Since I’m not sure which flower Cee is picking for her flower of the day today (I see some tulips and daffodils and maybe a lily), I am posting a favorite photo I took a while back. These are tulips.
The flowers in my yard don’t look this pretty. At the moment, they are just starting to bloom. I have citrus trees, narcissus, miniature roses, mums, petunias, clematis, lilies, and a few others. The ones that grow best are the weeds (clematis vines cover everything)!
I was going to work in the yard this weekend and start planting. I have grapes, raspberries, pomegranate and lots of flowers to plant. It’s been raining all weekend and so I’m waiting for things to dry out. I think that’s what killed so many of my plants last year. It rained so much right after I planted them. I hope we don’t have floods like we did last year again (supposedly a 500 year flood), but the forecast is calling for rain all week and there are flood warnings out for the rivers again already. 🙁
Ailsa has another good challenge this week at her ‘Where’s My Backpack’ blog. This week’s theme is “bark“.
Here’s my take…
I took these photos at the Houston Arboretum last week (click on a photo if you want to see it bigger). I stopped in for a little relaxation after work while I was waiting to go to a meeting of the Sail la Vie sailing club. I always enjoy wandering around in nature and don’t get to do it enough. Even tho the Arboretum is in Houston, once you get to wandering around there, you can’t really hear much of the city noise.
It’s a nice quiet place to chill out, relax, have a picnic, walk the trails, etc. I saw a few people jogging around with headsets on. I prefer to walk and listen to the sound of the wind in the trees, birds, turtles plopping off their logs or poking their heads up out of the water.
I wandered around for a couple of hours. Taking pictures of everything and looking for interesting shapes, patterns and colors. I enjoyed watching the turtles in the pond and a small snake that was crossing the boardwalk with me. 🙂
Anybody know what kind it is? We had a ranger from the Brazoria County Parks & Wildlife department come to tell us all about our local snakes at last weeks Campaign for Liberty meeting. He even brought some to show us. It was really pretty interesting. I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but he was moving around pretty quickly (and the snakes were not sitting still either). I am guessing this one is some sort of garter snake.
I found a new photography challenge. This week I’m joining in with Ailsa on her Where’s My Backpack Blog. Everyone’s free to join in, click the link here for the details. This week’s travel theme is: turquoise. One of my favorite colors, especially when I see it on the water.
Here are a few of my recent photos with turquoise…
This first batch is from Turkey. I spent a couple of weeks between Istanbul and Cappadocia. They make beautiful pottery (and carpets).
This next batch is from Zanzibar. After Istanbul, I flew to Tanzania for a photography safari and then on to Zanzibar to relax. It was so beautiful there, I could have stayed there forever. 🙂
But, I had to come home. These last few are from closer to home. If you click on the snapshot, you can see more about it.
entire parade was so busy-chaotic- details are interesting
Do you like turquoise too? See any on your travels? Check out the challenge. 🙂
Today’s color for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge is: shadow. Another one I had no idea what it looks like. Here’s a reference in case you want to join the fun. 😉
Here’s my best match.
Got a great match to the river water! I took this photo a few years ago. I was traveling in Thailand and had spent a couple of weeks in Chiang Mai and visiting the ‘Hill Tribes’ around there. I decided to take the ‘slow boats‘ down the Mekong River, at least to Luang Prabang.
I really would have loved to stay there longer. It was a nice little town, lots to do, friendly people, and so relaxed and peaceful. I would have loved to take the boat all the way down the Mekong to the delta, with stops in Vientiane and along the way. I ran out of time and had to fly back to Bangkok.
This picture of the river was from up the hill at Pak-Beng where we stopped for the night. I enjoyed the slow pace of the ride, watching the scenery pass by and the daily activities of the local people. It was interesting to see the turnout at stops we made, to transfer passengers or cargo.
There was an amazing variety of people on the boat. People from all over the world and all walks of life. It made for interesting conversations and a fun trip. I highly recommend it if you have the time. If not, try the long-tail boats. They’re much faster! Just as much an adventure (maybe even more), but maybe not so dry either! 😉
Today’s color for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge is: gold! At least I know what that looks like. 😉
Here’s a photo of a golden idol I took a while back at the Buddha’s Tooth Temple in Singapore. I sure miss those days of traveling around while working on the ship. We used to stay for quite a while in the shipyard there. I’m not really sure who or what it’s supposed to be since I’m not really up on the Buddhist (or any other) religion. They did have an awful lot of these statues in their temple, this was one of the larger ones.
I think her dress matches pretty good. I took this photo at a meet up of the Brazoria County Models and Photographers group. The day’s theme was ‘Calaveras’. I always enjoy getting together with them. Especially since I don’t usually take pictures of people. The models like to dress up in different styles and the photographers get to take all the photos they want.
I was really looking forward to the last one scheduled- ‘Dancing in the Streets’. I was interested to see all the different dance costumes the models would choose. Too bad, it was canceled due to a prediction of rain that day. I hope I can make it when it gets rescheduled.
I haven’t been posting directly to Linda’s Just Jot It January for a while now, tho I’m still trying to remember to tag my posts since I’ve still been ‘jotting’ pretty much daily. I just haven’t been using her prompts lately, since I’ve been having fun with Jennifer’s colors. Somehow, even tho I haven’t been working, I still can’t seem to find time to blog as much as I’d like to.
A lot of these colors look alike to me- almond, apricot, peach, desert sand- mango tango and burnt orange- copper and antique brass. Can you tell them apart? I sure have a hard time! Why do they need crayon colors so close together nobody can tell them apart unless they’re studied under a microscope?
I always thought part of the fun of drawing/painting/being creative was learning to blend the colors you had to make the ones you wanted. I’ve been trying to learn to paint lately. I sure as hell don’t want to go buy every color I might need to make a painting come out. That would cost a fortune! I’m learning the color wheel and how the different colors relate to each other.
It’s a challenge to make just the right color to make your painting ‘pop’. It’s fun too. Here’s an example of what I mean. I painted this a few years ago, when I was working as an AB on the tankships running up the West Coast to Alaska. Of course, I didn’t bring any paint with me. I scrounged around in the paint locker til I found what I needed.
I made that whole colorful undersea scene with only a few colors of deck paint. I know I had black, white, signal red, yellow, international orange, green and blue. That was pretty much it.
I must sound like an old geezer, ‘well sonny, back in myyyyy day, we used to color with only 8 colors in the box!’ I actually got the 64 crayon box later when I was growing up, but did I ever use all of those colors- nope. Does anyone use all of the 120 colors this challenge is based on? I think I would have a hard time using up a whole box of crayons myself. 😉
Anyway, here’s my entry for the challenge color of ‘almond’…
I took this photo in November while I was traveling around Turkey. I had a great time wandering all over Istanbul and Cappadocia where I took this photo of one of the many ancient rock churches at Goreme. It was a lot of fun scrambling around amid all this history, seeing how the people lived and worshipped all those years ago. I only regret that they didn’t allow any photography inside (even without flash). I really would have liked to have got a few shots of the beautiful frescos inside. I’ll just have to be satisfied with the internet. 🙁
I took this photo the other day at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I usually try do more than one thing when I go all the way to Houston. I go to a museum or the zoo, or a meeting. I don’t like to drive all the way up there just for an hour or two. I don’t remember what kind of crystals these were. I’m pretty sure the big white one is quartz (but not positive), but I don’t remember what the ‘peach’ ones were. Anybody have any ideas?
I had a hard time coming up with a match for yesterday’s color. Today was almost as hard. I think I found a good match with this old door from Zanzibar. It actually has a lot of different colors in it, lots of different shades of brown.
These beautiful carved doors are all over Stone Town, the ancient capital of Zanzibar. I really enjoyed myself just wandering around the narrow, crooked streets. Most of them weren’t wide enough for cars, so I could stop and take all the pictures I wanted. 🙂 Isn’t it gorgeous? Look at the detailed carving all around it. It all has meaning. I was told that the studs were to keep the elephants out. 😉
For Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge, todays color is ‘desert sand‘. Another color I had to look up online. Here it is for reference.
Here’s my photo. I took it a couple of months ago. I was on an African safari. I spent a few days on Zanzibar. This is a photo of the Old Fort there in Stonetown. It was really a pretty cool place. People had set up little stalls around the walls. They sold all kinds of crafts. Inside was full of shops and bars. There was a big arena too. There were some guys practicing their break dancing, they were pretty entertaining. It was an interesting place to relax and enjoy the atmosphere.
For Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge, todays color is ‘antique brass‘. Another color I had to look up online (I don’t have the large box of crayola crayons to use for a reference). 😉
Here’s my entry. Some of those roots seem to be a pretty good match. Best I could do.
I took this photo a few years ago. I was wandering around Thailand. I always enjoy shopping, just to see what they have that’s different than what we have in our stores. They had a very large selection of ‘natural medicines’. I was interested to see how popular that sort of thing was. Lots of people swear by it. I haven’t really tried enough of it to say one way or the other.
Where the heck do they come up with these names?! Continuing on with Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge, the color for today is “atomic tangerine“.
I really had no idea what color that was, I had to look it up.
And now, let’s see. This is the closest I could come. I’m having a hard time distinguishing the difference between some of these colors, they really look a lot alike, especially when the color is not on a crayon or a color swatch, but on something from the ‘real world’. I took this photo of a neat looking shell at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Still playing along with Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge? It’s never too late to join in. Today’s color is ‘mango tango‘.
Here’s my take on it…
I took it at the Houston Museum of Natural Science a couple of months ago. They have a really nice butterfly exhibit. Not all of them are dead like this one. You can walk around the habitat and sometimes the butterflies will land on you.
I forgot what kind of butterfly this photo is of. They have cards with pictures so you can identify the butterflies around you. The only one I can ever remember is the Owl butterfly. This one is definitely not an Owl. 🙂
Last week went by too fast! It’s time for another email full of interesting maritime info from Monkey Fist and Maritime Monday. This week I really enjoyed the old photos of the Tower Bridge. It brought back good memories of staying nearby in St Katharines yacht harbor. I was able to stay aboard an old sailing barge there for a whole summer after I graduated high school.
This week Monkey Fist shares articles about a couple of books that look interesting. “Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”. Considered the “first original English prose pornography” and banned in Massachusetts, I doubt it gets as explicit as the “Fifty Shades’ series which I just finished reading, but might be worth a peek.
The other one is “Scurvy: the Disease of Discovery”. Of course I knew about scurvy, and not just from the old ‘pirate’ thing, calling everyone a ‘scurvy dog’. I had no idea it killed so many people. More than 3 times as many as died in the Civil War?! I’ll definitely be on the lookout for this book.
Check out the rest of the post…
Old Dragon’s Head: Where the Great Wall of China Meets the Sea Old Dragon …
I’ve been enjoying Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge. Everyone has been coming up with some great posts. I’ve been busy the last couple of days, so skipped out. I’m back today for the color orange.
I was on vacation in Argentina a few years ago. We went out one day to watch the toninos (they also call them pandas of the sea). We passed this fleet of orange fishing boats on the way.
More of the interesting architecture from Singapore. They’ve really fixed up a lot of these old ‘shop houses’ around the Chinatown area. I really enjoyed wandering around down there when we were able to get off the ship and spend some time in port.
I found another blog challenge from Jennifer Nicole Wells, she runs the Color Your World Challenge on her blog. I did a few posts last year. It goes on for 4 months, so I didn’t manage to finish the whole thing, or even to post every day.
Jennifer is running the Color Your World challenge again for 2017. I’ll post when I can. Todays color is ‘vivid tangerine‘. Here’s my take.
I took this photo of the traditional ‘shop houses’ in Singapore a few years ago. Back when I was still working and able to travel. We used to spend a lot of time there. I miss the days we’d spend at the Jurong shipyards. The Seaman’s Center took good care of us. Their people haven’t forgotten the importance of the merchant marine. 🙂
Singapore is a fantastic place to hang out. I loved to take the metro downtown and see Chinatown, Clark Quay, and the Durians. The beer was always cold, the food was hot, cheap and plentiful. The people were friendly. I’d go back anytime. 🙂
I came up with this photo. I took it at the Brazoria County Fair. An amusement park ride. Starship 2000, all ‘spangly’ with flashing and colored lights. 🙂
Here’s to starting out the new year with a bang! I’m participating in the Just Jot It Jan online ‘event’ for 2017. The first prompt (for yesterday, Jan 1) was “spider”.
Call me weird, but I actually like spiders. I think they’re pretty cool, what with all those eyes and legs. I don’t bother them around the house. I like that they eat the nasty bugs.
I do have to say I would probably change my SOP (standard operating procedures) if I had big guys like this one running around! I just don’t like the idea of stepping on something like that in the middle of the night. Uuuuugggghhh.
The picture is of a Goliath Birdeater Tarantula. I took it the last time I was at the Museum of Natural History in Houston. They have a really nice insectarium and a nice butterfly habitat where you can wander around and let them land on you. (The butterflies, not the tarantulas!)
If you want to join in on Just Jot It Jan, check out the links to Linda’s page. Here’s a link to the rules.
Happy New Year everybody! Here’s to hoping 2017 turns out better than 2016. I’m sure glad to be looking at that one in the rear view mirror. Whew, what a hell of a year!
Will start out tomorrow with the traditional black-eyed peas, cabbage, corn bread and sausage with friends. No, I’m not going out to celebrate anywhere tonight. Did better than I did last year and at least managing to stay up til midnight tonight. Only a few minutes away.
What are you all doing to celebrate? Parties? Fireworks? New Years resolutions?
Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great time tonight and a great year coming up! 🙂
I just found a new blog ‘challenge’. It’s from Narami over at her De Monte Y Mar blog. It’s called “Tuesdays of Texture” and it looks interesting so I think I’ll join in (even if I’m a day late). 😉
I’m more of a photographer than a writer, tho I’m trying hard to get better at writing. That was one of the reasons I started my blog. To give me a place to practice and (hopefully) to get some feedback.
Here are a few photos of interesting textures…
Those were just a few plants. Orchid, I don’t know what the 2nd flower is called, ornamental cabbage of some sort, and a daylily. They’re all pretty common and fairly easy to spot around town. All of them have very different textures of both the flower and the rest of the plant.
So much variety, even in just one small subject and location. I thought that was interesting. 😉
I saw this post come up in my Reader from the Daily Post, re: Fishing. I thought I should be able to come up with something. 😉
Here are a couple of photos from my recent trip to Turkey. The people around Istanbul love to go fishing all around the Bosphorus. I went one day to walk across the Galata Bridge, just to see what they were catching.
It was a beautiful day. I walked from my hotel near the Blue Mosque around Topkapi Palace and down to the waterfront. I watched the ferries come and go and the fishermen all along the quay. They were using bread as bait, and seemed to be doing pretty good.
I walked up to the bridge and crossed over on the lower level. It’s full of restaurants, famous for fish and seafood. I try to avoid seafood as much as possible, just because I’ve had to eat it day after day for months on end and never know when I might have to do that again. 😉
The waiters had no idea of my aversion, so they continued to call out. Trying to convince me to step up and try their specialty (looked like pretty much the same at all of them). I probably should have stopped to see what all the fuss was about. I’m sure a few must have wondered why I was hanging around if I didn’t like fish. I don’t like to eat them anymore, but I still do love to catch them (and I like to watch other people catch them too). 😉
On the way back, I crossed on the upper level. Between a gauntlet of fishermen casting their lines and masses of traffic- cars, trucks, busses, and pedestrians- crossing the bridge, it was an interesting experience. I was glad to get back down to land and away from the traffic.
I descended to a plaza, right next to the bridge. It was full of more fishermen lined up along the water and in between dozens of small barges, gaudily decorated in red and gold. All selling ‘belik-ekmek’ (fish sandwiches) and doing a brisk business. Waiters dressed in ‘traditional’ Turkish costume, hustling with trays full of tiny cups full of coffee, tea and shalgam– the weird spicy sour drink thats specially for the fish.
I’m not sure what kind of fish they were catching (or selling), I didn’t actually eat any. Here’s a picture, does anybody know what kind they are?
I saw this post come up in my Reader from the Daily Post, re: Fishing. I thought I should be able to come up with something. 😉
Here are a couple of photos from my recent trip to Zanzibar. The fishing was fantastic there, even if they were using very old fashioned methods (hand lines and setting nets by hand).
I took it my last night on Zanzibar, before I began the hectic process of returning to America and back to ‘real life’. Stress of airports and TSA BS pretty much negated the beautiful peaceful month I spent traveling overseas.
I checked into my new hotel this afternoon. When I walked outside to take a look at the beach, I noticed a column of smoke not too far away. Actually, it was pretty close.
I went to see what was going on. As I got closer, I could see the flames shooting up. Spreading quickly up the thatched roof of a nearby resort.
I went over to see if I could help (as a mariner I’ve been training in firefighting for the last 30+ years).
Like a ‘Chinese fire drill’, but no Chinese around. It was an African fire drill, but not a drill. A real fire, and a big one!
There was a huge crowd milling around, taking photos and selfies. European tourists in bikinis and locals from the nearby village. 🙁
Someone decided to be ‘official’ and ran a bunch of yellow plastic crime scene tape around the area. Best I could tell, the waiters were trying to fight the fire. There were a couple of groups of guys trying to get the fire hoses straightened out.
Dozens of people- locals, Maasai men, workers from the resorts, and a few tourists (including me)- joined in to help fight the fire and keep the flames from spreading.
One hose ran all the way from my resort- at least a half mile- there was no water pressure. The same situation on the other side of the building.
It was a large, mostly open air, building with a palm thatched roof. From the gear scattered around outside, I assumed it was the kitchen/dining room. There were tables and chairs, serving bars, small refrigerators, serving platters and condiment trays.
On my side of the flaming building, there was a small market and massage business. People were moving all the paintings, carvings and tables further away from the fire. On the other side, there were about 2 dozen little thatched palapas between the fire and the next building.
Luckily, the wind was blowing pretty much directly towards the ocean and not to either side. If it had been, it would have been a complete disaster. As it was, they were very, very lucky it wasn’t a lot worse.
By the time I walked from my resort past the one next door to the one where the fire was, the fire had spread from one end of the building to the other. It was not just the thatched roof now, but a raging inferno as the fire consumed all the interior furniture, framework, etc.
Outside was still complete chaos. There was still no water pressure. I kept wondering why didn’t they have a pump set up? They could keep one set up in the little shack there on the beach, keep a couple of hoses nearby and they’d have all the fire-fighting capability they’d ever need with the ocean right there.
I noticed the manager (or the man who seemed most to be in charge) and offered to help. Put some of those decades of experience to use, but he was too agitated to bother with me. I feel sorry for him. He told me they had just had a drill 3 days ago.
I’m not sure what the problem was with the water pressure, they did eventually get the hose to work. In the meantime, I was helping the women in the bucket brigade. We were filling any containers we could find in the swimming pool, passing them through the kitchen, through the palapas, to the men who would throw them onto the fire.
Other men were working on trying to take down the palapas, to keep the sparks from igniting them and spreading the fire to the rest of the resort. A couple of guys got hold of a water hose and were doing what they could with it.
I noticed a fire extinguisher and wondered why no one had thought to put it to use?
All I could think about was what a waste. The lack of training was so obvious, it was sad. These people were doing their best, many were plainly very upset. I noticed tears on the faces of a few of the women. The men were yelling and pointing and extremely agitated. I wish I could speak their language, but I’m limited with just English.
I tried to catch someone who spoke English, to give them a few pointers (since they were not fighting the fire very effectively). I hoped no one would get hurt when they went inside the building (with barely enough water pressure for a garden hose) and no protective equipment. Most of them were in shorts and flip-flops.
There is always the danger of re-flash and yes, the fire did flare up again a few times. A few men kept up throwing buckets of water and sand on the thatch when the women were told to get back to serving lunch (WTF???).
I would offer to do some drills with them while I’m here, but somehow I think they might not appreciate that. I’m sure it would help to just get everyone confident with a fire extinguisher. I’m not sure what started the fire, but since it was in the kitchen/dining room, I assume it started in the kitchen.
Grease fire? Burned the bacon? I’d like to know what really happened. I sure do hope they review this incident and get some ‘lessons learned’. I’m glad no one got hurt, but from watching the whole episode, that had to be pure luck.
PS- I heard today that it did start in the kitchen. They cook over open flames mostly here. The story I got was that the cooking fire somehow caught the gas bottles (in a small room) and then there was an explosion.
I have so many great stories to share from this safari. Tons of great photos too. Too bad the internet is so horrible here and I can’t get anything posted. I can’t even open my mail on yahoo.
I’ve spent the last week on safari in Tanzania with Great Escape Publishing. There were about 20 of us altogether- 16 ‘students’ and 4 teachers- in 4 jeeps (or land rovers).
We started and ended our safari from the African Tulip in Arusha. We had a lucky week. The weather was great, hardly any rain. We saw all of the big 5- even a rhino at the very end (but it was so far away I could hardly see it).
We saw lions, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, hippos, buffalos, gazelles, giraffes, zebras and more. What was really fantastic was seeing so many of the babies. I’ve got some fantastic photos! Not as many as I’d like, but enough that I’m still thrilled. 🙂
Even tho I bought a new lens especially for this trip, it wasn’t really what I needed and so I missed out on a lot of really great shots I could have gotten if I had spent the money for the proper equipment.
I bought a 70-300mm lens with an adapter for my Sony camera. The adapter was manual tho, so it was really hard to get it to focus. Almost all of my shots were blurry when I used that lens. I finally gave up and went back to using my old 70-210 lens where the auto focus worked.
The other problem I had was that my camera does not have an eyepiece to look through. I had to use the screen on the back of the camera and since it was so bright out, I couldn’t really see anything to focus on and just had to guess half the time.
I’m glad I got to make the trip, but it’s a shame I was so concerned about money that I skimped on the camera gear. If I ever get a chance to come back over here, I’ll try to get a better lens. It makes so much of a difference.
This first batch is from Turkey. I spent a couple of weeks between 
I took it my last night on Zanzibar, before I began the hectic process of returning to America and back to ‘real life’. Stress of airports and TSA BS pretty much negated the beautiful peaceful month I spent traveling overseas.
