Category Archives: things to do

Constitution Day: Celebrate it by Learning to Enforce It

Posted on by
Reply

Constitution Day: Celebrate it by Learning to Enforce It | Tenth Amendment Center

Constitution Day, September 17, 2013. Today is the day to celebrate the document which we hold responsible for ‘giving us our freedom’. If I was home, I would probably be trying to have some sort of party with my friends from our local Campaign for Liberty meetup group ( http://www.meetup.com/ronpaul-773/).

I’d like to be able to celebrate, but I find it hard now to find any reasons to celebrate. I feel a wake is more in order…

We have NOTHING left of the 4th amendment. Even before Edward Snowdens’ breaking the news of ‘our’ governments’ all encompassing spy programs, we had to put up with the DEA, TSA, IRS, FBI, etc. “Our” government has not paid the slightest attention to the 4th amendment for decades.

The 5th amendment has been totally trashed since we started using the ridiculous idea that ‘property’ is guilty and so can be stolen without even any charges being filed against the owner of said property. The government has been stealing BILLIONS of dollars worth of cash and real property using the tactic of ‘civil asset forfeiture’ for years-(check out the Institute for Justice on some of these cases www.ij.org). The (illegal, unconstitutional) drug war has done in the 5th amendment.

The 9th and 10th amendments were also victims of the war on (some) drugs. If anyone had ever paid any attention to either of those (9th- rights retained by the people)(10th- rights retained by the states), then there never could have been any drug war to begin with.

The 6th, 7th and 8th amendments were also victims of the war on (some) drugs. Because of the HUGE amount of people being arrested with no real crime committed, the justice system in this country has been completely corrupted and destroyed. Some ‘free’ country we are with more people in prison than anywhere else in the world by far! 🙁

The 2nd amendment is on the way out. With all the restrictions we have already on a RIGHT that “shall not be infringed”, it’s getting to be almost impossible for a law abiding citizen to “keep and bear arms”. The media works the public into a frenzy every time some nut job gets a hold of a gun and goes on a rampage. Hey, why not try to stop the crazies and not the rest of us??? Why not let the rest of us take out said nut job if he does manage to get hold of a gun??? These guys aren’t crazy enough to try their shit anyplace they might run into ARMED citizens! Who the hell said we have to get a permit to exercise a RIGHT??? A right NEVER needs any kind of permit in order to exercise it! Period!

When I get going on this stuff people always bring up the 1st amendment. Yeah, OK, we still have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Yeah, I guess as long as you’re not a Rastafarian, or a Mormon, or OMG a Satanist!!! 😉 Of course the religious right says their rights are being infringed on too (by the atheists)- yep, that’s what they say. So, the freedom of religion is being eroded pretty badly too. You can still speak freely, except at work, or on a college campus, or unless you want to criticize the TSA for their bullshit NAZI tactics in the airport. It’s NOT freedom if you have to censor yourself!  

Almost forgot about the 1st amendments guarantee of freedom of the press. Yeah, that mention of censorship reminded me. Freedom of the press, yeah right- they’re now all owned by the same big corporations and do NOT work in any way for our freedom. Sure, you have freedom of the press- if you have enough money to buy a major newspaper or TV station. Sure, that’s real freedom for the people. 

So out of the first 10 amendments- our Bill of RIGHTS (which were NOT given to us by anyone- including any government!)- we can honestly say we have ONE left (the 3rd). I’m not aware of any soldiers being quartered in anyones’ houses (yet). One out of 10!

One out of 10??!! And no one seems to care. 🙁 I agree with the linked article, we need to do all we can right now, before it goes any further, and put a stop to this constant violation of our rights.

It is not going to happen in the ballot box (yes, if you can vote for a libertarian, then do- the rest of them aren’t worth the bother!). I hope it doesn’t have to happen through the cartridge box! Who wants that to happen??? We would be outgunned in a NY minute! We need to EDUCATE, we need to individually stand up and do whatever we can. NULLIFY!

I want the government people to get the hell out of my life, and yours.  And the only way that’s going to happen is if we work together to nullify all of them into oblivion….Murry Rothbard

With this post, I feel like I’ve done what I can to help today. Make an effort… check out a couple of websites for groups that support the ideals of the Constitution. Here are a few to get started…

www.theadvocates.org The Advocates for Self Government

www.downsizedc.org Downsize DC

www.ij.org Institute for Justice

www.isil.org International Society for Individual Liberty

www.lp.org Libertarian Party

 

Maritime Monday for September 16th, 2013: Movies About Sailors, Part III

Posted on by
Reply

Maritime Monday for September 16th, 2013: Movies About Sailors, Part III; Man the Laff Boats! | gCaptain

Here’s part III in Monkey Fists’ series for gcaptain on movies about sailors. This one looks especially good cause there are so many comedies. I LOVE comedies! Especially ‘stupid’ funny, like the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, “I Love Lucy”, etc.

There are a couple of movies by Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy, and even a little history on Popeye at the end. Its not all about the comedy tho, there are some pretty interesting other films in this one too. Try “John Paul Jones” starring Robert Stack, “The Lady from Shanghai” starring Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, “The Last Detail” with Jack Nicholson.

It looks like a lot of really good choices this week. Good way to spend a rainy day, Maritime Monday Movies. 😉

Our Fossil-Fueled Future – Environment

Posted on by
Reply

Our Fossil-Fueled Future – Environment – Utne Reader.

Love the picture they start this off with. Right off the bat they make out Exxon as the cause of all the worlds suffering. Yeah, riiiighht…

OK, for the record, I do NOT think we need to stop using fossil fuels! I do NOT think we need to stop the rest of the world from developing up to first world standards. In fact, I think that will be one thing that could help solve everything.

OK, I bet some people are pretty skeptical…

First point: rising incomes = lower birth rate. Lower birth rate + rising incomes = more resources to give a shit about something other than bare survival. So, the first thing we should do if we want to ‘save the planet’ is to help everyone in the world move up the economic ladder asap.

Second point: all of this increase in productivity and rising incomes (time/effort/money spent on other things than energy) depends on CHEAP energy. At this point in time, alternative energy (sources other than fossils) are NOT cheap. They are not anywhere near as efficient and they are not practical (yet). (I DO agree with technology like solar ovens replacing wood burning stoves- that is a GREAT use of solar power in the developing world and a great example of how solar will be able to help)

Third point: they talk about how the entrenched energy companies (meaning fossil fuel companies) earn “staggering profits”, which makes them somehow evil and so they should be either nationalized (BAD idea) or have their ‘profits’ stolen “for the better good” (another really bad idea).

First of all, they don’t make anything like what I would call staggering profits. They only sound like that because of the way they are reported. Which is intentionally to make you feel like something is wrong with it. They are manipulating you to make you want to punish those ‘evil’ corporations. Please read this article to get a more balanced perspective… http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/10/20/big-oil-isnt-as-profitable-as-everyone-thinks/

And to end my review of this article, I would like to point out my personal favorite way to ‘save the world’ with the least pain and anguish for everyone (and everyTHING) on the planet… start using BIRTH CONTROL!!!

If you really think about it, almost every problem you can come up with is minimized if you cut down the amount of people running around the planet. Global warming for instance. If you say that global warming is caused by the actions of people, then it could easily be solved by reducing the amount of people acting. Right?

YES! So, wouldn’t it be better to just use some birth control rather than kill off the people that are already here (through starvation, disease, war, pollution)???

China has done the world a great service with their one child policy (the only problem is their use of force instead of persuasion). If everyone around the world would think about this and resolve to just have one child voluntarily, it would solve a LOT of our problems. War, hunger, pollution, would all be just about eliminated, or at least minimized to the greatest possible extent.

Yes, it would take a while. But in the same time period they’re talking about 2040, we could make a huge, lasting impact, especially if people really came to value the rest of the planet instead of only humanity.

Personally, I would LOVE to see the use of non-polluting alternative energy sources grow to overtake the use of fossil fuels. I DO value this beautiful earth and all the other creatures living here with us.

I would be happy to use wind, solar, ocean current, fuel cell, or anything else that can match fossil fuels in price and efficiency. I am hoping they will come up with new technology that will allow me to make that choice sometime soon. So far, that day has not come. I’m doing what I can see as feasible in the meantime. No, I’m not going to be a martyr.

 

Are Weeds Healthier Than Farmed Veggies?

Posted on by
Reply

Are Weeds Healthier Than Farmed Veggies? | Mother Jones.

My guess would be yes. 🙂

We’ve had an expert on edible plants come out to lead our Campaign for Liberty meetup group on an expedition to hunt down local ‘weeds’. I’ve managed to miss it both times so far. I’d really like to know more about this and hoping I’ll be home the next time he can come to see us. We’re trying to get more involved with natural, organic, non-GMO foods.

I can’t manage a garden very well when I’m offshore most of the time. I’m pretty sure I could manage to grow weeds. In fact, I have a yard full of them already. I just need to know if any of them are good for eating. 😉

Lecture Series | Mariners’ Museum

Posted on by
Reply

Lecture Series | Mariners’ Museum.

I only just found out about this lecture series when I read the link on my earlier post on The Project. It will be part of this Lecture Series. It sounds like a pretty cool thing to do if you’re in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

Each lecture has a presentation by the author and a Q & A session afterwards. They have them almost monthly and they pick some good ones. The Project about pirates sounds great. They have one on sea monsters coming up Oct 10 that sounds good too.  🙂

Check the link for more information. The website for the museum is www.marinersmuseum.org . Its FREE! 🙂

The Project: Award Winning Documentary on Somali Pirates

Posted on by
Reply

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Emmywinning-Filmmaker-Screens-Documentary-on-Somalian-Pirate-Hunters-2013-09-11/

Here’s a new movie coming out that looks pretty interesting. Called ‘The Project’, and directed by Emmy-award winners Shawn Efran and Adam Ciralsky. Hopefully it will bring some attention to a serious issue the worlds seafarers have to deal with.

If you happen to live in the Hampton Roads area (VA), it’s going to be shown for FREE. At the Mariners Museum (www.marinersmuseum.org). Thursday, Sept 19, 7:00 pm, followed by a Q & A session.

If I was home, I would definitely like to go see this. Pirates are a serious issue to all mariners. We may or may not know where we’re going. We’re not allowed to have any sort of protection against these thugs. Our companies expect us to run and hide in a ‘citadel’ onboard til the pirates decide to just leave. Yeah, riiiight, that works SO well…

There are thousands of seafarers injured and traumatized for life because of this. It seems it’s only when an American vessel gets attacked that there is even any publicity.

Pirate attacks happen almost daily on both the East and West Coasts of Africa. There are also attacks in the Malacca Straits, in the South China Sea, all over India and Pakistan, and yes, they still have pirates in the Caribbean  🙁

Too bad they’re not really at all like Johnny Depp.

Daily Prompt: Toy Story- Sea Snark

Posted on by
Reply

Daily Prompt:Toy Story- What was your favorite plaything as a child? Do you see any connection between your life now, and your favorite childhood toy?

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/daily-prompt-memento/

I’m not sure if my sea snark qualifies as a toy but playing with it (sailing) was my favorite thing to do while I was growing up (other than reading).

I used to take my little sailboat our almost every day, usually after school. Sometimes, I would even sail it TO school 🙂

Made out of Styrofoam, it was indestructible. Unlike the Titanic, it was actually unsinkable 🙂 We DID test that quite regularly 😉

I had SO much fun with that little boat. 🙂 I would go by myself. I would take out my friends. My brother would run circles around me with his outboard powered dingy, but I didn’t care. I always loved just sailing. Letting the wind drive me where I wanted to go. It was so engaging, so peaceful, so enjoyable. I STILL love sailing and go out every chance I can.

As a kid, I never would have imagined that I would wind up ‘sailing’ for a living (that’s what we call shipping out- ‘sailing’). I was on track to be a doctor back then. My grandparents were both pharmacists. My fathers mother was one of the first female pharmacists in the state of NY 🙂 (I definitely take after her) 😉 I made straight A’s in school and I did love studying all my subjects in class, especially math and science.

What happened was: I got sick and tired of taking the same classes over and over again in school. For example, I had been taking algebra since at least 5th grade. I always made straight A’s. I just couldn’t see the point of taking it AGAIN in 9th grade.

So, I started skipping those classes that I’d already taken. I was still making good grades. I could still keep up with the work. After all, I HAD already taken those classes (more than once). I’ll never understand why parents put up with the school systems dumbing down their kids so much!

Eventually, my family got tired of hearing about my transgressions from the school district. My grandmother decided I needed to go to a boarding school, to keep me from skipping 😉 Well, I give her credit. She tried. She really did.

Along with my Aunt Helen, my grandmother and I went on a road trip from Freeport NY, up through Niagara Falls (loved the Maid of the Mist) into Canada. We came back down through the Detroit area (went to a concert there- grandma wore earplugs 🙂 ). Visited family friends near Chicago. Stopped at a dozen fancy schools before we made it back to NY.

I have to admit, I was a total BITCH the entire trip. I didn’t want to go to any fancy-schmantzy rich kid boarding school! I would never fit in. I liked my life the way it was. I loved my town where I grew up and I could spend my days hanging out with my friends on the beach. Sailing, swimming, fishing, even sometimes jumping off the bridge to let the current carry me out to the Gulf so I could swim back in 😉

Yeah, I was also hanging out at the amusement parlor and the pool halls, sometimes the bars 😉 I was drinking and other things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

It was really a lucky stroke of fate what happened when my grandmother got me back to her place in Freeport. She was so fed up with me after that search for an acceptable school for both me and her, she took me to the library and threw the book at me. Literally! She told me that it was a book listing ALL the accredited schools in the country and if I could find one in there that I liked, I could go there.

The book landed on a table in front of me. Opened to a page with a picture of a square-rigged ship in full sail. I was hooked! I grabbed that book and started reading that thing like my life depended on it (turned out it really did in a way).

The book gave details: the Oceanics School (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19720827&id=nN1VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5eADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6581,6541976). Based in New York City, the school would charter these large traditional sailing ships for months long cruises with their students aboard. The ship sailed around the world and the students learned to operate the ship. They held classes on navigation, seamanship, oceanography, cultural studies and languages of all the countries the ship visited.

I was so excited. I told my grandmother “that’s it!”. That’s the one I want to go to!! She was aghast!! She told me “no way”. “No way are you going to ruin your life with those damn boats like your father did!!” Up til he bought his dream boat, the “Island Girl”, my father was an engineer. A ‘respectable’ professional career man. My grandmother would never forgive the Island Girl for my fathers decision to quit the corporate world.

When I got home and told my dad about the Oceanics school, he was almost as happy about it as I was. He said “you’re going”, and “while we’re at it, we’ll send your brother too”! “You can’t skip school when you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean” 😉 So, soon enough my brother and I were off to sail around the world. We had some absolutely fantastic adventures sailing the 3- masted schooner Ariadne from Athens to Martinique!

That trip changed my life. I returned without my brother to sail the Ariadne again from Martinique back across the Atlantic. I had some incredible experiences with some wonderful people. It DID change my life.

I will be forever grateful to the Gallaghers (especially Stephanie) who took a chance on me and then helped me SO much. Even after I graduated from the Oceanics, Stephanie was instrumental in getting me set up in the Ocean Marine Technology program in Texas that got me started on the way to earning my license.

Because of the chance to go to the Oceanics, I am STILL sailing. Almost 35 years later.  🙂 I recently upgraded to Master Any Gross Tons and can sail pretty much any ship on the ocean. I still love the traditional sailing ships best but there just aren’t enough of them around to make a living on. Too bad 🙁

So, yeah, you could say my favorite plaything when I was young is still my favorite plaything now. 🙂

Here are a couple of great links. The first one is by Tim Harris of the ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl which he sailed on as a cadet with the Oceanics in the early 70s. The next one is of the same ship in a storm. The last is a link to the ship itself, in case you’re interested in sailing her 😉

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iokDVlHybtE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_YWgRBmVtY

www.lehmkuhl.no

Chinese cockroach farmers are making a bundle selling pulverized bugs for $89 per lb.

Posted on by
Reply

Chinese cockroach farmers are making a bundle selling pulverized bugs for $89 per lb. – Quartz.

OK, I have to admit, I REALLY don’t like cockroaches. Especially these big ones. Or the ones we get down South near the water where I live. We call ’em Palmetto bugs. I’ll never forget the night I was just falling asleep. It was a hot muggy night (so no covers) and one of those huge suckers flew across the room and started crawling up my leg. I must have woken up half the block with my screams!

So, the idea of people actually FARMING these things just gives me the creeps. Maybe its just me? The Chinese people seem to think there’s some real good medicine in these things. I just remembered this exhibit I saw at the Chinatown Heritage Center in Singapore last year.

Sign at the Chinatown Heritage Center, Singapore

Sign at the Chinatown Heritage Center, Singapore

I guess if you grind it up and add enough other stuff to it, you might not even notice it going down? I do try and taste different foods when I’m off traveling, but so far, the only bugs I’ve managed to try were some ants -chocolate covered- that helps 😉 – and some kind of grub they had at the ‘tasting kitchen’ at the New Orleans Insectarium (http://www.auduboninstitute.org/visit/insectarium). Those tasted almost exactly like that Honey Nut Crunch cereal. They did have other flavors, but I was OK with just trying that one 🙂

Tasting room at the Insectarium in New Orleans

Tasting room at the Insectarium in New Orleans

Trying out some of the taste 'treats' at the New Orleans Insectarium

Trying out some of the taste ‘treats’ at the New Orleans Insectarium

I do see plenty of people in Thailand and Indonesia snacking on grasshoppers, water beetles, grubs, etc at the bars I go to. I always figured they must just be drunk. I never managed to work up the nerve to try any of those larger samples. Maybe next time…

Learn how to prepare your pests for tasty treats!

Learn how to prepare your pests for tasty treats!

Or maybe not. I did read something recently where the scientists were recommending that we should ALL start eating insects. It would go a long way towards helping to feed all the starving people around the planet. Yeah, they are a great source of protein. Yeah, they cost a lot less to produce, they don’t cause as much damage as cattle, they’re easy to raise… yada, yada, yada. Personally, I would prefer people start using birth control before we’re all reduced to eating bugs for breakfast 😉

Maritime Monday for September 9th, 2013

Posted on by
Reply

Maritime Monday for September 9th, 2013: Movies About Sailors Part II; Shape Ahoy! | gCaptain

Maritime Monday- movies about sailors part II. Thanks to gCaptain and MonkeyFist for putting all this together every week. There are lots of good old movies in the mix here. Pretty entertaining…

Corals

Posted on by
Reply

Corals

Corals

Posted on by
Reply

Sea Urchin

Posted on by
Reply

sea urchin

Beautiful Spiral Shell

Posted on by
Reply
beautiful shells at the Boston Museum of Science

beautiful shells at the Boston Museum of Science

Monterey Bay Megapod – Humpbacks, Dolphins, & Sea Lions, Oh My!

Posted on by
Reply

Monterey Bay Megapod – Humpbacks, Dolphins, & Sea Lions, Oh My! | Old Salt Blog – a virtual port of call for all those who love the sea.

I just got this in this morning from the old salts blog. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves ships and the sea. It’s at www.oldsaltblog.com. I subscribe to it and they send me emails with what they’ve recently published, (just like if you sign up to follow ME 🙂  –  hint, hint). There’s a link in the article to the Monterey Bay Whale Watch website. There are lots of interesting photos and videos there. I’d love to take a trip out there and go see all those whales and dolphins. I love to see all those beautiful sea creatures :-).

I’ve seen plenty of dolphins up close and I always love it when I do get to see them. They always seem so happy and carefree. They love to play in the bow wave of the ships. But I’ve only seen whales a few times in all my years at sea and never up close while I’ve been working.

The only time I’ve been on a trip specifically to see whales/dolphins was down in Argentina a couple of years ago. My gravatar is a picture of some dolphins I took on that trip. We (me and my friend B. who is also a chief mate- probably master by now) went out in those little zodiacs to hunt down some dolphins, locally they call them toninas or “pandas of the sea”. Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) is the more common name for them. It was really great! Hard as heck to get any decent pictures cause those dolphins were fast as all hell! Plus the boat was very crowded. Here’s a closer look at some…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ja8ZSY-_n4E

We also took a trip out to the Valdes Peninsula to watch the whales. Humpback whales. They gather there to give birth and fatten up before heading off for distant waters. That was a great trip too. You walk down the broad, brown beach to climb aboard the boats they have pulled up in trailers for the night. They push you down the beach into the water and you’re off. Here’s a picture of us getting ready to go.

On the beach getting ready for a wild whale watching ride

On the beach getting ready for a wild whale watching ride

There were a lot of whales around so we found a few different ones to get up close to. A couple of them had babies with them. It was really wonderful to watch the babies. They were so cute 🙂 Even tho they were just about as big as the boat we were on. Here’s a picture of the mother and baby…

mother whale with baby

Wooden boat festival – WorkBoat.com

Posted on by
Reply

Sound Waves – Wooden boat festival – WorkBoat.com.

I would REALLY love to go to this festival! I love wooden boats. I love Washington State, its SO beautiful up there. It seems like every year I’m working and can’t get off anywhere close to the dates they’re having the festival. 🙁

Hopefully I’ll make it one of these days. If you like boats, you really should try to make it. (I know its late 🙁 )

A REAL lion!

Posted on by
Reply
A real lion (at the Houston zoo)

A real lion (at the Houston zoo)

Here’s a photo I took at the Houston zoo, which unlike the Chinese zoo mentioned in my earlier post today, does NOT try to trick people into thinking a DOG is really a lion! Just compare the photos, would you think that dog was a lion? look anything like these guys???

Another (real) lion at the Houston zoo

Another (real) lion at the Houston zoo

 

 

 

 

Find Your Fans and Grow Your Readership: Introducing Blog Event Listings!

Posted on by
Reply

I love this idea. I hope one of these days I can figure out how to do this on my own blog

Free Stuff!!

Posted on by
Reply

Museum Day Live! 2013 Registration.

This is a link to the Smithsonians’ Museum Day. Saturday 9/28. It’ll give you and a guest FREE admission to a museum you choose. Its not only the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.. There are links to museums all over the country. You can search by subject or by location.

In Houston, you can choose among the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, Dunham Bible Museum, Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Lawndale Art Center, and a favorite of mine in Galveston the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum. There is the tall ship Elissa right there too, if you do happen to hit the Ocean Star Museum, you can make it a maritime day and enjoy lunch on the waterfront watching the cruise ships dock.

RIGZONE – Career Spotlight: Petroleum Engineers

Posted on by
Reply

RIGZONE – Career Spotlight: Petroleum Engineers.

If I had really thought about it, I would have gone into something like this instead of Chemical Engineering when I went back to school. I only did Chemical cause I live in Lake Jackson, Texas, near Houston. The whole area is a huge center of chemical plants, Dow, BASF, Shintech, etc. I figured I would always be able to get a good job. I only went back to school to make my grandmother happy. I already had a good career (and an AAS degree) and figured if I went back to school it better be for something that would pay the bills better than what I was doing already (working offshore as captain of supply boats, etc). I didn’t really understand what exactly Chemical Engineers did 🙁

I wound up getting a degree in Math, just so I could get out of school and back to work doing something I still really loved (offshore running boats). Petroleum Engineers work offshore a lot and it seems I probably could have found work as a reservoir engineer if I had really tried hard using the math degree. I wasn’t really all that interested in it tho. I was much more interested in getting back out on a boat 😉 I did manage to do that pretty quickly after I got my degree. I’d been working throughout school, summers, holidays,etc so it wasn’t really an issue.

Now that the oilfield is booming again, they need these Petroleum Engineers, along with geologists, etc. I had 2 lady geologists out on my rig last hitch and at least one ‘mud engineer’. The real demand is for subsea engineers. Maybe Rigzone will post an article about that soon. That seems to be pretty interesting. Actually, all of it is interesting, its just a little bit different angles of attacking the problem. Finding out whats down there, how to get at it, how to put it to use…

Celebrate Texas Navy Day- Surfside Beach Texas

Posted on by
Reply

Celebration | Fort Velasco.

Bet you didn’t know Texas has a Navy 😉

Celebrate Texas Navy Day at Surfside Beach Texas, Sept 21, 2013.

Click the link for more information.

LoneStarCon 3 – 71st Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas

Posted on by
Reply

LoneStarCon 3 – 71st Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas.

Jeeze, sorry I’m so late on this one. I got the news in an email from the Advocates for Self Government but I didn’t really get around to reading it til this morning. If anyone is in San Antonio, they can probably still get there in time to check it out in person.

If I wasn’t getting ready to go back to work already, I would LOVE to go to this event. I love reading, especially science fiction! I’ve never been to anything like this but I bet it would be loads of fun. Film festival, exhibits, Hugo award ceremony, astronaut to meet, etc…  Its also being covered online so if you can’t make it to San Antonio, you can still see what’s going on.

Falado of Rhodes Sunk Yesterday in the Vicinity of Iceland

Posted on by
Reply

Iceland Review Online: Daily News from Iceland, Current Affairs, Business, Politics, Sports, Culture.

I found this on a discussion in the traditional sail professionals group on www.linkedin.com.  I am sad to see yet another tall ship go down. I love these old ships and I’m sorry to see the level of seamanship is nowhere near the traditional skill levels.

I was lucky enough to start out under sail-training with Captain Jespersen of Denmark who was a real traditional sailor. He was sail-training master of the Danish ship Danmark. He was a fantastic teacher. I’ll never forget the time I was sailing on the Ariadne (3- masted schooner- German flag) and the Phoenix (brigantine- Irish flag) as a student with the Oceanics School. I spent a total of about 8 months on those ships and those lessons have sunk into my bones. The lessons I learned then have come in handy many times over the years. Traditional sail takes a long time under “mentors” (or a good bosun!) to learn it properly. I don’t see people getting trained in any useful way today.

Yeah, the companies I work for send you to USCG/IMO (STCW) required BST (Basic Safety Training) now. You MUST go to this class now before you can go to sea on anything other than inland or under 100 GT. IMHO, that class is a total joke. They send you there and then you’re on your own. After all, you’ve been “trained” now. You already know everything you need to know. Yeah, riiiighht.

Hugs & CookiesXOXO: MILKYWAY BROWNIES….4 LAYERS OF YUM!

Posted on by
Reply

Hugs & CookiesXOXO: MILKYWAY BROWNIES….4 LAYERS OF YUM!.

Someone posted this on my facebook page tonight. I haven’t had time to try them but the pictures make them look fantastic. Someone make them and let me know if they taste as good as they look 😉

Owl Shit :-)

Image

Reply

WOW Conference coming up!

Posted on by
Reply

I wanted to get this out there in case anyone was interested and planning to go this year. WOW = Women on the Water. I haven’t had time to check into it much myself yet. At the moment it looks like I’ll be off and so will plan to go. Its going to be Oct 31-Nov 2 at SUNY (Bronx, NY). Here’s the link to the website. Its www.sunymaritime.edu/wow

If anyone is interested in going, be sure to contact me. We can be sure to get together at the conference. I went to the one at Texas A & M in Galveston a couple of years ago and had a blast! Come on, a couple hundred SEAFARING women??? You know we had a great time 🙂

PS- men ARE welcome too

World’s Smallest Political Quiz

Featured

Posted on by
44

World’s Smallest Political Quiz.

Try the quiz and see where you wind up, you might be surprised!

Worlds Smallest Political Quiz

Worlds Smallest Political Quiz