Who Knows

I’m asking everyone her, who knows of a place- anywhere in the world- that has not gone bonkers over the novel coronavirus? Does anybody have any suggestions where a person can go to live like normal? NOT the “new normal”, which is anything BUT normal! I want to go back to actually LIVING my life, not getting used to giving up everything that makes life actually worth living.

I want to be able to talk to people- up close, not from 6 feet away- to see their facial expressions and smiles. I want to be able to give and receive a hug or a handshake without people looking at me like I’m going to somehow murder them. I want to be able to enjoy traveling again, in comfort (or at least what passed for comfort in those tiny airline seats). I want to be able to visit a new place without having to plan every minute in advance since everything is so confounding with all the ridiculous covid rules. I want to see busy city streets full of people living their normal lives and lined with thriving small businesses of all sorts- open to everyone without restriction.

I can’t stand to see what’s going on around the world and especially in America. Once the “home of the brave and land of the free”. Sadly, the insane over reaction to this virus has completely demolished any real freedoms Americans had left.

When “our leaders” can put all of under house arrest. When they can arbitrarily decide who can and can’t go to work, who’s allowed go shopping (and what we can or can’t buy), who’s allowed to keep their business going, …

They have taken it on themselves to decide who can and can’t actually LIVE in this ‘brave new world’ they’ve shoved down our throats. I shouldn’t say it like that, since it seems so very few object to this new medical tyranny.

Most of the people I see when I go out anywhere seem to be completely OK with the ‘mandates’ coming down from above. No matter how stupid, senseless and ridiculous they are!

For example, the mask mandates… there is not one single scientifically rigorous study anywhere that shows that masks help prevent the spread of the flu (or covid). There are a whole lot of them that do show that masks are actually harmful! Yet, our leaders still insist we wear them and most people are happy to comply. WHY?

I want to know WHY we have all thrown out our common sense and submitted to these draconian measures for THIS particular disease? The experts, even the ones at the CDC and the WHO have admitted that masks are NOT the way to go! They have admitted that these mandates (masks, social distancing, lockdowns) are all MUCH MORE HARMFUL than the virus itself.

Why does no one care about all the other reasons people die every year? All the deaths from car accidents, plane crashes, cancer, obesity, tuberculosis, malaria, and all the other diseases have somehow lose all importance and we ONLY care about covid- WHY?

I admit, I am a conspiracy theorist. but when there is no apparent reason for something then I start looking for something that may be hidden a little bit. In this instance, it is blaringly obvious to me that all this is about nothing but CONTROL. PERIOD!

Why this disease and why now? Simple, because it is only now that “they” are able to exert so much control over us all. With the rise of the “surveillance state“, digital currency (or even credit cards), and social capital like in China, they have the technology in place to track, trace and eventually take complete control of EVERY aspect of our lives.

You think not? Read George Orwell’s “1984“, “Animal Farm”, and Huxley’s “Brave New World” think about it a while and then tell me they’re not being used as a road map for ‘our leaders’ to follow.

Beyond Beautiful

I had just written a really good, long post about this book I just finished reading. “Beyond Beautiful– (A practical guide to being happy, confident, and you in a looks- obsessed world)” by Anuschka Rees. WordPress deleted the whole thing as I was adding the photo! I don’t know if I can do it justice at this point. 😦 

I finished the book in just a couple of hours. It’s only 185 pages long. It would’ve taken me longer if I had taken the time to do all of the ‘exercises’. I don’t think they would’ve helped me much. I’ve already got to the point of ‘don’t give a damn what other people think’. But maybe they might help other people who haven’t got to that point yet. 😉

Of course I’ve always known how ‘looks-obsessed’ we are in this country. I’m fat. I know that. I’ve been fat since I was about 13 years old. I’ve tried every diet in the book. I’ve gone so far as to have my teeth wired shut, and even now I’ve got the lap band (it’s not working either).

It sucks to have random strangers yell insults at you when you’re walking to school, or trying to have fun at the beach (“hey, it’s a beached whale”, etc). After all these years, I’ve gotten a lot better at ignoring all those idiots. But yes, of course it still hurt. It hurt even more when my grandmother would tell me how my “face is so pretty”, like the rest of me was not. 

I used to tell myself “if people don’t like me the way I am, then they can just go f*&k themselves!”! I still think that way, even more so now. At this point I could give a damn what other people think of my opinions, my fashion sense, my choice of car, or my looks, or anything else. I understand that whatever they think, it’s on them, -(it’s just their opinion)- not me.

What I got out of the book, what really surprised me, is how Rees states that pretty much every woman has such insecurities. Such poor body image. I have to think this is just an American issue. I find it hard to believe some poor woman struggling to survive on $1-2 a day in the slums of India or the wilds of Africa would obsess about how she’s not able to shave her legs every day (or even her pits). That nobody would ever like her, that she’d be shunned by society if her eyebrows were not perfectly plucked. 

It’s amazing to me to hear that so many women are so concerned about how other people see them that they’ll obsess about every little imperfection. I mean really, no one is perfect! No one! And who has the time, energy, or money to spend on the attempt to make yourself ‘perfect’?

But apparently a lot of women do this. It’s not just shaving their legs, fixing their hair, putting on makeup every day. It’s all that and more! Botox for the lips, liposuction for the belly, boob jobs and butt jobs and on and on and on.

Can you believe, they’re even doing surgery on their vaginas (vulvas)? To make themselves ‘attractive’ ‘down there’. Seriously! The procedure is called a “labiaplasty”

Women are spending a fortune on this crap! In order to feel good about themselves with all this insane social brainwashing going on all around us constantly.

WHY are so many women falling into this trap? Rees mentions advertising and how social media has been making it worse lately.

I have to admit, when I was younger I bowed to social pressure. I did try shaving my legs (I do still shave my pits). I used to wear makeup and wear something other than shorts, flip-flops and t-shirt if I was going out somewhere ‘fancy’. I still might do that if I ever go out somewhere ‘fancy’ (which doesn’t happen much at all these days). I gave up shaving my legs a long time ago, never did see the point to that.

I’ve never plucked my eyebrows, I’ve never used hair removal products, never used skin whitening stuff, rarely use lotions or cremes, almost never do my nails. My boobs and my butt are plenty big enough. I have some cellulite and freckles- who cares!

My thing is my weight. I’ve done just about all the things you can do to lose weight, including the teeth wiring and lap band. Thank god I never solved that problem so I could move on to the rest.

That’s another major point I got from the book: you fix one thing only to find something else bothers you and then you have to go on to obsess about that thing until you fix it.

Why can’t we just get over this whole idea that looks are what’s most important?

I’ve noticed this obsession is very obvious in America. Everyone is all about looks. They look at your clothes, your car, your house, your yard, and judge you. I don’t see that kind of thing anywhere else. Is this just an American thing? Or is it common in other places around the world? Any comments? 

US vs the Rest of the World

I’ve been asking around a little bit about what is there to do here in Las Palmas. My mate told me about the Carnival and the area around the boardwalk. I told our camp boss that I was interested in doing some shopping, so he recommended I go to Las Arenas. I didn’t realize until I got there it was just a mall.

That wasn’t really what I was looking for, but I did need to pick up a few things. I was supposed to get off March 9, so I had plenty of medicine to last. It turns out that the guy who was supposed to relive me then can’t come until the 17th. I’m happy that they’ve decided to let me stay here until he can come.

So, now that I am staying that much longer, I needed to go to a pharmacy and get a refill of my prescription. Actually, they don’t make you jump through all those hoops over here (or most other places in the world). I just walked into the pharmacy, asked for my medicine and bought it. No questions asked except for what dose I wanted. Nice!

I wonder why so many Americans believe we would all be in such serious trouble without our government’s protection? Putting themselves between us and our doctors? Plenty of other countries don’t require their people to see their doctors to get a prescription filled. Or even to get a prescription in the 1st place.

My doctor tells me it’s now a ‘rule’ that if she doesn’t see me every 3 months (!!!), she can not refill my prescription! I used to go yearly and thought that was much too often. It really pisses me off that I have to spend that much time and money to get the medicine I need.

I already feel like I can’t trust my doctor in the US. I can’t really trust ANY doctor in the US. The US government has them ALL by the balls (that does include even the females)! They will lose their license to practice medicine if they don’t toe the line with the Feds. That is, whatever the hell the government comes up with, the doctors MUST go along with. A lot of them have already given up their practice over it. Those were the good ones. The ones who would stand up for themselves and their patients. I miss them.

It’s incredibly frustrating to be told you MUST report to your doctor every couple of months. Understanding that they’re being told what they MUST do to/for you. That YOU can’t decide how often you want to go, or what treatment you want, or how much money you want to spend on your health, or how much time you’re going to waste on the government’s edicts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. A lot of people are going to say I’m just being stupid. I’m not a genius. I’m not an expert. I’m not a doctor. I agree. I’m not any of those things. But I AM an expert on MY OWN BODY. I know it better than anybody else ever could (and you all are in the same state of knowledge).

I don’t see the need to go back to the doctor every 3 months to renew a prescription I’ve been taking for over 10 years now. I have to take blood tests (I hate needles) to check my ‘numbers’. They never change much. She says she needs to monitor them. I am perfectly happy with monitoring them yearly. I am NOT happy with monitoring them every 3 months! Why does my doctor (who is ordered around by the federal government) get to make that decision?

Why do we Americans all think we need to even go to a doctor to get the medicine we need? It’s not like the people of Spain, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia or Korea are all dying in heaps because they aren’t forced to go to a doctor to get a prescription for their medicines! Those are only the few countries I’ve been to where I’ve bought what would be prescription medicine at home over the counter. I’m 100% positive there are plenty of other countries around the world where it’s the same.

I’m pretty damn sure the only reason we have to do it here is because the doctors bribed congress to give them that monopoly. It SUCKs and I hope someone (besides the Libertarian Party) will push a bill through congress to eliminate all this extra expense.

Of course, that will never happen. The medical professionals, insurance companies and Big Pharm have too much invested to ever allow us to open the market in health care. 😦

Court

Hey! I’m really glad so many of you responded to my post yesterday about going to court in support of raw milk and ‘food freedom’ in general. It’s great to know that people really do care about some of these issues and I’m not just beating my head against the wall. I’ll have to update this again later. Today’s court session was not exactly clear to me as to what was going on. 😦

It looked to me like the entire courtroom was packed with raw milk supporters. We all had little white stickers on our shirts to show our support.

A few minutes after the appointed time, they called out names. People were coming a going up to the front of the room where the ‘official people’ sat around behind desks and computers (the judge was not in the courtroom yet).

I didn’t know the name of the person charged or exactly what the charges were. Sorry to say, I still don’t. I did see the lady and the gist of what I heard of the charges against her was: ‘unsanitary conditions’ and something to do with not being ‘licensed’ as a food business.

OK. Here’s the story. Her friends asked her to go to a licensed dairy farm and pick up some milk for them. They gave her money to pay for it. As far as I could tell, they did not pay her anything for going to get it. So I’m still very confused as to what she did that was actually illegal or what possible reason could there be for making anything she did illegal?

It is legal to buy raw milk in Texas.

At this point, all I can say is that the lawyers seemed to think they got a good result today. There was a LOT of local support for the whole raw milk thing. People whole heartedly support the idea of “food freedom” and their rights to choose what they want to be able to eat, drink, grow, smoke, buy, sell, etc.

I’ll report more on this later. I’ve been promised more information from people who are more involved in this than I am. In the meantime, check out the links towards the end of yesterdays post.

I’ve got to get up early tomorrow to repeat my HUET course (again- for about the 5th time). It doesn’t actually expire, but almost all companies insist on repeating it every 3-4 years anyway. Are they really expecting their helicopters to crash that often? What is it that they think we forget in the class that we must repeat it so often? Is it really that hard to remember to open the window and climb out of the thing?????

I really, really wish the people who insist on forcing all this ‘training’ on us would get their shit together and figure out one acceptable class for all this crap! Instead, each company insists you take their class (which is pretty much exactly like the other guys class).

Companies that work in Europe don’t accept USA typical courses, nor do they have a ‘gap closing’ course, so if you want to be eligible to work anywhere outside of the USA, you are forced to pay again, for the exact same ‘training’ you’ve already paid for except for a grand total of 1 hour of something different.

I’m too tired tonight to get into it. I had a long day of running around Houston. I’ll write it up tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll still be ticked off enough to explain. 😉

Going to Court Tomorrow

Hard to believe we’re still wasting our resources prosecuting people for this sort of thing. I mean really!?

If I asked you to go pick up a gallon of milk for me and gave you the money to pay for it, do you really think you should be hauled off to jail for doing me a favor like that?

REALLY???

I think this whole thing is just one more example of a completely out of control government that has taken over damn near everything in this country.

I am sick to death of hearing about this sort of shit happening every day, right here in this “free” country. I am so, so tired of all the people around me spouting out the supposed wis(h)dom that “we live in a democracy”, so we just have to put up with whatever stupidity ‘our leaders’ decide to manipulate the majority of the pubic into going along with.

NO WE DON’T! We DON’T live in a democracy, we live in a Constitutional Republic! And we DON’T have to put up with this kind of ridiculously stupid shit they’re trying to shove down our throats and call it ‘the law’!

Here is a quote from the email I got…

After several delays, Harris County is pressing forward with the prosecution of a woman who picks up raw milk from a licensed farm for herself and others.   We ask that if you are in or near Harris County, please support this woman & local food consumers by appearing at the trial in Pasadena next Wednesday, June 14. Details are below.   While the Texas Department of State Health Services initiated the harassment of raw milk farmers and consumers last summer, it later stated that it will not pursue customers who are making legal purchases, nor the people they hire as agents to pick up milk for them. (Read more here .) But Harris County is still pressing forward with the trial to prosecute this courier. The County has been given the written agreement, signed by individual customers, in which they made the woman their agent and asked her to pick up milk on their behalf from a licensed, inspected dairy. Not one customer has gotten sick and no one has complained. People pick up groceries for each other all the time. Every day, FedEx and UPS deliver food ordered online. UberEats and numerous others provide home delivery of food. None of these hold food establishment licenses. Yet the County claims that this raw milk courier has to have the same license as a restaurant or food truck. While the prosecution is motivated by anti-raw milk bias, the legal principles are not limited to one product —   the regulation cited by the County applies to all foods. Can you help defend this woman —   and, in the process, defend your right to ask someone to pick up food from a local farm for you?We need as many people as possible to be in the courtroom next Wednesday, to send the message that the raw milk courier has the support of the community.  The judge and jury need to see that local food supporters are not a fringe group —   they are just regular people who want to provide healthy food to their families.     TAKE ACTION: Come to the trial! WHERE: Justice Court, Precinct 2, 101 South Richey, Suite B, Pasadena, TX 77506 WHEN: Wednesday, June 14, at 1 p.m. WHAT: After you enter the building, turn left to go to Judge George Risner’s courtroom at the end of the hallway. Enter quietly, and take a seat. PLEASE be respectful of the proceedings. Any disruption will hurt the cause, so no signs, no verbal outbursts, no applause or groans, etc. You can do the most good by conducting yourself in a calm, professional manner. They will have lapel stickers available so that you can identify yourself as a raw milk supporter. We want a large, visible show of support for the raw milk courier!

I plan to be there tomorrow. I will do what I can to support this woman and anyone else in similar circumstances. I fully support the people’s right to eat, drink, buy, sell, and use ANYTHING as long as they’re not hurting anyone else. Anybody in the Houston area, feel free to join me. 😉

I also strongly support the fully informed jury amendment and the idea that all jurors, in EVERY case, are there to judge the law itself- NOT just the facts of the case- no matter what lies the judge and legal system may say about it. That is, in fact, the entire purpose of the jury! What is the point of having a jury if they are only supposed to follow the directions of the court?

I admit, I don’t really pay much attention to eating right. I eat a lot more junk food than I should. I don’t spend extra money on organics or shop at farmers markets (I hate getting up so early!). But. I most definitely DO support the rights of the people who do want to pay attention to healthy eating and who want to make their own decisions about what to do with their lives, their bodies, their health, their time and their money!

I will go to court tomorrow to show my support. I hope to see a lot of others there doing the same. I hope to see that we can at least show the judge and jury that there IS a lot of community support for this. The right to choose, the right to live as you want (as long as you don’t hurt anyone else), the right to healthy food, the right to run a business, the right to freely associate, the right to freedom!

Want to know more about raw milk? Check out a few of these links…

http://ij.org/case/florida-skim-milk/

Food Freedom Project- Institute for Justice

Texas Real Milk

Texas Forces Raw Milk Dairy to Dump 700 Gallons of Milk

 

Another Raw Milk Raid in Texas

http://farmandranchfreedom.org/category/raw-milk/texas-raw-milk/

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/milk/

I don’t know if you can tell, but this sort of thing- the injustice- really pisses me off. 😉

Another Busy Week

And not accomplishing much of anything. 😦

I’ve been working on all the usual stuff around here. Still looking for work. Spending hours filling out online applications for any offshore job I happen to see posted. I’ve been talking to one company for a couple of weeks now, but they don’t seem to have any idea of when they might (or might not) need me. It’s very frustrating, but at least they’re still talking to me. That’s more than I’ve had in over 18 months now!

We finished up working on one apartment and got it ready to rent. I thought we had it rented before we even finished working on it, but that fell through. I think it will go pretty quick (I hope so). I’m still waiting for the roofers to fix a leak and the levelers to honor their warranty (good luck!!).

I have one more apartment over there that needs work, but I need to wait til the rents start coming in before I can afford to start on it. It doesn’t look like it needs as much work as the last one, but I never know what I’ll find once I get started. 😦

I had some good friends come down and visit. We pigged out at the Chinese buffet and had a good time catching up on everything.

Other than that, I finished 2 paintings in class on Tuesday. I took them both to Hobby Lobby to get them framed. One of them was finished in time for me to enter it in the People’s Choice show (I’m always amazed at how many really talented people we have around here in this area). The other won’t be ready for at least another week. I think they both turned out OK, but especially with the lighthouse, not really what I was trying to do with them.

I wasn’t quite finished with the lighthouse when I took this photo. I’ll get another when I get it back with the frame.

I went to my usual political meeting Tuesday night. We’ve decided to re-start our project to get the BWA to remove the fluoride from our drinking water. It really doesn’t do anything for your teeth by drinking it. It only helps if you apply it topically (like with toothpaste). It’s really not at all good for you. Yeah, I know, most people will read that and think I’m just another tin foil conspiracy theorist. I think there’s more than enough evidence to show it’s not really necessary for good teeth (or any other reason).

So, I spent some time researching that. I also got a writing assignment for Great Escape Publishing. Whoo-whoo! Another byline!! I really need to find the time to query more publications. But that takes a HUGE amount of time! I was very hopeful when I applied to Big Grey Horse when they said they were looking for Texas writers. I think they would’ve contacted me by now if they were interested. 😦

I’ve been working on my yard the last few days. In between the rain. I’ve got the front yard about 25% finished now. It makes a big difference when I pull all the clematis vines off and put a little mulch out. All my citrus trees are starting to bloom. The grape vines are starting to leaf out. The strawberries are coming back!

Today I took a break and went to the movies. I go to the matinee when it’s cheaper. I wasn’t sure what to watch, either Logan or Get Out. I decided to watch Logan. It was pretty good. One of the X-Men movies. A pretty good action movie featuring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine fighting the forces of evil in the shape of another mutant (Boyd Holbrook as Pierce).

I don’t want to spoil it, since it really was pretty good, but it’s not all blood and guts. There was actually a pretty good story. I’m sure there will be more sequels down the road. 🙂

Tomorrow is the biggest day of the year around here. St Patrick’s Day Parade at Surfside Beach! I have to get up early so I can get down to the beach in time to check everything out before the judging. Take a look here. Once the parade starts, I’m done with that! Time to wander off to the various parties. 😉

I hope the weather cooperates. It’s calling for 90% chance of rain tomorrow. 😦

Organic Gardening

I’m re-blogging this post (click the link below)-these guys have some cool ideas about organic gardening. I’ve never had much of a green thumb, tho I used to try pretty hard to keep a jungle of plants around. My idea of organic gardening is just to plant it and leave it alone (no fertilizer, no pesticides, etc). I’ve learned not to count on anything but trees! My lime tree sprouted up like a weed and is extremely productive. Same with the lemon tree. Oranges are coming along. Grapes are doing so-so.

Last year I tried cucumbers for the first time in ages. Something got to it. One day it was gorgeous, next day it was dead as a doornail. Same thing got to my grapes, raspberries and mint. 😦

I’m going to try the cucumbers again and probably try the pomegranates and blueberries again (tho I just found out they don’t like our dirt around here so maybe not). I have one struggling bush left, I didn’t know they needed 2 to produce.

I’ve been working in my yard when the weather’s nice and I’m not busy with something else (like work, or photography, or blogging, etc). I have most of the front yard ready and about a 5th of the back yard done. I need to get it all done soon, before it starts getting hot. I won’t go outside in the summertime here if I can help it. 😉

If I ever get the yard cleaned up, I’ll pick a few plants to try out this year. Anybody have any suggestions for plants that grow well on the north Texas Gulf Coast? They’ll need to be extremely self-sufficient, since if I ever do get a real job again I won’t be around to tend to them for months on end.

Here’s hoping for that! 🙂

Photo: Via Pinterest Keyhole Gardening was introduced in Africa by the Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE) to help ailing and frail Africans grow their own produce with minimum effort by means of a specialized raised bed. The bed, which is waist high and in the shape of a keyhole, allows for standing […]

via Five Notable Organic Gardening Methods — Garden Variety

Who Is…

…keeping up with politics? Anyone subject themselves to the carnival on TV today? Trumps inauguration?

I do my best to avoid all that. I hardly saw any of the circus leading up to the election. I don’t like or trust any politicians and my greatest wish is for all of them to just leave us all alone!

In accordance with that, I did not vote for Trump. I voted for Gary Johnson and the rest of the Libertarians. They at least say they want to do that- leave us all alone.

Almost everyone I talked to did not like either Trump or Hillary. Most of them liked the Libertarians, but refused to ‘waste their vote’. I’ll never understand how it’s a waste to vote for someone you believe in. 

Color Your World: 19 Antique Brass

For Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge, todays color is ‘antique brass‘. Another color I had to look up online (I don’t have the large box of crayola crayons to use for a reference). 😉

Here’s my entry. Some of those roots seem to be a pretty good match. Best I could do.

I took this photo a few years ago. I was wandering around Thailand. I always enjoy shopping, just to see what they have that’s different than what we have in our stores. They had a very large selection of ‘natural medicines’. I was interested to see how popular that sort of thing was. Lots of people swear by it. I haven’t really tried enough of it to say one way or the other.

Maritime Monday for January 16th 2017- A Warm Broadside

Last week went by too fast! It’s time for another email full of interesting maritime info from Monkey Fist and Maritime Monday. This week I really enjoyed the old photos of the Tower Bridge. It brought back good memories of staying nearby in St Katharines yacht harbor. I was able to stay aboard an old sailing barge there for a whole summer after I graduated high school.

This week Monkey Fist shares articles about a couple of books that look interesting. “Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”. Considered the “first original English prose pornography” and banned in Massachusetts,  I doubt it gets as explicit as the “Fifty Shades’ series which I just finished reading, but might be worth a peek.

The other one is “Scurvy: the Disease of Discovery”. Of course I knew about scurvy, and not just from the old ‘pirate’ thing, calling everyone a ‘scurvy dog’. I had no idea it killed so many people. More than 3 times as many as died in the Civil War?! I’ll definitely be on the lookout for this book.

Check out the rest of the post…

Old Dragon’s Head: Where the Great Wall of China Meets the Sea Old Dragon …

Source: Maritime Monday for January 16th, 2017- A Warm Broadside – gCaptain

Daily Walk

Guess what I saw on my daily walk?

I’ve been having a real hard time getting motivated to do much of anything lately. About all I have been able to do is to stick with my daily walks.

I started to walk every day when I was living in Austin. I was going to school at UT (chemical engineering) and I started on the Nutrisystem program. I figured since I had a fairly regular schedule for once, I could try it out and see if it would work for me. It did. I did pretty good sticking to their packaged food and actually managed to lose 40 lbs over the 8 months I was able to follow their rules.

As long as I was on a regular schedule and living on the beach full time, it did work. I started walking every day. It was a nice break from my stressful studies, and it got me outside to pay attention to what was going on in the neighborhood.

That was back around 1998. I gained back all the weight I lost (about 40 lbs) in my first hitch back offshore (no more packaged food), but I’ve kept up the daily walks. I still enjoy them for the same reasons I did back then.

I see all kinds of interesting things around the neighborhood. Not just who’s moving in or out, what the kids are up to, who’s into gardening or pets, but the natural world. Yes, even in the middle of town I still see nature all around.

There’s a ditch down my street. It has different wildflowers all the time. I see frogs, toads, tadpoles, and raccoon tracks. Sometimes I see the actual critters: raccoons, possums, squirrels and armadillos. 🙂

There’s another ditch further up the block, a big turtle lives there, but it hides a lot. I see lots of different birds (I’m not a birder so can only identify a few). This is what I saw today.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but this is the best I could do. I think it’s a yellow-crowned night heron. It has a few babies in that nest, but I’m not sure how many (2+ for sure). I called the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory since I’d just read an article about how they had a program where they were into banding local birds. They pretty much confirmed my ID over the phone tho they didn’t seem interested in coming out to band the birds. They apparently just do that at their facility. It sounds like it might be interesting to go check it out one day.

I also saw (and heard) this guy. He was way up high and so hard to see exactly what kind of bird he was, except he was for sure some kind of woodpecker with a red head. I think it might be a red-bellied woodpecker.

I like to try and keep up with what’s going on around me. I prefer keeping up with this kind of stuff, instead of what’s on TV. Seems that kind of news is unavoidable, no matter how much I try. 😦

How Much Roundup Are You Eating?

Too much! The US really ought to ban this stuff, it’s terrible! Read more from ‘The Awakening’ blog below…

Worker spraying strawberry fields with pesticide PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL GREBLIUNAS/GETTY By Leah Zerbe June 19, 2015 Pesky weeds popping up in your yard? Here’s what to not reach for—Roundup. While the active ingredient in the popular weed killer, glyphosate, has been marketed as safe and even “biodegradable,” the science is pouring in, and the results […]

via How Much Roundup Are You Eating? And six more disgusting facts about this popular weed killer. — 2012 The Awakening

A to Z: X

 

 

After having such a hard time coming up with something to post about for the A to Z Challenge for the letter X, now I’ve come up with another one!

I can’t believe I didn’t come up with this first. The X-Files was one of my all time favorite TV shows.

I don’t watch much TV. I never really did, but I would make sure to schedule time to watch when the X-Files was on.

I loved all their strange adventures and mysterious aliens. I loved how Mulder and Scully worked together. I thought Mulder was kind of cute too. 😉

Is this show what turned me into a conspiracy theorist? I’m sure I thought that way already, a long time before that show ever came out. 😉

That’s me in the last picture above (lol). Maybe I am one, all I know is that we are being lied to and manipulated. By who? For what? Why? Where? How? Does it really matter? It IS being done.

I’ve always loved science fiction, horror, and humor and the X-Files has all that stuff and more.

What do you think? Are you into conspiracy theories? Did you ever watch the X-Files? What did you think about it? Did you like it? Why or why not? Did you have a favorite episode?

*none of these images today are mine, I got them all off google

 

 

 

 

A Diet of Worms

It’s been a while since I’ve seen these posts from Monkey Fist. I used to share them with my blogger friends when they came out. I always really enjoyed them. There’s always lots of interesting little tidbits, mostly relating to nautical things, but combining with others like movies, cultures, foods, etc.

Here’s the latest announcement via gCaptain…

 …happy to announce the return Maritime Monday with Monkey Fist, a smack-talking, potty-mouthed, yankee-hating, Red Sox fan in Portland Maine. Each Monday she will bring you the best in nautical art and history, folklore, bizarre happenings, and all-around wacky content from around the web. Be sure to check […]

Source: Maritime Monday: A Diet of Worms – gCaptain

I hope you enjoy these too. Let me know. 🙂

UKOG Passed!

I made it home yesterday, didn’t get much done. I was sooooo tired! I passed out about 3 PM and slept until 11. I woke up in the middle of the night and fiddled around with the huge stack of mail til I got a little sleepy again. I had to try and go back to bed since I had a long day planned.

First thing I had to do was to get my cell phone working again. I don’t know why, but every time I turn it off for a while it only lets me make emergency calls when I come home and turn it back on. It’s very frustrating.

I had to return the rental car I had to drive home yesterday, then headed back up to Houston for the UKOG (UK Oil & Gas) physical. It’s a company requirement for the temp job I’m hoping to get later this week. I tried to get that done while I was in Mexico, but apparently there is not a single doctor in all of Mexico qualified to do that physical. WTF??!!

Why not?

What the hell is so hard about a general physical that no doctor in Mexico is qualified to perform it? I’ve been to a few doctors down there and I’ve been pretty impressed. I don’t think they’re any worse than doctors I’ve been to in the US (or Thailand, or Korea, or Singapore).

It’s really aggravating that I have to have a US Coast Guard physical every year. It is STCW approved and according to international law (treaty) is SUPPOSED to be accepted for every mariner everywhere worldwide. Now, I have to take them for every temp job I go to? Why? Why does the UK not accept the US Coast Guard physical?

So, I spent all afternoon up there, mostly sitting around waiting. It was worse than usual since they told me I needed to get a piss test, so I was holding it. When I got there, I asked if they could go ahead and take my urine sample if the wait was going to be a while. Nope. Grrrrrr!

So I sat there for about 3 hours before they called my name, trying not to pee myself. It was no fun!

I did pass the physical, it was actually less intensive than the USCG physical.

Seems to me the officials who force all these BS laws (treaties) on us sailors in order to have us all be considered equal, had better get on the companies to stop forcing us to keep wasting OUR time and money on these extra BS ‘requirements’. Why don’t these officials who are SUPPOSED to be there to protect the seaman ever protect the seamen instead of only the employers of seamen?

If we’re all equal enough so that a company can hire an Indian or Ukrainian sailor for pennies on the dollar, only to benefit the company (so they can save on crew costs)- then we SHOULD all be equal enough when it actually helps US instead of the companies!

VIDEO: HBO Series Highlights Problems with Genetically Modified Crops

Reblogged this from ascendingstarseed, which is a VERY interesting blog. Check it out if you’re willing to look beyond the mainstream news.

Source: VIDEO: HBO Series Highlights Problems with Genetically Modified Crops

They keep trying to convince us that GMOs are the same exact thing as plants and animals that have been bred by farmers through natural means (sexual reproduction). If it was the exact same thing then a farmer would be able to find a way to bread a fish with a tomato. Not happening! So, no, it’s not the same thing.

Effortless

Today’s prompt for Just Jot It January is: effortless. I’m having a hard time thinking of anything to do with me that’s been effortless, other than gaining weight!

I certainly never had to make any effort at all to do that. In fact, I make all kinds of efforts to reverse the trend and yet no matter how many efforts I make, the pounds just keep on piling on.

People mostly think it takes some kind of effort to gain weight. You have to eat “a lot”, “like a pig”, ‘too many sweets”, “lie around like a sloth”, “couch potato”, “lazy bum”,  etc. But nope, not really.

All the ‘authorities’ have to say is: “calories in = calories out”. Nope, that’s most definitely NOT the way it works for me!

I wish it were that simple. I really wish it was. If it was as effortless to lose weight as it is to gain it, that would be wonderful. 🙂

The Truth About “Organic” And “Certification”

Sad that so many people STILL believe the lie that the government is there to help them. If that was EVER true, it sure as hell is not any more!

World Oceans Day

World Oceans Day is coming up on Monday (June 8). This years theme is ‘healthy oceans, healthy planet’. It really is just common sense. The oceans cover over 70% of the earth. We all ultimately rely on the ocean for our own health and well being. It’s important to take care of it, if only for our own good. Monday will be a day to remember all the reasons we should respect and care for the oceans, it’s a day to celebrate and get involved too.

The oceans are a major source of food for people (and animals): fish, shellfish, seaweed, plankton, krill, etc. They also help to regulate the climate and keep some of the Northern areas warm in the winter and Southern places cooler in the summer (N hemisphere). The oceans are also extremely important for connecting people around the world. In the USA, 90% of our trade is by sea.

A lot of people make their living directly from the sea like I do. I’ve worked on the water from the time I was a kid. Fishing, recreation (cruising), and transporting cargo from one place to another (a ship is much more efficient than any other form of transport). Now, I work in the offshore oil fields, exploring for and extracting resources from the sea bottom.

If you live near the ocean, like I do, you already know how important it is for your ‘soul’, your mental health, your attitude. I can sit by the sea, listen and watch the waves roll in and it immediately calms me. I like to swim, snorkel, sail, SCUBA dive, surf (not very well), fish, and any other activity that gets me out on the water. 😉

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to think about how you benefit from it and what life would be like without a healthy ocean. Check out a few of the links. Get involved in some of the events if you can. If you can’t get out to any of the events on Monday, remember it doesn’t have to stop on Monday!

There are plenty of things you can do every day to help make things better. Even simple things like talking to people about World Oceans Day, disposing of your trash properly, using as little plastic as possible, not letting balloons fly away loose, etc. It all helps. 🙂 PS- none of the pictures in this post are mine, I got them all of the internet.

Kids Love “land shrimp”?

In which I feed my children “land shrimp” | Grist.

I see this more and more. Media promoting bug eating as a great idea to save the planet.

Yeah, if we’ll all just substitute a few giant roaches, beetles, or crickets instead of a nice juicy rib-eye, we can reverse climate change, save more wilderness, feed the starving children and as a bonus we would even lose a few pounds!

I suppose if I had nothing else to eat, for a loooong time, I would eventually eat the bugs. It’s just the whole idea of it that makes me squirmy. And I really don’t like the insinuation that we all really ought to switch to bugs over steaks, to lower our standards of living, to help ‘save the planet’.

Why the hell can’t we seriously discuss limiting the human population for a change. Just get people to use birth control for a while! Try something that would be GOOD for everyone here already AND the planet, AND would actually help!

I’ve tried them (bugs) before. Would you do it?

What do you think about lowering your living standards so that we can just keep on having more and more people live on the earth (and nothing else)? Do you think it’s a better idea to try and get everyone here already to ‘live light’ (eating bugs, no cars, serious restrictions on ALL energy use, etc), or get the people here already to limit their childbearing so that eventually we can reduce the human population so that everyone here can have a GOOD life, and still have room for wilderness and all the other creatures that depend on it?

Me? I’m 100% for the birth control!