I don’t care which party you like or where you stand on politics in America, this video is FUNNY. 🙂
The first time I saw it on Saturday Night Live, I about spit out my tea! Bachman and Boehner are hilarious!
Miley Cyrus parodies her own song. I like it much better this way. 😉
Here’s my entry for the Word A Week Challenge: Delicate. I looked through my photos to find a few good examples of delicate things.
If you want to see the rest of the entries, check out Sue @ A Word in Your Ear and her weekly challenges. She has some gorgeous photography on her blog. The people who join in are pretty good too. 🙂
I noticed last night that I was at 499 posts. So this is my #500 post since I started this blog.
For some reason, I keep thinking of Molly Shannon doing Sally O’Malley (I’m 50!). 🙂
I was little surprised to see that number. That’s averaging a little over 1 post a day. I did try to do 1 a day for a while. I did a post a day challenge a while back. That was for the Zero to Hero challenge. That was just too much for me. It was stressing me out trying to keep up with the blog while I was also offshore working.
Since then, I’ve given up on the once a day posting and have settled for the once a week challenge instead. That seems to be working out just fine. 🙂
I tried to do the Blogging 201 challenge, but I was too busy with other things and could not keep up with everyone else. I didn’t get as much out of it as I had hoped to. I am still working on the last couple of ‘assignments’. Maybe I’ll actually finish it up here in the next week or so. 🙂
I don’t feel like I have to find something to post about. I post something when I have something interesting to say. Something I think is interesting. You all may or may not agree, but I hope it’s at least something to distract you for a minute or two. Maybe even get you to think about something a little bit different than your usual day to day stuff. 😉
So, here’s to the next 500!
Well, I thought the article I wrote about the other day had a pretty good explanation of why it was not such a good idea to raise the minimum wage.
It looks like at least some people still don’t get it, so I’ll try again. 😉
I think a lot of people probably still have the mindset that there’s a simple solution to the problem of poverty. Just give poor people enough money to raise their income higher than the poverty level and then everything will work out fine.
Sorry to say it, but it’s not really that simple. If it was, we would have eliminated poverty a long time ago.
There are so many things that contribute to the problem of poverty (poor education, bad attitudes, destructive family life, etc). I don’t know if we will ever be able to solve it completely.
I think we have done a pretty good job here in America. The poorest people here are better off than the richest kings were 100 years ago. They’re richer than billions of people in the rest of the world.
So, poverty is a relative thing. No one here in America really has to worry about starving to death. There ARE ways for them to get help.
As for the minimum wage laws, they are not going to help anyone for more than a short time. These laws have been tried in the past and they have failed. The main thing they always do is to keep the most vulnerable people (those without much experience or job skills) out of the job market. Without that foot in the door, they can’t ever move up out of poverty.
The unemployment level rises. More people go on welfare and other aid programs. More people get used to the idea that they can get by that way (NOT having to work) and so they’re worse off in the long run. So are the rest of us.
Personally, I think it’s a bad idea to have large numbers of people living on ‘charity’ (government aid or private aid). I think it encourages a bad attitude towards other people and about life in general. I think people do better when they have some sort of goals to work towards, some purpose in life. Maybe working at a minimum wage job isn’t the BEST way to live your life, but it does give you a decent way to start down the road to your chosen path in life.
As for the remaining low skill workers, the ones who did manage to keep their now higher paying jobs, they will not be better off for very long either. You raise the minimum wage and pretty soon all the rest of the wages will rise too.
Maybe you think that’s a great idea. Your paycheck will have more dollars in it! Yes, it will, but there’s a little thing called “inflation” that comes along when wages rise. That inflation will not only give you more dollars in your paycheck, it will make everything you want to spend those dollars on cost more!
How many people really think they will wind up better off once that starts? I’m pretty sure I won’t be. I know from past experience that most people are worse off than they were before they got that raise they wanted so badly.
Maybe the little video will help convince you. I know these guys (Thomas Sowell, Peter Schiff) are much more informed than I am, they’re experts on this kind of thing.
Maybe I’m not an expert, but I can extrapolate a few things. I read a lot. I listen to people who have been there, done that. I try to learn from other peoples experience.
I totally agree with the comments in the video and the well meaning people who say that a person shouldn’t have to live in poverty while they’re working a full time job. My objections are only about how to make things better for them. I don’t think raising the minimum wage will help.
I hope to start a discussion here along with the one that we should be having nationally. It would be nice if we could do something effective to help people instead of just try one more time to do what has already failed numerous times in the past.
How about we try to come up with some different solutions to the problem of poverty? Instead of the simple answer of raising the minimum wage, (that has already been proven a failure), we try to come up with some other ideas? Something that might WORK?
I was goofing around on the computer tonight (youtube) and came across this video from the International Maritime Academy.
It’s nice to see the cadets can still have some fun while they’re in school. 🙂
This is one of my all time favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. Great video on this one too! I hope you like it. 🙂
Song of the Sea
Broken clouds along the blue horizon
The sun is setting and the wind is dying down
Outward bound, there is music all around
Can you hear it, it’s the, the song of the sea?
Soundings taken at the edge of darkness
The widest silences the heart can ever hear
You can steer to the stars along your lee
Set your bearings to the, the song of the sea
Oh, and the song is as ancient as the days
And the winds upon the waves
Let it carry you away, so far away
(Aaa)
Trim my sails to greet the breakin’ morning
Past the headlands to the rolling open sea
An’ it comes to me, I have never felt so free
As when I’m listening to the, the song of the sea
Oh and the song is as ancient as the days
And the winds upon the waves
Let it carry me away, so far away
Some were meant to watch the world from windows
And never look beyond the road beneath their feet
But for me, I was always meant to be
One forever chasing the song of the sea
The song of the sea
The song of the sea
Thanks for reminding me Ken!! 🙂
Here’s another good article from Doug French at Laissez Faire. He does a pretty good job of explaining (in simple terms) how the free market works in the job market. He could do a better job of explaining how government interference through regulations always screws things up, but overall he does OK.
I am simply amazed at the numbers of people in America (and around the world) who don’t have even this most basic level of understanding about economics. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at Americans, considering that most of them are stuck in government schools.
For anyone who doesn’t know the history of government schools in America, the purpose of those schools is NOT to educate the children, but to turn them into ‘cogs in the wheel’. Mould them into compliant workers to fill the factory jobs that we used to have.
Now that we have destroyed those jobs through over-regulation, we have a nation full of people with just enough education to fill those kinds of jobs and none of those jobs to give them.
Along with a number of other subjects, economics was not one of the ones thought important enough to spend any resources on for people intended to spend their entire lives working for GM. 🙁
Our ‘public’ (government) school system has not changed with the times. We are still training people to work in factories when we need to be educating them so they can be entrepreneurs!
In the meantime, because we have not educated them to understand the basics of economics (or much else), we have the situation going on right now (again) where people are clamoring for (another) rise in the minimum wage.
Because they don’t understand basic economics, they think that will improve their standard of living. It won’t. 🙁
Read the article again…
There are so many levels of ignorance and wishful thinking going on in this country, it’s sad really. Yes, it’s true, the poor and middle classes here are not doing as well as the upper class. But the reasons for that are mostly to do with the government and NOT wage rates!
We are all going into debt. More and more and more! THAT is a huge impediment to a high standard of living (no matter what your income). The money supply continues to increase, causing inflation, which steals more of our income every day. Our government keeps on spending money like there’s no tomorrow and raising taxes in order to try to keep that up.
THOSE are the things that are hurting our standards of living. I could go on, but I hope you get the point I’m trying to make. Raising the minimum wage won’t really solve anybody’s problems, it will only delay the inevitable and make it worse in the long run.
I read a post, (“Dead Broke”), this morning by Joseph Rathjen. He writes the “Political and Social Chaos Blog”. It ties right into what I’ve been talking/thinking about. Economic illiteracy. Elites vs the rest of us. Amount of income a person has vs standard of living (personal happiness level).
The fact that ANYONE could believe the Clintons were “Dead Broke” (the way WE mean it when WE say it) says it all. I’m not sure how many people really believe it, or if it’s all just the usual media propaganda, but it seems at least a few people fell for it.
You ought to read Rathjens post. He makes some good points. I would take it even further. People like the Clintons belong to the class of the ‘global elites’. They are not JUST rich. They are rich and POWERFUL.
There is a group of people who are very rich and powerful and THOSE people do NOT care one whit for the rest of us!
THAT is why it is SO important for the rest of us to be educated! We need to know enough about how the world really works so that we don’t fall for their BS! We need to know enough to fight back when someone proposes a plan that might look good on the surface but will eventually work against OUR interests.
The latest minimum wage proposals are just one more example of this. It’s sad. Most people still don’t understand how things work. 🙁
I agree with most of what Chris says in this video. He makes a lot of good points.
We need to make get our heads straight. We need to learn what’s really going on in the world and not just believe what’s on TV! We need to do whatever we can to improve ourselves to enrich and improve our lives.
Get out of any ‘toxic environment’ you happen to be in. Start working on SOMETHING (anything) to improve yourself (your life).
Get out of debt. “Debt is slavery of the free.”
Start doing something that you really love.
“Stop trying to change the world to make yourself happy or free. Start changing yourself to make the world happy and free.”
That’s all great advice! I’m working on it myself. I admit it’s not easy. I’m especially stuck on the part about changing myself instead of trying to change the world. 🙂
I just don’t have the slightest idea of what I could or would possibly change in myself in order to make myself more happy and free (other than what I’m already doing).
I’m working hard to be debt free again. I’m taking courses to improve my writing/photography/blogging. I’m doing something I love (traveling) as often as I can. I’m trying my best to physically leave this toxic environment the USA has become.
No, it’s not easy. All I can do is the best that I can do. That is what I’m doing. 🙂
OK, fair warning here, I’m going to be bitching (a bit) in this post…
This week I’m in Houston re-taking the Basic Safety Training (BST) course. This is a class that the USCG (Coast Guard) started requiring all mariners to take back when they were trying to get the US in compliance with STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) around the turn of the century (STCW 95 went into full effect in the US Feb 2, 2002).
BST is a very basic course that is supposed to teach you what you should know before you can go offshore. Things you would know if you’d ever spent more than a couple of days (working) out there. Things like ‘what is a station bill? what is a muster station? what are the alarm signals? what do you do if someone falls overboard?, where can you find a lifejacket? how do you use a fire extinguisher? etc.
STCW is an international standard and the USCG is in charge of making sure all US mariners comply.
For once, the USCG actually made a rule that sort of made sense. They decided that if you were still sailing during the 5 years before you had to renew your credentials, (still working offshore where you were required to do safety training and drills every week), then you wouldn’t be required to spend another week of your supposed time off and a few hundred dollars (minimum) to ‘learn’ how to do such things as put on a life jacket or about the different types of fires.
It’s really pretty sad to have to require someone who’s been going to sea for 20 years (or even ONE year) to spend a week of their time off in this kind of class.
At this point, the USCG still does not require us to take the BST class more than once. They have caved in to the IMO and WILL be forcing us all to re-take the BST refresher course starting in 2017 (but they’re not yet). So far as I know, there are no approved ‘refresher’ courses since this is a fairly new ruling. Hopefully, the refresher course will only cover what we don’t do every week on board the ships. Things we CAN’T do (supposedly) out there like jump in the pool and/or put out real fires.
Maybe they’ll be sensible and just let us do a one day course on only those couple of things (I can hope, can’t I). 😉
In the meantime, certain companies don’t really care what the rules say. They insist that no one could possibly be ‘safe’ unless and until they finish going to training for THEM.
I see it more and more often in the Gulf of Mexico. The drilling companies (clients) are especially bad about it. Instead of accepting Safegulf or Rigpass, (both of which cover the same very basic materials and are pretty much the same as the BST but more for the rigs vs the boats), each company wants you to go to THEIR training before you go offshore (even tho it’s all pretty much the same material).
Some of the trainers won’t even give you any proof that you attended the class! They don’t want you to be able to go to another company and avoid having to take it again (so they will get paid again for teaching you the same stuff they just taught you 2 months ago)!!
I have no idea why. Well, yes I do, but nobody likes to admit it. All the STCW courses cover the same material. They HAVE to. The USCG requires certain things to be taught. They require that we spend so much time on each subject. There is very little leeway in how these courses are taught.
The purpose of the STCW was to ensure that everybody in the entire world has the EXACT SAME TRAINING. Every country that is approved (on the white list) has basically the same courses teaching the same things. That is so that we can all be certain that every seafarer from every country will have at least the same basic minimum knowledge base.
Now, it seems the intent of the STCW is being subverted. I am hearing that some countries will not accept training from other countries. The sailors have to go and spend all that time and money taking the classes again for the country they want to work in! In fact, the US is one of those countries! (I am simplifying it a little here).
The USCG will not accept a course if I go to another country to take it. For example, if I went to take Basic Safety Training in Greece, they would not accept it. If someone from the UK were to come here and try to get a mariners document, they would have to re-take the BST course here. The USCG is supposedly in the process of changing the rules (again) but in the meantime, its a real pain in the ass for a lot of sailors around the world!
I’m actually lucky this time. I am starting a new job and the company is sending me to the ‘training’ this time. I have pretty much always had to spend the time and money out of my own pocket for all the other times I’ve had to do this.
I spent over $50,000 (!!!!!) re-taking classes I already took in order to get my chief mates license between 2002-2008!
Basically, I am just sick and tired of having to take the same classes over and over again. There’s very rarely even anything new covered in them. The very few things that have changed are things we could have got out of a safety alert or an email. But nooooooo, we have to go spend a week and a few hundred bucks (minimum) to sit through all the rest of the stuff that has NOT changed.
I think if I have to do it again at this point, that will be the last straw. I would just have to say the hell with it and give up sailing altogether. 🙁
And they wonder why it’s so hard to recruit mariners?
It’s very sad that this is what it’s coming to. People say to me, “how can you be against “safety””? OK, let’s get this straight! I am NOT against safety!! I AM against these people (companies and governments) making up rules and checklists and “training” to COVER THEIR ASSES instead of doing the RIGHT thing!
IMHO, the real purpose of all these things is so they can send us to a class for a few days and then send us offshore and if we ever get hurt they can say “it’s not OUR fault, we sent them to TRAINING, they should have known better”. In other words, it’s all about CYA.
Of course, no one will actually ADMIT that.
Instead of actually giving a new person the time to learn the job PROPERLY on the job, with the people they will be working with who know the specifics, they send a new person off for a few days in a classroom.
OK, that’s better than nothing, I admit it, but it’s NOT better than the way they used to learn things BEFORE these rules were put into effect!
We used to take a new person offshore and train them on the job. We would make sure to watch over them and ‘mentor’ them until we were all sure that they knew how to handle themselves. There were enough people out there for that system to work very well. Now that the companies have cut the crew size down to the bare minimum (or less, in many cases), no one really has the time or energy to watch over a new person like that.
So, now we have to trust that they know everything they need to know when they show up on board. After all, they’ve been “trained” and there is no way anybody can just ‘watch and learn’ anymore. Everybody out there now is going to be expected to pull their weight.
Personally, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that there were MORE accidents and injuries since the start of all this STCW and company “training”. (Don’t even get me started on the paperwork component of all this: JSAs, tool box talks, etc, etc, etc). So far, I have not seen any kind of apples to apples comparison. I’m not sure anybody wants to see that done. It might show the companies that all their talk about safety is just that- TALK!
They might just have to come up with something a little more effective at making things safer out there, like maybe putting a few more people back on board the vessels? Or maybe cutting down on all the extra workload each person has had to shoulder since they cut out over half the crew years ago? Or maybe actually letting a person get some rest before they go to work on crew change day instead of putting them straight to work after they’ve just been up for 24+ hours traveling! OMG, they would have to spend a few bucks on a hotel room!!!
Nawwww, that would never happen, they might just have to spend a few more dollars on those crew members then they do on all their ‘safety’ programs. Not ever gonna happen. 🙁
“A cockroach can live for nine days without its head.”
I was sitting on the pot reading the Wildlife magazine from the Houston Zoo and this quote caught my eye.
I wondered what the heck were those cockroaches doing for those 9 days without a head?
I had always assumed that they spent most of their time looking for food. But if they don’t have a head, then how are they going to eat? So, do they still spend all their time looking for food? Is that really what they did before they lost their heads?
I wonder it they don’t have a head, how do they find their way around? I mean, they have eyes and antennas on their head for that, but once the heads gone then what do they do? Do they just lie there like they’re dead (but they’re not dead) for 9 days?
Or do they wander around trying to find out what happened to their head? Do they miss it? I guess they must not miss it all that much if they can go without it for 9 days.
I wonder is this some kind of survival trait? They don’t go around looking for food while they’re headless, they go around looking for sex? How would that work?
I mean really, they’ve been around FOREVER.
Maybe having a head isn’t as important as we’ve been led to believe?
I wonder just how many headless cockroaches are running around? I have to admit I’ve seen a lot of cockroaches in my life and have yet to see a headless one, dead or alive.
I wonder, did they do some kind of study on this? Did they just happen to find a headless cockroach running around and say, “Hey, I think we need to investigate this, how long can a headless cockroach survive?”.
Did they just find a bunch of headless roaches to study? Or did they actually pull the heads off enough roaches to make a valid study? Just how many headless cockroaches does it take to prove the statistic that they can survive for 9 days? Is just one enough?
How many died immediately? How many only lasted 1 day? 2 days? etc?
They didn’t mention how long a cockroach could live with a head. I have to assume it’s quite a bit longer than 9 days.
Oh well, just a few thoughts to start the day. 😉
PS- I got curious enough later to actually google it and yes, it’s true. They explain a lot of my questions in this article.
I haven’t mentioned much about politics on here lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been traveling outside of the country (I was in Korea for a month).
It’s nice that I can get out of the US occasionally. I would love to leave more often for longer periods of time. I’m even thinking I might want to leave permanently. It’s SO nice to get away where the politics isn’t constantly in my face.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s something ‘wrong’ with me. Most of my friends don’t really care about what’s going on around them. They always tell me to ‘just chill out’, or ‘just ignore it’, or best of all ‘just do whatever you have to do to get around it’.
I wonder “WHY should I have to do any of that”? Why should I have to leave to find the freedom I was guaranteed at birth? I was born and raised here.
I was brought up to believe that THIS country was formed specifically to PROTECT our rights! WHY should I have to try to ignore it when I see our government doing the exact opposite more and more often?
People call me crazy (paranoid) because I’m always aware of how much freedom we have lost in this country, even just in my lifetime. They say I’m crazy to think the things that have happened in other countries (Germany, USSR, N Korea, China, etc) could ever happen here.
But I see that we are following the same footsteps that led those other countries down the path of socialism/communism/tyranny. Why COULDN’T it happen here?
I wonder what’s wrong with everybody ELSE, that they DON’T care what’s happening in this country?
Why don’t THEY get upset that they have lost the same freedoms I have? Why do they clamor to give theirs away (and mine along with theirs)????
I feel more and more like an outsider in my own country. I feel like most of the people in this country have completely abandoned the ideas and ideals that our country was founded on. What made this country so unique in all of history…
The idea that “we the people”, (ALL people), have certain INALIENABLE rights. Rights inherent to us, that belong to us simply because of the fact that we are all human beings. We are all equal under the law (supposed to be here). That our government’s main job, (its’ only legitimate function), was to PROTECT those rights (it did NOT create or give us those rights).
Most people have been distracted and disoriented by the corruption of the language and twisting of the meanings of the words. Rights for example, there are those basic human rights that we are all born with, part of our nature as human beings. Then there are government created rights like voting rights for example. People treat them as interchangeable. They’re not.
People are busy arguing about media created hoopla over free speech (political correctness) and racism (freedom of association) and on and on and on. Too caught up in the small issues that tear us apart instead of fighting together for what’s really important. Our FREEDOM as individual human beings!
Yes, I realize that we are all very busy. I understand that most people have so many things taking up their time and energy now a days.
Most people are so exhausted by the time they get home at the end of a long day, all they want to do is chill out in front of a TV set. They don’t want to think, they want to vegetate til it’s time to go to bed.
Maybe as a sailor, I’ve had too much time to think in my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved to read. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been an explorer. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a skeptic.
But for whatever reason, I do think and I do care. What I see happening around me here flat ass scares the SHIT out of me.
OK, now before you all go running for the doors, please stick with me just a little longer.
Yeah, I’m fishing for comments here. I’d really like to hear from a larger sample of people around the world than just my personal friends and friends of theirs I’ve been arguing with on Facebook. 🙂
OK, just one simple question to start off with…
What do you know about the principle of self-ownership?
Have you heard of it before? Where? What do you think it means? Do you think it’s valid? How would you go about justifying it? Do you think principles like this one change with the times? Should they?
Here’s another one to go along with that, it’s really part of the same question… If you DON’T own yourself, who does?
OK, I’ll leave you all to think on that for a while. PLEASE comment with your thoughts here!
If you’re wondering why I put that video on the top of the post, here’s why. I love that band! I really like this song.
I also think it’s relevant to this conversation I’m trying to start. I do think there’s a war going on. It’s a war for our hearts and our heads. It’s a war for the principles we’ll stand and fight for. It’s a war between the great masses of “we the people”, the common people, (you and me), and the elites.
It’s a war between freedom and tyranny. YES, it really is. So far, it’s happening mostly in the background, behind the scenes. You can see it easily if you look around (don’t count on the mainstream media for your information).
“This is Why We Fight”: “When we die, we will die with our arms unbound.” THAT says it all to me.
“This Is Why We Fight”
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
And this is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why
Why we fight
Come hell
Bride of quiet
Bride of all unquiet things
Bride of quiet
Bride of hell
Come the archers
Come the infantry
Come the archers
Of hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
And when we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
Come hell
Come hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die with our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
So come to me
Come to me now
Lay your arms around me
And this is why
This is why
We fight
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
OK, I HAD to get out of the house today! I’ve been trying to catch up on lots of things around here that mostly revolve around working on the computer.
My main computer (that I’ve had for a while now), caught a serious bug in Korea. I took it to the shop already, but they didn’t/couldn’t fix the main problem with it. So, I’ve been trying to use it while I transfer all my stuff onto the new (mac) computer I bought a couple of months ago and haven’t had the time to use yet.
I am having a VERY hard time trying to learn how to use it. It’s incredibly frustrating! I am NOT any kind of computer geek. I know how to turn one on and off and get to my emails. That’s pretty much it. 🙁
This is my first Apple computer. I bought it because I’ve heard that Apples are really great to work with photos on. Maybe they are, but I can’t even figure out how to LOOK at my photos on it! Yeah, I can open one at a time, which is frustrating enough, but then I can’t DO anything with it.
On my old computer, I use Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Photo Gallery to look over my photos. It’s very easy to use. I can use Paint to edit them. I could also use a photo editing program like Lightroom or Paintshop if I really wanted to work on them.
On my new Apple computer, I can’t find ANY kind of program to look at or edit my photos at all. 🙁
I did finally get Lightroom on the Apple computer, but I don’t really want to load EVERY photo there.
Maybe I’m just missing something simple that people who’re used to Apple products could clue me in on? I could use some help here…
Anyway, I was going stir crazy here, between frustration with my computers not allowing me to get much work done and taking out my frustrations by arguing with strangers on Facebook, I figured I needed to get the heck out of the house and away from the computers for a while.
So, I went to the zoo. I always like to go and watch the animals. I like to watch the fish swim around, the jellyfish are really calming. I like to watch the monkeys play. I especially like to see the new zoo babies if they have any (they did). 🙂
I saw the baby elephants. One was only 4 months old and the other was 3.5 yrs old.They were still keeping the baby in the house. It was SO cute! I couldn’t get any decent pictures of it, but I watched it play for a while.
baby elephant (3.5 yrs)
They had some baby lemurs. Those were really cute too, and fun to watch running and jumping all over their little habitat.
Lemur with baby
They had young flamingos. They were still gray. Last time I was at the zoo, they were little gray puff balls, they’ve grown a lot in a couple of months.
young flamingo (they turn pink the more they eat)
I got into watching the flamingos for a while, they were out of the water for a change and kind of fun to watch. Here’s a couple more shots…
I usually like to try and take pictures of everything but I still haven’t really figured out how to get past the bars and the cages. Sometimes I can get the camera to focus where I want it to and sometimes I can’t.Today wasn’t a good day for that. 🙁
So, I concentrated the photos on the birds and the fishes. I know I’ve posted lots of fish pictures here already, so today I’ll do some birds. 😉
Announcing Our 11th Annual Photo Contest Winners | Photo Contest | Smithsonian.
I don’t know how the Smithsonian judges ever manage to narrow down their choices. They have so many just stunning images to pick from every year.
This year is no different. I’ve been flipping through their choices for finalists and runners up in the different categories and I would have a really hard time making up my mind.
I think I would pick this one…
If only because I LOVE the night sky and it’s SO hard to get good photos of it. There’s so much light pollution now. Also, I really love science fiction and the way they’ve set up those giant bugs just really does it for me. Lots of creativity and excellent camera skills. I love it! 🙂
Click the link and check out all the other photos. It’ll be worth your while. 🙂
PHILADELPHIA Almond Cheesecake with Raspberries Recipe – Kraft Recipes.
Almond Cheesecake with Raspberries
I LOVE cheesecakes! I like all kinds of cheesecakes. I’ve never had one I didn’t like. 🙂
This one looks absolutely amazing! I don’t have any raspberries at the moment but I do have strawberries and I’m sure they would work just fine. The recipe even says to use whatever berries you want. 🙂
I am a little curious tho, they make the crust here with the cake mix instead of the usual crumbs. They don’t mention baking it before you pour the cheese mixture into it. I’ve never done it like that before. I wonder if you’re supposed to bake the crust a little first like usual and they just forgot to mention it, or if it’s really supposed to be done that way.
Has anybody done a cheesecake like this before? How does it turn out?? Does the crust cook along at the same time as the filling?
Hey, raspberries on sale at Krogers for only 99 cents! I’ll have to go get some! 🙂
Here’s another photography challenge entry. This one is from the blog A Word In Your Ear. Here’s the link to it if you want to get involved…
http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-orange/
Here are a few of my photos that show off ‘orange’…
orange wave (sculpture on Gwangali Beach Korea)
orange flowers (Jayu Park, Incheon Korea)
orange food? (fish market, Incheon Korea)
orange sunset at sea
orange sunrise, Tarawa Kiribati
orange beard (Surfside Texas)
orange umbrellas (and hair)
orange fish
another orange fish
orange spots on another fish
orange boat(s) alongside at Fourchon, LA
orange uniforms on the boat (me and Jess on the DS-5)
orange sky at sea
orange chopper (USCG)
one more orange boat (lifeboat)
I hope you like these. These photo challenges are fun. I really wish I had the time to go out and take some more pictures for them but no time so I have to use some from the past. 🙁
I haven’t done much with these photo challenges lately. I do really enjoy them. Looking at what everyone else is doing and trying to come up with something to fit the theme.
This one is from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. Here’s the link in case you want to get in on it… http://ceenphotography.com/2014/05/27/cees-fun-foto-challenge-water/
This one is easy for me. Water. It should be easy for me. I have so many photos of water in all its various forms, it’s really hard for me to pick out a few real good ones. 🙂
But, I did manage. Here you go…
out on the water
no waves on this beach!
water makes patterns in the sand
water sprays in Singapore
beautiful beach Riviera Maya
water from the air
water- 3 kinds- clouds, rainbow, ocean
Those were a few of my favorites. I hope you like them too. 🙂
More Affordable Than University, Travel Is The Best Teacher.
Here’s another great post from the Dollar Vigilante. They always have a lot of great information on their website. I’ve been a subscriber for a while now.
I really couldn’t agree more with his post. I’ve been a traveler since I was born. 🙂
My father used to work as an engineer (before he said the hell with it all and started fishing). 🙂
He used to take on contract jobs for all the big firms. Sperry, Northrup Grumman, Corning, etc. I remember living in Boston, Rochester, Syracuse, Phoenix, LA, El Paso. Lots of other places in between I don’t remember. I was born in Minneapolis. My brother was born in East Hampton (we were staying on grandpas boat).
For a while we all lived in one of those old style cab over campers. Mom, dad, me, my little brother, the dog and the cat. We would live at a campground for a few months at most while dad did whatever job he was contracted to do.
We finally settled down in Florida. My dad took a job with Honeywell. Maybe because it was time for me to start school. I really don’t know for sure. My dad found the love of his life, (the schooner Island Girl), and my parents got divorced.
By then the travel bug was in my veins and I’ve been infected for life! I LOVE to travel!!
My grandmother did too. She was always off somewhere interesting and exciting and she would bring us little presents when she came to visit. Sometimes I was lucky enough to go with her.
I remember one time she took me skiing in Aspen Colorado. I was about 13. I had a blast! Another time she took me (along with her sisters) on a long road trip to pick out a boarding school for me. (I was a bad girl)
I refused them all. I just didn’t think I would fit in at any of them.
Good thing for me! I wound up going to school with the Oceanics out of New York City instead of any of those nice, fancy, expensive schools my grandmother wanted for me.
That experience changed my life forever. I wound up sailing around the world on large traditional sailing ships. I LOVED it!!I decided I wanted to be a ship captain, sail around the world and get paid for it. My grandmother never got over that I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.
I wanted to keep sailing and traveling and never go home. I did wind up staying after for a while. I tried to find a job working my way back home on a ship. I was only 16 and didn’t have any seamans’ papers yet, so that didn’t work out very well. 🙁
I wound up talking my way into a position on board an old Thames sailing barge in London. The CIV was the name of it.
I had a blast!! The guys on there were such a fun group. I was supposed to cook and keep the place clean while they got it ready to sail across the Atlantic to the US. I don’t know if they ever made it. I had to fly back to the US before they got it ready. 🙁
I learned so much on that trip. MUCH more than I ever could have or would have learned in any kind of normal classroom environment.
We had class on the ship. We learned about things like navigation and seamanship. We learned them by DOING them. Most things we learned outside of class. For example, I learned how to work as part of a team. I learned to be a good shipmate and how everyone on board is there for a good reason and just as important as anyone else there.
We had to keep a journal (good practice). We also had a class called ‘cultural studies’. When we went ashore we learned about the countries and the people we visited. We learned the languages of the countries we were due to visit.
I learned how to communicate better, sometimes even non-verbally. I learned how to be flexible and more accepting of how things were instead of how I thought they should be.
I learned how other people dealt with the same kinds of things we do at home but in their own ways. I learned that my way (or my countrys’ way) was not always the best way.
I learned that most people are basically the same, wherever they live, they all want/need the same basic things… food, water, love, connection, a home, etc. We’re not all that different. 🙂
I learned there is such a great, big, wonderful world out there. I learned about myself that I never want to stop learning and exploring.
Travel is SUCH a great teacher, in so many ways. I encourage anyone and everyone to get out there and DO IT! 🙂
This whole thing with my blog started a long time ago, out of my growing desire to move away from the US. Why? That’s an issue for another post. 😉
Because of my desire (need) to move out of the States I’ve been a subscriber and reader of International Living magazine for decades. They’ve given me inspiration and lots of good information.
So why am I still here? Good question! I’ll move as soon as I can figure out SOME way to support myself outside of the USA.
I’m too young to retire and I don’t believe social security will be there for me anyway. I can’t leave the US til I find another country to accept me and no other country will allow me to move there and take a job away from one of their native citizens.
That’s where the travel writing and photography comes in. 🙂
I’ve been trying for YEARS to find SOME way to earn an income where I don’t have to be physically present on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. I have been trying to find a way to earn an income where I can really enjoy life instead of always being at work at a job I no longer enjoy.
So far I’ve tried vending machines, rental property, stocks and now travel writing/photography/blogging. I’ve been working on all of them off and on since at least 1995. STILL working on most of them, tho I did pretty much give up on the vending machines. 🙁
IL Editor Jennifer Stevens came out with a travel writing course through the magazine that I did on my own at home years ago. I never followed through to send anything in to any magazines. 🙁
Later IL worked together with AWAI (American Writers & Artists Inc) to start offering workshops.
They have workshops on travel writing and photography (and other things like copy-writing, etc). I’ve gone to a few workshops and enjoyed them all.
I have tried to get my photos accepted twice now on a couple of the stock photography sites. I’ve been pretty discouraged. I’m told I don’t have a good enough lens in my camera for my pictures to come out with a high enough quality to be accepted. 🙁
I don’t have the patience to spend hours on the computer trying to eliminate every speck of dust that somehow makes its way into my camera lens (even on my favorite Sony camera)!
I can’t bring a big fancy camera with me to work since I’m limited on luggage. I travel a lot on my way to/from work. So….
I heard there was a way to earn money from blogging. So I decided to start a blog as a way to get my writing and photography out to the general public without having to go through any approval process.
I wouldn’t need to get an editors OK for my writing. I wouldn’t need a big fancy camera for my pictures. 🙂
When AWAI (now GEP- Great Escapes Publishing) offered a blog add-on to their travel writing workshop in Boston last year, I signed up for it. I got this blog started in order to have something I could get feedback on.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. I enjoy interacting with people from all over the world. I sometimes wonder how people are finding me and what caught their interest. Especially when I see people from really out of the way places.
I still have no idea of how to ‘monetize’ my blog. The recent Blogging 201 challenge had one assignment about that. I’ve been working through that challenge but I’ve been late and tho I’ve read through the Day 13 challenge on monetizing, I haven’t actually DONE it yet.
I don’t really see how I can make any of what they suggested work yet. I just don’t have enough views or followers yet. It seems I’m building my numbers, but VERY slowly. 🙁
I did just get some very encouraging news on my other attempts to get my work out there. 🙂
I was recently published (twice!!) in the Maritime Executive magazine! The first time, they used my photos in an article about ECDIS. The last time they actually used my entire article just as I wrote it and my pictures too!!
I had just returned from my latest GEP travel writing/photography workshop in Seoul, Korea. I had been thinking about this article for a while. When I got home and had a bit of spare time, I finally put it all down on paper (computer) and sent it in.
I was SO excited to hear it was published! I guess the workshops have been helping me after all. 🙂
I think the biggest challenge is just to ASK!
Check out this video from GEP. I met most of these people in Boston (or Chicago the year before). They’re all doing great. They’re very inspiring to me. I see that they’re living their dreams and making it work so hopefully I’ll be making more progress soon too. 🙂
I’m still working my way through the Blogging 201 challenge. This is my attempt to complete the assignment for Day 12 (create a poll/survey to gather feedback from your readers on your site and its content).
The Blogging 201 challenge actually ended a couple of weeks ago but I wanted to finish it anyway. I’m hopeful that by following through I will continue to learn how to make my blog better.
I hope that will help me grow my audience.
So, here’s a poll. Please feel free to add anything you’d like to say in the comment section below (as always!). I’m interested to know how people found my blog (and also what they like about it).
Thanks!
Late to start. Late to finish. That’s just typical for me. 🙁
I started the Blogging 201 challenge a couple of weeks late. Too late to really get into the whole community aspect of it. IMHO, that is the best part of it. Interacting with all the other bloggers working on the same challenge and all their different takes on it.
Since I was so far behind, everyone was working on totally different things than I was. I just kept an eye on what they were doing and tried to catch up.
The challenge ended a couple of weeks ago, but I hate to quit anything I’ve started. So, here I am again, plugging on with the Blogging 201 challenge.
The assignment for Day 11 was (is) to “find a blog buddy”.
I did read the assignment only a few days late. 😉 I’ve been thinking about it since (in the back of my mind). I haven’t yet come up with anybody specific to ask to ‘be my buddy’. 🙁
I wonder if it would be better to try and buddy with someone with similar interests (offshore, maritime, travel, politics, nature, sailing, boats, philosophy, liberty, food & drinks, music, books), or someone with interests that I really don’t post about much here (fashion, beauty, celebrities, family, kids, relationships, sports).
I think for now, I’ll still just keep this idea in the back of my mind. I really haven’t had the time to work on this blog as much as I would like to lately. I’d hate to have someone else depending on my being able to keep to a writing schedule right now. 🙁
At some point in the future, I’d like to try to use the guest blogging idea. I think either way (like/unlike my blog) would work to try a different audience.
Has anybody else been participating in the Blogging 201 challenge? Did you complete the assignment for Day 11? How did it go?
Does anybody want to be my buddy?
I got home from my weekly Campaign for Liberty meeting tonight to find an email informing me that a story I had written had been published in the Maritime Executive magazine. I am still so excited! 🙂
This is the first time my writing has been published in a major magazine. I had been published in a couple of school newspapers and had written a couple of things for the Women’s Maritime Association.
The Maritime Executive used my story just like I wrote it. I expected them to edit the hell out of it since I’m not a professional writer (yet). They also used my photos for the story. 🙂
I wrote about what it’s like to work offshore where you get to work by helicopter instead of by car. Check it out, here’s the link…
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Zigzagging-to-Work-on-a-Helicopter-2014-05-20
I would have liked to have put a photo in this post, but I just dropped my main computer off at the shop today (hoping to get bugs removed) and so I don’t have access to my photos. I hope they’ll have it fixed by the weekend.
Let me know what you think about my article. Did you like it? Want to know more? Want to know more about different aspects of working out there? What do you REALLY want to know about it??? 😉
Thanks!
I’m still home. I’m still on the hook, waiting to hear if/when I’ll be going back to work. I’m still having computer issues. 🙁
I thought it might be a good time for me to catch up and reflect a little on what I’ve been doing here- on my blog.
I started this blog last August. August 15th, to be exact. I was going to a travel writing/photography workshop in Boston which had an add-on blogging workshop and I wanted to have something to work with there.
By the time I got to the workshop (which started Aug 21), I had my blog up and running and already had 1-2 followers. I had it linked with my personal Facebook page which is where most of my ‘followers’ come from. Now I had actual BLOG followers! I was so excited just to see my first real follower!
The next month I was thrilled to see my numbers increasing across the board! I had steadily increasing viewer numbers and a total of over 1000 views for the month! I was really excited to think my blog might be one of the few to grow so fast. 🙂
But the next month I had to go back to work and so I couldn’t keep up with the posting like I had been earlier when I was home and could concentrate more on my blog. My numbers fell off a cliff. 🙁
I joined the Zero to Hero challenge in January, which helped me grow my blog. 🙂
January turned out to be my best month yet, even to this day. It really was a challenge for me. I was at work, so I lost a lot of sleep. Not that the tasks were that difficult, they were but I had already figured out how to do most of them on my own after a lot of time and stress. I wish I had known about this challenge BEFORE, when I was first starting my blog, it would have been a lot more useful to me then. 😉
Since then, I have been noticing that when I can find the time to post a lot, once (or more) per day, then I get lots of views. When I can’t manage to get here to post something for a few days, my numbers take a dive.
I’ve been working on this for 9 months now, my stats show I’ve made 480 posts which have received 614 comments (thanks everybody!). According to my blogs home page I have 841 ‘followers’. I don’t count all of them as followers tho, since they are coming from a few different places.
For instance, 388 of those 841 are just Facebook contacts (from my personal page). Contacts may never even see what I’ve been posting. I do have a few regular people who like and comment on my Facebook page, but I’m sure it’s nowhere near 388 people!
I recently learned that the Facebook page I started for my blog has not been working at all. I just started a new one. Now I’m trying to build traffic there instead of only on my personal page. I hope more people will find it and ‘like’ it. 🙂
I also started a google+ account and page. I just started it so there’s not really much there yet.
I have 12 followers on Tumblr. I have never seen anything from any of those people, so I have no idea if they’re really seeing or liking my posts.
I have another 90 on Twitter. I do see a little bit of interest from Twitter, but I really would expect more interaction with 90 people looking at the kinds of stuff I post. Especially to Twitter! I think I put more out there than to anywhere else (check out the feed at the bottom right of my blogs home page). Maybe most people are like me and have a hard time limiting themselves to only 140 characters so they never comment?
The followers I’m most happy to see are the ones who follow this blog. Today (last night) I passed a milestone. I now have 351 followers of this blog! Plus another 8 that follow “comments” (I’m not sure what that means).
So, in 9 months, I’ve managed to grow my audience from a low of 0, to 350+ followers of my blog. If I keep going like that, I could hope to double that by this time next year. Maybe I can increase my followers on my other networks by the same amount or more. 🙂
I wonder if there’s anything else I could do to increase my reach? Other than just posting more since I already post as much as I can find time to do. Does this seem normal? high? low? for numbers?
I’ve been trying to sort through my stats to see if there are certain things my viewers like more than others. From what I can tell, they actually seem to be interested in a lot of the same things I am. 😉
I was a little surprised to see that they liked the maritime stuff as much as they did. People really liked the videos of the Costa Concordia and the Rat Infested Ghost Ship. 😉
I’m glad to see they appreciate my photos. 🙂
I’m not too sure where they stand on my politics, but since that is such a huge part of who I am I’m just going to keep on with that anyway. 😉
I did notice a big (relative) increase in traffic when I was involved with any of the blog challenges. The photo challenges, the blogging 101 (zero to hero) and blogging 201 were all great for getting out there into the blogosphere. I did (barely) manage to finish the zero to hero challenge but still haven’t finished up the blogging 201 challenge. 🙁
I was traveling (in Korea) for most of the time it was going on and so I just didn’t have time to check in and do the assignments every day. I started on it so late that I missed out on the whole community aspect of it. That is really the most important part IMHO.
I’m still working on it, it’s still in the back of my mind, but I hope the people behind it at WordPress will do another one when I’ll have the time to really focus on it. I do think their challenges are helpful in making better bloggers. 🙂
I’m still trying hard to improve my blog and hopefully to increase my numbers. In the meantime, I’m still having fun with it and love to hear from people whenever they want to comment. 🙂
So, that’s what’s been going on behind the scenes here at Capt Jills Journeys.
I made it home from my trip to Korea! I thought for a while there that I might not. I had a really close connection in Bejing, only an hour. I had an hour and 20 minutes when I flew to Korea and barely made that!
I tried to ask Air China to give me my boarding pass in Seoul so I could shave a few minutes off in the airport, but that was a no-go. I tried to get United (which was who I got the flight with originally) to pull some strings, but they couldn’t do anything either.
My flight into Beijing was over 20 minutes late landing, so by that time I pretty much figured I was going to miss my connection. The Asiana crew really helped me out. They had a lady waiting for me as soon as I got off the plane to rush me over to the transfer desk and then over to immigration.
I was able to cut to the front of security, but then got held up for what seemed like forever while the security theatre played on. It seems the Chinese have a BIG think about cigarette lighters! (And power cords that I learned about while flying over and had all nice and neat for them).
I finally got through security without having a total breakdown over the pure insanity of it all and rushed off still hoping to catch my plane (which just HAD to be parked at the very last gate!).
I made it with seconds to spare. Thank goodness I caught a ride for the last few gates! I thought I was going to keel over before I got to the plane.
I was SO glad I made my flight. I didn’t even care much that my luggage didn’t make it. I had all my really important stuff with me.
So, now I’m home. It seems that there STILL is no work for me.
So, MAYBE I’ll be able to catch up on things around here. 😉
First off, it seems I’ve caught some sort of bug in my computer. 🙁
I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it’s driving me NUTS with the constant ads popping up EVERYWHERE! I had to mute the sound, it’s constantly playing videos. It’s annoying as hell.
I know the wordpress blog tells me that my readers might sometimes see ads on my blog, but I have never seen any of them before. I sure hope it’s not always this blatant!
It’s also putting random links into my posts lately that bring you to even more advertisements. WARNING: If you see a link double underlined, that is NOT one I put there!!!
If it turns out that I have a few days at home, I guess I’ll have to take this computer back to the shop to have it de-bugged again. I hope it’s something simple.
I do have another computer, but this one has all my programs and pictures and everything I work with on it. I really can’t do much with the on the other one…
I got this in my email today, I just HAD to check it out. This film looks like it will be a real eye-opener and I sure hope it gets the attention it deserves.
The email (from The Dollar Vigilante) said that the first official screening of the film will be at the Freedomfest (Las Vegas Jul 9-12).
I went to Freedomfest a couple of years ago and had a great time. I hope to go again this year. I’m not sure of my schedule yet, so I haven’t made plans. I definitely recommend it for anyone who is into freedom and individual liberty. There is SO much good information there, SO many interesting people, and the atmosphere is just amazing!
Positive energy for a change. 🙂
Here’s what Jeff Berwick (the Dollar Vigilante) has to say about Freedomfest and the new film… “… Freedomfest is probably the largest conference on freedom in the world and so I decided I couldn’t pass it up. Also, at Freedomfest, they will be screening the first public airing of “Freedom From Choice” a film on the state of the US tyranny today with appearances by Peter Schiff, G. Edward Griffin, myself and many more.“
I checked out the link on the email from TDV and liked what I saw. I can’t wait to see the full movie. I even donated a few bucks to help make that happen. (You can too if you want). I think Kickstarter is a great idea (and another example of the free market at work)!
Check it out and let me know what you think. Do you like stuff like this? Do you care about these kinds of issues? Are you concerned about the way things are going in the USA (or the world)? Are you involved in any projects to help change things? I’d really like to know. 🙂
Here’s another oldie but goodie. I always liked this song. I even learned how to play it on the guitar (but have forgotten since). I miss those days, hanging out after class with my friends in the OMT (Ocean Marine Technology) program.
We used to have a blast! We would go to classes and learn all about how to run a boat. Some days we even got to go out on one to practice all the things we learned in class.
On the weekends we would go down to the beach and have a big bonfire. We’d roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We’d play guitars and sing and camp out overnight sometimes.
I miss doing that sort of thing. All my friends from school moved away (or just got older and gave up all that kind of thing). I forgot how to play guitar. 🙁
Anyway, here’s the song. If you want to know more about it, I found a good link (here). It’s got a lot of interesting stuff on there. 🙂
I’m heading home (from Korea) in the morning. I hope things won’t be so hectic and I’ll be able to catch up with things on here soon. 😉
This Dumbo Octopus Video Will Melt Your Heart – gCaptain Maritime & Offshore News.
I got this in an email from Gcaptain.com. I subscribe to their emails and they always have something interesting to share. I really enjoyed this video of the Dumbo Octopus.
Dumbo octopus
I actually watched quite a few videos of them before, I thought they were really cute. 🙂
I was trying to find some information on this other creature I saw on the ROV video feed while I was working last hitch. The ROV crew called it a ‘heart’ or ‘sea heart’ or ‘heart of the sea’. Nobody knew what they were really called or what kind of creature they were.
I looked and looked all over the internet. I found all sorts of really weird stuff, but nothing I could say for sure was the same creature we were seeing from our ship.
It looked a little bit like some of the online pictures of the Dumbo octopus.
The closest thing I could say would have to be a vampire squid, which also looks a lot like some of the pictures of the Dumbo octopus.
vampire squid
But it turns out, it was really some sort of swimming sea cucumber. I’ll do some more posts about these creatures, but for now here’s a photo of one type of swimming sea cucumber (there are many different types).
enypniastes-transparent-swimming-sea-cucumber
I’ll try to get back on track for Wild Wednesday and post some more about it by then. I have some video from the ship I can post. 🙂
WATCH: Laying Big Pipe from Allseas’ Audacia – gCaptain Maritime & Offshore News.
I just got this in an email from Gcaptain this morning. It’s an interesting article with a cool video of the ‘Audacia’.
I worked on the G1200 for a (very) short time a couple of years ago. We were doing the same thing they’re showing in the video.
I thought it was a very stressful job being DPO on there. Maybe if I had stayed longer I would have become used to it. I like what I’m doing now better. 🙂
Another Song of the Sea. This one is for sure an “oldie but a goodie’. 😉
I remember when I was growing up, my father used to love this song. He would sing along or dance around the house to the music. I always liked it too.
I was surprised to hear the mate really getting into it out on the Ocean Alliance last time I was on there. He had the whole bridge team (including me) singing along and really getting into it! (Thanks A.)!!
I really like it too. I hope you all will enjoy it as much as I did. 🙂
Here are the lyrics so you can sing along. 😉
“Beyond the Sea”
Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing
Somewhere beyond the sea
She’s there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms
I’d go sailing
It’s far beyond the stars
It’s near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We’ll meet beyond the shore
We’ll kiss just as before
Happy we’ll be beyond the sea
And never again I’ll go sailing
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We’ll meet (I know we’ll meet) beyond the shore
We’ll kiss just as before
Happy we’ll be beyond the sea
And never again I’ll go sailing
No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing…
Top 26 Margarita Recipes : Recipes : Cooking Channel.
Another holiday with special drinks coming up! So soon? Yep, its almost Cinco de Mayo. 🙂
Get ready for all kinds of events and parties featuring margaritas and Mexican food. 😉
I found this post online today. It has 26!!! different margarita recipes.
I like margaritas, but I haven’t tried most of these. Heck, I’ve never even HEARD of most of these.
Cucumber Jalapeno margarita? Chipotle Grapefruit margarita? Lavender margarita? Raspberry Lemon margarita…
For all you moonshine aficionados out there, there’s a Moonshine margarita!
There’s even a recipe for a Mint Julep margarita in case you want to combine your Kentucky Derby party with your Cinco de Mayo party!
And a Watermelon margarita in case you want to get ready for Memorial Day. 🙂
I definitely want to try the Magical Low-Calorie margarita asap. 😉
With this list, you can margarita all year round. 😉
Derby Punch Recipe – Kraft Recipes.
In honor of the Kentucky Derby this weekend, I figured I’d post this recipe for Derby Punch. 🙂
It looks good, but personally I think it’s a little light on the booze. 😉
I have to say, I haven’t tried this recipe yet, so I don’t know for sure. I think it’s something that can/should be adjusted for personal taste.
I’m still in Korea and my travel writing/photography workshop starts in the morning, so I’m pretty sure I won’t be having any Derby Day celebrations here. So, be sure and have some punch for me and let me know how it goes! 😉
