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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
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…
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. 🙂
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! 😉
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. 🙂
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
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?
Since I got off the ship the other day, I’ve been busy just trying to get back on schedule. It’s really hard to switch back and forth from working nights for 3 weeks to being up in the daytime like most normal people. I feel like I need to be up days while I’m home, it’s hard to get anything much done at night here.
So, I’m a little caught up on sleep and mail and bills, got some groceries in the house and so ready to take up the Zero to Hero Challenge once again.
I did go over my About page again (day 8’s assignment). I don’t really know how to make it ‘irresistible’, but I did spiff it up a bit. I’ve been thinking about adding some other things there but not sure if it would actually make it any better.
For day 9’s assignment, to find more blogs to follow, I’m having a hard time limiting myself to just 5! I am starting to wonder just how much time can I spend wandering around the blogosphere? 😉
It’s REALLY hard to try and find ‘new’ things, things I’m not already following or new subjects that I don’t already have an interest in. So, I didn’t really follow directions, I did take a look at some things I really have no interest in, like sports, and cars, and fashion, but I don’t really see the point in following things I’m not interested in at all.
So, I looked around some more and found some outliers in subjects I am interested in but don’t follow as much as I would like.
Here are my picks for today…
I found all of them interesting and plenty more, but I don’t have enough hours in the day to devote the time and energy they deserve, so limiting myself to these today. 😉
Maybe I’ll find some more in the next few days. 🙂
Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to personalize your blog. Take a few tries at customizing your blog. Turn it into your very own creation. 🙂
As you can see from looking at my blog, I did do the challenge and what you see is what you get. At least for now. I’m not sure I really like it better than what I had before.
I think eventually, I might pick another picture. The one up there now is one I took. The one I had before is one that just came from WordPress. I do have a lot of photos that I think would look nice up there in the header. I just haven’t had time to work on it.
Any comments? Do you like the way my blog looks better now or before?
Todays assignment is to “publish a post with a new-to-you element”.
I’m not sure what to do with this since I’ve already published posts with text, photos, videos, music.
They do suggest ’embedding’ tweets, a song, a map, adding pins from Pinterest, etc. So, I’ll try to add a map of some of the places I’ve traveled (so far).
OK, tried and tried again with the map. Not working. It disappears every time I save the draft of the post. Maybe I’ll try it again later with googlemaps since they specifically tell you how to do that one in the WordPress Support pages here. Not having any success with either zeemaps or traveladvisor which I already had made on my facebook page.
One more time, if it doesn’t work, will just have to be satisfied with a neat picture from Pinterest. I’ve never added anything from there here before either, so I guess that should count for todays task. 🙂
Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to take some time to find a theme you like, or if you have one you like already, go take a look around and sample something different.
So far I like the one I have right now. I read over the post on choosing themes to see if there was something I was missing.
I’m looking around the Theme Showcase and there are a few there I like. It looks like I’m still liking the same sorts of themes as when I first looked around and decided on this one. 🙂
Here are a few of the alternatives I almost chose…
I really liked the look of some of the others but I felt they didn’t really fit what I’m trying to do at the moment. Mostly to do with the photography. They had some great themes for showing off photos (ex: Photography) but I want to do more than that. Maybe later. 😉
Also, I’m not ready for a premium theme yet, so I didn’t look very hard at any of those. Some of them looked really nice, but not for me just yet. Maybe later. 😉
Well, this has been an interesting assignment. I originally picked the Twenty Eleven theme and I still like it. Maybe I’ll get tired of it one day and change it. But for now, that’s my theme and I’m sticking to it! 😉
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…
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. 😉
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.