Wednesday, February 20, 2013

— My Alphabe-Thursday (2nd), the letter "N" / Thursday Two Questions —

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New Zealand and Australia—more of our most recent cruise pictures
Here we have some pictures to honor Alphabe-Thursday letter "N"

For a larger picture, click on what you want.
Click again and it should get larger still.
(The BACK BUTTON gets you back here.)


My "N" is for the National Maritime Museum in Sidney, Australia.  Docked on the left is the HMAS Vampire and to our right the HMAS Onslow.  The Onslow is a vintage submarine and this was the closest to a sub I have been yet.  The picture on the right is another view of the area outside the museum.

We did not go inside the ships or the museum because for the two hours we would spend the price for admission was atrocious.  There was a senior price, very low, for which we would have paid and then gone inside.  But this museum only allowed citizens of Australia to have that.  In the U.S. and most countries we visit, if a person is the appropriate age then there is no discrimination based on citizenship.  For some goodies in Sydney we did pay only the senior price.

 

That's all the "N" word pictures I have but I did want to finish up, or almost finish posting my New Zealand and Australia holiday pictures.  You can see all I have so far here, (Our 2012-2013 New Zealand and Australia).

Above is a little kids' park along the way to the museum.  This boat looks like fun.  On the is Mrs. Jim coming out of China Town.

 

Fruit and vegetable market was about like the ones in our grocery stores except this on was in the Market building.  On Saturday night we went to a concert in the park. The park was full of people out for the evening's nice weather.

 

Mrs. Jim is ready a Sarsaparilla at the oldest bar in Sydney.  I would rather be back on the ferry, riding around in the harbor.  And we did, pictures follow. 

   

I didn't expect to see this little amusement park along the shore. It looked inviting but we didn't have time to stop in. Besides they may not have let us pay the cheaper senior rate.

==> You can see other "N" letter posts by visiting Jenny's blog post, Alphabe- Thursday. My letter "N" portion of this post will be critiqued by Head Mistress Jenny. I always hope for a good grade.

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Now for my Thursday Two Questions.

My last post last week was about an "M" word, More.


My Two Questions for this week (you can answer just one if you wish):.

1. Have you ever been discriminated against because of some silly rule? 
This one today was because I was not a citizen.  Other times is has been because I was too old.  Or that this _____ was available only for the opposite sex.  Etc, etc, etc. 

2. When you are on holiday how do you interface with the natives?
I like to pick their brains about how some things work in their countries or find out about their heritage.
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Bonus Question: What is your favorite "N" word?
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==>   My post is for Amanda at her Thursday Two Questions blog, Self Sagacity.

==>Be sure to check out all of my posted New Zealand and Australia pictures.  You can do that by clicking here (Our 2012-2013 New Zealand and Australia).
 

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

— My Alphabe-Thursday (2nd), the letter "K" / Thursday Two Questions —

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New Zealand and Australia; more of our most recent cruise pictures
Here we have some pictures to honor Alphabe-Thursday letter "K"

 
"K" is for the word Kangaroo.  This blog post will be about the kangaroos and other animals that we saw when we visited the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Brighton, Tasmania (more).  The entire island of Tamania, directly south of the mainland Australia, makes up the state of Tasmania, Australia (map) (Google, Tasmania).

   
 
We were encouraged to feed the Kangaroos from a handful of food that the park guides had ready for us.  Mrs. Jim fed a hungry kangaroo for my picture.  They seemed to be fairly hungry. 
 
We were told that they like to have their necks stroked and their tummies scratched.  Unlike a horse, they did not appreciate pats or stroking to their heads or ears.
 
  

The Koala bears (also a "K" word animal) here sleep about 20 hours a day.  You might like to read further about them in an article that I found.  "The Koala bear is a marsupial that gets its name from the aboriginal word meaning ‘no drink’. This curious word denotes how the Koala bear gets its water supply – from the eucalyptus leaves. It drinks water only when ill or when water supply from the leaves is not enough. The Koala bear is often mistakenly believed to be related to the bear..." (from Aquatic Community, link).

   
 
I believe the bird on the left is a Little Pied Cormorant (Wikipedia link).  At first I thought it was a type of eagle but it just wouldn't fit any of those I found common to Australia.  The morphing colors, black on top, white on the bottom, include even their heads.  I would have liked to have a nicer picture but he/she wouldn't cooperate.
 
On the right is the famous Tasmanian Devil.  You can Google that.  They remind me of a pig.  You can't see it here, but the ones we saw all had a white spot on their backs just above their tails.  Can pigs climb trees?  No, but the Tasmanian devil sure can.
 
Devils in the wild are being plagued by a contagious eye disease that is spreading rapidly.  About 80% now have Devil facial tumour disease and extinction of the wild ones is predicted.  A plan is being made to repopulate after the disease has died away.
 
     
 
Here Mrs. Jim is 'helping' to hold a young Wombat, at least that's what we decided it is.  The wombat is the largest burrowing mammal and the early settlers called them badgers (more, Australian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water, and Environment; Native Plants & Animals). 
 
Finally and last here, is the White Cockatoo (Google search).  Many of these are kept for pets.  Not me, I really don't like to be around birds.
 
==> You can see other "K" letter posts by visiting Jenny's blog post, Alphabe- Thursday. My letter "K" portion of this post will be critiqued by Head Mistress Jenny. I always hope for a good grade.
 
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Now for my Thursday Two Questions.

My last post last week was about a "J" word couple.  "J" was for Junk mail.  
I believe that most readers identified with me about that topic.
 

My Two Questions for this week (you can answer just one if you wish):.

1.  What are you feelings about petting wild animals in captivity such as my Kangaroo find?
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2. How much government money do you feel should be used in support of keeping our wild animals from becoming extinct?
The Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary here is private.  I feel that in the U.S. it would receive tax free charitable status.  I do not know about Australia. 

Bonus Question: What is your favorite "K" word?
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==> My Thursday Two Questions post is for Amanda at her blog, Self Sagacity.

Oh yes, we could have bought a 'blow up' Kangaroo to bring home from this little sidewalk stand by the ship's entrance but we declined.
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Thursday, February 14, 2013

— My Alphabe-Thursday (2nd), the letter "M" / Thursday Two Questions —

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New Zealand and Australia; more of our most recent cruise pictures
Here we have some pictures to honor Alphabe-Thursday letter "M"

For a larger picture, click on what you want.
Click again and it should get larger still.
(The BACK BUTTON gets you back here.)
 

"M" is for More.  More of good things is what people are wanting.

So here are some More of my New Zealand pictures.  This will probably NOT be my last posting of them.

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First I will show this one of the Sydney, Australia, City Hall.   The outside of the building, including the clock tower, are being renovated and cleaned.

So that the Sydney residents don't forget (why else do this??) what their City Hall should look like, the contractor has build this colorful four sided frame with the tower's picture on each side.

We did not go into the City Hall.  But is was in our line of sight from our hotel room, a couple of blocks away.

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Our plane arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, at 6:00 in the morning but our ship would not be ready for boarding until the afternoon.  So for such happenings Princess has made hotel arrangements for a permanent hospitality room.  They had tea, coffee, and  snacks for us.  Princess also had a bus tour of  Auckland which we could purchase.

Mrs. Jim and I opted to not do either, the bus tour or wait in the hospitality room, but rather go for our own sight-seeing walk.  Auckland is New Zealand's largest city with a population of about 3.5 million people while the whole of New Zealand's population is only 4.5 million.  Auckland's skyline is very impressive.
 
 

We walked about a mile down Queen Street to the harbor. My cameras have taken a lot of Burger King and MacDonald's restaurants and we passed these two on the way to the harbor. 

When we reached Australia there were no Burger Kings.  Instead we found Jack's Burgers all over the place.  Burger King owns Jack's.

 

"[The] Britomart Transport Centre is the CBD public transport hub of Auckland, New Zealand, and the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk line. It combines a bus interchange with a railway station in a former Edwardian post office, extended with expansive post-modernist architectural elements. It is located at the foot of Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of Auckland CBD, with the main ferry terminal just across Quay Street." (Wikipedia, Auckland Britomart, for more
 
And it is just around the corner from the Burger King.  We didn't stop at the BK, instead we caught the ferry over to Devonport.  That was about a 40 minute ride, one way. We had a very nice view of the Auckland skyline from the boat.  At the right in the picture is our ship, the Diamond Princess.
 
 
 
Devonport is a pretty little town.  Its most prominent feature is a hill named Mount Victoria pictured below on the left.  Of course mountains are meant to be climbed and Mrs. Jim and I did that. On the right, above, I am standing at the top.  Up there are a weather radar and an old bunker left there from WWII.
 
While we were up there an older man and his dog arrived, both having climbed the hill.  The man told us that he had originally lived in Scotland, quite a few years back had come to New Zealand to visit his sister, and then just stayed.  He was a sheep shearer in Scotland and also did that in NZ.  But he had to learn to shear them the New Zealand way.  We talked with him for about half an hour and must have picked his brain dry.
 

 
What is a Ute?   A ute is a pickup truck that uses a car body (Ford example).  The green one above is a modern Volkswagen Golf vehicle with a ute body.  In the states the Chevy El Camino and the Ford Ranchero pickups (New Zealand and Australia called those utes) are U.S. models that you might remember.

==> You can see other "M" letter posts by visiting Jenny's blog post, Alphabe- Thursday. My letter "M" portion of this post will be critiqued by Head Mistress Jenny. I always hope for a good grade.

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Now for my Thursday Two Questions.

My last post last week was about a "L" word, Laugh (also smile).

My Two Questions for this week (you can answer just one if you wish):.

1. Do you ever have More things you like than you can ever tell about?
 
So far, since 2005, I have not run out of things to blog about.  Nor is my honey-do list ever emptied; etc. for other items.

2. What does a hill or little mountain in your way have for you to do?

I have climbed many, many, little 'mountains' and hills  Two of the most fun were Franklin Mountain in El Paso which I would climb at least once or twice every year and the little mountain range behind Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. 

With my artificial knee joint I have slowed down on the climbs but I still like and can do most of them.

Bonus Question: What is your favorite "M" word?
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==>  My post is for Amanda at her Thursday Two Questions blog, Self Sagacity.

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Friday, January 01, 2016

Friday’s Hunt v1.1 -- "A" is for

Starts with A…Anteaters, aardvarks, and Australia

Mrs. Jim and I had this 'discussion' about the comic strip in Saturday's Houston Chronicle (Friday, January 1, 2016).

Old people don't have too many worldly things to worry about, like ISIS, Mexican immigrants, who will be our next president, etc.  Except that neither of us are for Trump or Cruz.  We think either would ruin our country.

Our discussion about the comic strip was about the creatures in the strip.  I called them Aardvarks, Mrs. Jim knew the weren't, just merely Anteaters.  My position was that they were the same creature by another name.

I was wrong.  Read on. Sorry I have no personal pictures.
BTW, January 1 is Mrs. Jim's Birthday.  We have had a nice day.

Anteaters -- They are cute (?) smallish creatures originally from Mexico, Central America, and South America. [picture from today.com, Feb 21, 2014](Anteater Wikipedia link)

A distinguishing feature they have is a long tongue which can wrap around an ant or termite.

Other species are commonly confused with the anteater, including the common aardvark featured below.

The aardvark doesn't have the pointy nose like the anteater but does have a long tong to catch the insects. (See the baby's long tongue in the picture above.)

Aardvarks originated in Africa.  They are often confused with the other similar animals with anteater characteristics. [picture from Wikipedia, a commons release (link)]

This chart from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anteater_(disambiguation) , helps distinguish the various animals similar but not related to the African Anteater.

Australia is a nice place to visit.  One of my favorites was the wildlife animal rescue and reserve that we visited in Tasmania, Australia in 2003.  I blogged about this, click here.  I am sure that they had a Numbat or two there but I can't find a picture of any of them.  By going to the 'disambiguation' link above and clicking on the Numbat link you could see one. 

Below is Mrs. Jim feeding a kangaroo on our Australia visit to the state of Tasmania.

  
I did have this picture (below) of what I thought might be a Chinese Pangolin, scaly anteater common name (link), but now I think he was more of some species more like an Iguana.  I sure wish I knew what he is.  I spotted him at the Tasmanian wildlife rescue center also.
Perhaps maybe you know?
 
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 The fine print:  Teresa of Eden Hills is running this meme, Friday's Hunt. She has three alternatives for us to post about but this one, Alphabet series, will be the one I will try to follow and post about. 
 - Her rules are: "Welcome to the first linkup for Friday’s Hunt. It’s very simple. Anyone can participate. The link opens at 7pm Central time and will close Sunday at 7pm, so you have plenty of time to enter."
 - The Mr. Linky address here has others who are participating if you would to read what these folk are doing for the Friday post.

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

New Zealand and Australia pictures — Six Word Saturday —

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my Six Words:

Finished New Zealand and Australia pictures

 
Find them posted here or in my side bar at
Our 2012-2013 New Zealand and Australia
 
We did a 14 day New Zealand and Australia cruise on the Diamond Princess and then stayed and played in Sydney three days and three nights on our own.  We left Houston on December 26 and returned January 14.
 
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Describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words for Six Word Saturday. Click the box at right to visit Cate's blog with Mr. Linky showing all the other blogs participating this week. Cate is the boss at Six Word Saturday. She would like for you to participate.
 

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Friday, January 06, 2023

Letter "A" -- Friday's Weekend Roundup 10 / Reflections and-or Street/Candid Captures

 - Tom's Requests: Starts with "A"; A Favorite; and Tom's suggestion, "Amber".
 - James' request, Reflections and/or Street Photos/Candid Captures. 
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Post Card given to Mrs. Jim as she left the plane

Starts with "A"Airplane starts with "A".  Mrs. Jim flew in this little yellow plane the last time she flew private.  It is a surplus rescue, a T-34 Trainer ( Wikipedia ) that is now giving rides to plane and flying enthusiasts.  I'm not sure what year she flew, the T-34/5 planes were grounded in 2004 but eased back into use later.

She flew front seat and had the duty of putting down the landing gear. The pilot was in back, they flew over the Galveston Beach that ran maybe twenty miles down to the west of the city. They did barrels and loops with the top open.  

I had gotten her the ride for one of her earlier birthdays.  It was worth every penny seeing her sooo happy.  Mrs. Jim's older brother had died flying his P38, shot down on a bombing run over Italy.  Her younger brother also crashed his plane, an experimental, with his feet forward but survived and mended, his legs look like zippers.




Tom's suggestion, "Ample":  In this old butter churn are the marbles that I have salvaged from my childhood, eighty some years ago.  Some I believe were Agate marbles (Bing Search), I have not sorted them for a several years.

Ample in Number to make the churn look nice.   It was used mostly by Mom, she made butter for our family.  We now have it sitting on the guest room bedside table.  Later Dad sold cream to the creamery in town and we were given butter and buttermilk for free. 


A Favorite:  This is Amber, our grandcat.  Amber stayed with us while our daughter was in London working.  She and her family stayed there five years, Amber was to die in 2013, before her regular boss lady came back to Texas.  Read more of Amber here, 
 https://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/search?q=amber

[Click the picture for larger size viewing.  Awesome!!  Click again for larger still.]

Reflections and/or Street Photos/Candid Captures:  This lightened twilight photo is part of our green space build for Flood Control.  It is two blocks to the south of our home.  We walk quite often, it goes for miles, you can see one of the concrete walking paths under the trees to the upper left.  Out of sight the path loops to the left and returns on the other side of the little stream.  

We used to walk long distances but now at our ages we don't walk so far.  Doctors' orders, Mrs. Jim's and mine, independently, suggested that we walk for thirty minutes five times a week.  We give honest tries to do this.  Mrs. Jim's breathing therapist suggested additionally that we climb a flight of stairs every two hours during the day. 

Cinco Ranch Trails map
Called the "Cinco Ranch Trails" (Cinco Ranch Subdivision, Katy, Texas) Pere the site (URL), "Get to know this 13.5-mile loop trail near Katy, Texas. Generally considered an easy route, it takes an average of 3 h 57 min to complete. This is a very popular area for road biking, running, and walking, so you'll likely encounter other people while exploring." 

One reader's comment on the site above, 
(URL)

"This trail can be customized for the distance that you prefer to walk. There are many parts that combine to make the 13+ miles. Most of these trails are single trails totaling approximately 1.5 to 2 miles each. I normally add 2 or 3 of these together. The only downfall to this place is the lack of trail markings. You could easily miss a turn and accidentally extend your hike if (you're) not familiar with the area. All walkways are paved."

Read about our 2013 Tasmania cruise stop's morning at the wildlife refuge here.
 
A Lagniappe:  "A" could also be used here for a country I've visited that starts with "A" out of these: Andorra; Antigua and Barbuda; ArgentinaAruba; Australia; or Austria.  I chose Australia here because we spent the most time in Australia, after the cruise, and had the most fun.  Click here to see some of my posts of Australia.
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The Fine Print:

 - [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra-large.] 

 - I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (click here, Link, for Tom's Weekend Reviews) 

 - I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).

 - The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law. 

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