Why is anyone who tries to start any real discussions about our lost freedoms and the fact that ‘our’ government does nothing today but the total and complete opposite of its only legitimate purpose (which is to protect our inherent, natural rights) treated like a conspiracy theorist?
Like they’ve escaped from the loony bin? Like they’ve lost their tin hat?
Personally, I think we NEED a revolt, I think we need one NOW. I think pretty soon we’ll lose all of our freedoms (the few we have left), if we don’t have another revolution PDQ.
I’m sure every one of the founding fathers thinks what’s happened to America is revolting. 🙁
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. —Ayn Rand
Todays post is a One Liner Wednesday (also continuing on Just Jot It January). Thanks Linda for coming up with this stuff! Lots of interesting posts from everyone. Makes it much easier to do just a short post like this!
