One of these days I’d really like to try this!
These ships all look fairly new, I kept wondering why the hell they’re being scrapped. Seems like a huge waste to me. 🙁
They didn’t say it in the video, but I bet this was filmed in Alang.
Is this STILL not enough yet? WTF is it going to take for people to wake the hell up and put a STOP to this shit!?
It’s too bad more people don’t understand. This is worth taking a look at.
After 2 LONG days of traveling, I made it home! Ahhhhh. I can finally sleep.
I did that yesterday. I got home. I passed out. I slept for 12 hours straight. 🙂
Last night I stayed up too late, so I only slept about 8 hours. Today is the big St Patricks’ Day Parade down at the beach and I don’t want to miss it.
The weather here has been rainy for the last 2 weeks, but this morning it looks gorgeous. A beautiful day for the beach. 🙂
Last year it was raining, but the parade went on anyway. This year looks like it will turn out much better. If anyone wants to come, the parade starts at 1300 (1 pm). 🙂
I’ll be taking lots of pictures. Here are a few from last year…
Spring is coming! I’m looking forward to seeing the flowers in bloom while I’m at home this time. My garden is not the greatest, I don’t have many flowers (except on the weeds). I can’t really take care of it when I’m gone so much. But I do enjoy messing around out there in the yard, especially this time of year when the weather can be just gorgeous. 🙂
Here’re a few (googled) pictures of what Texas looks like in the Spring. People like to go leaf-peeping up north in the Fall. We like to go checking out the bluebonnets in the Spring down here. 🙂
Thanks to Ladybird Johnson for her efforts to promote Texas wildflowers. We’re all able to enjoy the beautiful scenery even more now. 🙂
I might be fired from my job because of the low price of oil, but at least the gas is cheap enough again now to go drive around looking for the best show in the fields. Maybe bring a couple of friends and have a picnic. It’s a great way to spend the day.
Here’s an entry for the Word A Week Challenge from Sue over on her A Word in Your Ear Blog . The word of the week is: intricate. I had these pictures on my blog already, I think they are a nice example of ‘intricate’. I had already done a post about these very intricate designs made from sea shells. They call them Sailors Valentines. 🙂
I decided to join in on Jasons’ challenge over at the Opinionated Mans blog. He’s collecting a pretty cool collection of posts from people all over the world. Everyone is posting about where they’re from and what it’s like there. I’ve really enjoyed hearing from everyone.
I really have 2 totally different places I could call home. I live in a small town in Texas, but I actually spend more time out here at work than I do there. So, this is really more my home, out here (at sea).
For at least half the year, I live onboard something like this ship I’m on right now. It’s about 228m long and 42m wide. We usually have between 165-180 people onboard (almost all men). There’s not a lot of space on these ships for living quarters, so almost everyone shares a room. I am lucky to only share with one other person. We are on opposite watch so we’re never in the room at the same time. Some people have 4 to a room and also share heads (bathrooms). I am also lucky to have a private bathroom in my cabin. 🙂
It’s small, but comfortable enough for only a month at a time. Most people are regular on board here and they can bring things from home to fix things up a little bit. I’m still in the resource pool, so I can’t bring much with me. I’m just happy that they have a catering crew here that keeps the room clean and does the laundry. That saves a lot of time. They also take care of all meals. 🙂
I can really only give a very basic description of what it’s like out here, since every ship is different in some ways and the same in others. I’ve been on this one now a couple of times since July. We’ve been working offshore Angola, about 85 miles W of the Congo River. I’m working here as DPO (Dynamic Positioning Operator). My typical day out here (this hitch) goes like this…
Wake up at 22:30. Take a shower. Get dressed. TRY to get online to check email (internet access is very iffy out here). If that doesn’t work, fiddle with my photos in Lightroom on the computer. Head up to the bridge by 23:30 for watch.
Take the elevator up 2 decks to E deck, walk up another flight to the bridge. Get a cup of coffee and chat with my relief before starting to go over the checklist. Go through the checklist. Call everyone for communication checks (engine room, drill floor, standby boats). Then stand my watch for 12 hours on the bridge with a half hour break for ‘lunch’ at 06:30. Since I work from midnight to noon, this meal is actually breakfast that is being served. We have eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, ham & cheeses, fruits, and something usually left over from last night so that people who’ve been up all night can have a different choice.
I work until noon on the ships bridge, looking out for traffic and monitoring the DP system while the drillers are doing their thing. We’ve been working in shallow water lately, so things are more stressful than usual. The difference for us is; we don’t have very much time to react if things start going wrong.
When watch is over, I walk down the 3 flights of stairs to my cabin (or 5 down to the galley for lunch). Then I try to check my email and work on the computer for an hour or 2 before bed. If I really get motivated, and the weather’s nice, I might go walk around the helideck for a while. I TRY to get to sleep by 1500 but I usually run late. I never manage to get enough sleep out here. 🙁
There’s not usually much to look at here. We might have a supply boat alongside to watch. We can see the flares of the FPSOs (Floating Production Storage Offloading) a few miles away (they’re very bright at night). That’s about it at this location, but sometimes it can be really awesome at sea. Just to see the wild ocean in all its many moods. Or the night sky in all its’ glory, with no lights for hundreds of miles to interfere with your vision. Or schools of hundreds of dolphins keeping you company as you steam along. Those are some of the reasons I love it out here at sea. 🙂
Maersk Finder, Offshore Supply Vessel (OSV)
So, the entire month I’m here, it’s basically: eat, sleep and work. Nothing else to do out here but look forward to getting off and going home. 🙂
I only have 5 more days til I’m due off. Or, as we say out here, 4 more and a wake up! It’s always good when you get to the single digits. 🙂
This is just terrible news. I have opposed any sort of ‘tracking’ of people for decades. We are NOT property! We do NOT owe it to ANYBODY to report our status or whereabouts to ANYBODY for ANY REASON! Please do what you can to stop this, it you’re in Texas or know anyone who is, SHARE IT!
good music. I’ve been a fan of Gillian Welch for a few years now, she deserves more attention. 🙂
worth a read, at least take a look at the other side of the argument…
Definitely worth watching. You might even learn something. I really wish more people would stop paying attention to the ‘news’ and the ‘official story’. It’s all just BS.
What’s your ideal Saturday morning? Are you doing those things this morning? Why not?
That was the latest prompt from the Daily Post I thought I could work with. I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. 🙂
My ideal Saturday morning would probably consist of sleeping late (rolling over and going back to sleep the 1st time I wake up and taking at least 2-3 hours more time to get a GOOD nights rest).
Once I got in enough sleep, I’d like to wake up to savor a delicious breakfast. One I could take my time over while reading a good book. Preferably something somebody else cooked for me. I can picture some ricotta stuffed pancakes I recently saw in Woman’s Day magazine (they look fantastic, but waaaay too much trouble for me to actually try to cook). Or maybe I would just have some Eggs Benedict, I really do love that sauce. 🙂
After a long leisurely breakfast/brunch, possibly with a mimosa or simple spiked orange juice, I might decide to work on some of my projects: writing, photography, blogging, painting, etc. If the weather’s nice, I’ll take my daily walk around the neighborhood. I might go out and play around in the yard, try to get the garden going again (because I’m gone so much, I don’t have much luck with it).
Yep, that sounds like a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning to me. 🙂
Am I doing them this morning? Nope (it’s already Sunday and we had drills this morning). I’m at work and will be here for at least another week and a half. Best I can manage out here is to relax over a cup of tea and a smoke. I’ll have to put off my ‘me time’ til after I get back home. Something to look forward to. 🙂
How about you? What is your perfect Saturday morning like? And do you ever get to enjoy one? 🙂
We’ve been very busy out here on the rig since I got here. We’ve already done 2 wells and should be finished up and ready to move off this one by tomorrow night. Whew!
The next one should take at least a week, maybe 2. So maybe we won’t have to move again before I’m due off. 🙂
I REALLY don’t like this shallow water drilling!
We are working here on a ‘deepwater drillship’. It’s optimized for working in DEEP water (more than the 500m we’ve been working in lately)! Here’s one of ours, I was working on it a couple of hitches ago.
They’re nice ships, but much better to work the kinds of jobs they’re intended for.
Excellent post! I totally agree, we pay way too much attention to what someone looks like. The appearance they present to the world. We ought to pay more attention to who that person really is, I’m sure we would see something different that we expect much of the time.
I haven’t been able to post on here much lately since I’ve been pretty busy for the last week or so. I left home last Monday and spent 2 days traveling to the rig. I got here on Wednesday the 11th and was lucky enough to be assigned to the midnight to noon watch (so I got to go to sleep pretty soon after arrival onboard).
I was just starting to get settled in, then we had drills Sunday and unlatched the BOP on Monday. We moved right over to our next well and stabbed in later that day. We should only be on this one a couple more days and then move on to the next one. So it looks like this hitch will be pretty much like the last one. Constantly busy with setting up, maintenance, moving around, rip tides to watch out for, etc. Not much time for taking care of other business.
I got news right before I left home that the plumbers will be asking around $3000(!!!) to repair the sewer issues at one of my properties. We had been trying to find a way to do it ourselves since it mostly consists of digging a hole.
I even went to talk to the city code enforcement officer about doing the job myself. He told me I could only do the job if it was my homestead and I would have to show him proof that I lived in that house. Owning it was not enough (WHY NOT???).
Since my drivers license did not have that address on it, I was SOOL (shit out of luck)!
He would allow me to dig the hole myself, which we had hoped to be able to do. Since that was by FAR the main part of the job, that would save us a hell of a lot of money. So, for the next couple of weeks at home I was trying to help find a LICENSED plumber who would be willing to do a little moonlighting. Let us dig the hole and he could just come at the end to supervise. All he had to do was be there to connect the pipes back together.
In the end, we could not find any one like that (I guess the plumbers union must be pretty strong). They all insisted that THEY must do the ENTIRE job.
So, I will have to spend an EXTRA $2500 (and up), for licensed plumbers to dig a hole (at $100 per hour and up)!
WOW! What a friggin’ RACKET these guys have going! BS your way into getting the government to FORCE people to hire you, even for jobs they’re perfectly capable of doing themselves! WOW!!
Does anybody else have a problem with this situation?
I mean, WHY the HELL should ANYONE be able to dictate what you can do on YOUR OWN PROPERTY??????
The principle of ownership implies USE of something. If you can’t use your property, the way YOU want, then you do NOT own it! Yet, you still have to pay for it, and you have to KEEP ON paying for it. Even after you have paid the full price (many times over if you financed it).
Property taxes, they mean that you NEVER really can own a piece of property.
The way I look at it is: if you want to dictate to me what I can or can’t do on what is supposedly MY property, then YOU can PAY for it, since you get to use it for what you want and I don’t get to use it for what I BOUGHT IT FOR!
Too bad there are so many busy bodies that just can’t control themselves. Our entire society has pandered to them for much too long (they should have been laughed out of town the first time they mentioned the subject!). Now, they even imagine that they are in the right (they are NOT). But there’s no fighting them anymore.
Oh wait, there IS one group that is having some success in fighting this sickening trend. The Institute for Justice does help people fight for their property rights (among other things). They’ve been doing an excellent job and I am happy to support them as much as I can (wish I could do more- so many people need their help).
We’re all between a rock and a hard place. Either you pay rent forever so you can never escape the rat race (and put up with even MORE restrictions on what you can do in your HOME), or you buy property so you can earn some income, but yet you are more and more restricted every year.
So, the figures you based your decision to buy an investment on are devalued every year until you wind up even worse than you would have been if you never even tried.
It’s absolutely shameful what we have allowed to happen in the USA. We used to have a free country (or at least one we could say was more free than anywhere else). Now, we are SO FAR from that idea, it is ridiculous to even mention those words together any more. They are almost opposites now (America-free).
I sure hope the sewer issues are fixed by the time I get home. I sure don’t want to have to deal any more with this ‘shit’! (But I already know I have another problem to deal with at another place- and it will also be very expensive!). 🙁
It rained pretty hard here a few days ago. Ever since then I’ve been having problems with my bathroom. I flush the toilet and it comes up through the bathtub! ICK!!
My bathroom, AFTER the plumber finished up. 😉
It had done the same thing before a couple of times and I had it snaked out. I didn’t notice it this time til Saturday morning and no use calling a plumber til Monday.
Monday morning I called the plumber but they were swamped. Because of all the rain, they had all kinds of people calling in with problems. I had to wait til Tuesday to get someone to come by and take a look.
I thought maybe the sewer pipes were broken because of the fact that this issue keeps recurring. The plumber informed me that running a snake through the toilet is basically useless. Even if you unbolt the toilet and run the snake straight through the floor.
Well, since that’s the way we’ve been doing it in the past, I told him to go ahead and do it his way. With a BIG snake, from outside.
plumbers snake
He dug a hole to find where the pipe came out of the house so I could see where it was, but he couldn’t actually do the work at that time.
I had to wait until today for the snake job. It worked!
example of what the snake can do
I hope this one works longer than the last couple of times. At least now I know where to access the pipe from the outside so we won’t have to pull out the toilet again.
I still think the pipes might be broken. There’s more water in the hole today than there was when he dug it on Monday. We haven’t had any rain, so where is that water coming from???
All I know right now is; I’m happy to have a working bathroom again. 🙂
Lesson learned. If any of you have plumbing issues, don’t waste your time and money running a snake from inside the house!
Here’s another one of Cee’s Share Your World challenges. She always has such interesting stuff on her blog. Not only these Share Your World challenges, but lots of different photography challenges and other interesting stuff. Here are my answers to this weeks questions…
Where did you live at age five? Is it the same place or town you live now? I don’t remember exactly where we lived when I was 5. I remember we moved around a lot back then. My dad was doing contract work as an engineer for different companies. He would travel around from job to job. We lived in a cab-over camper on the back of a pickup truck. My mom, my dad, my brother, me, our dog and our cat. 🙂 We lived in lots of different places, all around the country (New York, Arizona, California, Iowa, etc). We didn’t settle down until I was about 6. That was in Florida, West Coast, near St-Pete/Clearwater.
No, it’s not the same place I live now. I moved here to Texas (Lake Jackson) when I was just barely 17. I wanted to go to school to get my USCG licenses so I could become a ship captain. This town had one of only 3 programs in the country at that time that you could go for only 2 years and come out with something really useful. I didn’t have the money for a 4 year program and wasn’t really into spending that much time in school anyway. Turns out, I did spend that much time in school, and more. It took me 5 years to finish the 2 year program. At least I was able to work after the 1st year! That wouldn’t have been the case if I had gone to the 4 year schools. Now, there are a few other programs around the country. They offer pretty much the same thing I went through, but you come out in MUCH better shape! They give you a LICENSE now instead of just an AB ticket!!
You are invited to a party that will be attended by many fascinating people you never met. Would you attend this party if you were to go by yourself? Yes, of course I would!
Did you grow up in a small or big town? Did you like it? I grew up in a medium size town, tho it felt small. I grew up in Madeira Beach, FL. Johns Pass to be specific. It was part of the Tampa-St Petersburg area, all of the towns ran together so it was really one large town or small city. Johns Pass was very much like a small town in itself. We had a real community. Everybody knew everybody and all their business. Everything you needed was there. We had a grocery store, hardware store, a 5 and dime, a few tourist shops, a few mom and pop motels on the beach, a laundromat, a few restaurants, quite a few bars, the Charter Boat center where a lot of people worked, the party boat docks, a couple of ice houses, and fuel docks for the fishermen, even an aquarium with dolphins and sharks until they tore the old bridge down and ‘remodeled’ the whole place.
my dads house was on the 1st finger bay, straight line from the bridge and a little to the right
the Old Johns Pass Bridge
Everything was within walking distance. School was about 3 miles away and there was another shopping center over there. If you needed anything else, you could catch the city bus and it would take you anywhere you needed to go. Yes, I really did like it, I miss how it was then, it’s changed a lot. It’s really nothing but a tourist attraction now. Just condos and tourist shops. They destroyed the entire community when they built that new bridge and replaced all the fisherman’s homes with shops selling cheap trinkets. I don’t like it at all, what it has become. It’s a real shame. 🙁
The New Johns Pass, “#1 tourist attraction in Pinellas County.”
We lived across from Dons Dock on the finger bay.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? I used to want to be a doctor (I think I was influenced by my grandmother- she was a pharmacist). Then, I figured out that I really don’t like sick people all that much, so I decided to be a veterinarian. That lasted until I was shipped off to high school to sail around the world on the traditional square-rigged sailing ships. That did it, I decided to become a ship captain. I wanted to sail around the world and get paid for it. I’ve been sailing ever since and FINALLY got my Master Mariners ticket only a couple of years ago. 🙂
Ariadne, one of the ships I got to sail on for high school
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful that I got to spend some good quality time with my best friend. I brought over a pot of stew and we had a couple of hours of good conversation. 🙂 I’m looking forward to one more Icicle Race on this coming Saturday!
This is something that really ought to be getting more attention. I know most people just think ‘oh yeah, just one more nut- job conspiracy theory’, but when this stuff is really happening, does it REALLY matter weather it fits the definition of a “conspiracy” or not?
What matters to me is how the hell can we get OUT of this trap??!!
The weather here has been back to dull and dreary winter. Rain, rain, and more rain for the last 3+ days. I haven’t even been able to get out of the house for a walk.
I don’t mind an occasional rainy day. I have plenty to do here to keep me busy. But when it goes on and on for days, I start getting antsy. I want to go outside. I want to see some sunshine.
It’s supposed to be nice again tomorrow. I sure HOPE so. I’ve signed up to go sailing again tomorrow and really looking forward to it. Last week was a blast and this will be another race in the Icicle series.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rain ends TODAY. 🙂
This is very strange. No comments? Only 3 likes out of 141!! views? That is nothing like my usual daily activity on my blog. I’m just wondering what’s going on? I hadn’t even posted anything yet today…
Nothing Published
When I looked to see what people were looking at, this is what it showed. That doesn’t add up to anywhere near 141 (or even 133). But when I looked into it more, it showed me a whole long list of posts with 1 view each. Taking all those into account, the numbers did add up. I still have no idea what’s going on.
Search Engines
Google Search
AOLThese are the blogs where people came to visit me from today. Happy to have the interaction, I liked all of those blogs! I’m on bloglovin, but nobody ever seems to look at me there. I think this is maybe my 1st one that showed up here in my stats. I hope that’s a good sign. 🙂
United States
United Kingdom
Spain
CyprusI’m glad to see some of my older posts are still holding some interest. 🙂
Capt JillAnd I FINALLY made it to over 500 followers on WordPress!! It seems like that took forever! Actually, I only started this blog the end of August last year, so it’s only been about a year and a half. Facebook has given me the most “followers”, but I don’t really count them since I can’t seem to get it to go to my BLOG page and not my personal page. Most of those people aren’t paying any attention at all to my blog posts. 🙁
I really haven’t figured out how to use twitter or tumblr yet. I still have NO clue as to how to really “promote” my blog to get more followers or how to ‘monetize’ it. I’m still at the learner stage and having fun with it all. I do hope I’ll be able to figure it out at some point. 🙂
Facebook
Twitter
TumblrIf any of you have any ideas about any of this, please feel free to comment. Any of you had any weird stats today?
Here’s another challenge from Cee’s Photography blog. I only manage to stumble on her posts every once in a while. I’m not sure why. Maybe I need to check into my reader a lot more often. I have a hard time keeping up with everything online tho.
Today I saw another of her Share Your World posts and so I’m going to do it. 😉
Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest? I guess this means someone still alive? Someone real? That’s a hard one! My first choice would be God. If there really is one, I would really love to have a conversation- in person- and not have to wait til I’m dead! But, since that is apparently out of the question, I’ll have to pick somebody else.
There are SO many interesting people out there, people that I’ll probably never get to meet. I’d love to meet some of the great explorers/adventurers, like Sylvia Earle, Robert Ballard, Jessica Watson, Max Hardberger, Elon Musk (explores new things!), etc.
But I think I would most like to meet Jeff Berwick, the Dollar Vigilante. I would LOVE to talk to him about what’s going on in the world. How to escape from all the CRAP, and just find a way to enjoy life. Find a way to escape the traps set for all of us here in the US and get OUT! Find a way to avoid being used and abused and live MY life on MY terms! Yeah, I think Jeff would be my #1 choice for a dinner guest. 🙂
When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? I sing to myself (usually along with the radio) all the time. Last time was yesterday while I was driving back from the grocery store. To someone else? I used to do karaoke a lot. That was probably the last time I sang to someone else (the audience). It was a while ago. I haven’t had the time to go out much lately. Probably over a year ago now.
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? The ability to eat anything I wanted and stay a ‘normal’ weight. I gained a lot of weight very quickly when I was a kid (still really can’t figure out why), and ever since I have tried everything I can think of to lose it. I can never manage to stick to any kind of diet for more than 2-3 months since they never seem to give me results anywhere near the amount of effort I put in (diet and hours of exercise). I know how I am supposed to eat, I just don’t like eating that way. I don’t like ‘healthy’ food, I like junk food. I can’t imagine spending my whole life just eating things I hate, forcing myself to be miserable every day, all day long. I’m not that sorry about the fact that I’m fat. But if I could have ANY ability, that would definitely be the one I would pick.
What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? I can’t really think of anything. I think humor is a good way to deal with most things. Even most ‘serious’ things. The latest outrageous attack on free speech (Charlie Hebdo) is a good example. “Terrorism” is serious, right? I think one of the best ways to fight it is to ridicule it. Or ignore it. Either way works for me. But since ‘our’ leaders have decided NOT to ignore it and instead take away OUR freedoms, then I think humor is going to be the more effective way to deal with it.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful I got home from work. Safe and sound. No pirates, no ebola, no injuries on the ship, no delays at the airport, no lost luggage, no issues with the rental car. ALL good. I found out last week about the “Icicle Races” and I’m looking forward to going sailing next weekend. 🙂
I never heard this before. I was looking around on youtube for some more ‘salty’ type music and stumbled on it. I think both the singing and the video are beautiful.
And it actually does remind me of the elves. 🙂
I just went last week to see the latest move (The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies). I loved the actors, the scenery was gorgeous, the story was good. I was really more into the characters in this movie than the battles, the “big picture”. This one is supposed to be the last, but it left me wanting more.
I LOVE that story (the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, etc).
Yes, Ron Paul is right about this (as he was about so many other things). Most Americans refuse to open their eyes to this truth (or about the rest of them). They seem to be either just slogging through the daily grind with no time to think or anything else. Or they’re completely convinced that the OTHER mainstream political party is the cause of all the problems in the world.
Truth is that BOTH the mainstream political parties are in reality the SAME and they ARE the cause of most of Americas problems. Try getting people to see the truth to that, keep on banging your head against the wall.
Yes, we ARE living in a police state! Thanks to Ron Paul for all his work, from another head-banger. 🙁
I just did a post on what I’ve been doing last year. Now I think I’ll write one on what I hope to be doing next year (other than ‘retiring’ from work and spending all my time in a hammock under the palms on some bright tropical beach with a couple of cute cabana boys fetching me umbrella drinks between our frolics in the clear blue ocean waves). 😉
My major project this year is to get myself located in some other place. I NEED to get out of the United States of America. Most people won’t understand why (it’s political), but it’s been a goal of mine for a long time now. The feeling that I’ve had that I need to leave is just getting stronger all the time.
I’ve put it off for a lot of reasons, #1 being the lack of available work visas (and a trust fund). If I didn’t still have to work to support myself and pay my bills, I would have already moved years ago. I recently found out that Panama has a new visa program and so I have been trying to find a way to get down there to check it out.
I had planned to take a trip down to Costa Rica for a blogging workshop last May and from there head over to Panama to get this whole process started. But I got a new job at the end of May and had to cancel that whole trip. 🙁
Since then, I’ve been trying to get to Panama and haven’t been able to. I had planned to go after I got off the ship this trip, but at the moment I have no idea when that will be or how long I’ll have off. All plans are on hold until I can make sure of my work schedule.
Other than going to Panama, to investigate moving there permanently, I hope to travel more this year. Last year I went to Las Vegas, Korea, and New Orleans for vacations. I wound up going to Aberdeen, Scotland and Luanda, Angola for work. I did get to look around Aberdeen a little bit while I was there, but I haven’t seen anything of Angola except the airport and the drive to/from the hotel.
Seoul Korea for the travel writing workshop
There are so many places I’d still like to explore. My #1 travel goal for this year is… Antarctica! It just looks so amazing and I love the fact that the animals are still unafraid of people. I want to get there soon since I’m afraid that the ‘authorities’ will be restricting access even more than they already have. I’d love to take a small ship cruise down there where you can get up close and personal with the landscape and the animals. I hear there are even opportunities to meet some of the people who work down there.
I’d also like to hike up Mt Kilamanjaro and do a safari while in Africa. I hear Botswana is really great for that. Kenya or Tanzania sound good too. The guys from South Africa on here tell me I should go visit their country. 🙂
I’d love to visit India. I’ve always been fascinated by the art and architecture from that region. I think the culture is very interesting and the landscape and wildlife look like it’s a place I really have to spend some time.
I’d love to cruise the Nile and see the Pyramids in Egypt. I love all the history there.
I doubt I’ll even get to go to all of those places I just mentioned, so I’ll leave off on the travel wishes for now. I also want to get a few other things done this year. 😉
I want to finish working on the house I’ve been replacing the rotten siding on for a couple of years now. 😉
I want to get out sailing more often this year. Maybe even get another little Sea Snark so I can go out by myself without having to go all the way up to Houston. I’m so glad I found Sail La Vie so I can go out sailing with them whenever I’m home and have the time, but they almost always go out sailing from Kemah onto Galveston Bay. I hate having to spend 2-3 hours driving just to get out of the house to do something different!
I want to learn at least basic Portuguese so I can communicate better with the people I work with now.
I want to find more time to work on my art. I like to draw, paint, etc. I’ve seen some classes I can take locally, but never seem to have the time to make it to any of them. Problem is, they’re usually for 4 weeks or more and I’m never home for that long. Maybe I can just go to 1-2 classes? Here’s a picture of a pastel drawing I did while I was out on the tuna boat.
I want to learn more about photography and find the time to work on my photos some more. I want to get signed on to (and accepted at), at least ONE stock agency.
I want to work more on my writing and improve my style. I really need to figure out how to describe things better. I have always been just a very straight-forward person, both in writing and in person. I don’t know how, but I need to learn how to “show, not tell” when I write. I want to get off my butt and at least ASK a few editors to take a look at my articles!
I want to do better with my blog. I’m still learning. I haven’t been able to stick to any kind of ‘editorial calendar’ like I was trying to. I’ve had a really hard time keeping up with other bloggers in the challenges or even keeping in touch at all.
At this point, I have no idea how much (if any) of all that I’ll be able to accomplish this year. My list of things to do this year will probably wind up just like my list of “things to do today”, or “this time home”. Never finished, but never ending. 😉
Do you have lists like that?
Good idea. I’m going to do that too. 🙂
I really don’t know what I would do if I was seriously threatened. Would I censor myself? Would I stop doing something I loved? I can only HOPE not. I admire those people who can and do stand firm for the rest of us.
I am amazed that these nutjobs (religious fanatics) are allowed to roam free around the world today. They have proven over and over that they can NOT act in any kind of civilized manner. IMHO they should all be locked in a cage and FORCED to live out their year 600 fantasies they want to impose on the rest of us! A bunch of sick bastards should NOT be allowed to run the rest of the world, should NOT be influencing it in ANY way and absolutetly shoud NOT be forcing the rest of us to restrict our liberties or our lives in ANY way!
Good for them! If I was a cartoonist I would be up in arms too! I’m not a cartoonist but I’m pissed as hell at these so-called muslim fanatics. I wish I could do something to put a stop to their insanity. It’s just amazing to me that so many people in so many places have put up with their ridiculous use of ‘religious freedom’ to take advantage of others.
First thing I thought of when I heard about this murder in France. “Probably another false flag”. I hope more people will stop listening to the main stream media (who are only reporting what they are allowed to/told to by the people they ultimately work for). Start thinking for yourselves!
