Tag Archives: #From the Heart Gallery

It’s So Boring

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I’m home. I’ve been back in town since the 19th. It’s been almost 2 weeks already. It doesn’t seem like it. I’ve spent most of that time just catching up on sleep (jet lag) and doing all the things I can’t do from work: mail, bills, doctors appointment, dentists appointment, phone calls, meetings, etc.

I have made some progress. I’ve been able to go to my painting class and I’m working on 2 new paintings and 1 old one. I took my latest finished painting to the From the Heart gallery in Galveston. Too bad I got a parking ticket while I was inside hanging it. 🙁

I thought you were supposed to be allowed to park in front long enough to load/unload stuff. The people who run the place assured me you are. I’m still debating wether or not to fight the ticket. I have no reason to go all the way up to Galveston other than that. I have another few days to decide.

I haven’t been keeping up with this blog much lately. At work I just don’t have the time or access to the internet and at home it’s been hard to find the motivation. I’ve been putting it off for a while now. It’s not that I don’t have anything to blog about. It’s more that I don’t want to bore people and I just haven’t been doing anything very interesting lately.

I did go to a WISTA meeting at the Houston Maritime Museum last Tuesday. That was pretty cool. They’ve moved to their new (temporary) location. It’s much larger than their old place (with plenty of parking). We had a tour by one of the docents who was a real wealth of information. I would’ve liked to talk to him some more, but the presentation was starting (and a full house to see it). Captain Michael A. Morris of the Houston Pilots put on an interesting presentation about the port of Houston and the pilots- past, present and future.

I could write about work, or travel- those things are usually interesting- but I haven’t done much of either lately. I did finally get a job that didn’t get cancelled. I spent a month on the DS-6 in Las Palmas. I even got to get off the ship a couple of times while I was there. It was a nice change. I’m hoping they’ll call me back.

my ship is the one on the left in this photo

In the meantime, I got a call to go to work on April 4. Then it was moved back to April 11. Now it is supposed to start April 16 and I’m only hoping it doesn’t get completely cancelled at this point. Since it’s only for 10 days, it’ll help me get by but it’s not enough for me to actually be able to do anything with my time off (other than keep on looking for more work).

I am SO ready for this downturn to pick up! It’s been 5 years already! I can’t wait for things to turn around so we can all get back to work again. Real work, where there’s some kind of schedule and we’ve got some kind of benefits. Or else the day rates go back up again to where they should be to make up for the lack of those things.

I’m SO tired of spending so much time looking for work. Filling out applications that never get seen. Putting off doing much of anything in case I get called for a job. I should just shut up and quit whining. I’m one of the lucky ones. I still have my license and my ability to go to work. I could just quit and I would probably be able to survive…

But no. I will keep on trying. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hanging around the house bored shitless. Keeping myself occupied is not a problem. I can do all sorts of things: pull weeds, work on my houses, clean my house, write, paint, work on my book(s), promote my writing (that’s the hard part- trying to find someone who will publish it). I would just much rather be traveling. I’m just bored here. I never, ever thought I’d still be here almost 40 years later.

Looking For a Ship

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Not just the title of a pretty good book! I’m back home, rested up and back on the job of looking for a job.

I’ve already called all my usual agencies (C-Mar, Oceanwide, CLS, Northstar, Spencer-Ogden) and no one has any work now or for the foreseeable future.

Some linkedin contacts have mentioned a couple of places overseas. I’ve been trying to contact them, but so far no response. Looks like the situation is still the same. Thousands of us out of work, resumes stacked til filing cabinets overflowing and still no hope of work any time soon.

The price of oil has been flirting with $60/bbl over the last week, but it’s still not enough to get anyone moving. We keep hearing ‘next year it will be better”. It’s 3 days away from ‘next year” and I’m hoping like hell it really will be better!

I don’t know how others are managing to survive. Well, yes I do, most of them have families to help them out. They’re lucky. The younger ones have mostly left the industry and found something else to do. They’ve let their documents lapse and won’t be able to come back. Of course, they didn’t have all that much invested in this industry yet anyway. There’s a huge difference between an AB and an unlimited master as far as costs (and everything else).

I’m heading up to Galveston today to move my art. The gallery where it’s been showing is moving (they’re having their own problems) and all artists are being asked to help move. Looks like it won’t be on display again til late January, maybe February. Just another way to try to survive!

Girls Gone to Galveston

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Hey! We just got back from Galveston. It was a long day.

I’m not a morning person, but got up early to finish getting my photos ready to take up to the gallery in Galveston. I had to sign them, figure out the best mat to use with them and then figure out which frame fit best. It took a while.

I loaded up my truck and headed to the beach to pick up my friends. I didn’t think we could all fit in the cab with my big painting (49″ x 44″) in the back seat, but we managed to fit all the artworks in the back seat and all 3 of us in the front.

Lucky, I found a spot to pull up close to the shop for long enough to unload my stuff. The lady who I’ve been dealing with wasn’t there. I left my big painting there and traded out a few others. I took the rest of the stuff I brought across the street to a new place (Metamorphosis) that I learned about last time I was in Galveston.

My friend was talking to the owner about making a sign for the place while I was busy across the street. I brought in my photos and set them out for the lady to pick which ones she liked and thought would sell. She liked all of them. 🙂

So far, nothing has sold. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. My friend is really hoping to get the sign job too. She’s been a ‘starving artist’ for a long time. Somehow I never thought that’s where I would wind up in life.

I do enjoy it, but like my BFF always tells me, “somebody always has to buy the beans”. For that to work, somebody will actually have to buy some of my art one of these days.

We tried a new place for lunch (recommended by the coffee guy). It was a pretty interesting little deli type place called Old Moon. We sat upstairs where they had a couple of nice comfortable couches to relax on. We ate our lunch surrounded by cool old photographs and paintings of dramatically lit cats (and dogs) dressed to the nines.

I had a Monte Cristo sandwich, it was really good. I’d never had one like the way they made it before. It had a little bit of honey on it, on the outside of the bread. Nice touch, but made it a little sticky to eat. I didn’t try a pie. They looked delicious, but I always eat slowly and I didn’t want to keep my friends waiting any longer. I did try a brownie and it was really nice. I even saved some for dessert tonight. 🙂

Check out the painting. Cool dog, huh?