I’ve been busy the last couple of days. I’ve been touring around Cappadocia. Late last night, I returned to Istanbul. Today I decided to take a little bit of a break. Tomorrow will start another week of early mornings and long days as I head off into Africa. 🙂
On arrival in Cappadocia, I was loaded into a van with a few other world travelers. One man from Chile, one from Malaysia, one from the Netherlands and a couple of couples from other places in Turkey. We were going on the ‘Red Tour” today.
In addition to the weird and other worldly landscape of the area, the most interesting part (to me) was the Goreme Open Air Museum. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and definitely worth a visit.
The museum showcases an ancient religious center, full of rock carved dwellings, churches, monasteries, nunneries, etc. Our tour guide Vaysi was very good. He explained everything in English and Turkish (and sometimes Spanish for the Chilean guy). Vaysi also speaks Chinese and Portuguese if you’re interested. 😉
I was impressed with the frescos. Many of the churches had frescos of Jesus Christ, the Saints, and many of the important events from the Bible. Plenty of them are still vibrant after thousands of years. Too bad they don’t allow photography inside most of the caves (they worry about the flash harming the frescos and don’t want to deal with separating out those who don’t have flash on their cameras- people like me). 🙁
It was amazing how the people managed to build all these places so long ago.
The entire area is covered in hundreds of meters of volcanic ash, some of it is ‘tuff’. Tuff is a soft, easily carved stone. The people in this area have been making use of this property for millennia. They’ve carved homes, churches, even entire cities out of the stone. Some people still live in the ‘cave houses’. The hotel I stayed in had rooms carved out of the rock (mine wasn’t one of those).
I wondered how they managed to climb up and down so high every day. How did they get their food and water and everything else they needed all the way up to those caves? Personally I found it exhausting just walking around to the lower ones. We spent a couple of hours exploring the highlights. There was a lot more to see if you wanted to spend all day wandering around.
I’m running late today, so this will just be a short teaser. I’ll write more when I get in tonight. Yesterday, I went on a dinner cruise through the Bosphorus Straights between Europe and Asia.
It was a beautiful night and the cruise was very entertaining. With good food, company, music and dancing!
It was a lot of fun. I loved the makeup and the whole idea. We were at the cemetery, which was a perfect backdrop for the models with their ‘calavera‘ makeup. We got started a little late, after 4 pm, but the light was perfect- even with so many shady trees.
I hated to leave so early, but I needed to get over to Freeport for the Sunset Sip. It was my first time to do a show like that and I didn’t want to be late (I was a few minutes late anyway). I wish I could have stayed longer. I missed out on quite a few of the models.
Here are a few examples of what we were up to.
I really hope they do another one like this. It was fantastic and I did get some beautiful shots. Thanks to the organizers and all the models and make-up artists! 🙂
I just entered the Oilpro Halloween Photo Contest. It’s supposed to be for work, but since I’ve been laid off for a year now, I couldn’t post any photos of scary co-workers or office decorations.
I did the next best thing. I posted a couple of photos I took at the National Museum of Funeral History last week. They had a pretty cool Haunted House.
Been a busy couple of days around here. I got an email last week about today’s Sunset Sip going on tonight in Freeport. I was interested in entering some of my art in the show. I found out the information I needed a couple of days ago.
I spent all day yesterday getting my photos ready. Signing them, matting them, and framing them. I met the lady in charge of the operation (Jennifer) yesterday afternoon in her Freeport office. She has some stunning artwork from previous events decorating the place.
She kindly showed me to the Heritage Ballroom, and then helped me set up in the entry. I brought my big painting of the underwater scene I had painted one winter when it was too rough to go outside on the tanker. I’ve had it hanging on my living room wall ever since. I do really like it. I think it turned out pretty good, especially considering I was using the ships deck paint (and a little wonky from the fumes on the last part- after I had to move it to my room).
Most of the rest I’m bringing are photos. I’m also in the show at the Brazosport Art League Gallery next to the college. I’ll pick up the ones I have there now and bring a few more to enter there.
Once I do the trade at the BAL Gallery, I’m headed to a photo shoot with the Brazoria County Models & Photographers out in West Columbia for the Day of the Dead. That should give me some awesome photos! The models are all great to work with and I always have a lot of fun. I hate to cut it short, but I’ll have to, in order to get back to Freeport in time for the Sunset Sip.
I’m looking forward to this event. I’m sure to meet lots of interesting people. I hope I get a chance to wander around and check out everyone else’s work. They’re having a zydeco band, a brewery, a winery, and all kinds of food.
I’ll have to tend to my booth, so not sure how much time I’ll have to look around. After all, I do really want to sell some things too.
Cee always has great photos for her photo challenges. I try to join in when I can find the time. This weeks challenge is ‘rocks’.
I have not edited these photos, they’re already pretty much black and white. I like them the way they are. I took all of them at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (at various times).
This is a sandstone concretion- formed when extremely hot water flowed through the fine quartz sand and cemented it together, about 20 million years ago).
This is gypsum.
This is mesolite and fluoropophylite.
These are quartz crystals.
Aren’t they all just gorgeous?! So much of the natural world is so beautiful, from the macro to the micro. I love taking pictures to remind me of it all.
I always love Cee’s photo challenges. She comes up with so many great ideas. She has a couple of challenges going all the time. I joined in last week (purples). Another cool thing she does is ‘feature’ some of her favorite entries. She featured my purples. 🙂
This week’s challenge is ‘light greens‘. Here are some of mine.
A green sea anemone.
A green tree python.
And this little guy- a green chameleon (I love these guys).
I’m scheduled to work tomorrow and Tuesday this week. If I’m lucky I will get to work both days. Nothing else on the schedule for me for the entire month. 🙁
The training center where I’ve been working has also been struggling to survive since the downturn in the oil markets. They have very few students, so very few classes, so not much work for me. 🙁
I have a long planned trip coming up the 1st of November. It’s super expensive and something I’ve wanted to do since the 1st time I watched Tarzan on TV when I was a kid. A real bucket list trip. A photography safari!
Friday, I got a call for a possible job. The first real job since last September. I had to give it a pass.
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to join in on any of Cee’s great challenges. I’ll try to make up with a couple for this week. Here’s my take on her Fun Foto Challenge for this week- purples.
These are all from my trip last week to New Orleans…
purple feathered masque
purple eggplant
purple player
purple donuts
purple hammocks
Like it? Feel free to join in, just click the link and see what other things Cee is up to.
I was working in Houston on Monday. We finished up pretty early, so I decided to stop at the Museum of Natural Science on the way home.
I’m a member, so it’s free if I don’t go to the special exhibitions. This time they had one on the Virgin of Guadeloupe. I wasn’t really very interested in that, and by the time I got there it was after 3, so I just wandered around the regular exhibits. There’s plenty to see for free. 🙂
I spent a lot of time this time in the exhibit on ancient Egypt. I always thought all that stuff about mummies was pretty cool, and I really love the old stories about gods, goddesses, etc. They had a lot of that kind of thing on display. Quite a few mummies and they explained all about it. I liked how they set up the exhibit too. When you entered, it really put you in the right frame of mind. 😉
Here’s a photo of a mummy case, inside and out.
I spent most of my time in this exhibit this week, but I did take a quick look at the section on the Amazon, the rocks/minerals (the gem vault was still closed), and the shells. Here’s a nice shot of some gypsum.
I loved this thing! It’s called a ‘sandstone concretion’. I just think it’s beautiful, the way it twists and turns, spirals around, shades of gray. I could do a lot with photos of this thing. 🙂
I know I’ve been posting a lot of gloom and doom lately. It’s been hard for me to try and come up with cool stuff to write about when my life has been so screwy lately. I do still find things to keep me going, just not nearly as much as when I’m working. I hope you’ll stick around till things get more interesting. 🙂
Last Saturday I went up to Houston for the Zydeco Fest. I’ve been having a hard time getting motivated to do much of anything around here. Just too much stress to enjoy the time at home. Weird, isn’t it? When I’m offshore working, I can’t wait to get off and spend time at home. Now that I’ve been home for so long without work, I can hardly stand it.
If I wasn’t so worried about finances, I would be off traveling somewhere. Since I have to be here to jump on any job offer that comes by (no matter how bad), I can’t leave or do anything really.
I had finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel last week (or I thought I did), so I decided to go have a little celebration. I’ve always loved zydeco music, all kinds of music really- except rap and opera. I used to go up to Houston every couple of weeks. I’d go catch a live band, spend the night, and do a museum or something on the way home.
I got a late start last week and didn’t get to the show until about 5. They had it right downtown at Jones Plaza. I found a nice hotel only a couple of blocks away and not super expensive. The worst part was the parking fees! At least by the time I got to the show, it had cooled down a little. It was still hot! I didn’t bring anything to sit on and what few seats there were were already occupied.
I just walked around, looked over the little shops people set up- selling food, drinks, t-shirts, etc. They had a couple of food trucks parked by the entrance and more cooks scattered around the park. People were picnicking and enjoying the sunshine with their families. Old folks and babies, the whole range of ages loved the music. Everybody was dancing and having a good time.
I got there in time for the last part of Lil Nate and the Zydeco Big Timers. I saw Marcus Ardoin and the Zydeco Legend, and finished the night off with Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws (all the pictures are of Step and his band).
I didn’t find out til I was leaving the Zydeco Fest, but they also had a Gay Pride parade that evening. All the crowds from that were thronging the downtown streets right around the time they were shutting down the Zydeco Fest. It looked like it must have been a lot of fun. Everybody was in a good mood and from what I could see of the costumes, they all had a great time.
Houston needs to get a better way to let people know what’s going on around town!
Here’s a little music to tide us over til next year’s zydeco festival. 🙂
With all the problems I’ve been having with my computers/internet lately, I’ve lost track of a lot of the bloggers I usually follow. Jennifer and her One Word Photo Challenge is one of those. I only remembered tonight when I saw a post from Cee (another great photographer I follow) in my reader.
I like cats. I can’t have any pets since I’m usually gone so much. Even a cat would starve to death by the time I got back from offshore. There’s a nice cat that lives a few houses down that comes by to visit me. Not so much now that my friends (who’ve been feeding it) have been gone a few days. I don’t have any pictures of that one yet, I was going to try to get some, but when I went for my camera, she was gone.
Here’s a photo of a kitten I took on vacation in Nicaragua last summer. It’s one of the very few I still have (most of my photos from that trip were stolen). 🙁
I gave you a preview the other day, now on to the real deal. 🙂 Today, May 22, is actually Maritime Day. We even got a “Presidential Proclamation“. 🙂
This years Maritime Day celebration in Galveston (on the 19th) wasn’t as good as last years, if only because of the weather. We didn’t get to sit outside and watch the traffic in the harbor, or get a salute from a tugboat this year, but thank goodness they planned to move it into the cruise ship terminal a couple of days earlier! It was streaming down rain all day long! Thunder and lightning shook the building, drowned out the speakers and split the sky.
But we persevered and had our little memorial with the few hardy souls who managed to make it out before the storm hit in full force.
Galveston’s celebration started off with music by the ‘Singing Stars’ from the Odyssey Academy.
Captain John Peterlin III from the Port of Galveston welcomed everyone to the event and then led into a program explaining the history of the US Merchant Marine and Maritime Day. There was a moment of silence in appreciation of all mariners past and present.
Tammy Lobaugh from Texas A & M Galveston talked a bit about maritime education and a few of the many maritime organizations that contribute to our maritime heritage. Some of them were represented at the event- WISTA, the maritime unions (SIU, MEBA, AMO), the seamans centers, maritime museums, ports, etc.
Cristina Galego representing the Port of Galveston read John Masefield’s poem Sea Fever
I know some of you are fellow bloggers. Can I get a show of hands? Click ‘like’ if you blog too. Feel free to comment too (even if you’re not a blogger). 🙂
How many are ‘travel bloggers’? I consider myself a travel blogger, even tho I blog about a lot of different things. I love to travel, love to take pictures of everything I see and do, love to try new foods/drinks/music/culture, and love to share all about it.
So, I decided to head up to Minneapolis for the TBEX next weekend. The “Travel Blog Exchange”. It bills itself as the “world’s largest gathering of travel bloggers, writers, new media content creators, and social media savvy travel industry professionals”.
Is anybody out there going to be at the TBEX (Memorial Day Weekend in Minneapolis/St Paul)? If you are, let’s connect!
I’m really looking forward to this as an opportunity to meet some great people and learn more about blogging and how to improve mine.
Have any of you ever been to a blogging event like this? I’m wondering how it all works. What did you like about it? Not like about it? What did you get out of it? Was it helpful? Can you give me any feedback?
Is anybody from around that area? Have any suggestions for things I really should see/do while I’m there?
Nicaragua is a beautiful and interesting country. There is so much to see and do there. Volcanos to hike or surf, jungles to explore, rivers to raft, oceans (2) to swim or surf, historic cites, small farming or crafting towns to visit, local markets to shop, you’ll never get bored.
I spent a few weeks vacation in Nicaragua last summer (they called me down there to lay me off). I was actually going to attend another blogging workshop in Costa Rica. It was much cheaper to fly into Managua (and cheaper for everything else too), so I decided to spend more time exploring Nicaragua instead of Costa Rica.
I started off by taking a Spanish immersion class for a week in Granada at Nicaragua Mia. They picked me up at the airport in Managua and delivered me to my home for the week with Sra Maria Elena. She took very good care of me while I was there and even gave me a nice birthday cake. 🙂
I spent the week exploring the beautiful historic city of Granada after my classes at Nicaragua Mia. It’s a small city and very easy to walk everywhere, or if you’re tired you can hop on one of the cute little horse drawn carriages. They’re all over the place and very affordable. I took a tour on one with a local guy and got to see a lot of the city and learn more about it’s history.
I liked to walk the few blocks down to Lake Nicaragua to check out the Malecon. They always had people selling snacks and drinks, sometimes playing music for tips. There were kids playing and couples strolling holding hands.
From there, I could walk back up a few blocks towards town and pass through the lively pedestrian street La Calzada, full of bars and restaurants with outdoor tables and wandering mariachi bands. I usually stopped for a 2 for 1 drink special or ice cream, maybe even stick around for dinner.
From there Central Park, surrounded by churches, hotels and government buildings was the next stop. I liked to go up the church tower to look out over the city skyline and the lake. Then come down to sit in the park (free wi-fi) to watch the ‘action’ for a while- the line of horse carts drumming up business, the food and drink vendors, the families watching their children play, the school kids heading home. It was all nice to see and calming in a way.
I was a little sad to leave Granada and my hostess Maria Elena, but excited to get to Costa Rica for my blogging workshop. I was really hoping to learn how to improve my blog and finally figure out how to monetize it.
After a long day on the bus, crossing the border into Costa Rica, I arrived at the hotel where we would be staying the next week. It was beautiful! Way out of my usual style of travel. Very nice, but unaffordable for the kind of long term stays I like.
I spent the week there with a dozen other bloggers, all of us excited to be learning how to better our blogs. It wasn’t all work and no play. We took day trips to hike a volcano, horseback ride, and to Tamarindo for a day out sailing, snorkeling and fishing.
When the class was over, I headed back to Nicaragua. San Juan del Sur was my destination for the next few days. I found a nice apartment right on the beach. Nothing special, but it was on the beach, close to everything and all I needed (full kitchen, AC, wi-fi). I spent my days walking the beach, wandering around town enjoying the laid back atmosphere, taking lots of photos and an excursion to see the sea turtles come in to lay their eggs.
I could have stayed longer, but I wanted to get back to Granada for the Tope de Toros and Hipica. I was really looking forward to the celebrations. I wanted to watch the ‘running of the bulls’, see all the decorated horse carts and the competitions. I heard it would be a week long, city wide party. I was ready for some of that!
When I arrived, I was disappointed to learn that they had changed the dates at the last minute. Nobody really knew when they would have the parades, etc. But turns out not during my stay. So, I cut it short and headed to Matagalpa. I was ready for some cooler temperatures.
I met an old friend T., from high school there (he was looking to escape his kids), and we had a good time exploring the area. We found a small town of weavers, we checked out a waterfall on the way, we looked through the local markets. It was cooler than Granada and definitely worth the trip.
From there, since T. had a rental car, we headed to Leon, another colonial city. We spent the day hanging out in the city center, looking at old churches, listening to music, checking out a special food and drink show for the trainee bartenders and having lunch.
It was about time to go home, so we headed back to Managua for the last couple of days. I wasn’t really ready to go back home, but I still have too much to do here to just say ‘the hell with it all’ and stay down there. I really need to find a way to get rid of this stuff here!
Korea is a very interesting place. I spent about a month there right around this time last year. My excuse for going was to attend the travel writing and photography workshop in Seoul put on by GEP.
I wanted to do some exploration before and after the workshop, so I flew in early and spent some time in Incheon. I went to Jayu Park, Wolmi Island, the fish markets.
I always got a kick out of the locals wanting to take their picture with me. Turn around is fair play, I’m usually taking plenty of pictures of the locals. They loved it. 😉
I took the train down to Okpo, on Geoje Island. I was hoping to visit an old friend I used to work with. He still worked for the same company but they had been keeping him in Korea for 2-3 years. I wanted to try to find something similar myself. Turns out he was out of town, but I had a good time exploring around town and talking to some of the other expats there.
I made my way back up to Busan. I met an online friend through a meetup group and we met for dinner. She showed me around town and even to tour her ship at the Maritime Academy. I got to meet some of the students and was very impressed with their organization there.
I used to work as a captain of a tuna boat and it turns out the company we worked for had their home office right around the corner from where I was staying. I tried to meetup with some of the guys I used to work for, but they were pretty busy and we never did make it happen. I spent my time in Busan wandering around taking pictures of the harbor, the markets, the parks.
The train back to Seoul was clean, efficient and cheap. I was ready to meet my fellow travel writers the next day.
I had a blast wandering around the city with the group. We were there for the Lotus Lantern Festival and the photos we got were great! We went to the old castle, to a talk about tea, on a food tour, we even got to go visit the tunnels to North Korea!
Seoul Korea for the travel writing workshop
I really didn’t want to leave, there was still so much to see and do. The people were so friendly and helpful, most spoke at least some English so I had no real problems with communication or finding my way around. The scenery was gorgeous! Very green, with a rocky mountainous coastline. Everything was very clean and well maintained. The food was fresh, healthy and cheap (and plenty of it). It was easy to get around and really pretty affordable (I stayed in local hotels not the fancy ones for foreigners). I would love a chance to go back again. 🙂
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.
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.
I have been trying, for years now, to find some way to earn a living on my own. I’ve known for a long time that working offshore was not going to last. I did my very best to prepare. I saved all I could. I invested the best way I could figure out how (stocks, real estate, training, etc). I spent a lot of time trying to learn photography and writing. I started blogging. I even went to Mexico to get certified to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL).
I’ve spent my life working at sea. I’ve earned the highest license there is. I’ve been laid off the ships since mid-September 2015. I haven’t had a single interested response for any of the thousands of resumes I’ve sent or applications I’ve filled out. I don’t expect to see any until the price of oil goes up quite a bit and stabilizes. Maybe then I can go back to work. IF my licenses are still good.
I’m trying everything I can think of to earn income even if I can’t get back to work. Some are predicting the oil field won’t recover for 3-5 YEARS, if ever! That means I’ve got to make my savings last for the rest of my life. At the rate I’m going now, they won’t last even for the rest of this year.
In the meantime, I’ve been working as hard as I can to make my blog interesting and figure out how to ‘monetize’ it. I’ve done all I can to promote it, but there is some issue with it where it’s keeping people from easily being able to ‘like’ a post or ‘follow’ the blog. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it on my own and I can’t find anyone who can help me. It doesn’t help that my computers have been on the fritz for a couple of months and my internet has been completely out for the last few days.
I’ve also been trying to work on my photography. I would like to find a way to promote them to the world and hopefully someone out there would like one enough to buy one every once in a while. It seems the universe is totally against that idea!
From some sick, greedy bastards hacking my thumb drive and blackmailing me to get my photos back, to having my computer refuse to open the photos so I can see them because it’s stuffed full, to now having almost none of them transferred to the new hard drive! I’m also unable to download the photo editing software I use (Lightroom), since the internet keeps dropping off before the program finishes downloading.
So, I am getting incredibly frustrated. It seems for every thing I try to do, there is another roadblock set in front of me. I’m having a hell of a hard time trying to stay motivated to do anything. I’m just trying to find a way to survive financially before I lose everything I’ve worked so hard for all these years.
I’m about to give up on getting the computer to work until the modem comes. Does anybody have any suggestions for how to promote, or sell photography online? I’ve tried Craigslist and Varage Sale, no response yet. Trying to figure out eBay but would rather avoid that one.
If anybody has any ideas on selling photos, please let me know! These 2 are just a couple of examples. I’ve got thousands! Look around my blog for more, almost all of them here are my photos (I occasionally have to find something on google).
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge. Today’s color is Robin Egg Blue. I found a couple of photos from my travels that I think show this color pretty good.
The lagoon at Tarawa, Kiribati. While working as captain of a tuna boat, we frequently unloaded in Tarawa. One day we had a BBQ with some of the locals. This is the beach we went to. 🙂
Searching for the shipyards where they build the Pinisi Schooners, we passed through small villages of houses like this. I was just a couple of years too late to find a boat of my own there, the price had more than tripled since I had first heard about this place. 🙁
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge: Red Violet. I’m not sure this is a very good match, but it’s the best I could find in my stash (most of my photos are on my other computer which is still in the shop).
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge: Red-Orange.
I took this picture back in August. I had gone to Costa Rico for a blogging workshop. I spent a few extra weeks traveling around down there. This picture was taken in Nicaragua. Near San Juan del Sur. During the Arribada, where the sea turtles drag themselves up the beaches to lay their eggs. I highly recommend it. 🙂
Here’s another post for the Daily Post’s Weekly Photography Challenge (Dance).
I took this photo a couple of years ago in Ubud. I was on vacation in Bali (Indonesia) and spent a couple of weeks checking out the beautiful island. The people are so friendly and the island itself is gorgeous. It’s small, so easy to get around. There are volcanoes to hike, whitewater rivers to raft, perfect waves for surfing, great wrecks for SCUBA diving, and the art scene is fantastic!
I was told that it’s part of their religion there on Bali to make something more beautiful every day. I saw that they really took that to heart. Their temples are amazing, and the people practice music and dance to perform in the temple ceremonies. They have entire villages where the people just make one type of art: stone cutters, woodcarvers, painters, silversmiths, batik, etc. You could spend months there finding something new every day. 🙂
I have all my pictures on there and also my photo editing software. I haven’t been able to do any work on my photos because of that. I have thousands and thousands of photos on that computer and at least a few hundred of them have already been edited.
It’s a lot of work to fix them up the way I’d like them to look (and I don’t really do much to them). I was so upset when those hackers stole my photos and blackmailed me over them. I called the police and even the FBI. The police said they couldn’t help and the FBI wasn’t even nice enough to TRY- or to tell me that they just weren’t interested. I couldn’t figure out how to get the money to the bastards in time so I just had to get over losing almost my entire trip to Nicaragua. Thousands of fantastic photos- gone forever! 🙁
Thank god they only corrupted my thumb drive! If they had got everything on my computer I think I would have done something really stupid like throw the computer against the wall and then light it on fire! How could someone NOT be frustrated and MAD AS HELL?
I was going to work on uploading to the internet this week since I’m still not working. I hope they’ll finish with my computer tomorrow!
I have a feeling it’s going to take me a while to get everything back in order. They had to put in a new (larger) hard drive and move everything over. I just hope everything is still THERE.
Here’s a photo I took in New Orleans. I think it’s a good one for this challenge (Dance) from the Daily Post. I loved watching this couple dance and listen to the band play in the street. New Orleans is really great for this kind of thing. 🙂
The couple was really dancing up a storm (swing, jitterbug, etc.), the musicians were all tapping their toes and swaying to the music and everyone was having a great time.
Here’s a photo for the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Dance.
I took this photo one Friday night at the Fiesta Mexicana in Old Puerto Vallarta.
I was down there for a month getting certified to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL). Every Friday night there were dance shows downtown by the beach. I never got there early enough to get a good seat, it was always packed at least a half hour before the show started. It was a real challenge to get any decent pictures.
This is one of my favorites. The show started with Spanish dances. 🙂
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s One Word Photo Challenge. Today’s prompt is: bee.
There are plenty of bees out on my trees all day now, the lemon trees are blooming all over. They smell so good. The little (orange) limes are just about ready to pop open their buds too. I love this time of year in Texas. Everything’s in bloom. 🙂
Here’s another one for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge. Today’s color is: pacific blue.
OK, it’s a little different. I took this when I was working onboard the Pacific Santa Ana drillship a couple of years ago (boy do I miss those days of being able to work now).
In honor of the challenge, the sign is blue and it says “Pacific”, so it qualifies as Pacific Blue, right? 😉
Here’s a post for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge. Today’s color is: pacific blue.
This was a really hard color for me to find. I was surprised I didn’t have more pacific blue pictures. It’s actually just about a perfect match for some of the old Detroit Diesel engines. Here’s a picture of one (from google).
I ought to have more photos of engines, but since I quit working in the engine room and decided to stay on deck, I just don’t get down there too much any more.
Here’s a photo I took onboard the Korea Maritime Academy training ship “Hanbada” in Busan. It shows part of the engine room and looks like a pretty good match for Pacific Blue. 🙂
I met a nice lady online in a Facebook group when I was headed to Korea for a travel writing workshop. She is a ships officer like me. She was nice enough to show me around her ship and introduce me to some of the cadets that were studying there.
I had a great time there and was really grateful that she was willing to spend so much time with me. It made my trip to Korea just that much better. 🙂
I haven’t had time to get into this challenge much lately. It’s been going on for a while and still has a while to go yet. Check it out at Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge.
I haven’t had time to get into this challenge much lately. It’s been going on for a while and still has a while to go yet. Check it out at Jennifer’s Color Your World Challenge.
I took these photos a few years ago on a trip to Argentina. We went to Puerto Rawson to catch the zodiacs to take us out looking for the ‘toninos’. If you look closely at my gravatar, you’ll see one. 🙂
They call them the ‘pandas of the sea” (click on the link- his post shows a lot more of what we saw down there and he got much better pictures than I did!) . They’re really fast little black and white dolphins (Commerson’s dolphins) and a real blast to watch.
