We’re using Picasa with a plug-in called “Shashim” that I really like. We also use a Facebook photo plugin combined with a plugin for iPhoto to upload photos to Facebook. We load the photos into iPhoto and I can upload them to Picasa or Facebook pretty easily- much easier than through Wordpress!

I’ll check out Posterous, but we have seriously cut back on the cell phone technology since it’s expensive and pointless in Mexico (not a lot of cell towers in the middle of the Sea of Cortez).

Thanks for the comments!

JC

Also, check out Posterous. It makes it waaaaay easier to post via email to WP sites, facebook, flickr, twitter – all with one email. That was a lifesaver when I paddled the Neuse river recently. I blogged almost exclusively from my iPhone instead of dragging a laptop.

Great site, BTW. We’re playing with becoming liveaboards soon ourselves.

-John

On another note. The memories and experiences are so vivid and satisfying over the last year, I really don’t wish to exchange future experiences for possessions or ’stability’ as commonly defined in our culture. With the relative unencumbered state we currently endure, I can allow myself to laugh and relax back to being the child of wonder and curiosity that I once was so very long ago.

I am finding when you have objects of value you begin to act as society expects one to act by the mere fact of having the object. In other words, we take on the roles of responsible financial adults as ‘profiled’ by our society. This profile may or may not provide the satisfaction you seek. Here we begin to diverge from our true selves. Instead of seeking a ‘flourishing of the spirit’ we act and behave within societal acceptable standards. The only thing I’ve truly discovered by being normal is an increasing trend toward lower and lower standards of excellence. I think it is better to be your one true self living a life (or many lives) of fullness than a double life mimicking societal beliefs of acceptable and responsible behavior.

I like the new layout better than the old!

I remember that one paragraph from an old article from the book “Escape from Someday Isle” by a lady named Marilyn R.P. Morgan that served as an inspirational quote on my fridge until the agent made it clear we had to remove all “personal” items from it. She said, “Finally, most important of all, is a firm commitment to the idea that experiences are better than objects, and doing things is better than having things. Maybe we don’t have to stop being packrats if we’re willing simply to change what it is we collect. Collect memories, not artifacts. Make a difference, not a pile. Stuff the lockers of your life with verbs, not nouns.”

I think she pretty much sums it up. That’s the legacy we should all want to leave behind, a good story and a great pile of memories.

My fallback poet of choice right now is Frost. But I am leaning towards the naturalist poets more these days.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

The last stanza is my mantra for the last few months. Sometimes things get so crazy I just repeat those lines and the panic (eventually) goes away. I like Deering’s suggestion in “The Best Life Money Can’t Buy” when he suggests going horizontal until such crazy notions pass.

As for inspiration:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

W.E. Henley

‘Yo Mon, chill.’

I like the new layout a bunch. I finally did a bunch of back end up dates and I am trying to implement a bunch of improvements I’ve been wanting to include on the website to make it more ‘full breadth’.

I want to add a photo gallery on the right side with albums and random photos. I’d like to add a library widget with our favorite books and a place people can suggest good books. I want to add some more relevant adsense ads (a financial necessity sadly).

For my day job, I’m back in Stockbridge, Ga. continuing work on a friends house. They like the work so much they keep adding things to the list. That’s ok with me, a little more cash won’t hurt.

What’s your thoughts on the ‘buy me a coffee’ widget? Offensive? I get a few inquiries every now and then I handle offline. I thought this might be a way for people to get some answers first hand without feeling like an imposition and we can add a few dollars to the kitty.

Funny, I get in the city and I run out of inspiration. Maybe it’s because I’m focusing on generating dolleros and not paying much attention to anything else around me?

Who knows.

I drive back to Mexico in a week or less. Then the fun begins.