FOTD: Orchid

I’ve been at work the last couple of weeks (finally), so I haven’t been able to get online much. We just got back in to the dock and my phone started working again. Things have slowed down a bit now, so I’m taking the opportunity to check out the blogosphere and found Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge for today. So here’s my orchid shot…

FOTD- Roses

Here’s my response to Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge- Roses.

Bokeh

I found another photo challenge thanks to Cee.She has compiled a whole list of them. This one is a ‘photo adventure’ from the Little Pieces of Me blog. It’s going on for a whole month. You can post once, or as many times as you want. This month, the theme is

bo·keh/bōˈkā/nounPHOTOGRAPHY

  1. the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens.

I usually try to get my subjects in focus. I get blurry photos a lot more than I’d like. The point with bokeh is to leave the background (usually) out of focus. Sometimes, even the whole photo out of focus looks good. 

I’ve been trying lately to practice doing this. I don’t really know what I’m doing with my camera, so when the photo turns out good I’m always happily surprised.

I usually use a point and shoot camera. Just because it’s easy to carry around with me. I usually keep it in my pocket all the time when I’m out and about. Some people can take really great photos with their phone, but my phone is not one of those.

When I know I’m going somewhere I will be taking a lot of pictures, I take my good cameras with me. I love my Sony NEX-5R even though it’s old and should probably be upgraded. It’s much lighter than my other cameras and takes great pictures, even in low light.

Here’s my entry to the challenge. I took this one with the Sony camera.

I may be able to come up with more later. 😉 If you want to join in and see what everyone else is doing, click the link here

FOTD: Anthurium

Here’s another one of Cee’s photo challenges: Flower of the Day. This one is for “Anthurium“. I don’t see these around very often, but I did get a couple of shots a while back up in Houston.

If you want to see what everyone else is doing, or join in yourself, just click the link here.

Flower of the Day- Pink Geranium

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.

Lime & Light Green

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“.

Here are mine…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out some of the other entries over at Cee’s Photography Blog.

Tiny Houses

This weeks Black & White Photo Challenge from Cee is: houses. I looked through some of my old photos and it kind of surprised me, but I guess I don’t take pictures of houses very often. Apartment buildings, skyscrapers, churches, hotels, storefronts- yes. Houses- not so much. 😉

I guess because they seem so ordinary. I walk past them every day. I don’t pay them that much attention. Not enough to make me go get my camera out anyway. 😉

I found these little ceramic houses- ‘tiny houses’ 😉

This collection of cute little cottages was on display at one of the antique shops around Galveston’s historic Strand district. They had a huge hoard of all kinds of interesting items. I was tempted to add to my own collection. Then I remembered that I already have a very large junk collection of my own and I’ve been trying to downsize.

Still, it’s a good thing I was broke.

Flower of the Day: Tulip

Thanks to Cee for always coming up with fun photo challenges to play with when we can’t come up with something especially interesting on our own. 😉

Today’s challenge (actually it was for the 4th) is ‘tulip‘. Here’s mine…

I took it on my iPod at the local HEB grocery store. 🙂

Flower of the Day: Azalea

More flowers for Cee. Today’s flower is azalea. Join in and post your flower photos and let’s make a beautiful online garden. It’s cooler but very dreary weather here, so nice to look at everyone’s pretty flowers.

I took these photos at the Houston zoo the last time I went. They were blooming like crazy. So beautiful. 🙂 

Share Your World- October 16 2017

Cee always has interesting challenges on her blog. She does photography challenges a lot and she also does this “Share Your World” post every week. Here are her questions (in bold) and my answers for this week.

If you had to move to a country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why? This is such a hard question for me. I’ve been thinking of moving overseas for years now. I can’t make up my mind. I’ve considered Mexico (of course), Nicaragua, Panama, Thailand, Chile, Italy, France, Ecuador, Viet Nam, Korea, Ireland, even Russia!

The main reason I haven’t left yet, for anywhere, is that no place will give me a work visa. At least not for anything like what I’ve spent my entire life doing. The only thing I can do (legally) is to teach English. I have now gone and got certified to do that now, but now can’t figure out how to pay all my bills here at home while only earning teachers pay in some foreign country.

IF finances were taken out of the equation, I think I would move to Ireland. I’ve only been there once, but I didn’t want to leave. The people were really friendly and I had such a wonderful time there. I loved the landscape, the weather was gorgeous, and the fact that it’s an island just adds to the perfection for me. I love the music, the sound of the language, the peoples love of literature, horses and whisky. I would move there in a NY second if they would let me!

What color would you like your bedroom to be? Light blue. I would paint a mural on the walls to remind me of the ocean and the ceiling like a starry night. Maybe put some twinkling lights up there. 🙂

What makes you Happy? Make a list of things in your life that bring you joy. A good book. Music, especially cajun, bluegrass or reggae music. Delicious food shared with good friends. Deep conversations, solving the problems of the world. Exploring. Learning new things. Travel. Meeting up with old friends in unexpected places. Creating something beautiful like when my paintings turn out better than I thought they would, or one of my photos comes out perfect, right out of the camera. Sailing. Night watch out at sea where I can really see the stars.

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. I read an email from a man, Jon Morrow, who has some major serious medical issues. He somehow managed to overcome all his physical limitations, sold everything he owned, moved to a foreign country (broke), and made a successful blogging career. He talked about how he was able to buy his father a car and how proud he was. I admire him for what he’s been able to do and how he (says) he is helping other people now (I did not buy his program, I’m broke, but it did sound helpful). He’s definitely an inspiration.

Flower of the Day October 18th 2017- Orange Ginger

I’m not really sure what kind of flower this is. All I know is I really love the photo. 😉

Cee has another floral photo challenge to join in on. This time she’s looking for orange ones. Here’s what she has to say…

I decided for the month of October I’m going to be posting flowers that have some sort of orange in them.  Remember you don’t have to have an orange flower to join in the fun.

So, let me know what you think of my flower. Be sure to comment if you know what kind it is. I’m guessing some kind of ginger. Why not join in and post some flowers of your own. Just click the link to Cee’s blog.

More C’s for Cee

I posted yesterday on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (where the post should be about a word starting with C of at least 4 letters). After I finally got it to post (very frustrating internet situation here), I was flipping through some photos and realized just how many I have that fit this particular challenge. So…

Here’s another one, I took these on a recent trip to Africa. I went on a photography safari in Tanzania with GEP. I had a great time tracking down the wildlife with a great group of fellow photographers and our local guides. Some of these photos were with on the safari. Some were afterwards, when I went solo over to Zanzibar.

 

Cooks!

Cats! BIG Cats!

A Cowrie (shell)

A Canoe! Catching Catfish? Or maybe Cobia? On the Coral

#fire at #beach resort on #Zanzibar

A #Catastrophe

Cute Canines

Cattle

I had a good time picking out a few of my photos for this challenge. So much, I might even come back again for more. If you want to join in the fun, just click the link at the top. Be sure to share. 🙂

Thursday’s Special: Portrait vs Landscape

I found another photo challenge by Paula over at her Lost In Translation blog (thanks to an old friend blogger Cee for sharing).

All you have to do is compare a vertical (portrait) version to a horizontal (landscape) version . Choose any subject you want.

I took these photos a couple of months ago. I drove up to the Dallas Travel Show and stopped on the way home to see some of the Bluebonnet Trail. I really wish the weather was better. Would have been fantastic if the sun was shining rather than the dreary rainy day it was. But the flowers were still blooming and made up for the weather.

Flower of the Day- Tulip

For Cee’s Flower of the Day post, here’s my contribution…

I do love to see the stunning displays of flowers in the Spring. These tulips were planted in a park in Korea (Incheon). Another place I would love to be able to spend more time in. 🙂

Flower of the Day: Azalea Bush

Here’s a post for Cee’s Flower of the Day: Azalea Bush. 🙂

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Rocks

Cee always has great photos for her photo challenges. I try to join in when I can find the time. This weeks challenge is ‘rocks’.

I have not edited these photos, they’re already pretty much black and white. I like them the way they are. I took all of them at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (at various times).

This is a sandstone concretion- formed when extremely hot water flowed through the fine quartz sand and cemented it together, about 20 million years ago). 

This is gypsum.

This is mesolite and fluoropophylite.

These are quartz crystals.

Aren’t they all just gorgeous?! So much of the natural world is so beautiful, from the macro to the micro. I love taking pictures to remind me of it all.

Check out Cee’s challenge and join in the fun. 🙂

One Word Photo Challenge: Cat

With all the problems I’ve been having with my computers/internet lately, I’ve lost track of a  lot of the bloggers I usually follow. Jennifer and her One Word Photo Challenge is one of those. I only remembered tonight when I saw a post from Cee (another great photographer I follow) in my reader.

This weeks theme is- Cat. Check out the link and join in the challenge. 🙂

I like cats. I can’t have any pets since I’m usually gone so much. Even a cat would starve to death by the time I got back from offshore. There’s a nice cat that lives a few houses down that comes by to visit me. Not so much now that my friends (who’ve been feeding it) have been gone a few days. I don’t have any pictures of that one yet, I was going to try to get some, but when I went for my camera, she was gone.

Here’s a photo of a kitten I took on vacation in Nicaragua last summer. It’s one of the very few I still have (most of my photos from that trip were stolen). 🙁

Share Your World: 2016- Week 23

I’ve got a semi-workable computer today, so I’m joining in Cee’s Share Your World challenge for this week (week 23-2016). She always has really great challenges and in this one she’ll just ask a few simple questions. It’s always interesting to see all the different ways people answer.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)? My first moneymaking jobs (other than working for my father painting, plumbing and pulling weeds for $3/hr) were working on a party fishing boat as a galley hand/deckhand on the weekends, and working as a dishwasher at a little family owned Greek restaurant down the street after school.

What is your favorite month of the year? I’ve never really thought about it, but I would probably choose March. It’s not too hot yet, and the weather is usually pretty nice. Not so gloomy/cloudy/rainy and temps are decent- in the 70’s still. The wildflowers are in bloom and here in Texas, they are really amazing. Just acres and acres of bluebonnets, or driving along the roads with indian paintbrush, bluebonnets, buttercups and the rest. It’s stunningly beautiful. It’s also the month for St Patricks Day parties and parades and one of my favorite holidays. 🙂

What three things in nature do you find most beautiful? The sea, the sky, mountains. So many aspects of all three of those things, too many to describe, I find beautiful. Sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, the way the clouds form and shift, the STARS in a clear night sky! The rolling waves, crystal clear turquoise waters lapping a sugar sand beach, the amazing diversity of sea life on a coral reef. Tall peaks against the sky, flowery alpine meadows, majestic glaciers. SO much beauty all around just those 3 things.

List at least five of your favorite spices? (excluding salt and pepper) I like garlic salt, onion salt, Mrs Dash, Nature’s Seasonings, cinnamon, cloves, dried chopped onions, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and some mustards. Those are about the only ones I use.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to attend the TBEX (blogging conference) in Minnesota. I met a lot of cool people and learned a lot. I’m looking forward to having 3 days of paid work next week.

Contrasts

I saw Cee’s latest post in her Compose Yourself challenge. This is for #18: Contrasting Colors. Here’s her instructions…

For your assignment I would like to see at least 4-6 photos showing contrasting photos and which colors each photo represents.  Please describe what you learned in this lesson as well.

So, OK, here goes…

Purple and yellow: day lily, door, orchid, bagels (they were yummy). 🙂

Red and green: red bowl full of cilantro and limes, Christmas outfits, red decked ship on the green water, Christmas ornaments.

Blue and orange: fishing fleet against the blue background, African containers (for what?), orange helicopter in the blue sky, orange sunset and blue ocean.

orange chopper in a blue sky

OK, that should be enough pictures. Now for the hard part. What did I learn? I think the more clear I can get the contrast, the better. When the opposite colors are just standing alone, without distractions, they really do POP! Even the colors that are just close to being opposite on the color wheel go really great together (blue and yellow or gold instead of orange for example).

Thanks for the challenge, Cee! It made me think, I always like that. 😉

Color Your World: Gray

I heard about Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge from Cee, her beautiful flower photos showed up in my reader and caught my eye. I had to click through to see the rest of her photos. 🙂

Today’s challenge color is: gray. Here’s my best shot. 🙂

I took it a couple of years ago. I was supposed to fly out to the rig for work, but they had canceled the helicopters due to the heavy fog. So, we rode the crewboat out instead. This supply boat was following us out the channel, they passed by pretty close to us as we exited the Fourchon jetties. This is one of my favorite shots. I’ve even put it on some of my business cards. It’s one of Aries Marine’s vessels: the Betty Pfankuch.

I doubt I’ll be able to participate in this challenge every day. I’m in Mexico and in school and I don’t want to spend all my time here on the computer. It does look like a fun challenge, so I’ll join in and play along when I can. Here’s the link with more info, and you can sign up if you want to. 🙂

Share Your World- Week 40

Here’s another challenge from Cee. I really like her blog. She always has something interesting going on over there (and she takes some gorgeous pictures!). One of the things she does is run a “Share Your World” challenge. Check out the link to see others answers to her questions or to join in yourself. Here’s my answering post for this weeks challenge…

If you have been to a foreign country name those you have been too? I’ve been to a lot of foreign countries (check out my previous port calls). There are still plenty I haven’t been to yet and would love to go visit at the first opportunity. I’m still looking forward to seeing India, Egypt, Chile, Vietnam, Uruguay and Antarctica (even tho it’s not a country).  I travel every chance I get!

I started out young, I went to Canada and Mexico with my grandmother. Then I got to go to school on a sailing ship. We left Athens, Greece on the ship and sailed to ports in Italy, Spain, hit the Canary Islands and crossed the Atlantic to Martinique. We left the ship and flew to Caracas, Venezuela. We traveled overland to Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. I joined the same ship again in Martinique. We sailed to the Azores, then France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the USSR and back to Copenhagen (Denmark).

After that trip I was hooked on traveling. I’ve since been to the UK (England, Ireland, Scotland). I’ve been to Turkey, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Mauritius, Angola, Congo, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica.

Is the glass half empty or half full? What type of glass is it and what is in the glass? I have to admit, I am a natural pessimist. I almost always see the glass as half empty. I will say, I’ve never really thought about what kind of glass it is. I would say it’s probably a beer glass. One of those hour glass shaped ones they give you at the beer joint. And of course, BEER would be in the glass!

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get? I would get a burger. I LOVE a good burger and there are so many ways to make them!

List:  List at least five places worth shopping. I’m not much of a shopper, I usually only really enjoy shopping for books and food. 🙂 I like shopping at AmazonSmile, a (small) percentage of everything I spend there goes to a charity I choose. I also liked to shop at Powells Books in Oregon (tho I haven’t been able to get there for ages). I like Half Price Books on the way to Houston. I like to ‘shop at the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. They have lots of interesting things and decent prices. I go there when I’m looking for furniture or appliances for my properties, or for work clothes. I also like to shop at museum stores, I almost never buy anything, but they always have beautiful and interesting items for sale.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up. I am grateful to have a job, but I am SO looking forward to getting off this ship and going home!!

Sculptures, Statues, Carvings: Ganesh

Cee’s Black & White Photography Challenge this week is: Sculptures, Statues, Carvings. I have a few really nice ones, but most look so much better in color! I originally took these in color and I think they look better that way. The bright red hibiscus flowers and bright green leaves of the ivy really set off the statue.

Ganesh

Ganesh

offerings to Ganesh

offerings to Ganesh

I took these a few years ago in Bali, Indonesia. I love this little statue of Ganesh, (the Hindu god of wisdom and learning). It was right outside my hotel. I love Bali! Notice the offerings, the Balinese people make these offerings every day. Notice the details. They place great importance on beauty and making things better every day.

They have entire villages of wood carvers, stone carvers, painters, silver smiths, etc. I love how they pay so much attention to the arts all over the island. It is a beautiful place naturally, but the people choose to make it even MORE beautiful! 🙂

Sculptures, Statues, Carvings

Cee’s Black & White Photography Challenge this week is: Sculptures, Statues, Carvings. I have a few really nice ones, but most look so much better in color!

Here’s one that looks just as good in B&W as in color. I took it at the Houston Musuem of Fine Arts a few months ago. It’s a cool place to spend the day. 🙂

Share Your World

Here’s another Share Your World post thanks to Cee’s Photography Blog.

What did you or did not like about the first apartment you ever rented? I liked that it was cheap and convenient. The rent was only $80/month for a little efficiency. It was close to where I was working. It was close to everything I needed so I could walk everywhere or ride my bike (I didn’t have a car). I didn’t like that I was renting it from my father and he would come over every morning to bang on the door, wake me up and yell at me to “turn off the damn AC, you’re running up the bills!”. It was only one room, a kitchen and living/bedroom all together. The only privacy was a small bathroom. I was just so glad to have a place of my own, even if it was only just across the street from my dad’s.

my dads house was on the 1st finger bay, straight line from the bridge and a little to the right

my dads house was on the 1st finger bay, straight line from the bridge and a little to the right

What kind of art is your favorite? Why? Oh wow, that’s a HARD question to answer! I like so many different kinds of art. Drawing, painting, photography, music, dance, ceramics, pretty much anything creative. I love different styles of music: latin, reggae, folk, bluegrass, blues, classical. I love different styles of painting: surrealist (Salvador Dali`), fantastic, or super-realistic. I love photography, especially astro-photography and macro (and wish I could take those kinds of pictures!). Why? I don’t really know why. I just do. So, a VERY hard question to answer. I guess I just can’t choose just one!

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order? I had one brother and one sister originally. My sister died when she was 17. I’m the oldest. Then my parents remarried and I got a few stepbrothers and sisters. They’re all older than me. My stepfather had 4 sons and 1 daughter. A couple of his sons lived with my mother for a while, but I never spent much time over there and after they moved in I spent even less. My fathers girlfriend (I call her my stepmother to make it easier) had 2 sons and 1 daughter. I never really spent much time with any of my stepbrothers or sisters. I moved away from home pretty much for good when I was barely 17 and haven’t kept in touch.

Complete this sentence:  I’m dreaming of a white …. (and no you can’t use Christmas as your answer). … sandy beach with clear, light blue water lapping at the shore while I sit under the shade of the palms sipping umbrella drinks. 🙂

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful to have a job when so many in my industry are getting run off every day now. I’m looking forward to finding out when I can get off this ship and go home. I’m looking forward to learning my schedule so I can plan my vacation! I’m looking forward to spending my vacation in Costa Rico learning how to blog better and exploring Central America. 🙂

Norms Thursday Doors

I found Norm’s site and this challenge through Cee’s Photography Blog. She has a lot of really great photos and some cool challenges going on all the time. Norm does a photo challenge on ‘doors’ every Thursday. I like to get into these things when I can.

Here’s my ‘door’ picture for this week. I didn’t see this until Saturday so hope it’ll still be good. I liked how the shutters showed up against the windows in the doors. I took this on a tour of some of the plantations outside of New Orleans. If I remember right, it was the San Francisco plantation.

Share Your World- Week 17

I’ve got a couple of hours layover in Paris and access to the Air France lounge, so I decided to answer Cee’s Share Your World Challenge for Week 17, 2015. She always has interesting questions and I enjoy reading her answers and the answers that other bloggers come up with.

So, I’ll add my 2 cents and hope it will entertain some of you as well. 😉

 What is your most favorite smell/scent? I’ve never really thought about it. Some I really like are: the scent of fresh snow on the air when it’s crisp and clear outside (we don’t get that much here in South Texas!), the fresh and salty sea breeze far out to sea, the smell of cinnamon rolls baking in the oven, I love to smell all of those things, they usually mean good things are coming my way! 🙂

Do you prefer long hair or short hair for yourself? Short! I used to have long hair when I was younger, but the last time I grew it long was when I went back to school a few years ago. I let it grow all the way down to my butt. It was beautiful (I’m a natural redhead). As soon as I went back to work, I found out that it was a mistake to have long hair. It was SO hard to keep it neat. It would constantly get in my face. I HATE it when my hair gets in my eyes! I’d have so much trouble with snarls. As soon as I got off that hitch I had it all whacked off. I’ve kept it pretty much shoulder length since then.

Do you plan out things usually or do you do them more spontaneous (for example if you are visiting a big city you don’t know?) I guess I’m kind of in between on this one. If I’m traveling to someplace new, I like to  look through the guidebooks and the internet to get a good idea of what there is to see and do in a place. Then, I’ll make a (long) list in my head of all the things I REALLY want to see or do, along with all the things I find interesting and would check out if I have the time. I almost never stick to the plan when I arrive!

I do like to find a place to stay for the first night or two. I’ll go online and book a place, usually somewhere very easy to get to from the airport. I like to have a little time to get over the jet lag and find my bearings in a new place.

When I get out and start exploring, I find so many other things that I never found out about in my ‘research’. I meet people and they’ll tell me about all sorts of cool things: great local restaurants and bars, small museums, local hangouts, etc.

What is your favorite outdoor activity? My favorite thing to do is traveling, but not sure that counts as a strictly outdoor activity. After all, it includes a lot of eating, drinking, shopping, exploring museums and other tourist attractions, etc so I don’t want to count is as an ‘outdoor’ activity/

Hard to decide between hiking, sailing and SCUBA diving! I love hiking around and exploring beautiful country, but I’m fairly lazy and like to be comfortable. I don’t like carrying around anything more than a small fanny pack. I love to SCUBA dive, but it’s so hard for me to do now a days. I have to rent the gear and spend a few hours (minimum) going somewhere decent to dive. So, sailing beats out the other 2!

I joined a local meetup group called Sail La Vie a couple of years ago. Since I joined, I’m able to go sailing just about any weekend I want. I don’t need to have a boat or pay for any of the associated expenses. They go sailing out of Kemah, which is still a little over an hour away and it would be better if it was closer, but a couple of hours wasted on the road is a small price to pay for a nice long sail out on the bay!

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful that I was finally able to get off that ship (I worked an extra week!). I’m looking forward to some down time at home. I’m really looking forward for just a chance to spend some quiet time at home. Time to spend catching up with friends and projects around the house.

I have lots of projects to catch up on, things like finishing up my taxes (I got an extension), working on the garden (whacking down some of the overgrown weeds taking over my yard), working on my photography, going to another painting class or two, etc. I might even get around to cleaning the house! 😉

I’m really looking forward to getting home and some sleep! 🙂

Share Your World

Here’s another challenge from Cee’s Photography blog. I only manage to stumble on her posts every once in a while. I’m not sure why. Maybe I need to check into my reader a lot more often. I have a hard time keeping up with everything online tho.

Today I saw another of her Share Your World posts and so I’m going to do it. 😉

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest? I guess this means someone still alive? Someone real? That’s a hard one! My first choice would be God. If there really is one, I would really love to have a conversation- in person- and not have to wait til I’m dead! But, since that is apparently out of the question, I’ll have to pick somebody else.

There are SO many interesting people out there, people that I’ll probably never get to meet. I’d love to meet some of the great explorers/adventurers, like Sylvia Earle, Robert Ballard, Jessica Watson, Max Hardberger, Elon Musk (explores new things!), etc.

But I think I would most like to meet Jeff Berwick, the Dollar Vigilante. I would LOVE to talk to him about what’s going on in the world. How to escape from all the CRAP, and just find a way to enjoy life. Find a way to escape the traps set for all of us here in the US and get OUT! Find a way to avoid being used and abused and live MY life on MY terms! Yeah, I think Jeff would be my #1 choice for a dinner guest. 🙂

When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? I sing to myself (usually along with the radio) all the time. Last time was yesterday while I was driving back from the grocery store. To someone else? I used to do karaoke a lot. That was probably the last time I sang to someone else (the audience). It was a while ago. I haven’t had the time to go out much lately. Probably over a year ago now.

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? The ability to eat anything I wanted and stay a ‘normal’ weight. I gained a lot of weight very quickly when I was a kid (still really can’t figure out why), and ever since I have tried everything I can think of to lose it. I can never manage to stick to any kind of diet for more than 2-3 months since they never seem to give me results anywhere near the amount of effort I put in (diet and hours of exercise). I know how I am supposed to eat, I just don’t like eating that way. I don’t like ‘healthy’ food, I like junk food. I can’t imagine spending my whole life just eating things I hate, forcing myself to be miserable every day, all day long. I’m not that sorry about the fact that I’m fat. But if I could have ANY ability, that would definitely be the one I would pick.

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? I can’t really think of anything. I think humor is a good way to deal with most things. Even most ‘serious’ things. The latest outrageous attack on free speech (Charlie Hebdo) is a good example. “Terrorism” is serious, right? I think one of the best ways to fight it is to ridicule it. Or ignore it. Either way works for me. But since ‘our’ leaders have decided NOT to ignore it and instead take away OUR freedoms, then I think humor is going to be the more effective way to deal with it.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful I got home from work. Safe and sound. No pirates, no ebola, no injuries on the ship, no delays at the airport, no lost luggage, no issues with the rental car. ALL good. I found out last week about the “Icicle Races” and I’m looking forward to going sailing next weekend. 🙂