Tag Archives: #blog challenge

A to Z: Dreamstime

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Yesterday’s post for the A to Z Challenge is “Dreamstime” (I skipped it yesterday cause I was just too busy and too tired by the time I got home after midnight). For the challenge, I’m posting every day in April (except Sundays), one for each letter of the alphabet.

Some bloggers have chosen themes. I haven’t. I’m just doing what I normally do- mostly maritime, travel, and photography- but also anything that interests me. That includes food, drinks, philosophy, history, religion, politics, culture, art, music, science, astronomy, jokes, etc. You might find anything here. I hope you like surprises. 😉

Anyway, today’s post (which should have been done yesterday) is on Dreamstime. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know I’ve been trying to find ways to earn income other than just working at a regular job.

One way I’ve been trying to do that is to break into ‘stock photography’. Dreamstime is one of the places to do that. I’ve been accepted on there for about a year.

Check out my Dreamstime portfolio- here.

I’ve only managed to get 26 photos uploaded and accepted. My acceptance ratio is over 95% which I think is excellent. I’ve only tried uploading photos already accepted at Bigstock on Dreamstime, that helps.

So far, I’ve earned a grand total of $4.11!

I need to work on getting more photos on there. The last couple of weeks would have been perfect. The only problem has been that my computer with all of my photos has been in the shop and the internet has been giving me fits! I have my computer back now, but I have to download the programs back onto it. Now just have to wait for the new modem to show up so I can get proper internet access again.

It should get here by Friday. 🙂

A to Z: Calypso

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Here’s today’s post for the A to Z Challenge. On Calypso, the ship and the song (I’ll skip the nymph). The challenge is to write a post every day (except Sundays) for the month of April. One for each letter of the alphabet.

I’ve always loved this song. Maybe because I always loved the ocean and everything in it. I also love to SCUBA dive and thanks to Cousteau for that!! I’ve been lucky to always live near the ocean and even to work on the water. 🙂

John Denver wrote this song as a tribute to Jacques Cousteau and his expedition ship “Calypso”. I think he did a good job (I wish the youtube video was better!).

I remember watching Jacques Cousteau on TV when I was a kid. I loved seeing his voyages on the Calypso and all his underwater adventures.

I thought about this song when I saw the post on the Old Salt Blog the other day about the sad situation the Calypso is in now.

It looks like the ship may sail again after all, check this link for the latest news.

In the meantime, here are the lyrics to the song (in case you want to sing along).

“Calypso”

To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean, to ride on the crest of the wild raging storm.
To work in the service of life and the living, in search of the answers to questions unknown.
To be part of the movement and part of the growing, part of beginning to understand.
Aye, Calypso, the place’s you’ve been to,
the things that you’ve shown us, the stories you tell.
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit, the men who have served you so long and so well.

Like the dolphin who guides you, you bring us beside you
to light up the darkness and show us the way.
For though we are strangers in your silent world, to live on the land we must learn from the sea.
To be true as the tide and free as a wind swell, joyful and loving in letting it be.
Aye, Calypso, the place’s you’ve been to,
the things that you’ve shown us, the stories you tell.
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit, the men who have served you so long and so well.
Aye, Calypso, the place’s you’ve been to,
the things that you’ve shown us, the stories you tell.
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit, the men who have served you so long and so well.

Here’s an interesting link to Jessica’s blog where she gives a very good rundown on Jacques Cousteau and his Calypso (along with some diving to whet your whistle). And another one on Cousteau. Check ’em out! 🙂

A to Z: Arribada

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I’ve joined in the A to Z Challenge, where the challenge is to post something every day for 26 days in April, using the letters of the alphabet. I’m going to try to post twice today, since I had to miss yesterday. I’ve been having so many problems with my computers. The internet has been completely out for 3 days now. Today, it’s back to shutting off at unpredictable intervals so I’m hoping I can catch up…

I was lucky enough to see the arribada last year when I was in Nicaragua. So sorry, I wasn’t able to get any good photos since it was night, it was very dark, and tho they passed out little red lights, they warned us not to shine them at the turtles. It might upset them enough to make them stop laying their eggs. I don’t know why they don’t go see them in the daytime, I never got a straight answer to that question. I hope one day to see them in the daylight. 🙂

I did take a few photos anyway. It was such an amazing experience, I soon gave up messing with the camera. There were dozens of turtles (olive ridleys) coming and going up and down the beach. Like all sea turtles, the olive ridleys are endangered, it was thrilling to see so many of them at once. It was hard to see them, but you could hear them coming and you’d better get out of their way cause they weren’t moving out of your way!

We went as a group (I signed up for a tour at a hostel- Casa Oro– in San Juan del Sur), we all watched a movie before we left and our guide explained everything for us. She even scooped out the sand behind the turtle as it was laying, so we could all see the eggs being deposited.

I’d like to go back someday, it was a fantastic experience. If you ever get the chance to see it, you should! 🙂

One Word Photo Challenge: Barn

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Jennifer has some pretty cool challenges on her blog. This one is for the One Word Photo Challenge. The word of the week is: barn. Here is my entry. The pictures are of my friends pasture and barn. I was actually taking pictures of the cattle, I don’t usually see them so close to the house.

Color Your World: Gray

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I heard about Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge from Cee, her beautiful flower photos showed up in my reader and caught my eye. I had to click through to see the rest of her photos. 🙂

Today’s challenge color is: gray. Here’s my best shot. 🙂

I took it a couple of years ago. I was supposed to fly out to the rig for work, but they had canceled the helicopters due to the heavy fog. So, we rode the crewboat out instead. This supply boat was following us out the channel, they passed by pretty close to us as we exited the Fourchon jetties. This is one of my favorite shots. I’ve even put it on some of my business cards. It’s one of Aries Marine’s vessels: the Betty Pfankuch.

I doubt I’ll be able to participate in this challenge every day. I’m in Mexico and in school and I don’t want to spend all my time here on the computer. It does look like a fun challenge, so I’ll join in and play along when I can. Here’s the link with more info, and you can sign up if you want to. 🙂

#1 Blogging Tip

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My favorite blogging tip from Afford Anything blogger Paula Pant is:

Don’t waste your readers time. 

She actually puts it further down her list of blogging tips, but it’s my favorite, so I’ll call it #1. Paula helped get me started blogging at her workshop a couple of years ago. She does very well with her blog and has a lot of good ideas, so I try to pay attention to her tips and tricks of the trade.

I almost never try to write a post if I don’t have something to say. Something I think is worth passing on. I don’t normally feel the urge to post every day. When I join in these challenges like I’m in now (Just Jot It January), I find it a lot harder to follow Paula’s tip.

Sometimes, I just don’t feel like I have anything useful to say. Normally I would just not post anything. But when I’m challenged to post something every single day, it’s really, really hard to come up with something that I don’t think will be a stupid waste of time. For you and for me. Lately, I’ve been following the prompts for lack of anything interesting going on around here. It’s really hard to come up with something to say about the prompt subject sometimes.

I hate to quit any challenge, so I hope I can keep things interesting for another 2 weeks. I know I must be getting pretty boring since I haven’t been working at all lately and hardly going anywhere. I’m trying hard to make my savings last until I can get back to work, so not able to travel or go out much. I’m pretty upset about it and trying not to get too depressing about the unemployment situation around here.

So ya’ll let me know if it gets to be too much. If you think I’m wasting your time, let me know!

Just Jot It January: Dachshund

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For today’s Just Jot It January post…

Just a little joke. Enjoy. 🙂

Just Jot It January: Frozen

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I’ve joined in Linda’s blog challenge of Just Jot It January. I’ve been posting every day so far but today is the first time I’m using one of the prompts. Today’s prompt is: frozen.

I can’t help thinking about yesterdays Icicle Race out on Galveston Bay. One of the guys who was out on the boat with us was just about literally frozen the whole time! Unlike myself, he’s a skinny little guy and has no natural insulation. 😉

He’s usually the most enthusiastic sailor of all of us. He’s constantly checking the sails and tweaking the trim for every last bit of speed he can get out of the boat.  But yesterday he stayed holed up down below through most of the race. Even the standard sailors cure (a shot of rum) didn’t do much to help. 😉

We joked about the ‘wind chill factor’ the rest of the afternoon, how it was so much colder on deck with the wind (since there really was not much wind). We finally gave up on the race when the wind died down to only 2-3 kts, and motored the rest of the way in to the dock. We got there in good time for the crew party at the clubhouse. The hot chili and a few more shots of rum finally did the trick. 🙂

Year of the Fire Monkey

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According to the Chinese zodiac calendar, 2016 is the Year of the Fire Monkey: a year of strength and determination. It’s the year of not only setting goals, but also meeting them.

What will your 2016 bring? What goals will you set this year? Which ones will you meet?

That was the beginning of an email I got this morning. It went on to talk about how the prediction calls for a year of prosperity. It ended up trying to sell me financial advice (I didn’t buy it).

I don’t know much about the Chinese zodiac, other than I’m an Ox. All I can say to this prediction is, I sure do hope it comes true! It would be great to actually meet more of my goals this year!

PS- Join in the Just Jot It January challenge here.

PS- Those photos are not actually monkeys, they’re chimps (from the Houston Zoo), but the best photos I could come up with out of my stash. 😉

2015: Year In Review

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Whew! I’m glad it’s over! Here’s hoping for a better year this year!

It didn’t start out too bad. I was working steady for Ocean Rig, and no matter how much it sucked, it was still a job. That’s MUCH better than where I am now, with NO job! Or maybe I should say no money, I could do without the job if it didn’t mean no money!

Yeah, I hated their petty BS, they never really listened to me (or anybody else on the vessels) and insisted I repeat time wasting, un-necessary “training” instead of allowing me to enjoy my time off. I hate all the rules and regulations, but that’s something to deal with pretty much everywhere now. I keep hoping to find a small mom and pop company that does things the old way. Somewhere we all could really ENJOY work again (and not just do it for the paycheck).

Even so, I still loved the job for 1. the pay, that allows me to enjoy 2. the time off, and when I go back to work 3. it’s still out there on the water instead of in some dreary office cubicle!

drill ship

I really didn’t do much other than work last year. I did manage to go sailing a few times with the local meet up group Sail La Vie. I actually managed to finish ONE of my goals from last years New Years resolutions (post at least once a week). I SOLD an article! I uploaded a few photos to the stock agencies that were accepted (most failed).

Nothing really exciting til I took a vacation down to Central America in late July. I had been planning to go to a blogging workshop in Costa Rica for months and hoping I could make it work with my schedule. At the last minute, I was able to work over and so could make the trip.

I flew to Managua since it was the cheapest flight I could find. I went directly to Granada for a week long Spanish immersion class. From there I went to the blogging workshop in Costa Rica. I had been considering moving my blog to a paid site for a while since I thought I had to do that in order to ‘monetize’ it. I only started blogging as a way to earn money and yes, I still DO want to do that.

I wanted to find a way to get my photography out there, my writing out there, my experiences out there- PAST the editors and to the people who might enjoy it! So far, I am not making much progress in any of that. Yes, I have had a few people ‘like’ my posts, but nowhere near enough ‘followers’ to make it worth trying to put any sort of links or ads on here. So I moved the blog while I was at the workshop and had help.

That was a pure DISASTER!

For 3 months, I had a total of 3 new followers, 4-5 likes, a dozen or so views. I was so frustrated and discouraged. I still haven’t figured out what went wrong or how to fix it. I DID finally find out that most of my old followers hadn’t actually disappeared, they were still here, on my OLD blog and didn’t get transferred to my NEW blog like they were supposed to have been (automatically).

So, I have basically had to start BOTH blogs over again from scratch as far as finding an audience. I was about to just say the hell with it all and chalk it up as just one more failure. One more money making scheme that will never work. But then I thought about it some more and I really do like blogging just for the sake of blogging. It’s not all about the money. I like meeting people from all over the world, I like seeing what they’re all doing, I like participating in the challenges, and I also like seeing what I can do to increase my stats. 😉

So, I will keep on blogging, still hoping to someday figure out how to make some money off it, but in the meantime having fun with it.

I did really enjoy the workshop and it was helpful (except for the screwed up blog move). I had a good time with all the other bloggers, but after it was over I was eager to get back to Nicaragua. Costa Rica was just too expensive for me!

I went to San Juan del Sur and stayed to see the arribada (the turtles coming to lay their eggs). That was really something! I wish I could have stayed longer to do it again, but I wanted to go back to Granada for the hipica. That was supposed to be something really special. Something like the running of the bulls in Pamplona but not as crowded, plus fancy horse carts and all kinds of celebrations. I was really looking forward to it.

I got back to Granada and found out they had changed the dates (without notice) and so I would miss the celebrations after all. 🙁

My friend from high school was coming down and I was getting sick of the heat and humidity, so I decided to meet him in the northern mountain town of Matagalpa. That was a nice change. We went riding around in his rental car. We went searching for the town of the weavers which turned into a real adventure. I would never had tried to take a little rental car up in those crazy mountain roads, but T had no problems.

We finally found the place, only about 100 population, I’m still amazed we even got there. After that, we had to buy some fabrics. T did.

I went back home to look for work after that trip, Ocean Rig called and laid me off while I was down there. T decided to go take the TEFL course. He’s happily teaching English in Mexico now. I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing.

I’ve been trying to figure out what in the hell I’m going to do now. I’ve spent my entire life at sea, never really done anything else and now there is NO work out there. Now that the price of oil has taken a nose dive and the forecast is not looking good for the next year or 2 (at least).

I went to Phoenix for a conference on how to earn a living overseas. That was interesting, especially if you want to run a business, but I don’t want to work any harder than I do now.   I still don’t really have any great ideas on what to do myself. Not unless I can flat out ‘retire’ with enough money to last til I die (I can’t). I went to the Workboat Show in New Orleans, hoping there would be someone hiring at the job fair there (there wasn’t). I went to a writing workshop in Colorado, hoping to get my writing polished up enough to send in to magazines (still working on that).

I’ve mostly hanging around the house, filling out job applications, waiting for emails or calls about work, not feeling like doing much of anything, wondering what can I do to make things work out. How can I make a move? How can I motivate myself to just DO IT? or at least do something?

PS- This is my first post in Linda’s Just Jot It January challenge. Click the link if you want to join in. 🙂

Three Quote Challenge: 1

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I got this in my email from pensitivity101, I’ve been following her for a while now. She lives aboard a little riverboat over in Britain with her husband and their dog. I like to read about how they manage to handle the living arrangements on their boat.

I don’t usually do these challenges either, but I do collect quotes so I figured what the hell, this one might be fun.

The rules are:

  1. Post 3 quotes over the next 3 days.
  2. Invite 3 bloggers each time to continue the challenge.                                                                                                                                                                                                              

That’s one of my all time favorite quotes. I even have it posted on my refrigerator. I think it’s one of those things that keeps me banging my head against the wall trying to FIX things here instead of just saying “the hell with it all, they asked for this, let them suffer their mistakes”. 🙁

I had a hard time thinking of 3 bloggers I could be sure would like to play this game. So I’ll copy pensitivity101s idea:”my invitees are anyone who wishes to participate”. So, I am not going to limit this to only 3 bloggers, anyone who wants to, feel free to join in! Please link back to me so I can see your quotes. 🙂