T is for Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay is my home. I grew up around here, went to college here and moved back here six years ago after an eighteen-year hiatus.  Tampa Bay is not actually a "city" but an estuary and the Tampa Bay area encompasses three counties.

Tampa Bay is home to many beautiful beaches, scenic drives, and lots of connecting bridges.  Tampa Bay has three professional sports teams - Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Tampa Bay Lightning.  Our family enjoys occasionally attending games at any of the three venues.

Tampa Bay has a port and a cruise ship terminal so you can see boats of all types.  Ybor City is a Latin historic district where we enjoy walking around and taking in the sights.  It is known for Cuban coffee and Cuban cigars.

There are lots of other things to do, so if you are ever in the area enjoy your time here!

Ssssss....

Hmmm....  Seems like the letter "S" has Several possibilities and Since it is Saturday and we do not have to write tomorrow, I will Splurge with two Subjects.

2008

SCOUTS - Of course, Scouts would be one of my "S" words, but I already gave a Synopsis of our Scouting career back on the letter E.  I will just Say that if we could all learn to live by the Scout law we would live in a much different world.


A Scout is:

• Trustworthy
• Loyal
• Helpful
• Friendly
• Courteous
• Kind
• Obedient
• Cheerful
• Thrifty
• Brave
• Clean
• and Reverent

STATISTICS - When I Started this little venture of taking the blogging challenge, I wanted to See if any patterns emerged.  I named my blog "This and That" because I was not Sure what I would be writing about.  I Still have not come to a conclusion.  According to my Blogger Statistics, so far I have had 399 pageviews, have 4 followers and the most viewed posts have been:

1. Bloom
2. Eagle

Does this mean anything?  I have no idea!  Enjoy your weekend!

R is for Research

When performing research online, it is imperative to assess the quality of the information you find.  Anyone can have a website and there is no guarantee of the accuracy.

These are three things to help in judging the quality of the information found on the internet.

Reliability - is the website from a recognizable source?  Websites from well-known corporations, educational institutions, or official agencies typically produce quality information.  If the URL ends in .mil, .edu, .org or .gov it is customarily a good resource.  The screenshot below shows clearly the site is from the Better Business Bureau.

Accountability - If it is an article, is the author clearly identified? In the screenshot, the title of the article is "How to Research a Company" followed by the author's name.  Can you find the author's credentials?  In this particular article, they can be found at the end (see photo below).

Currency - How current is the information?  Is the article dated?  As you can see, this article was dated just over 6 months ago.  Is the website kept up-to-date?  One place to look is in the footer to see if the copyright date has been updated (see last photo).  From these three quick checks, it is pretty safe to say this article is going to be reliable and accurate.

About the author

Footer

Can you believe we are already on the letter "R"?

Q is for Quandary

The letter "Q" has me in a quandary - I cannot think of anything clever or interesting to say and it is getting late.  That's all I got tonight - tomorrow should be better!

P is for Programs

For those of you that are following along on the challenge, I think I have mentioned how much I like to learn new things, or at least have implied it.  Recently, I started teaching myself how to use the photo-editing "program" Photoshop.  I use it mostly for creating digital scrapbooking pages or the quotes that I use here on my blog.  I still have a lot to learn when it comes to editing photographs though.

Another type of "program" that I am in the midst of learning is actually a "programming" language.  I signed up for a seven-week computer science class to learn Python.  This definitely will be more challenging! What have you learned lately?

O is for Opportunity

Just a short note to say an "opportunity" came my way today to add some business analyst/research work to my resume - no pay for now, but could possibly be an "opportunity" down the road.  Here's hoping!

N is for Networking

Networking is a way to expand our relationships and possibly create new opportunities.  I need to learn how to get better at it!  Apparently, having a degree and sending out resumes is "so 90 seconds ago!"  The job-hunting advice that I have been reading talks about the importance of networking.

I have joined all of the networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and even started blogging (thanks to the AtoZ Challenge).  I am still navigating my around and trying to learn the ins-and-outs of networking.  Any advice is welcome!

Feel free to "follow" me on any of my sites (some of the links are in the sidebar) and I will return the favor.  I have already made some new friends on this journey and hope to expand my network even more.  Thanks for stopping by!