SmugMug, Strawberries and Sea Lions

I have a lot of things running through my head with all the road and boat time I'm putting in these days, so bear with me.

First and foremost, I've made a small start at a photo-selling type of website! You can find that at <http://floundergirlphotography.smugmug.com/> I'm still trying to make the time to go through a bunch of photos and get them uploaded. I think I've decided that I'm going to stick with this site (I still have 11 days on my free trial), I just need to wait until I get paid to actually pay for sticking with it :) I think it's going to be a very fun resource for me and I don't expect that I'll be selling a lot of photos, but it'll be fun to be able to share with people anyway. I have yet to figure out the actually marketing function of the site, but I think that may have to wait until I'm an actual "subscriber" or whatever that makes me.

The "strawberries" part of this post is mostly just me yearning for fruits to do things with (it must be spring!). I think Puk has some figs in the freezer that I want to try to make jam with. I have blackberries in Andrew's freezer that we intended to try making wine with, but we'll see if that happens. Also, there was a fellow on the corner by my church yesterday selling flats of strawberries for twelve dollars. I'm thinking about buying one and freezing some for various uses and also making jam. I want jam! I'm not going to be able to handle not canning things this summer :P I also want to hit up a farmers market soon and see if I can get  my hands on any rhubarb. SPRING!

Our sea lion "friends" are still around Bonneville Dam, but my job description has developed a little bit more. Now, not only are we observing tagging and branding, hazing them down the river, and watching for fish kills, but we're also working with acoustic receivers. This just means that we're putting a piece of equipment out with and anchor, plenty of rope, a bouy, and crab floats to keep track of the sea lions that have been tagged. When a sea lion swims near one of the receivers, the identification number and time are recorded. So we're responsible for downloading this data every week. Yesterday we downloaded the data for the dozen (actually only eleven, one has disappeared) by Bonneville Dam and today we went down to "the estuary" to download data from the 15 or so we put out there. Our estuary days end up being long ones (I put in about 12 hours today). It's fun getting to go to the coast and be on "big water," though, so I really can't complain much (except for the soreness in my shoulders and back).

I could probably think of more things to share if I really wanted to, but I think I'll let you all be for now. I had a girl-friend comment recently that I write long posts. I already knew that :D

Oh, one last comment that I forgot. Within the last week or so, I've gotten a couple encouraging comments on the old blog that I wrote while on Svalbard (http://floundergirl07.livejournal.com/). I didn't expect at all for that to suddenly materialize again, but I'm really grateful to my mystery fans, because sometimes I feel like I'm just typing for myself (which isn't such a bad thing) or that maybe I'm the only one that's really enthralled by my thoughts and musings :P It's nice to know that my ramblings are somehow appreciated (by more than my patronizing family and friends).

Staying Fishy

So, try as I might, I don't seem to be able to get away from the fishing industry! It's not so bad where I'm at right now though (at least it's not ADF&G in King Salmon.... I don't think I could handle that sort of pressure) I recently started a job for a tribal fisheries place in Portland and it's a really fun atmosphere to work in. There's a lot of really neat people. Currently I don't see a lot of them because I'm out below a dam on the Columbia river hazing sea lions all day :P I know everybody's jealous of my amazing job. This should last until about mid May, then I'll be switched over to another project (I'm supposed to be employed for 8 months), thought I'm not completely sure what that will be yet. I'll keep you updated.

So now that I have job security for a while, Makenzie and I have renewed the lease on our apartment for 9 months, so we're set here until December! It's going to be very strange not being home for summer, but I'm glad on some level that I've actually got something going on with my life and that I don't have to feel like I'm running home with my tail between my legs after a failed attempt at "making it" in the big world. Not that I would have let that be the end of my attempts, but I just would have had to build up resources for another one.

I have yet to get my first pay check, but I have all sorts of plans and ideas for when payment actually starts to happen. One of my ideas is to get a portfolio of some of my best photos going. Mostly this is just for fun, but people have also mentioned maybe trying to get a show or put them in a gallery of sorts. I don't know if that will ever actually happen, but it's a fun idea. Also, I want to get some postcards printed to maybe have sold at Fishtival or something like that. I think maybe I'll got with something between top 4-8 favorites for actually printing, then I was also thinking about getting one of those little photo books with the rest of the photos I'd like to make available for prints and postcards and maybe come up with some sort of ordering system. Big dreams, I know, but I think it could work. Mostly I want to do this for my Bristol Bay photos, because I feel like maybe it'd be a fresh take on life there.... at least as far as what shows up in print.

Also, one of my co-workers today asked if we eat fried bread in Alaska. He definitely got my taste buds hankering for some home foods, so I may have to figure out a way to make myself an Alaskan feast sometime soon.

With that, I'll be off! I'm not even sure that anybody checks my blog anymore since I'm horrible at being a blogger. So, to the resilient few, thanks for your patience!

Maybe I should become a food blogger...

Recently, I've noticed that I look at a lot of recipes. A friend shared a link to a cooking blog on Facebook and I spent several days looking, almost obsessively, through all the recipes it had to offer (<http://smittenkitchen.com/>). I found a lot of really good sounding recipes and the lady that writes the site is the sort of person you love to read (lots of character).

I've also noticed that, since I don't have a job and don't have a lot else going on, a lot of my posts and pictures on Facebook are about food. Before the holidays, I really wasn't doing a lot of cooking for Makenzie and I, but recently that habit seems to have changed. I guess now is a good time to explore different things in the kitchen and I love having somebody else to cook for (even if I don't have a lot to spend on ingredients). Makenzie is a bit undiscriminating as far as the things I cook (everything is good), but I appreciate the fact that she actually eats it (I try to avoid the things she dislikes of course).

I'm having fun sharing my creations with people online and I think eventually it could be something fun to base a blog around (sure, there are a ton of food bloggers already, but it would be more for my own benefit and not so much because I expect people to read it). Now that I have this idea, I'll probably start taking pictures of the more random things I make. I'm a bit sad now that I didn't take a picture of it, but early in the week I made a pizza on sourdough crust with pesto, chicken, leftover yams, asparagus, blue brie, and Colby-jack cheese. It sounds (and looked) kind of weird, but all of the flavors really meshed well together and I would definitely do it again (though I think I'd like to have the time to make my favorite wheat crust instead).

So in the end I guess this is just me getting all of my random thoughts on a page and if you care to follow me into this world of experimental cooking, that's great, but if not, I don't blame you. I can't promise steady posting (I've tried never to promise it before), but I will TRY to share anything food-related here that I've shared on Facebook. This isn't turning into a food blog quite yet, there will probably be other randomness, but it's the best ploy I have so far for becoming a better blogger. Look out, world!