Here’s my entry for the Word A Week Challenge: Delicate. I looked through my photos to find a few good examples of delicate things.
If you want to see the rest of the entries, check out Sue @ A Word in Your Ear and her weekly challenges. She has some gorgeous photography on her blog. The people who join in are pretty good too. 🙂
“A cockroach can live for nine days without its head.”
I was sitting on the pot reading the Wildlife magazine from the Houston Zoo and this quote caught my eye.
I wondered what the heck were those cockroaches doing for those 9 days without a head?
I had always assumed that they spent most of their time looking for food. But if they don’t have a head, then how are they going to eat? So, do they still spend all their time looking for food? Is that really what they did before they lost their heads?
I wonder it they don’t have a head, how do they find their way around? I mean, they have eyes and antennas on their head for that, but once the heads gone then what do they do? Do they just lie there like they’re dead (but they’re not dead) for 9 days?
Or do they wander around trying to find out what happened to their head? Do they miss it? I guess they must not miss it all that much if they can go without it for 9 days.
I wonder is this some kind of survival trait? They don’t go around looking for food while they’re headless, they go around looking for sex? How would that work?
I mean really, they’ve been around FOREVER.
Maybe having a head isn’t as important as we’ve been led to believe?
I wonder just how many headless cockroaches are running around? I have to admit I’ve seen a lot of cockroaches in my life and have yet to see a headless one, dead or alive.
I wonder, did they do some kind of study on this? Did they just happen to find a headless cockroach running around and say, “Hey, I think we need to investigate this, how long can a headless cockroach survive?”.
Did they just find a bunch of headless roaches to study? Or did they actually pull the heads off enough roaches to make a valid study? Just how many headless cockroaches does it take to prove the statistic that they can survive for 9 days? Is just one enough?
How many died immediately? How many only lasted 1 day? 2 days? etc?
They didn’t mention how long a cockroach could live with a head. I have to assume it’s quite a bit longer than 9 days.
Oh well, just a few thoughts to start the day. 😉
PS- I got curious enough later to actually google it and yes, it’s true. They explain a lot of my questions in this article.
OK, I HAD to get out of the house today! I’ve been trying to catch up on lots of things around here that mostly revolve around working on the computer.
My main computer (that I’ve had for a while now), caught a serious bug in Korea. I took it to the shop already, but they didn’t/couldn’t fix the main problem with it. So, I’ve been trying to use it while I transfer all my stuff onto the new (mac) computer I bought a couple of months ago and haven’t had the time to use yet.
I am having a VERY hard time trying to learn how to use it. It’s incredibly frustrating! I am NOT any kind of computer geek. I know how to turn one on and off and get to my emails. That’s pretty much it. 🙁
This is my first Apple computer. I bought it because I’ve heard that Apples are really great to work with photos on. Maybe they are, but I can’t even figure out how to LOOK at my photos on it! Yeah, I can open one at a time, which is frustrating enough, but then I can’t DO anything with it.
On my old computer, I use Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Photo Gallery to look over my photos. It’s very easy to use. I can use Paint to edit them. I could also use a photo editing program like Lightroom or Paintshop if I really wanted to work on them.
On my new Apple computer, I can’t find ANY kind of program to look at or edit my photos at all. 🙁
I did finally get Lightroom on the Apple computer, but I don’t really want to load EVERY photo there.
Maybe I’m just missing something simple that people who’re used to Apple products could clue me in on? I could use some help here…
Anyway, I was going stir crazy here, between frustration with my computers not allowing me to get much work done and taking out my frustrations by arguing with strangers on Facebook, I figured I needed to get the heck out of the house and away from the computers for a while.
So, I went to the zoo. I always like to go and watch the animals. I like to watch the fish swim around, the jellyfish are really calming. I like to watch the monkeys play. I especially like to see the new zoo babies if they have any (they did). 🙂
I saw the baby elephants. One was only 4 months old and the other was 3.5 yrs old.They were still keeping the baby in the house. It was SO cute! I couldn’t get any decent pictures of it, but I watched it play for a while.
baby elephant (3.5 yrs)
They had some baby lemurs. Those were really cute too, and fun to watch running and jumping all over their little habitat.
Lemur with baby
They had young flamingos. They were still gray. Last time I was at the zoo, they were little gray puff balls, they’ve grown a lot in a couple of months.
young flamingo (they turn pink the more they eat)
I got into watching the flamingos for a while, they were out of the water for a change and kind of fun to watch. Here’s a couple more shots…
I usually like to try and take pictures of everything but I still haven’t really figured out how to get past the bars and the cages. Sometimes I can get the camera to focus where I want it to and sometimes I can’t.Today wasn’t a good day for that. 🙁
So, I concentrated the photos on the birds and the fishes. I know I’ve posted lots of fish pictures here already, so today I’ll do some birds. 😉
Announcing Our 11th Annual Photo Contest Winners | Photo Contest | Smithsonian.
I don’t know how the Smithsonian judges ever manage to narrow down their choices. They have so many just stunning images to pick from every year.
This year is no different. I’ve been flipping through their choices for finalists and runners up in the different categories and I would have a really hard time making up my mind.
I think I would pick this one…
If only because I LOVE the night sky and it’s SO hard to get good photos of it. There’s so much light pollution now. Also, I really love science fiction and the way they’ve set up those giant bugs just really does it for me. Lots of creativity and excellent camera skills. I love it! 🙂
Click the link and check out all the other photos. It’ll be worth your while. 🙂
Here’s another photography challenge entry. This one is from the blog A Word In Your Ear. Here’s the link to it if you want to get involved…
http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-orange/
Here are a few of my photos that show off ‘orange’…
orange wave (sculpture on Gwangali Beach Korea)
orange flowers (Jayu Park, Incheon Korea)
orange food? (fish market, Incheon Korea)
orange sunset at sea
orange sunrise, Tarawa Kiribati
orange beard (Surfside Texas)
orange umbrellas (and hair)
orange fish
another orange fish
orange spots on another fish
orange boat(s) alongside at Fourchon, LA
orange uniforms on the boat (me and Jess on the DS-5)
orange sky at sea
orange chopper (USCG)
one more orange boat (lifeboat)
I hope you like these. These photo challenges are fun. I really wish I had the time to go out and take some more pictures for them but no time so I have to use some from the past. 🙁
I haven’t done much with these photo challenges lately. I do really enjoy them. Looking at what everyone else is doing and trying to come up with something to fit the theme.
This one is from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. Here’s the link in case you want to get in on it… http://ceenphotography.com/2014/05/27/cees-fun-foto-challenge-water/
This one is easy for me. Water. It should be easy for me. I have so many photos of water in all its various forms, it’s really hard for me to pick out a few real good ones. 🙂
But, I did manage. Here you go…
out on the water
no waves on this beach!
water makes patterns in the sand
water sprays in Singapore
beautiful beach Riviera Maya
water from the air
water- 3 kinds- clouds, rainbow, ocean
Those were a few of my favorites. I hope you like them too. 🙂
More Affordable Than University, Travel Is The Best Teacher.
Here’s another great post from the Dollar Vigilante. They always have a lot of great information on their website. I’ve been a subscriber for a while now.
I really couldn’t agree more with his post. I’ve been a traveler since I was born. 🙂
My father used to work as an engineer (before he said the hell with it all and started fishing). 🙂
He used to take on contract jobs for all the big firms. Sperry, Northrup Grumman, Corning, etc. I remember living in Boston, Rochester, Syracuse, Phoenix, LA, El Paso. Lots of other places in between I don’t remember. I was born in Minneapolis. My brother was born in East Hampton (we were staying on grandpas boat).
For a while we all lived in one of those old style cab over campers. Mom, dad, me, my little brother, the dog and the cat. We would live at a campground for a few months at most while dad did whatever job he was contracted to do.
We finally settled down in Florida. My dad took a job with Honeywell. Maybe because it was time for me to start school. I really don’t know for sure. My dad found the love of his life, (the schooner Island Girl), and my parents got divorced.
By then the travel bug was in my veins and I’ve been infected for life! I LOVE to travel!!
My grandmother did too. She was always off somewhere interesting and exciting and she would bring us little presents when she came to visit. Sometimes I was lucky enough to go with her.
I remember one time she took me skiing in Aspen Colorado. I was about 13. I had a blast! Another time she took me (along with her sisters) on a long road trip to pick out a boarding school for me. (I was a bad girl)
I refused them all. I just didn’t think I would fit in at any of them.
Good thing for me! I wound up going to school with the Oceanics out of New York City instead of any of those nice, fancy, expensive schools my grandmother wanted for me.
That experience changed my life forever. I wound up sailing around the world on large traditional sailing ships. I LOVED it!!I decided I wanted to be a ship captain, sail around the world and get paid for it. My grandmother never got over that I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.
I wanted to keep sailing and traveling and never go home. I did wind up staying after for a while. I tried to find a job working my way back home on a ship. I was only 16 and didn’t have any seamans’ papers yet, so that didn’t work out very well. 🙁
I wound up talking my way into a position on board an old Thames sailing barge in London. The CIV was the name of it.
I had a blast!! The guys on there were such a fun group. I was supposed to cook and keep the place clean while they got it ready to sail across the Atlantic to the US. I don’t know if they ever made it. I had to fly back to the US before they got it ready. 🙁
I learned so much on that trip. MUCH more than I ever could have or would have learned in any kind of normal classroom environment.
We had class on the ship. We learned about things like navigation and seamanship. We learned them by DOING them. Most things we learned outside of class. For example, I learned how to work as part of a team. I learned to be a good shipmate and how everyone on board is there for a good reason and just as important as anyone else there.
We had to keep a journal (good practice). We also had a class called ‘cultural studies’. When we went ashore we learned about the countries and the people we visited. We learned the languages of the countries we were due to visit.
I learned how to communicate better, sometimes even non-verbally. I learned how to be flexible and more accepting of how things were instead of how I thought they should be.
I learned how other people dealt with the same kinds of things we do at home but in their own ways. I learned that my way (or my countrys’ way) was not always the best way.
I learned that most people are basically the same, wherever they live, they all want/need the same basic things… food, water, love, connection, a home, etc. We’re not all that different. 🙂
I learned there is such a great, big, wonderful world out there. I learned about myself that I never want to stop learning and exploring.
Travel is SUCH a great teacher, in so many ways. I encourage anyone and everyone to get out there and DO IT! 🙂
This Dumbo Octopus Video Will Melt Your Heart – gCaptain Maritime & Offshore News.
I got this in an email from Gcaptain.com. I subscribe to their emails and they always have something interesting to share. I really enjoyed this video of the Dumbo Octopus.
Dumbo octopus
I actually watched quite a few videos of them before, I thought they were really cute. 🙂
I was trying to find some information on this other creature I saw on the ROV video feed while I was working last hitch. The ROV crew called it a ‘heart’ or ‘sea heart’ or ‘heart of the sea’. Nobody knew what they were really called or what kind of creature they were.
I looked and looked all over the internet. I found all sorts of really weird stuff, but nothing I could say for sure was the same creature we were seeing from our ship.
It looked a little bit like some of the online pictures of the Dumbo octopus.
The closest thing I could say would have to be a vampire squid, which also looks a lot like some of the pictures of the Dumbo octopus.
vampire squid
But it turns out, it was really some sort of swimming sea cucumber. I’ll do some more posts about these creatures, but for now here’s a photo of one type of swimming sea cucumber (there are many different types).
enypniastes-transparent-swimming-sea-cucumber
I’ll try to get back on track for Wild Wednesday and post some more about it by then. I have some video from the ship I can post. 🙂
I might have picked some different ones, but stumbled on this video while I was looking at something else.
It was made by Incredible World. They look like they have some very interesting stuff on utube. I thought this one was pretty cool.
That MOUTH!!
4 Sky Events This Week: Seven Sisters and a Stellar Sandwich – News Watch.
Another good week for stargazing. I hope it clears up around here soon!
I missed seeing Uranus. The weather was too cloudy while it was at a good altitude for me here. I am hoping to be able to see the Pleiades and the Hyades this week.
I can usually spot Taurus and Aldebaran. This time of year, it should be to the West after sunset. If you can find Orion, look to the right of the hunters bow and you should see a ‘V’, those are the horns of the bull “Taurus”. Both the Hyades and the Pleiades are located in Taurus.
Betelguese is usually easy to spot, it’s in the constellation of Orion. That’s one of the easiest constellations to spot. It should be even easier to see when it’s lined up like they say with the moon and Jupiter.
I’ll be checking it out when the clouds clear up!
I saw this posted on my Facebook page tonight, I thought it was just awesome. 🙂
Performamce & Choreography :Saya Watatani , Maki Yokoyama
Director : Nobuyuki Hanabusa
Animator : Seiya Ishii , Nobuyuki Hanabusa
Music : Nobuyuki Hanabusa
I’ve always loved to watch people dance. I was never really into this particular kind of dance, but I REALLY enjoyed this performance!
And the weird thing is…
It actually did remind me of the Pleiades!
I’ve been working for the last couple of weeks on an ROV job. We’re working in the Walker Ridge area. It’s about 178 nautical miles SW of Fourchon, LA. Not much around all the way out here.
The other night on DP watch, we saw something flashing in the light around the windows. A bird? A bug? (Sometimes we get some pretty big moths out here). Turns out, it was a tiny little hummingbird.
Our crane operator Shane crept up on it and managed to catch it. It was so exhausted, it just sat calmly in his hands while we tried to give it something to drink. We mixed up some sugar and water and fed it by hand with a coffee straw.
Shane named the bird ‘Pirogue’. We don’t know why. We don’t know why Shane does anything he does. 😉
At first we put Pirogue in a water bottle so he would have a little room to move around in. It was just the only thing we could think of that we had handy. We cut the top off it, turned the top around upside down and stuck it back into the bottle. We fed Pirogue more sugar water and he started to perk up. We made the mistake of leaving the top off the bottle a little too long, and Pirogue was off like a shot! 🙂
He flew around the wheelhouse til Shane (the bird-whisperer) managed to catch up with him again. We put him back in the bottle and kept the top on to feed him from then on. 😉
Itchy (one of our ABs- don’t ask how he got that name) came up with a big 5 gallon water bottle (with the top cut off and some holes drilled in it) for us to move the bird into. We fixed him up a little nest of shredded newspaper in a cool whip tub. Shane made a perch for him out of a pencil. We put a cup of water in there with him but he preferred to drink the sugar water from the straw.
We hand fed him every half hour. Eventually, we figured he needed some rest so we put a dark towel over the ‘cage’ and left him alone til morning.
When I took the cover off him in the morning, I thought he would already be up and alert, but he surprised me, he was still very groggy. I almost thought he was dead, but he would blink his eyes at me verrrry slooooowly…
After about a half hour or so, he gathered his wits about him and started buzzing around his ‘cage’. Letting us all know he was HUNGRY. Everyone who came up to the bridge would stop by and take a few minutes to give him a few sips from the straw.
Pirogue has been making great progress. I think he might be able to make it the rest of the way home by himself now. Only one thing, the weather is pretty nasty out here now and is supposed to continue that way for the next few days. I’d hate to turn ol’ Pirogue loose, just to see him blown away in a heavy thunderstorm. 🙁
That’s probably how he wound up on our boat in the first place. He might not get so lucky again.
So, I’ve decided to keep him here til we make crew change in a couple of days. I’ll turn him loose when we get to the dock in Fourchon. Hopefully he’ll be able to find his way from there.
These birds live all over the Eastern part of North America. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only ones that regularly nest east of the Mississippi. With a name like Pirogue, ours might be happy enough to settle in South Louisiana (but hopefully not in Fourchon itself). 😉
Since we’ve adopted Pirogue on here, some of us have spent some time on google. We’ve wondered how he would wind up all the way out here in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. We don’t usually see hummingbirds out here.
Turns out, hummingbirds migrate all the way from Central America to the US every year. I’m reading online that “many cross the Gulf of Mexico in a single flight’.
Well, they would have to, since there’s nothing out here for them to eat or drink. Until we started drilling for oil out here in the last few years, they had no way to stop for a rest either.
Imagine, flying for 500 miles or more without a break! Scientists have found that they fatten up a lot before they make their yearly migration. They may double their body mass.
Pirogue is a ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) . They’re bright emerald green on the back and grey-white underneath. Males have a bright, ruby-red throat patch, tho it only really shows very bright at certain angles. Pirogue is a male, he has a very obvious red throat. He looks almost iridescent. 🙂
They usually eat nectar. I know people use bright red feeders to attract hummingbirds so the red coffee straw was a good way to get Pirogue to eat and drink here. I learned that they also eat small bugs for protein. We don’t have any of those handy out here. (Good thing!).
Wikipedia says that these birds can live to be 9 years old, tho the males rarely make it past 5. I have no way of telling Pirogues age, but I hope he makes it through another migration. Maybe he’ll have learned to stop by another ship to get some help next time too. 🙂
Ready for this jellyfish? Giant species found down under.
Today’s Creature Feature is this story from Tasmania. It’s a couple of weeks late, but hopefully it’s still interesting.
I love the description of these jellyfish as ‘snotty’. What would you do if you were walking down the beach and came upon a 5 foot long glob of ‘snot’? 😉
I’d probably do the same thing as the kid that found it! 🙂
I think it’s cool that the scientists are still finding things this big that they haven’t really had the chance to study yet.
Slaughterhouse Said to Process “Horrifying” Number of Whale Sharks Annually.
Well, here it is again already: Wild Wednesday (Creature Feature). I’ve been so busy, I haven’t really had time to keep up with things here as much as I’d like to. I’m working nights (1800-0600) and for some reason that schedule just really keeps me messed up. I’m always SO tired. 🙁
I saw this article and thought it would make a good one to post here. First of all because I’ve always really liked these giant fish. They’re so big, but they never bother anybody. They grow up to about 40-45 feet long and yet they only eat plankton. They’re one of the longest lived sharks, they can live up to 100 years!
I’ve always wanted to do a trip where I could swim, snorkel or SCUBA with them. I think that would be something really special. I see the pictures of people doing it and it just looks fantastic. They are just awesome! 🙂
I hate to think of people just catching these fish and slaughtering them willy-nilly, even though they are endangered. Most sharks and rays are now on the endangered species list. 🙁
I know a lot of people probably think: ‘good riddance’, but sharks and rays are actually beautiful creatures and are very well adapted to their environments. There are over 470 species of sharks and rays.
They live in every ocean, from the surface to the depths. They’ve been around for over 420 million years! There are some very interesting stories about sharks (I loved Jaws). They have interesting lives.
They have interesting history with people around the world. The Hawaiians were just one people who worshiped a shark god. People do seem fascinated with sharks.
Maybe it’s because they can (and sometimes do) eat us? 😉
They’re one of the very few animals that we ever feel even slightly threatened by anymore. Although there were only 4.3 on average unprovoked fatalities from shark attacks worldwide (2001-2006).
Hopefully that fact will quell some fear and we won’t allow the indiscriminate killing to continue. It’s estimated that over 100 million sharks are killed EVERY YEAR!
Sharks serve a purpose in this world. Just like every other living thing on this planet. They deserve to have a place here just as much as we do and we really ought to stop killing off every other thing around us just because we can.
One of these days those kinds of actions WILL come back to bite us.
Maybe with shark teeth. 😉
I’d like to be able to do more this week, but my schedule is just not allowing me much time to spend on the computer. Hopefully, things will improve soon. 🙂
I can’t believe it’s already been a week! For the second of my creature feature posts, for ‘Wild Wednesday’, I’ll put up this video I saw online last week. I just had to say awwww… the cute factor is pretty high up there.
I’ve always loved dolphins. That was my choice to come back as, if I ever got reincarnated. I’d love to be a dolphin! Every time I see them out at sea, they always bring a smile to my face.
They have a reputation for being helpful to sailors. It’s nice to see a favor returned. 🙂
Good thing they don’t swarm like army ants!
I wouldn’t worry too much. They are endangered. 🙁
Probably because they’re pretty good eating. At least the islanders where the crabs can be found do like to eat them when they can still find them.
They are pretty scary to watch a bunch of huge crabs like these crawling around the beach where you’re trying to get a tan. I mean they do get pretty damn big! Luckily, they PREFER to eat coconuts. 😉
Todays assignment for the Zero to Hero Challenge is to create an Editorial Calendar.
I’ve actually been thinking of doing that for awhile (tho not in those terms). I was thinking about doing a weekly ‘Creature Feature’ showcasing some kind of cool animal. I love to go to the zoo (and aquarium, and even insectarium) and I have lots of beautiful pictures.
I thought it might also be interesting to post about the amazing things that live in the ocean. Everything from whales and walrus to the smallest zooplankton. I might even branch out to things that used to live in the ocean. Or things we used to think lived in the ocean. 😉
I’ve always been interested in animals. I used to read entire encyclopedia sets describing wildlife from all over the world.
When I was younger I was going to be a doctor, (my fathers parents were both pharmacists), until I decided I just don’t really like people all that much. 😉 Then I was going to be a vet instead. 🙂
Those plans all got derailed when I went away to school on the sailing ship and decided I wanted to be a ship captain instead! 😉
I do still love nature and all aspects of it. Plants, animals, weather, the ocean, space. It’s all so interesting. A lot of it is really beautiful too. Even things you wouldn’t think of. Try looking at things in a good microscope. Almost everything in nature has that beauty.
So, I’ll be posting a weekly ‘Creature Feature’ on Wednesdays from now on. Maybe later, I’ll add some other regular features.
For now, that’s all the time I have to be sure I can get to it. I’ll continue to post as I have been. Whenever I find something interesting. I’ll try to join in on a challenge every so often. I’ll keep on posting Maritime Monday when I can keep up with it. Same with the music, food, photos, movies, books, politics, maritime, travel, drinks, etc.
Anybody have any suggestions for the first post? Something special you’d like to hear from me about?
The Beautiful Flight Paths of Fireflies | Smithsonian.
Amazing beautiful photos of fireflies. I wish I could see this!
We do get them here but not that many. I’ve never seen any large groups of them. This guy is so lucky to be able to see and do what he does.
Check out the link!
5 Sky Events This Week: Mercurial Evenings, Cosmic Triangle and Lord of the Rings – News Watch.
Sorry I’m late this week but you should still be able to see some of this stuff if you look.
Mercury will be low in the sky, right after sunset. It should be bright enough to see with the naked eye (or with binoculars). Look for it in the direction of the sunset from Jan 21 through the end of the month.
In the article, they talk about Saturn and the moon on the 23rd, but it’s likely you can still see it now. Look for it in the South near dawn.
Antares is usually easy to spot. Look for the crescent moon above the constellation Scorpio from the 26th.
This gallery contains 2 photos.
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
This gallery contains 12 photos.
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
Year in Maritime Photos – 2013 | gCaptain
Here’s a link to a cool post on gCaptain. It has photos and stories from all the headline news from the maritime industry over the past year. I thought it would be interesting for a New Years type post.
Here they have everything from the fire on the cruise ship Carnival Triumph and her subsequent adventures as a “floating toilet” to the Costa Concordia disaster.
The grounding/salvage of the navy minesweeper USS Guardian and the delivery of the USS Freedom and the very first Mobile Landing Platform (MLP1) USNS Montford Point.
The break up of the MOL Comfort containership and the sinking of the MV Albedo after she was hijacked by pirates.
The slow speed chase of the smoke ship MV Gold Star in the Mediterranean and the antics of the Sea Shepard ships in the Southern Ocean.
The sinking of the in/famous sailing ship Bounty as she tried to outsail a major hurricane in the Atlantic ocean.
My favorite was the story of the rescue of the cook from the tug Jascon 4 after she sank. The man survived for over 2 days under the sea!!
Check it out, there’re lots of interesting stories. I’ve written about a couple of them here already,
captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/video-prelude-flng-float-out
http://captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/scary-moment-b…n-lashes-coast
http://captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/video-animatio…kwise-vanguard
http://captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/mlc-2006-will-…on-board-comms
http://captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/light-it-up-an…es-up-in-smoke/
but there are more in the link. It was a very interesting year for fans of maritime news! I hope you’ll enjoy it. 🙂
5 Sky Events This Week: Moon Poses with Winter Gems and Little Bear Runs With Meteors – News Watch.
Another interesting week in the sky. I tried really hard to watch the Geminid meteor shower last weekend, but it was too cloudy here in Texas. I tried to check it out online, but I couldn’t find anything other than clouds or a few photos. I was hoping for a video from somewhere with clear skies, but I never found one.
Jupiter should be shining bright and easy to spot next week. If you have a telescope, you should even be able to spot Callisto as she crosses Jupiter. Hopefully even I will be able to see Jupiter, if not her moon. The lights are so bright on the rigs I work on, its impossible to see all but the brightest stars most of the time. 🙁
Looks like we’ll have another chance to catch a meteor shower too. The Ursid shower probably won’t be anywhere near as good as the Geminid would have been, but it’s something to look forward to.
Next Saturday is the Winter Solstice too, so for all you Pagans out there, I hope you are able to throw some good parties!! 😉
Enjoy the show! Its FREE!! 🙂
Here’s another one for the Weekly Photo Challenge. It’s still on ‘Light’. I took these while I was at work (offshore). I can’t believe I got the moon to come out so good. I took a ton of pictures, it was the ‘supermoon’, but I only had my little point and shoot camera with me and with all the vibration on the rig, I’m just really surprised to get anything like this.
The boat was another story. It came so close to us, I could have thrown a stick at it and actually hit it (I can’t throw very far). Driving us crazy since all vessels are supposed to stay outside our 500 m zone unless we grant permission. They were just about up under our lifeboats. 🙁
We worry they may interfere with our thrusters or ROV with their fishing gear, but they could care less (until something happens like they actually catch a fish and they lose it because their line got cut in our thrusters).
If you want to see the other entries for the Challenge, or enter it yourself, here’s the link
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/photo-challenge-lights/
Here are some photos for the Word a Week Challenge, if you want to see some of what others have done, or enter something yourself, here’s the link…
http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/a-word-a-week-challenge-lines/
Communities Grow Stronger with Fruit Tree Projects – Community – Utne Reader.
I think this is a great idea and hope it spreads even further. I’d like to see it ‘go viral’, spread world wide, everybody getting involved! It has already spread from Santa Cruz, California all the way to Vancouver, to Australia, and even Fiji! 🙂
I have always hated to waste anything. Especially food. Maybe it has something to do with growing up where my parents always insisted I clean my plate. They warned about the ‘starving children in Africa’. I never figured out how my clean plate would help those starving children, but had to play along anyway.
I’m still a member in good standing of the ‘Clean Plate Club’. I’m sure I’m fatter then I should be because of it. I am working towards creating less waste in my kitchen and everywhere else.
I’ve tried to grow a garden in the past, but because I spend so much time at sea, I have not had much success. I do have a lime tree that is making plenty of fruit. Way more than I could ever use. I hate to see them just rotting in the driveway, so I already told my neighbors to just take whatever they want.
I think it would be a great idea if more people could do the same sort of thing. Like the article mentions, these fruit tree projects not only provide much needed and appreciated fresh fruits, but they build community in the process. They also teach useful skills and promote sustainability. I think they are probably fun too!
I’m not sure what the heck is going on in the US lately with the local vendetta on gardening. We used to encourage everyone to grow a garden. Now, we are allowing localities to force people to tear them up?!? WTF???
I remember a few years ago, my town forced my neighbors across the street to tear out the garden they had in their back yard. Supposedly it was illegal! Illegal to grow a garden? Behind a fence? On your OWN land???? In America, the land of the FREE??? I would have sued the SH*T out of them for a HUGE violation of my property rights!
If you want to tell me what I can do with MY land, then YOU can pay the mortgage and the taxes and every other expense. Then, and ONLY then, will it be your land. That’s when YOU get to decide what to do with it. After all, ownership implies being able to USE the thing you own. If you can’t use it, then you don’t really own it.
Apparently, this abuse of local tyrants citing ‘loss of property values’ as some kind of holy grail is spreading like wildfire around the nation. Here’s a link to an article from just the other day…http://www.care2.com/causes/why-are-cities-attacking-home-gardeners.html.
I really hope enough people are outraged by this kind of thing and will get out and raise holy hell with their city councils and homeowners associations and put a stop to this kind of thing.
Help out by signing the petition, Miami Shores: Let Couple Keep Their Vegetable Garden! – The Petition Site, watch the video and give a hand to the Institute for Justices’ Food Freedom Initiative (www.ij.org/foodfreedom) which is trying to help the couple involved in this latest outrage and by extension all the rest of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=avHrPbONTzE
Property values are NOT the be all and end all of the value of a neighborhood. In fact, they are probably far down the list for many people. Friendliness and community spirit are probably up there pretty high. I know they are for me. 🙂
They did a pretty good job with this video. It is undeniable that we have been over fishing for years. For decades. Might even say centuries now that it’s 2013!
I grew up in a small fishing community. My father was a commercial fisherman for a while. So were a lot of his friends. So were a lot of my friends. I used to be one. My brother still is.
I remember how it used to be when I was still fishing and I see how my brother struggles now. There is no comparison.
We have been raping the ocean (along with the rest of the planet) for a LONG time. Since we have figured out how to take such overwhelming advantage, we have not been allowing nature to replenish what we use.
I don’t know of any practical way to eliminate by catch. I don’t know of any solution to all the issues of farmed fish. I don’t know of any solution to poaching.
I don’t know of any REAL solution to any of these problems EXCEPT the one that no one will even consider and that is for us as a species to voluntarily limit OUR population. Give every human being a chance at a GOOD life and in the process also allow the rest of the planet some space and a chance to recover.
I hope I’m not the only one on this planet who thinks that other species have just as much a right to exist here as we do. They all have a place and a purpose and we do NOT have the right to just use to the point of abuse anything and everything we feel like.
Coming from a background of commercial fishing, I’m not sure about this video. I have serious doubts about turning ANYTHING over to the politicians. I do NOT think the politicians are the answer to ANYTHING!
WE ARE!!
I have a suggestion for the fisheries… how about we try something like leasing the fishing grounds. Lease the areas where the fish (and other marine life) gather, similar to how we do it with the oil in the ground.
Hold an auction, let the highest bidder win the rights to use (NOT abuse) a certain area of the ocean. The winner would be able to fish there and would also be responsible for protecting his asset. This should put a stop to the practice of taking everything there is to take before the next guy does.
Of course, this wouldn’t work for every type of fish, but lots of them are known to either live or migrate into certain specific places year after year. If we could lease those areas to the fishermen and hold them accountable, we might even be able to GROW the fish stocks instead of depleting them.
I really would like to see this kind of thing given a good chance before we go any further with the restrictions. I have read about how fishermen in Britain have property rights to the streams they fish in. It seems to work there.
Here’s a link to an article about how it works in Scotland…
http://www.adamsmith.org/80ideas/idea/18.htm.
Actually, that website has a LOT of really good ideas…
glad I found it this morning. 😉
Best Autumn Photographs from the Last Ten Years of Photo Contests| Smithsonian Magazine.
These are some really beautiful photographs. I wouldn’t expect any less from the Smithsonian. Hard to compare between them and National Geographic. I try to look and learn something about what makes a good photo, at the same time just enjoying the beauty. 🙂
A New App Turns Fractals Into Ornate Art | Collage of Arts and Sciences.
As a person who appreciates art and a person who’s interested in math, I just LOVE the intersection of both subjects. Fractals are really beautiful examples of both art and mathematics!
You can see examples of fractals in all kinds of places in nature. Tree branches and roots are one. A river delta is another. Spiral shells like a nautilus or conch is another (see my earlier post (http://captjillsjourneys.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/beautiful-spiral-shell/) or the others in that series (corals, sea urchin).
I remember playing with creating very simple basic drawings of fractal equations when I was in jr high school. I would have loved to have been able to continue on with it in later classes, but we had to move on to other things.
I think spending more time on this kind of thing in earlier years in school might help show kids that math is actually a really interesting and useful subject and IS really something we can use in the real world. Its not just something we have to get through in school and will never see again.
I do have to admit, I have personally never used calculus since I got out of school, but if I wanted to, I’m sure I could find a use for it. I’m just busy with other things. 😉
I could definitely find ways to use this app with the fractals, even if just to look at the beauty of it and enjoy it every day. 🙂
I don’t know if this Frax app is free or not, but even if it costs a little bit, it might be worth it. I haven’t had the chance to try it yet since I’ve been offshore since I’ve found out about it. I hope I can try it when I get home. 🙂
Scary Moment: Barge Crew Swims to Shore as Super Typhoon Lashes Coast | gCaptain
I know the typhoon has passed now and the clean up and recovery stage is just starting but I thought some people who are not in the Philippines or have not had the experience of going through a hurricane or typhoon might like to see this video.
It’s a good example of some of the sorts of things people have to deal with when this kind of storm approaches. The crew of this barge was very lucky they were all able to get off and no one got hurt or killed.
I hope they managed to keep that status AFTER they made it to shore!! I sure hope the people of the Philippines will be able to make a speedy recovery from this horrible storm. I know that the US is already sending a couple of ships and other aid. I’ve already seen a few emails from charity groups collecting aid.
We’ll do what we can to help from here.
