Tag Archives: blog challenge

Poll: How Did You Find Capt Jills Journeys?

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I’m still working my way through the Blogging 201 challenge. This is my attempt to complete the assignment for Day 12 (create a poll/survey to gather feedback from your readers on your site and its content).

The Blogging 201 challenge actually ended a couple of weeks ago but I wanted to finish it anyway. I’m hopeful that by following through I will continue to learn how to make my blog better.

I hope that will help me grow my audience.

So, here’s a poll. Please feel free to add anything you’d like to say in the comment section below (as always!). I’m interested to know how people found my blog (and also what they like about it).

Thanks!

Blogging 201: Day Eleven- Buddy Up

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Late to start. Late to finish. That’s just typical for me. 🙁

I started the Blogging 201 challenge a couple of weeks late. Too late to really get into the whole community aspect of it. IMHO, that is the best part of it. Interacting with all the other bloggers working on the same challenge and all their different takes on it.

Since I was so far behind, everyone was working on totally different things than I was. I just kept an eye on what they were doing and tried to catch up.

The challenge ended a couple of weeks ago, but I hate to quit anything I’ve started. So, here I am again, plugging on with the Blogging 201 challenge.

The assignment for Day 11 was (is) to “find a blog buddy”.

I did read the assignment only a few days late. 😉 I’ve been thinking about it since (in the back of my mind). I haven’t yet come up with anybody specific to ask to ‘be my buddy’. 🙁

I wonder if it would be better to try and buddy with someone with similar interests (offshore, maritime, travel, politics, nature, sailing, boats, philosophy, liberty, food & drinks, music, books), or someone with interests that I really don’t post about much here (fashion, beauty, celebrities, family, kids, relationships, sports).

I think for now, I’ll still just keep this idea in the back of my mind. I really haven’t had the time to work on this blog as much as I would like to lately. I’d hate to have someone else depending on my being able to keep to a writing schedule right now. 🙁

At some point in the future, I’d like to try to use the guest blogging idea. I think either way (like/unlike my blog) would work to try a different audience.

Has anybody else been participating in the Blogging 201 challenge? Did you complete the assignment for Day 11? How did it go?

Does anybody want to be my buddy?

Blogging 201: Day 9-10

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Yes, I am still trying to finish the Blogging 201 Challenge! I’ve been traveling in Korea and so busy. I don’t want to spend all my time inside on the computer when there are so many interesting things to see and do going on outside my hotel room!

So, I know I’m late but I’m still trying to complete the challenge. The one for Day 9 was “to create a page or section on your blog to display links to your online presence elsewhere, and make sure your other presences reflect the brand you’re developing on your blog.” 

I’ve been thinking about this challenge for the last couple of days. I don’t really think I want to make a special page for that. At least not right now. I already have links to my Facebook page, About.me page, Twitter feed, and Flickr pictures on my home page.

I am online in a few of other places like Pinterest, Tumblr, Oilpro, Linkedin, Gcaptain, and probably a few others I can’t remember right now. That might tell you one reason why I don’t really see the need to make a special page for them here right now. I really haven’t done much with some of these yet (plus I get a bit scattered sometimes). 😉

I’ve barely started with Pinterest. I only check into Tumblr- (islandgirl37- I can’t get a link to work)- every once in a blue moon, tho I do notice my posts here are automatically posted there (which is nice).

I rarely comment on Oilpro, tho I do like a lot of their content. A lot of it is outside my area of interest.

I love Gcaptain and I comment on there fairly often (as JP), tho not as much as I used to. They have a lot of really great back and forth conversations between real mariners (like me) on there in the forum section. Lately, I’ve been following the discussion on the Korean ferry disaster tho I haven’t been commenting.

I’m probably on Linkedin more than a lot of other places. There’s such a wide variety of groups on there. It’s too bad they limit you to only joining 50! I read and comment on a lot of different groups. I thought about linking my blog to it, but I’m still a little leery about doing that since it is really more for business. I’m trying to keep my posting there more professional. 😉

I think the main thing I can take away from the challenge for Day 9 is to go back and make sure I put a link to my blog into each of my profiles on these other sites. 🙂

OK, so I’ve got Day 9 pretty much in the bag. The assignment for Day 10 is to “invest in your community by leaving five comments, adding (or updating) a blogroll, and introducing a comment policy.”

I’ve been leaving comments all along, I enjoy interacting with other people on the things they’re doing that interest me. I’ve never really been one to keep my opinions to myself. 😉

I already have a blogroll and it updates itself according to who I’m visiting (“more good stuff” in the sidebar). I also have a list on the bottom of my home page, but I haven’t really had time to update it recently so I’m sure it’s missing a lot. I was trying to include links that I’ve written about in posts. To have them all in one convenient place, but I got out of the habit of updating that list and so I know it’s going to take some work to catch up on.

I don’t have a formal comment policy (yet) and don’t really see the need to add one at this point. I do believe in free speech and hopefully won’t come up with any reasons to throw somebody out of here. 😉

I suppose eventually somebody might come up with something that pisses me off enough to get rid of them (online), but so far no one has come close. 🙂

So, I guess I’ll just wait and see on adding the ‘comment policy’. Hope ya’ll don’t take this as license to start giving me shit now! 😉

Blogging 201: Day Seven- Broadcast Your Brand

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The assignment for Day Seven of the Blogging 201 challenge is to “Broadcast Your Brand”. To “pick one social network you’ll use to grow your blog and connect it to your site in at least one way”.

I’m already connected here to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. I use ‘Publicize’ pretty much every time I post. I did have some issues a while back with my posts not showing up on Facebook, but they look like they’ve been posting on there lately.

I thought about adding Linkedin since I’m on there looking around and commenting quite a bit, but I’m a little concerned (paranoid maybe) about how things I post on here might affect my job. I know companies now are looking at things people have on the internet.

Personally, I don’t like that trend. I think you ought to be able to have a work life and a home life. I know I keep them pretty separated. Maybe in my job it’s easier since I am home for weeks at a time and then at work for weeks. I just don’t think what a person choses to do when NOT on the job should have anything to do with what they do ON the job.

For now, Linkedin is out. Too bad, cause I’ve got tons of connections on there.  🙁

I’m also connected on Flickr. You can see some of my photos I have posted on there in the widget towards the bottom of the sidebar. I just started a Google+ account but I haven’t done anything with it yet.

I’m also on Pinterest, tho I don’t really know what to do on there yet. I do have a couple of boards started. I just collected some things other people posted that I liked. I have only put a couple of my own things on there so far. Again, I’m not really sure what to do with that one yet. 😉

So, I choose Facebook for the one social network to concentrate on. I like Twitter, but I tend to go overboard with the verbiage. It’s very hard for me to keep what I want to say so short and sweet! 😉

Tomorrows assignment (or Day 8 for those people who complete assignments on time) is supposed to teach us how to “create a strong presence” on our chosen network. I can’t wait! 🙂

 

Blogging 201: Day 6- Drive Traffic to Your Archives

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The assignment for Day Six of the Blogging 201 challenge is to drive traffic to your archives. They suggest a couple of ways of doing that.

1. Use links. I’ve already been doing that for quite a while. I could probably use more of them, but I get involved with what I’m posting sometimes and forget.

2. Widgets. They suggest using the “Top Posts and Pages Widget, Categories Widget, and Archives Widget”. I already have the Categories and Archive widgets. I also have the “Recent Posts Widget”. Maybe I should trade that one in for the “Top Posts and Pages Widget”? It does seem sort of redundant since it just shows the same posts you can see on my home page. Any comments on that idea?

3. Activate the “Related Posts feature”. I had already done that and liked it. I learned from reading the assignment today that you can change the way this feature looks on your blog. I changed mine today to show more than just the post title. So far I like what I’m seeing. Any comments on the change?

4. Compile a “Best Of Page”. I’ll have to think about this for a bit. I think the Top Posts and Pages Widget would serve the same purpose. Is the idea that more people would look at a separate PAGE than the Widget? I’m not sure how many people look at the widgets I have or even if there’s a way to track that. I know the page views are tracked, so that’s something. 🙂

All in all another helpful assignment from the bloggers at the Blogging University. I’m glad I signed up! 🙂

 

Blogging 201: Day 5- Give 'Em What They Want

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The assignment for Day 5 in the Blogging 201 challenge is to take a look at your blog statistics and see what they can tell you about how to better manage your blog.

I’m already a stats junkie. I check my stats page every day. I love to see lots of visitors and views. I really like to see where people are visiting from. I think it’s interesting to see people from all over the world looking at my blog and I wonder what brought them to my blog?

From looking at my stats, it seems like I must have a lot of people who like to drink! My most popular posts of all time (other than the home page and about page) are the ones on making your own booze! Peach or apple? Peach has more views, but maybe that’s only because I posted it after I had a few more visitors. What do you think?

After the booze posts, it looks like people are actually pretty interested in the maritime stuff. I wasn’t really sure when I started this if ANYBODY would be interested in that sort of thing, but it looks like there are at least a few. And, to my surprise, they’re not all other mariners! 🙂

It looks like the photography has a pretty good showing too. People like my travel posts, which is great since I haven’t really put much of my travels up on here yet. The food/drink/recipes get a lot of views too. 🙂

Even the political posts get a pretty good showing. The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz is right up there at the top! That’s really encouraging. I had hopes to get people at least thinking more about politics with my blog. 🙂

I can’t really tell much for a pattern as to when I get the most traffic. I seem to remember the weekends being high traffic days, but when I just looked at the most recent weeks it seems I have more traffic on Wed-Thurs-Fridays.

So, what have I learned from looking at my stats? Maybe I should post more home-made booze recipes on Friday to give everybody a head start on the weekend?

I’m already trying to stick to a Creature Feature post on Wednesdays, combining photos (maybe mine, maybe not) with some interesting information about some kind of critter. 😉

I’ve been trying to do a post on the Songs of the Sea on the weekend, since that’s normally when I have more time to get online to surf the web to try and find a video. I do love my music, it’s just hard to put the whole thing together into a post sometimes. 😉

Maybe I should try to put more of the quirky stuff, things I just find interesting towards the beginning of the week, tho I normally only post those things on the spur of the moment when I come accross them.

The thing that really stands out to me is the HUGE difference in my stats from when I had the time to work on the blog. When I had time to post every day (or close to it). When I had the time to post even more than once in a day. Those time periods were when I really got a lot of interest.

I can see that made a difference and I would love to be able to do that well all the time, but I just don’t really know how to make that happen. I’m doing about the best I can with working on the blog along with all my other projects (my JOB, looking for work, keeping my household running, taking care of my rental property business, traveling, photography, etc).

I guess I’ll just keep on muddling along and hope for the best. I’m learning more from this challenge, which is good. Looking forward to more in the Day 6 assignment. 🙂

 

Blogging 201: Day 4- Get Read All Over

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The assignment for Day Four of the Blogging 201 challenge is to make sure your site is ‘mobile-friendly’. I checked and it seems that my ‘theme’ Twenty Eleven is already ‘responsive’. That means it should already be OK for all sorts of mobile devices automatically. 🙂

That’s a really good thing, since I had no idea it might not show up looking the same way. I just never thought about it before this assignment.

I did take a look at it in the appearance menu on wordpress to see what my blog would look like on mobile phones and tablets. I think it looks pretty good on both. I only saw a couple of things I’d like to change, but I don’t know how. 🙁

The first thing is that all the ‘widgets’ show up at the very end. I’d like to have my ‘follow me’ widget up closer to the top so that people might be more likely to see it (and hopefully click on it!). 🙂

The other thing is that for some reason, the post’s I’ve done with a slideshow (the Bike and Blues Fest for example) don’t show up inside the screenshot on the phone preview. I’m not sure if that’s something going on with this computer when I look at it, or if it really looks like that when someone looks at my blog from a cel phone. 🙁

I also took a look at my blog on www.quirktools.com/screenfly that another blogger on the Blogging 201 Commons mentioned. Those posts with the slideshows show up the same way there, like they’re way off-center for some reason.

Can anybody out there check it out and let me know? If it IS a problem, does anybody know what I need to do to fix it?

Has anyone else had this issue? I’m trying to look through the Commons but haven’t seen anything yet. I admit, I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on this project so far, but trying to catch up. 🙂

Blogging 201: Day Three- You’ve Got the Look

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The assignment for day 3 of the Blogging 201 challenge is to continue refining your ‘brand’. I’ve already done quite a bit of that when I was first getting started and then again during the original Zero to Hero challenge.

I also took a critical look at my blog for yesterdays assignment (Audit Your Brand). I think there are a few small things I’d like to play with, but since I’m actually traveling in Korea at the moment I’m not going to do that right now.

I hate to spend my time here playing on the computer for hours on end when I should be out exploring Korea!

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the look of my blog. My brand. I’d be happy to hear any comments or suggestions from anyone as to how to improve it. 🙂

Blogging 201: Day Two- Audit Your Brand

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Still trying to catch up. The assignment for Day 2 (though I’m actually so far behind it’s really already day 10) is to ‘audit your brand’. The assignment is to look at everything you put on your blog and make sure it’s consistent with your ‘brand’.

I’m having a little bit of a hard time with this one. I’m not really sure of what my brand IS. Is it ME?? Since I don’t have any sort of product I’m trying to sell here, I guess in a way it IS me.

I’m trying to interest readers in my content which consists of my interests. It includes my photography, my opinions, my choices on what to share here, etc.

I’d really like to get people to get excited about the things that I am so passionate about, so I try to present those sorts of things here but I’m not really sure how that relates to ‘my brand’.

I’m trying to look at my blog with a critical eye. I still like the theme and think it works well for me.

I like the font and colors for my posts.

I definitely like my title and tag line.

I could probably tweak the titles of my widgets a little bit but I can’t come up with anything better right now to change them to.

I think I’ll probably move the awards to a separate page eventually and clean up the sidebar a little bit.

And MAYBE I might want to change my header photo. I’m not sure yet. I really love that photo and the feeling I get from it, but I think I might like something more in line with the coloring of the rest of my blog. That orange is just really glaring. It’s very attention grabbing, which was my purpose when I chose it for the header and I still like it for that. So I’ll leave it as is for now.

I did manage to create a new email account just for this blog (captjillsjourneys@gmail.com). It took me a while so I have NOT managed to change the settings yet (but I’ll get to that soon). I think it will probably work better for me if the email notifications re: the blog don’t keep on getting mixed up in my personal email. I lose a lot of them that way. 🙁

I also changed my ‘comment prompt’. I hope it will make people feel better about communicating with me here. 🙂

Does all this carry through to other places I’m online? I only use Facebook, Twitter, and now Pinterest (tho I’m still pretty confused as to what to do there). I’m sure the content concentration carries through.

I use the same gravatar on Facebook so it’s a good marker there. I do have one of my pictures for my Twitter gravatar but it’s actually one of me instead of one I took. I don’t see anything on Pinterest to do the same sort of function. Is there something like that on there?

I’m so far behind with the assignment that I’m not having much luck trying to look at the Commons, the computer just won’t allow me to go back that far. Does anybody have any feedback or suggestions relating to “my brand”? I’d appreciate any comments. 🙂

 

Blogging 201: Day One- Set 3 Goals

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I’m late again (sigh), but I’ve been so busy I just haven’t been able to get around to this project til now. I had high hopes for this Blogging 201 challenge, but I’m thinking since I’m so late to join, that I’m probably not going to get as much out of it as I had hoped.

Maybe they’ll do it again some time. I hope so. I’d like to be able to start with everybody else. I think it would help to be on the same page. I’m going to jump right in anyway and hopefully I’ll at least learn something, even if not as much as I could have if I’d been able to get started on time.

So, to start off on Day One (when it’s actually Day 10), the task for the day is to come up with 3 goals for your blog. To “write down 3 concrete goals you want to achieve”.

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. Not in specifics. Not “concrete”. But here’s what I’ve come up with now that I’m trying to be specific...These will be my goals for the next 3 months. After that, I think I should think some more and re-assess.

1. Increase traffic to my blog. I’d like to see at least 30 views a day and/or at least 1 new follower a day.

2. Get more organized. I tried to set up an ‘editorial calendar’ while I was doing the original Blogging 101 challenge. I was going to do a post called Wild Wednesdays (or Creature Feature). I was going to post something about some sort of interesting creature I thought other people would think was neat. 🙂

I was also planning to do a series of “Songs of the Sea”. Hopefully every Saturday. So far, I have fallen WAY off the schedule for both of those things. My goal is to get back on track and get at least those posts done every week.

3. Spend at least an hour a week on the Reader, checking out other blogs I’m following. I already get a lot of emails from blogs I follow and I read all of them (just not all on the same day they come in the email). I follow more blogs in the reader and I’d like to keep up with them better.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep up with people who’ve visited my blog so I’m not really sure how much more time I can afford to put into this right now, but I think I ought to be able to commit to at least an hour.

OK, so those are my goals for the next 3 months! On to the next days challenge!!

A Word A Week Photography Challenge: Violet

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orchids

orchids

Yes, it’s late, but I decided to go ahead and post my entries for the Word a Week Photography Challenge. It’s only a couple of weeks late. 😉

Here’s the link to the original post from Suellewellyn at a Word in Your Ear blog. People have some nice photos they’ve entered there.

I’ve got a few flowers, a pretty little fish, some fanciful lights, a motorcycle and rider (or not), a cute little witch, a couple of playful green and purple/violet leprechauns from last St Patrick Day parade, and finish it up with some more colorful flowers…

 

orchids

orchids

more orchids

more orchids

I would have posted more photos but for some reason I’ve been having a HELL of a time uploading photos. I’ve had to shrink them down to a much smaller size than previously. I don’t know if my computer has a bug or if it’s something going on with WordPress. Anyone else having issues the last couple of days?

Zero to Hero- Day 30: Think Big Picture

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Well, sad to say, this is the last day of the Zero to Hero Challenge. It HAS been a challenge. I’m not really computer literate and it’s taken me some real effort to figure out how to do some of the things they suggested.

Todays assignment is to…

 Extend your brand, think about a bigger strategic plan for promoting your online presence, and set a goal for the next 30 days.

I’m not sure exactly what they mean by “extend your brand”, how to do that or how to ‘promote my online presence’ more than what I’m already doing. I’ve linked my blog to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr already. I’m also on Pinterest.

I don’t think I really want to put a direct link to my blog on my Linkedin account, although I do mention in my profile (at the bottom) that I am the creator of this blog. I am a little concerned that my political ‘rants’ will cost me some job opportunities.

I would like to be able to freely promote my blog on there since I have a LOT of contacts on Linkedin. That site is focused much more on work and business than any of the other websites I’m on and I’m trying to keep my posts on there businesslike.

I am not at all happy that employers are looking into what you do on your time off and I am in TOTAL disagreement with that, but it is what it is. I am still working for others, so I do have to take that into account. Yes, self-censorship. I hate it, but I would hate it more living out the rest of my life as a bag lady living in the streets and eating catfood. 🙁

So, that’s what I’m doing to ‘promote my online presence’. Does anyone have any other suggestions? If so, please leave a comment and let me know what you think I should do.

As for my goals for the next 30 days…

I do plan to start a weekly series I’m calling the ‘creature feature’. I’ll post about interesting animals in the news or that I come across that I think others might like to learn more about. I’ll start it next Wednesday and will probably concentrate on marine animals, but will probably branch out and cover everything. 🙂

I’ll be committing to posting at least 1-2 times a week. I’ll probably be able to do more, but with my schedule I never know where I’ll be or if I’ll have decent internet access. So, I’ll just promise the minimum. That way I won’t disappoint anyone by breaking my promise.

I’m also hoping to increase my readership and ‘followers’. I went from just over 200 (I think it was 202) to 242 followers of my blog in the month of January! It would be fantastic if I could keep increasing my readership at that rate! Actually, I would be happy to have ANY increase, but the more the merrier. 🙂

I really do love sharing some of my personal experiences along with all the interesting stuff I come across online. I love meeting new people and hearing about what they’re doing with their lives too. I hope I can continue to keep in touch with people through my blog and my ‘online presence’.

Here’s to the rest of the Zero to Hero bloggers, nice to meet you, and well wishes for the future. 🙂

Movie Review: The Great Dictator

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moviethegreatdictator

I came across the Great Dictator today (again) and I can’t even remember where. I think it might have been in an email from the Sovereign Man (an ‘investment’ newsletter I subscribe to). Yes, yet another of my hobbies. 😉

I had a little time this morning so I took a look and tho I’ve seen the movie before I was just stunned this time. I guess I’ve just been primed by all that’s been happening in the world lately.

soldiers dont fight

I’ve seen a few Charlie Chaplin movies and I’ve enjoyed them all. For his time and place, I would agree with the people who consider him a genius. He could make you laugh, but he could make you THINK.

He had a way of putting himself out there and making people feel his emotions. He made people feel what he wanted them to feel. To understand his characters and their emotions.

He did so much in his films, and considering that a lot of them were silent movies, he was so far out and ahead of everyone else in the business, he really had no equal.

This movie was his first ‘talkie’. He played the leading roles of the dictator and the barber. He also directed it. He did a fantastic job in every way, and the public appreciated that. This was his most commercially successful film (even tho it was banned in most of Europe- for obvious reasons).

The Great Dictator came out in 1940 (while we were still formally at peace with Nazi Germany). It was written, produced, scored and directed by Charlie Chaplin. And he played the starring role(s)! WOW!

I watched the ending speech on youtube again and I can hardly believe how powerful and moving it STILL is after all this time. It is SO powerful. It is SO prescient. It is SO MUCH still true today!

I wish more people around the world could see this movie. It is a warning to us all. His speech is so moving. Even almost 75 years after he spoke those words, they can still affect me that way. I hope others can understand that feeling. I hope others can understand what he was trying to do with this film.

humanity

I hope people today will take his message to heart and unite to solve the problems we have. I hope people today will work together to find solutions to hunger, hatred, violence, sickness, oppression, poverty and war.

I hope people will come to understand that we (common people) need to unite to overcome the forces against us. It is the same now as it was then. There are people in this world who lust for power and will do anything to get it and to keep it. ANYTHING!

Nothing else matters to people like that. Not you, not me, not their friends, not their families, not their pets, not their neighborhood, not their community, not their country, not their PLANET! NOTHING!!

From the reviews of the movie and it’s commercial success, I think Chaplin succeeded in showing large numbers of people how idiotic it is to allow anyone to rule over you.

To give a dictator (or ANY form of government) the power to rule is just plain stupid. WE must maintain control over our lives. Chaplin does a fine job of showing that in his film.

Not enough people understood his message in time. We still had to fight the Second World War, (and then the Korean ‘War’ and then the Vietnam ‘War’ and then the assaults on all the little countries that no one even remembers-except the people who were directly hurt by them- and then the ‘War on Terror’ carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Yemen and Mali and, and, and…and America). 🙁

When is it going to end? Are people ever going to wake up? Will we ever find the gumption to tell all those power hungry bastards that insist they need to rule us “for your own good” to GO TO HELL!!

 

 

I actually started this post a couple of weeks ago and ran out of time to finish it up. It’s been on my mind for a while. So, it’s a good fit for todays Zero to Hero task: Revisit a Task and a Post. I did at least figure out how to get the video to play correctly since the last time I worked on it! 😉

If you’d like to know more about the movie, Wikipedia has a pretty good overview. Please let me know what you think! 🙂

Zero to Hero- Day 26: Mining for Ideas

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Here we are at Day 26 in the Zero to Hero challenge. Almost over. 🙂

Todays assignment is to look back through your past published posts…

 What have you been most proud of? What are the common threads? Which have been most popular? Create and save at least two draft posts with ideas that come from those.

I’ve spent a little time doing that and I have to say personally I’m most proud of my political posts. That is the subject I get most passionate about in my writing. I am a very strong believer in individual liberty and it really gets me going to see how we are throwing it away here in the US. That doesn’t seem to be what attracts my readers (so far). 😉

From looking at my stats it seems that other than my home page/archives (which could mean anything) and my about page (glad people are interested in who I am and why I’m doing this), my all time favorite post is the one about the apple pie crockpot moonshine.

Maybe I need to post more ways to make home made booze? 😉

After that one, the maritime posts are getting a lot of attention. That’s great, since that’s what I do for a living and I love it. I think it’s a great lifestyle and only wish that I could sail foreign again.

Of course, that has everything to do with politics here.

Next most traffic getting area is photography. I’m happy to see that. I love to take pictures everywhere I go and it’s nice to see that other people like my pictures too.

Looks like next is everything to do with writing/blogging/zero to hero. I think that must be partly because of the concentration on checking out others blogs and commenting during the event. I hope some of those people will stick around. 😉

I haven’t done much about traveling here yet. I hope to do more on that. My recent posts on New Orleans got some interest. I do love to travel and I think it’s cool to be able to connect and compare notes. 🙂

Recommendations on food, books, music, things to do, things of interest is another area that people seem to like. I have got away from posting much of that kind of thing since I’ve been busy and the Zero to Hero posts are pretty much all I’ve been able to get done for the day.

I hope I’ll be able to get caught up at some point and get back to posting more good stuff on here, but I’ll be going back to work soon and who knows what the internet situation will be out there this time. 😉

Looks like I need to just keep on keepin on! 😉 My followers have been increasing slowly but steadily.

I passed the 200 mark of actual BLOG followers right after New Years and today I’m up to 233 (the rest are mostly Facebook friends who don’t necessarily ever look at my blog)! I only started this in mid- August 2013.

Of course I’d like to get millions, but hopefully it’ll work something like the rice on the chessboard. 🙂

Zero to Hero- Day 23: Roundup Ready

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero challenge is to ‘Publish a roundup post that links to posts on at least three other blogs, and tell us why you love the posts — and why we should read ‘em.’

 

Indian Rocks Bridge–

First New Species of River Dolphin Discovered in a Century– I really liked this because I really like dolphins! All kinds of dolphins!

I think it’s a hopeful sign that we can still discover a new species of an animal this large in this day and age when we seem to have already explored so much of the Earth.

I also liked it because I have been seeing posts about the annual Japanese dolphin slaughter and that always makes me feel bad whenever I’m reminded of it. Angry, sad, frustrated that I can’t put a stop to it.

Yeah, they need to eat, yeah they have their traditions, but personally I would like to see them come up with a substitute to replace this one. 🙁

That There England-

How Much Time Do Your Countrymen Spend on Books?– This one caught my interest since I am a total bibliophile! 🙂 I read voraciously. I read constantly. I read everything I can get my hands on!

I know I am unusual for an American. I already knew that many Americans don’t read much if at all. I have a lot of friends who almost never read anything. Personally I think that’s sad, but they don’t seem to think they’re missing anything.

What really surprised me about the post (neat map!) was how much time some of the other countries spend on reading. It really surprised me to see Egypt and Saudi Arabia as high up as they are. I wonder if they are only reading religious books like the Koran, or are they really opening themselves to all the other worlds reading can do for you?

The other interesting thing about this post was that it breaks down the reading by types of books. How many people read ‘love stories’ for example. How many men? How many women? It also breaks down by age. Very interesting. 😉

June Steward’s Blog-

Spectacular Images of Decaying Ships– I was browsing through my reader and was really just caught by the beautiful photography. For some reason, I have always had an interest with old things. History. Ruins. Abandoned, empty places. Haunted? Haunting, for sure. I’m not usually very imaginative but they always make me wonder/imagine what happened?

This post combined a few of my interests: ships, ruins(shipwrecks), travel, photography, art, history.

I hate to see these beautiful old ships just abandoned. They were beautiful afloat while they were working and I think they are still beautiful even when they are old, wrecked and abandoned like these.

I’ve actually been to visit the wreck of the Peter Iredale (the last photo) and took tons of pictures (as always). But that was before digital so I don’t have any of mine to share of that particular wreck. I do have a few of some other ships tho I don’t know their names or history.

Someday I’d love to travel to the places where those other wrecks lie.

 

So, those were my 3 choices for the days assignment. What do you think about them? I think it might be interesting to do a post like this as a monthly feature. Make a post featuring 3-5 of my favorite posts I saw during the last month? Or maybe sticking to a more focused theme, like 3 favorite photography posts, or favorite videos, or recipes, etc. Which would you prefer and why?

 

Travel Journey of the Week: New Orleans

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I was looking around at the list of blog events for the Zero to Hero assignment for Day 22 and I found this one I thought would be interesting. It’s called the Travel Journey of the Week from Melissa at the Liberated Traveler’s blog.

I liked her idea of asking other people contribute by writing a post and linking back to hers. Since she seems to be focusing on FOOD, which of course New Orleans is deservedly famous for, I thought I would add to hers by posting some photos of places to find some great food in New Orleans.

I’ve got everything here from the Cafe DuMond for their famous chicory coffee and beignets to Rouses grocery store for the best muffaletta to the old JAX Brewery. World Famous restaurants Arnauds and the Bourbon House compete with less known but just as good local favorites.

You’ll find everything from classic French to Cajun and Creole. Old style steak houses. Oyster bars. Fresh seafood and local delights like catfish and alligator fixed a dozen different ways.

If you just have to have it, there’s always a slice of pizza to go with your daquiri. Hot dog stands supply snacks you can eat as you wander down Bourbon Street with your Hand Grenades and Hurricanes. It’s hard to miss a good meal in the French Quarter! 🙂

 

Here’s a link to the original post: Travel Journey of the Week: New Orleans at the Liberated Traveler blog.

Zero to Hero-Day 22: Share Your World

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to join in on another blog event or challenge. I looked through the link in the assignment to the Blog Event Listings and saw a few I was interested in.

Maybe I’ll get back to some of them later when I have more time.

I decided to do the Share Your World Challenge. It seemed interesting and fairly quick and easy. Each week Cee asks 4 questions for you to answer “about you or the area of the world you live in.” Sounds like fun. 🙂

So, here are her questions and my answers for Week 3…

  1. In what do you find the simplest of joys? I can find joy in a lot of ways, for example: enjoying a good book, good music, good food, good friends, watching a beautiful sunrise/sunset, watching the waves roll by on the ocean, watching the birds run around on the beach or the squirrels in my backyard, learning something new, being creative doing something like drawing/painting or playing the piano, solving a crossword puzzle, hiking through beautiful scenery, seeing the plants/seasons change. Yeah, lots of things. 🙂
  2. Jello or Pudding? And what is your favorite flavor? I prefer jello. Pretty much any flavor as long as it’s made with vodka! 😉 yummy jello shots!! 🙂
  3. Is there a language you would like to learn? I would like to learn Spanish better because I live in Texas and there are a lot of people here who speak it (just not to me). I took it for a year in college but since then, I haven’t been able to find anyone to practice with and I’m losing my ability to speak it. I would like to travel some more in Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries and it would be so much better to be able to really talk to the people I meet there.                               I would like to learn Mandarin since I really love traveling in Asia and I would like to go back to China and learn more about the people and the country.                      I would like to learn Russian since I learned a little bit when I was in high school and spent some time there. I thought the country was beautiful and with all that has happened since then, I would like to go back and spend some time talking to the people that I was not allowed to meet back then.                                                   I would like to learn Tagalog (one of the main Philippino languages) because I almost always wind up with at least some Pilippinos on the ships I sail on. I would like to be able to communicate better and learn more about them and their country. I would like to learn Korean since I used to work on a Korean fishing vessel and every time I tried to say something in Korean to the crew, they would break up in hysterics. I would like to find out just what was so funny. 😉
  4. Do you prefer juice or fruit?  It depends. I like juice better because it’s so convenient. Quick and easy, goes down nice and cold. I like fruit because it takes longer to eat and fills me up better.                                                                                                                                                                                                        Here’s the link to Cee’s Share Your World Writing Challenge- 2014- Week 3

Zero to Hero- Day 21: Let the World Know

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to ‘publish a post inspired by your post from Day 19, and publicize it on one or more of your social networks.” I actually did 2 posts for the challenge for … Continue reading →

Zero to Hero- Day 20: Pass on the Pages

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to add a new page. Since I just added one a couple of days ago and it took me a loooong time to put it all together, I think I’ll take … Continue reading →

Zero to Hero- Day 18: Socializing

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The assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge for Day 18 is to ‘explore one or more social networks’.

Link the account to your blog and ‘create a strategy for how you’ll use it’. I have no idea what to do with that. Strategy??? WTH? I’m just fumbling along here…

OK, I have the little share buttons beneath every post so if anyone really likes something and would like to share it, there’s an easy way to do it. (hint, hint!!) 😉

I already have accounts at Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr and they are linked to this blog. You can see the feeds for them along the right side and the bottom of my home page.

The Facebook one just shows people who’ve liked my JP Friedman page instead of the actual feed. I don’t know why it only does that. I still haven’t figured out how to get the Facebook feed to work on here but maybe it’s better to just leave it the way it is.

My blog posts do show up on my Facebook page (most of the time). I do get some comments there, tho it surprises me I don’t get more. 😉

I have a LOT more interesting stuff showing up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds from all kinds of interesting people! I love to go on Facebook and catch up with all my old friends and sometimes I meet new friends through them, or even people who just happen to join in a discussion.

I think it’s a fantastic invention (social media) to keep people informed and interacting with each other, physical location is no barrier.

I post a lot of things to Facebook and Twitter when I don’t have much time to comment personally but still think something is interesting enough to pass along and I think people might get a kick out of it.

I also have accounts at Tumblr and Pinterest and they are also linked here (at least I see things from this blog showing up on my Tumblr feed).

I do also have a Linkedin account but I try to keep that one more focused on work and professional type things. I occasionally share something from my blog there but I’m more concerned about that site potentially harming my job prospects.

More and more places are checking out your online presence both before and during your employment there. I totally disagree with this practice! grrrrr!

I think it is completely wrong that your employer has anything to say about what you do on YOUR time! They pay you for a certain amount of work, they do NOT own you! They do NOT own one more second of your life than that time you are working for them and that they pay you for!

It’s bad enough that most of us are working for somebody else and can’t really do what we would prefer to be doing with our limited time here on this planet. It’s a real shame that our employers want to limit us even more than they already do. 🙁

My Linkedin account is actually where I have the most contacts and some great conversations. According to them, I have a few million people in my ‘network’. 🙂 Too bad I have to (self) censor myself on there in fear for my present and future employment prospects. It’s a real shame!

 

 

Zero to Hero-Day (16)- 17: Focusing on Formatting

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Oh well, I still haven’t come up with anything to say about the assignment for Day 16 (prompt: reputation). So I never did write a post on the subject.

Reading the assignment for Day 17, I have already looked at quite a few of other Zero to Hero participants and commented on some of their posts. I really enjoyed reading some of the very different takes on that one subject. It sure brings to the forefront the beauty of blogging, that even tho we are all here and all doing pretty much the same thing, there is still SO much variety! 🙂

OK, since I didn’t do a post on the prompt, I am going to write a post today about something else. 😉

And, to follow along with the challenge, I will use 2 (or more) of the suggested formatting tools (“block quotes, preformatting, or an ordered or unordered list”).

I'm not really sure what is meant by 'preformatting'. 
So I guess I'll just write a little bit til I can see what happens.

Here we go. It doesn't really seem to do much of anything. Changes the 
font and looks like it cuts off the space I can write in a little bit. 
Also makes a black space around my writing while I have the 'preformatted'
box checked.

OK, so that’s that. I learned something new. 🙂

Since today is a holiday here in the US, it’s Martin Luther King Jr Day, I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes of his. Also using the ‘blockquotes’ formatting tool.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I really like all 3 of those quotes. I have always been a fierce believer in freedom in all its forms and hold the fact that our governments entire purpose is to uphold individual liberty as our greatest accomplishment here in the USA.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…

Declaration of Independence

I am SO sad to see what has been happening here in the last few years.

What happened to all those people who were around back when Martin Luther King Jr was out protesting against the wrongs of society? Why aren’t those people STILL trying???

Things have surely NOT been fixed! Obama is NOT the answer.

I was pretty young back in the 60’s when Martin Luther King Jr was around in person, but I read a lot. I read a lot of history and politics and social studies, etc. I think people were trying to create a more free, more just, more peaceful and prosperous society.

WTF happened??? The people who were protesting back then are the ones in power now. People like the Clintons for instance. They grew up and now they are the ones upholding all the same old crap they used to fight so hard against! 🙁

Things like…

  1. the War on (some) Drugs
  2. (Unjust) Foreign Wars
  3. Big Government
  4. Big Business
  5. The SYSTEM

It makes me sad to see how many people just don’t get any of the things I try to bring to their attention. Things like why it’s so bad that we have given up our freedom and liberty for the TSA, NSA, NDAA, PATRIOT ACT, FACTA, etc, etc, etc. Never-ending big government information gathering and CONTROL of every tiny little aspect of life here in this ONCE free country.

I just don’t understand how a once free people (and we were SO much more free even when I was a kid) can give up so much and not even seem to care. Most people I talk to think it’s somehow a GOOD thing.

Have they never read or seen George Orwells 1984? or Animal Farm? Or any of the numerous other books describing how power ALWAYS corrupts? Or how lack of privacy (spy programs) turns society into a dreary, bleak, isolated, sad, destructive, sick mess that eventually sucks dry every bit of human decency, compassion and creativity?

I wonder what will it take? What will have to happen for people to WAKE UP and take back THEIR lives and their freedoms? I sure don’t know but I hope with all my heart and soul it will happen soon, before we have to go through another total collapse of civilization.

We ARE all in the same boat together. We only have one planet (unless we can hurry the hell up and get ourselves to Mars PDQ)! It’s a global civilization now and for better or worse, we do all influence each other now in numerous ways. I hope I can be a force on the side of peace and freedom.

I hope this blog can help. 🙂

Zero to Hero- Day 14-15: Bloggers Choice!

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Still working on catching up here on the Zero to Hero Challenge. 😉

For the Day 14 assignment, I did a little of everything they suggested, just not all at one time or one one day. I did some commenting. I did some looking around the Reader. I read the post on developing your blogging voice. I spent a little time looking at the comments on the Zero to Hero threads. AND I posted (see the previous post on day 13).

For the Day 15 assignment, I played around a while with the various fonts. I thought there would be more of them. I really didn’t see anything there that I liked enough to change the one I have. Especially considering that I would have to pay to change what I have. I’m still not at the point where I really want to pay for anything extra here.

So far, I’m just learning. This challenge is really helpful. I’m getting a lot out of the daily tasks and looking at what other people attempting the challenge are doing. I might want to do more to customize my blog later, but for now I’m pretty happy with the way it looks.

I’m still trying to figure out how to work the widgets to do what I’d like better! Hoping there will be more on that later on. 😉

There is SO much I can do here. I only need more TIME to blog! 😉

Zero to Hero- Day 13: Building a Better Blogroll

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Catching up again. 🙂

I’ve been home the last few days but SO busy! I’ve been spending a lot of time in Houston this week. It started out Monday morning when I went for a meeting about work.

Went back again for a Dr appt. I had to get my lap band filled (been putting it off WAY too long). Spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Fine Arts (it’s FREE on Thursdays). Went to a happy hour sponsored by the Houston USMMAAA (Kings Point Alumni). Spent the night so I didn’t have to drive all the way home. 😉

Spent the next day at the zoo and then a Liberty Forum sponsored by the King Street Patriots. They had a great lineup moderated by Ben Swann, including past LP Presidential candidate (and now Honorary Chairman of the Our America Initiative) Gary Johnson and his VP running mate Judge Gray.

I was very encouraged to see the great response to Kathy Glass who is running for Texas Governor! Gary Johnson also got a standing ovation. It always makes me happy to see people who actually support true liberty and not just give it lip service! 🙂

Went back up to Houston Saturday morning to spend all afternoon with my sponsor for a training event. More on that later…

And that’s only the stuff I did in Houston this week! Not counting the local stuff!! 😉

So, now you know why I haven’t been keeping up very well with the Zero to Hero Challenge this week.

I did take a look at this one (day 13) a couple of days ago and fiddled around with it when I could. I already had a couple of different ways to see some of the blogs I like on my home page.

I had a widget I called “More Good Stuff” that showed the gravatars of some of the blogs I follow on the right side bar. I also had an area in the bottom center of my home page with links to websites and blogs I like. There was a blogroll there too.

I also already had a links page (tho I admit I don’t have much on it yet).

So all I have done (so far) for todays challenge was to increase the number of blogs I followed that was shown from 20 to 50. I also added a couple more to the links on my home page.

One I added was the Jack Tar Magazine. I really like to check out all the things they’re doing over there. It’s a great resource for the maritime community and I LOVE their focus on the larger sailing vessels and all the maritime culture and traditions.

Another one I added was the Texas Music Scene. I rarely watch TV, but I do try to watch Saturday Night Live when I’m home. After that’s over, the Texas Music Scene show hosted by (9 time Grammy winner) Ray Benson comes on. I really enjoy learning about great new music and bands I may have never heard of before.

Another one I added was the Lightly Braised Turnip. I checked it out when someone posted on my Facebook page about the giant squid that washed up on a beach in California. I liked the way they reported the story and decided to keep them on my list of sites to ‘follow’. I say it that way since I haven’t yet found a specific follow button on their site yet and I just go check them out every so often.

I’ll be trying to catch up with more of the Zero to Hero Challenge tonight. 🙂

Zero to Hero Challenge- Day 12: Inspired by the Fourchon Shuffle

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The assignment for day 12 of the Zero to Hero Challenge builds on the one from the day before. The one for day 11 was to leave comments on 3 blogs you’ve never commented on before. Today’s is to build a post out of one of those comments.

I made a comment on the New England Watermans’ blog yesterday. I really liked his post with the video of Port Fourchon. Here’s the link to my comment again.

His video was a time lapse of his work over the last year. Both offshore and in the port of Fourchon, La.

I liked it because it reminded me of a lot of the same things I see all the time at work. He also mentioned the Global Orion which is one of the vessels I used to work on.

Global Orion

Global Orion

I’ve been in and out of Fourchon more times than I can count. It’s NOT my favorite place! It’s the largest port in the USA for the oil and gas industry and it is VERY busy! Usually it’s a huge pain in the ass to go to Fourchon.

We call it the Fourchon Shuffle. Bring your boat to the dock so you can unload your deck cargo. Oh, your halfway done but there’s another boat that has a higher priority. So, MOVE.

OK, so you go to another dock to get some fuel. Wait, there’s no space there. So, you wait. Wait some more. It’s not like parking a car, you can’t just put a boat in park and walk away (tho some DPOs might think so).

Oh, now they’re calling you back to finish unloading. No time to spare, you have to get back offshore again ASAP.

Oh yeah, you still need fuel so go back over there. This time you can get to the dock. Now you need to go to another dock to load up more deck cargo. You’ve got priority so you make 2 other boats move out of the way for you….

That’s just a short verse, the Fourchon Shuffle goes on and on. They’ve improved it slightly with some additional dock space but it’s still far from ideal.

No one in Fourchon ever gets any peace at the dock. I always just wanted to get the hell out of there and back offshore as soon as possible. At least be able to get some rest again.

Here are a few photos I took in Fourchon recently…

 

Luckily, I don’t spend too much time driving around Fourchon anymore. Lately I’ve been working on a lot of large vessels like drillships and they don’t usually go into port. I only go to Fourchon to fly in or out to the rig. 🙂

 

PS- the orange boats are the ones belonging to the Cajun Navy 😉

Zero to Hero- Day 11: Be a Good Neighbor

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The assignment for day 11 in the Zero to Hero Challenge is to make 3 comments on blogs you’ve never commented on before.

Well, that should be an easy one. I’ve never been a shy one when it comes to saying something anonymously (or even semi). 😉

Since I’ve been looking around the blogosphere more than usual for the previous assignments, I do have at least a couple of blogs I haven’t commented on yet.

Let’s see if I can find something interesting now…

A Yankee in the Cajun Navy

I found this blog the other day for the day 9 assignment (I think). I saw his mention of the Cajun Navy and knew exactly what he was talking about and from his blog tagline “A Yankee in the Cajun Navy”, I could just imagine how entertaining he was going to be.

So, today I checked his blog and found this neat video to watch. My computer is so slow it messed up the music but it was fun to watch anyway. I wanted to say more, but tried to keep my comment short(er)… here’s a link to the post and comments…

http://newenglandwaterman.com/2014/01/09/2013-in-review-a-timelapse-review/#comment-1307

Home Improvement

The Eleventh Stack is another blog I found while looking around for the Zero to Hero Challenge. I really like the variety of things they talk about there. It’s a library sort of blog so I guess it can really cover EVERYTHING. 🙂

I went to look around again for todays assignment and found this post on do-it-yourself projects. I’m a big fan of DIY.

I love to watch all those shows on Home and Garden TV like the Property Brothers and Househunters International. I get all kinds of ideas for fixing up my house and my rentals. I don’t have much time for TV but when I do watch, it’s probably going to be some of that stuff.

So, here’s the post that caught my eye today and my comment…

http://eleventhstack.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/i-can-do-that/#comment-15846

Another Jills’ Journeys

I noticed this one while I was on assignment too and really just checked it out since we have the same name. But the more I look around her blog, the more interesting things I find. She has a really neat series on a trip she took to Easter Island which is also on my bucket list.

I picked her post on the free museum days to comment on. Just because I thought it was funny that we both posted on that, we both have the same name, we both love to travel (to out of the way places). I thought it was cool. Here’s the post and comment…

http://journeysbyjill.com/2013/09/25/museums-open-doors-with-free-admission/#comment-2182

Zero to Hero Challenge- Day 10: the Wonderful (frustrating) World of Widgets

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I’m trying to catch up on things around here, getting a little behind on the Zero to Hero Challenge, but here’s my take on the one for Day 10: Widgets.

I already had quite a few widgets on my blog. It’s taken me some time to figure out how to get them on here and how to get them to work like they’re supposed to. I still have a lot of work to do in that department.

So, I didn’t add 2 more widgets today. I found one that I had been wanting to add and it took me quite a while to figure out how to do it and then to add all the updates I wanted to. I actually got a little sick of it so I’m sure I missed a few places.

I found this one of cities where I’ve been on www.geckogo.com. I started playing around with it and signed up on the site and then got into all the other stuff on there. It just sucked me in. 😉

So, I finally got the widget finished and uploaded it onto my blog. I like it. 🙂

I think there must be tons of things to do with widgets on here. I’m still trying to figure out how to get some of them to work.

For instance, I’ve been trying to get one from Amazon to work for a couple of weeks now. It’s a blog and I think it’s pretty cool. It’s not trying to sell you anything, it’s just a neat scrolling list of comments on various books. It looks like my twitter feed.

I still can’t get it to show up here as anything but a plain link. It doesn’t even link to the book feed like I’d like, but to a half dozen different feeds. I’m still messing around with it but won’t put it up here until I can get it to work right. Anybody out there know how to do it?

Zero to Hero-Day 4: Explore the Blogosphere

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Todays assignment was to learn how to use the Reader and to follow 5 new topics (as well as start finding bloggers you love).

I already was following quite a few bloggers, WordPress and others. I had never really used the reader much tho. So this morning, I took a look around.

I have to admit, I was tired and so didn’t really find anything outside of my ‘normal’ interests to follow (yet). I spent about and hour poking around and finally had to just force myself to STOP it!

Warning: WordPress Reader is addictive!

Since I’m short on time today, I’ll just list the new blogs I found and decided to follow…

  1. Natures Place– looks like an interesting mix of science, nature and photography (macros, lots of bugs- cool!)
  2. Eleventh Stack– a variety of librarians recommend things to look for at the library
  3. Roam and Home-life and travels at home and abroad
  4. Pinky Binks– travels and life in Asia (and other places)
  5. Food to Glow– healthy food that (hopefully) tastes good
  6. New England Waterman– another maritime blog, looks like his job is similar to mine
  7. 70dayweekend– independent music blog
  8. Jon Negroni– music, movies, apps, modern life
  9. Marine Cafe– another maritime blog by Baristo Uno, more from a foreign perspective
  10. Earth is our Address– travel and adventure from a different perspective

OK, so that’s the quick and dirty for now. Check them out if you want. I’ll have to get to it later. I just wanted to get the Zero to Hero post for today finished before I knock off. Those last 2 blogs I did not find on the Reader.  I’ll be trying to take a closer look at these blogs later and maybe even make another foray into the realms of the Reader tonight. 😉

Zero to Hero- Day 3: Bypass the Gatekeepers!

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to ‘write the post that was on your mind when you decided to start a blog’.

OK, well I didn’t really have any particular ‘post’ on my mind when I decided to start a blog. It was more like a general idea.

I have been trying to find a way to make a living without having to be out on a boat all the time. Yeah, I still like sailing. Yeah, I still like my job (most of the time, most of the things about it). But I’m getting to the point where I’d like to do something a little different. At least for a while.

I’d been hearing for a while about how it’s possible to earn a decent living by working online. Writing, stock photography, copy-writing, etc. I’ve even taken a few short courses/workshops to try and learn how to do it.

I’ve enjoyed going to the workshops. I’ve learned a lot in each one of them. But I’ve never managed to pass muster (yet) and get anything I’ve done accepted for publication.

I admit, I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to ‘sell’ my product; my writing and photography. I tried a couple of times to get some of my photographs accepted onto a couple of the stock photography websites like istock.com.

So far, I haven’t had any luck. My photos were rejected and I had to take a course to even begin to understand what the heck they were talking about when they told me why they rejected them all. 😉

I haven’t even sent in any of my articles to anyone yet, tho I have sent a few queries to a couple of magazines I thought might be interested. One magazine even told me they were interested but they never got back to me and I let it fall by the wayside due to all the other things I’ve been busy with.

FOCUS! I think that’s what I need. I’m pretty sure if I had all the time in the world and no ‘real’ job and wasn’t busy with a dozen other projects, I could find the time to hound the gatekeepers of the publishing world until they let me in. 😉

Too bad I don’t have that kind of schedule right now.

SO……

I decided to start a blog instead.

My plans for the blog have changed a little bit. I’m not focusing so much on putting my magazine type writing on here. Maybe one of these days I’ll post one and see if I can get some feedback from the blog world. I’ve been spending a lot more time just posting about things I find of interest.

I’ve really been posting a lot more about what gets ME going, what interests me, what turns me on, what turns me off. I enjoy catching peoples attention and trying to make them think.

Of course, I am still trying to work on my writing and photography. I still plan to try again to get my photos accepted online and my articles by some magazines. I work on that stuff when I can find time too.

I figured if I started a blog, I could get my work out to people WITHOUT having to go through an editor. Just get it out there and let it stand on it’s own merit. Either people will like it. Or they won’t.

Of course, the original purpose was to find some way to make an income. I’m told you can do that as a blogger too. So far, I haven’t the slightest idea of how to do that, but still hoping to learn. 😉

In the meantime, I’m enjoying myself here. I especially like interacting with people all over the world. It’s really fascinating to me when I look at my blog stats and see people have visited my blog from places like Namibia, or Ghana, or Pakistan, or Ukraine.

I wonder what was it that interested those people and why? I have seen a lot of people online who have so many similar interests. It seems a great community here, even if it’s only ‘virtual’.

It’s great that we can all have blogs now, no need to hold back, just get ourselves out there and the whole world is open to us! 🙂

 

Zero to Hero- Day 2- ‘About’ Widget

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Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero challenge is to add an ‘about widget’. It took me a long time to figure out how to do that and I’m still not sure I got it right.

I fiddled around with it all night. I finally got it to look a little bit like what I was going for (but I’m still not happy with it). I used an image widget instead of a text one and added some text as a caption to the image.

I took the photo on the way to work a few months ago. It was on the way out of Fourchon LA when we had to ride the crewboat instead of the helicopter. I thought it conveyed the idea of searching through the fog, which is how I feel sometimes.

The idea was to make a quick descriptive widget to show people what your blog is all about. Why would they want to take a longer look?

I already had an ‘about me’ widget and also an about page. I added this new widget just to try to do the challenge for the day. I’m not really sure if I should keep it. I almost think it makes my sidebar look more cluttered.

Anybody out there have any comments? I’d appreciate any feedback.

 

Zero to Hero

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Here it is, the start of another new year already. I guess I’m like most people and start thinking about past, present, future at the turn of the year. So, like with the Christmas posts, I’ll probably be posting about things I’m thinking of for the new year, new beginnings, endings, etc.

I got an email a couple of days ago from the Daily Post at WordPress which I follow. It was about a project that I thought would be interesting and I hope it will help me be a better blogger.

It’s called the ‘Zero to Hero 30-day Blogging Challenge.’ 

Yes, I am signing up for it. I am starting off with this, my first post for the challenge. Todays prompt is to publish an introductory post. To tell the blogging world about who you are and what you would like to accomplish with your blog.

Since I’ve already done that (check my ‘about’ page), I thought I would just do a little update.

I’ve been busy. Very busy! Since I started this blog at the AWAI Boston Workshop in mid/late August this year I’ve been out to work on the Ensco 8506, Crossmar 21, Ensco 8501, and Ensco DS-5 (twice).

I’ve done a beach cleanup at Surfside Beach, gone to the Bike and Blues Fest in Freeport, the county fair in Angleton (twice), the Houston Zoo and Museum of Natural Science (couple of times), and the Workboat Show in New Orleans.

I’ve missed out on sailing with Sail La Vie but I’ve made it to a few of the Campaign For Liberty meetings and a good one on healthy food and nutrition by another local group.

I never knew it before, but they put on a good presentation about a dentist by the name of Weston Price who did studies on traditional societies and compared their health to modernized peoples. I LOVE junk food and sweets but now I’m learning more about how that stuff really is killing me. It really made me think.

I’ve had to take care of a few projects at my house and at my rental properties. We almost completely re-did the beach house: painted, new flooring, new kitchen cabinets, new window treatments, fixed electrical issues, fixed plumbing issues, fixed sewerage issues, fixed shaky decks, etc. I’m looking for new tenants if you know anybody! 😉

As for the blog, I am still concentrating on my 3 big passions: traveling the world, sailing/working offshore, and FREEDOM to enjoy living life to the fullest!

As you can tell, if you poke around a little here, I have other interests as well. I love to eat and drink so I post good looking recipes here. I love music of pretty much all genres, so I post about that. I like to take pictures, so I’ll post some of them here. I love to read, so I might post about a good book I’m reading. I post about anything I think is interesting and I think other people might also enjoy.

I hope I can learn through this Zero to Hero challenge to be a better blogger. I hope I can learn how to keep things interesting, entertaining, enjoyable enough to keep the readers I have coming back and that they’ll tell their friends. I’d like to be able to grow my blog and interact with more people from all over the world.

I’ve been so encouraged and excited to see that already in just the 4.5 months I’ve been working on this blog, I’ve had people from 85 countries visit me here! I’d love to have more interaction with all of these people. I’d really love it if more people would comment and let me know what they think of all the things I post about (especially politics). 😉