Monday, December 31, 2007

Frost on the Honda

Just in case you didn't believe me when I said I was cold! Before I complain too much, I do have to point out that brilliant sun that's just coming up. The frost melted in about 15 minutes and it's been warm and beautiful in the afternoons. We even played pickleball yesterday - it was perfect weather for that - sunny,calm, just a little cool.
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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Will work for thank-you notes

It's well-known that Jim and I work for food! mmmmm, I still remember that blackberry cobbler in Oregon! And wine is as good as gold in our book. We do need to make money, but I discovered our true payment in these four emails today.
"...The info you have on your website and in the newsletters has been a great new experience for me. Your easy teaching method and one-on-one help was just what I have needed for a long time. The tutorial disk and the access to review lots of info when I forget helps too. The "fun" free program like Picasa you introduced me to has let me enjoy my camera more." Pat
"Thank you again for all the time and expertise you have so generously shared and continue to share with me since we first got together at Peace River not much more than a year ago. With the knowledge and inspiration you passed along, my abilities with a computer have certainly come a long way over that time period. " Greg
"I want you to know that I really appreciate the newsletters you have been sending. I always learn something from them. I make sure to read your blog and I enjoy the pictures. I also enjoy all your videos. Thank you so much." Monique
"Thank you for your help, at 73, with only 18 mos. using a computer, I need all the help I can get. You're the best!" Tom
Life is good. Now, where's that wine?!
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Popsicle Toes

When I was in my 20s I did a lot of backpacking in the mountains of California. After a long day of hiking, it's important to take off the boots and put on something more comfortable. It's also important to stay warm. When we sold our house and moved into the RV - all my old backpacking equipment was tossed or donated. Except my down booties! I am so glad I kept them. It's been in the 30s every morning for the last week. I am having dreams of sunny beaches in Florida. If not for my down booties, I wouldn't get out of bed!
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Thursday, December 27, 2007

One hundred thousand miles!

We knew it was going to happen soon. When we parked at Quartzsite, the odometer read 99,998. So, we made sure to have the camera ready when we left. You can click on the photo to go to our web album and see a larger version.

We bought this motorhome in June, 2003. We bought it through eBay! The first thing I ever bought on eBay ... my home. It had 53,400 miles on it. So, we've traveled almost 47,000 miles in 4.5 years. But, mostly, we've lived in it. It's 30 feet long, 8 feet wide, and has no slides. Some people would say it's way too small for two people to live in fulltime, but we love it! Still do.

I will admit that, the longer we stay parked, the smaller it seems to get. But, when we're in travel mode we love that it is small and I love that it is a class C and comfortable to drive. And, I'm certainly fine with the small space to clean - although it sure does get dirty fast.

I've gathered pictures from the last 4 years that I think best show what life is like in 'Oh Boy' ... that's what we call it because that's how we feel about living in it! You can see the slide show below, or you can go to the album and peruse at your leisure, including reading the captions.

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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Quarzsite living

Edward Abbey wrote a beautiful book called Desert Solitaire about the peace, tranquility, beauty and solitude that living in the desert can bring. He wasn't talking about Quartzsite!

Lots of RVers come to Quartzsite in the winter, but they don't come for the solitude! They come for the camaraderie, for the warm (warmer than up north anyway) weather and for the unique environment of boondocking (living off the grid - no hookups) in the desert. One person who boondocks in Quartzsite a lot is Ron Bunge - of HitchItch.com. We've communicated with Ron over email a few times, so when we noticed him nearby on the Datastormusers map, we figured we'd try to find him and say Hi. It wasn't hard, since he has the Datastorm on his roof - notice also the solar panels tipped towards the sun. He can live like this for months - getting electricity from the sun during the day and filling his battery banks. He sometimes has to supplement that with a generator at night. He can dump his holding tanks using a storage tank in his truck to take it to a nearby dump station, and another tank to fill up with water. He told us that it cost $180 to stay on this BLM land for 6 months! Here they are, Terry and Ron. We had a very nice chat - and, as always when talking to other RVers, we learned something new. Like, how it is inappropriate to say 'trailer trash.' Terry said he much prefers the moniker, 'RV Debris!' You gotta love a town with a sense of humor! And, here's a long distance view of the boondocking area (all those white specks are RVs) - with the dramatic KOFA (King of Arizona) mountains as a backdrop. Ron tells us there are a lot less people here this year than in years past. Perhaps we're headed back to Desert Solitaire after all?

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

A Quartzsite Christmas Dinner

I know, Christmas is still 2 days away, but there's a brunch planned for Christmas day, and Carol and Dick will be gone. So, the feast was today.

It feels great to be back at 'The Cabin.' Over the four years that we've been fulltime RVing, we've accumulated quite a few home-away-from-home's. This was our first one. We were here for Christmas 2004 and 2005. Lynne and John were here those times also. Last year, we were in Florida and Lynne and John were here. This year, they're in Florida and we're here. Ah the lifestyle of the bi-coastal homers!

Frankie sets a pretty table!

Odie helps with carving the turkey! Then we had a gorgeous full moon. More photos on the web album - just click on any photo above and then scroll around. Merry Christmas everybody!

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Saturday, December 22, 2007

brrrrrrrrr

We put the flannel sheets on the bed yesterday. Just in the nick of time! We woke up to 36 degrees this morning. Flannel sheets, wool blanket and winter quilt, propane furnace and electric space heater, and I'm OK until I have to take Odie for a walk! I'm afraid it's conservation-be-damned when this Florida girl gets cold!

We're leaving today to go to Quartzsite for Christmas. Think it will be warmer there?

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Finally! Biosphere 2

I've been wanting to visit Biosphere 2 ever since my good friend, Chris L. was there in 1992. She visited during the time when people were living in the Biosphere 2 and it was completely sealed.

Only in map-browsing, did I stumble upon the fact that the biosphere is just over an hour away from where we are. We've been here several times before, and I never realized it was nearby. Even now, it took the fact that my good friend Liz was visiting Tucson, to get us to make the trip. It has changed ownership a couple times in recent years. It is now part of the University of Arizona, and they're reviving it as a research facility. It was actually in danger of being bulldozed for a housing development ... what a waste that would have been.

It's an impressive facility.

Here's Liz and Stan in the rainforest area inside the structure. There's a salt water ocean and a beach behind them on the lower level. And, here's our tour guide explaining the coastal desert region. There was lots more. The living quarters, the viewing area for under the ocean, and the global warming research findings display. I'm glad we went. What I enjoyed the most is the warm air and humidity! My parched lips just soaked it up ... ahhhhhh. Being a Floridian, I just dry up and crack apart in the desert. We walked inside the door to the rainforest area of the Biosphere and I felt at home!

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Hands on Computer Class, for Women Only

I finished teaching my first hands-on class here at Palm Creek last night. I think it went really well. The idea to limit attendance to women only was an experiment that, I think, was a rousing success. My 5 ladies agreed that it provided a welcomed comfort level. They were more open to asking questions and trying new things. The only problem was that I heard a lot of 'overwhelm' talk ... "Oh dear, I'm so lost ... this is a lot of information to absorb" But, when I told them that I would be cutting down the amount of material for the next class, they said, "Oh no, it was all such good stuff!" Music to my ears. I'm still going to try to cut it down some. I got to thinking about years ago, when I used to teach hands-on classes all the time. We would have a full day class just on Beginning Word Processing. In my current class we spent one session - 2 hours - on that topic. And, years ago, I was teaching office workers - they worked on a computer all the time. These ladies are new to the computer game. The complete outline of the class is on the Geeks on Tour webpage if you want to check it out. What made it possible was my tutorial videos. Each student received the tutorials on CD and they used headsets to view them on their own computers - then I would give them exercises to work on - allowing them to work somewhat at their own speed. They all brought their own laptops ... there were 3 on Vista and 2 on XP! I learned a lot too! In the end, learning is all about attitude - being open to try new things and willing to take risks. These ladies were shining examples! And guess what? According to Dr. Perls in Living to 100, exercising your brain like that will do the most to add years to your life!
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Monday, December 17, 2007

A chilly morning at Palm Creek

Today was the first morning since I came down with this cold that I've felt good enough to go for our morning walk with Odie. We had classes to teach on both Saturday and Sunday and I was fine for them thanks to the miracle of coldeeze. If you try it, I recommend the little white tablets that you let dissolve under your tongue. The lozenges are nice but haven't been as effective for me. Ah ... better living thru chemistry!

Anyway ... all 3 of us went for our morning walk. Our thermometer said 42 degrees. Apparently there had been a freeze warning for overnight because we noticed that all the delicate plants had been 'tucked in' for the night!

I'm not sure if these are golf balls, or snow balls?! We took our longer walk this morning and ended up at the airfield. There's a bunch of guys who like to fly radio controlled model airplanes. One pilot gave Odie some exercise letting him chase his 'flying pizza.' Uh Oh . he actually caught this one! The pilot assured us that he doesn't mind with this flying pizza plane, but we made sure to keep Odie leashed when they were flying the real ones. You can see video of Odie chasing the planes on this previous post.

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Friday, December 14, 2007

So much for that plan - again

I was already a little apprehensive about the hike today because Jim (one of the hike leaders) said this one was pretty strenuous. So, when my friend Liz called yesterday to say she was in Tucson for the week and let's get together today, I easily abandoned the hiking plan for the visit Liz plan.

By the time I went to bed last night, I had developed a significant sore throat telling me a cold was on it's way. Darn! I believe in resting to avoid major cold symptoms - and I certainly didn't want to be responsible for passing a cold along to Liz when she's on vacation. So, scrap plan B.

When the phone rang at 7:30 with the first Wi-Fi support call telling us a part of the system was down this morning ... we went on to plan C. Jim gets to work and I go back to bed.

Sorry Diane :-( but thanks for the encouragement!) Maybe next week. At least I got to spend some quality time with George yesterday talking about computers and blogging stuff. What fun!

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Being stingy with George

When we first encountered George, of the famous Ms Tioga team, it was a momentous event. Since we had been following his blog, and been inspired by it, he was like a movie star to us. All I wanted to do was to take his picture to prove that we were actually sharing the same space! We liked George, we walked around Devil's Tower with him, and we talked about RVing.

The next time we saw him was in Redmond, Oregon, August 2004 at the FMCA convention. He learned a little about what we do - teaching RVers about Internet Access with WiFi. We didn't see him again till 2007 in Wyoming. We shared lunch and talked about how much we all love RVing.

He is still a 'Rock Star' to us, but today I was feeling stingy. I didn't get out the camera and take his photograph to share with you. I just wanted him to ourselves. We had a great dinner together - George made salmon patties, and Jim made Ratatouille ... I drove to buy the wine! Ms. Tioga is actually parked for the night, right across the street from us. There's a photo on George's blog - don't our RV's look like family?!

We talked about religion and politics ... really! We also talked about solar power vs. electricity, and about traveling in Mexico. When he leaves here, he will be traveling in mainland Mexico, something I really want to do - we will be following his blog with interest!

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A visit by the "Team"

It was another wet and cold day in the desert. But there was a real bright spot today. The Vagabonders Supreme Team showed up for a visit. Many of our readers came to be readers because of George and Tioga. We have been reading their adventures since before we hit the road.

We knew they were in the area because of the DataStormUsers map. George sent me an email yesterday saying they were going to be passing through Casa Grande and were only 62 miles away. Normally, it would take the team several days to cover that immense distance. Surprise, surprise! Ms. Tioga was parked across the street when Chris and I came home from our morning service calls. George almost always "boondocks" and would probably not stay in a resort as fancy as Palm Creek. We felt obliged to show him some of what this place is all about. Palm Creek has something for everyone. Thanks for visiting, George. Travel Safely!
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So much for that plan

I vowed that I would do things like take exercise classes and play pickleball and go hiking while we're spending the winter here at this playground called Palm Creek! And, Jim swore he was going to take advantage of the wood shop. Well, we slept in too late to go on the hike last week, and I only went to one of my two exercise classes. It's been too cold, windy and rainy the last few days to get out on the Picklebal court. And, I don't think Jim has even seen the inside of the woodshop yet!

This morning, I proudly grabbed my exercise mat and walked out the door in plenty of time for the exercise class, only to find that the room was full of vendors this morning! It's arts and crafts show day today - darn!

So, what *are* we doing? Betcha can't guess! We're working on our computers and helping other people with theirs. That is what we love, and what is easy for us. (and, oh yeah, it's how we make our living - I keep forgetting that part.)

Our lives are governed by what I think of as 'entropy' - the tendency of all matter and energy to deteriorate into chaos. That's my definition of entropy anyway. And my view of life. I try to come up with systems, I try to develop routines and do stuff that is good for me. But, it's a losing battle. Eventually, I just do whatever I feel like doing, or what is immediately pressing at the moment. For me, and Jim, that usually means something to do with computers.

We *ARE* going on the hike this Friday!! Hold me to that OK?

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

Busy Days

I had a couple nights of bad sleep -that's unusual, I'm a pretty good sleeper. Maybe it had something to do with my first week of this new hands-on class I'm teaching. I think it's exciting and fun, but I am making it up as I go! Something to keep me awake at night!

Thursday night, after class, I got a call from Nick Russel of Gypsy Journal ... he and Terry visited the other day, remember? Well ... they were having a website crisis, could I come over and help? Geez, I sure hoped I could help, but it wasn't to be. The crisis turned out to be completely of their website host's creation - switching servers and forgetting to move the files accordingly. I went over to their place, confirmed that there was nothing I could do, but had a nice visit nonetheless.

Friday I had no commitments, I even tried to take a nap in the afternoon. But that wasn't to be either. The phone rang with someone having trouble with their WiFi connection. That's our workamping job here - helping guests with the WiFi. Jim was busy taking photos at the Christmas singalong, so I handled the service call. Turned out that they just didn't understand that, when you upload photos to a blog, you need to resize them first! It was taking a *long* time to upload, and they figured it must be a problem with the WiFi. It they'd taken our Blog class, they would have known that! :-)

I stopped off at the singalong on my way back home. How cool. So many people just having fun and singing Christmas songs. You can see his photos at the Web Album he set up just for Palm Creek. Here's the video:

When that was over, Jim made one more service call, then we were *ready* for Margaritas! We had a date with Jim and Joan to go to Manuels for Margaritas and Mexican. Yum.

But, the day wasn't over yet! Another call after dinner from an irate WiFi user ... if we hadn't already been drinking, we would have started then! This morning we had our Google Earth class. Did you know that Google Earth now includes live weather imagery *and* live traffic data?! Truly mind-blowing.

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Thank goodness for cheese and crackers

If it weren't for cheese and crackers, sometimes I wouldn't eat at all!

I started today with an 8:30 yoga class - what a treat to be able to take a class twice a week! Then I had an appointment giving a wonderful couple some private computer lessons. Everybody's needs and everybody's computers are SO different - I really like giving the private lessons. Jim was out on several service calls today. We didn't see each other most all day.

I came home from the appointment just in time to meet Nick and Terry from Gypsy Journal who stopped by to say hi. I would have been so disappointed if I'd missed them. They have a wonderful newspaper for RVers called the Gypsy Journal and have been fulltime RVing much longer than we have. We will be presenting a couple of our seminars at their Gypsy Journal Western Gathering right here in Casa Grande next February.

Then I had to prepare for teaching my first hands-on class this evening. I needed to make some more of our tutorial DVDs plus get the students' notebooks put together and review what I was going to teach etc. etc. I forgot about lunch altogether.

Jim met me up at the computer room to make sure equipment was hooked up right and I had everything I needed for my class. Then he left, because this is supposed to be a class for women only! I have a few 'bugs' to work out for my class, but that's why I limited it to 6 people. I can almost give individual attention to everyone. We have 5 more sessions to go - I think it's going to be fun.

Jim met me at the end of class - we did some cleanup work in the computer room and chatted about our days, getting home about 7:30-8. We walked the dog, and the sat down to our email for the first time today. Going on 9pm Jim said, 'what's for dinner?'

"What?", I said. "Didn't we have dinner?"

"Nope"

"Ah well, we still have wine don't we?"

"Yep"

and some cheese and crackers!

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Friday, November 30, 2007

It does rain in the desert

It's a good thing. We need rain. But, I'm so accustomed to sparkling, sunny days - I gotta admit the rain has me a little blue. We passed on the hike today. It was probably a good decision. or, maybe not - cabin fever sets in quick with a 30 foot home!
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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Lifelong Learning

Jim and I spend from 4 to 12 hours on the computer every day. What *are* we doing all that time? Sometimes I struggle to answer that question, so I paid attention one day, and now I have an answer. The bulk of our time - up to 50% - is spent learning. Another 30% is spent communicating; reading, writing and managing emails; reading and writing blogs. That leaves 20% devoted to productive work.

Jim is reading technical newsletters and other articles about networking, Wi-Fi, and all things hardware, software and operating systems.

I am watching Lynda.com video tutorials on website development, CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks - I love Lynda.com! I am reading newsletters and forums on Blogger, Picasa, and general computer issues.

And we both spend time on what we call 'playing', but I could just as easily call it 'learning by trial and error'.

I'm teaching a hands-on class here at Palm Creek starting next week. I'm calling it 'Computer Confidence Class: For Women Only.' 2 sessions/week for 3 weeks, maximum 6 students. I'm hoping to impart an expectation of lifelong learning. There's no such thing as 'learning how to use your computer.' There's just too much. The best you can hope for is to develop the confidence that you can figure things out - and to enjoy the process.

I've been learning, and teaching, computers for 24 years now and I'm learning more new things each day now than ever before. Not only is there an infinite amount to learn about using computers, but there's an infinite amount to learn by using a computer!

I've learned how to cook artichokes in the microwave by researching on the computer (I used to boil them till google showed me another way.) We had some corn on the cob to go with our chicken last night. Jim asked me, "how are you going to cook that?" I answered, "I'm going to google it." Betcha didn't know that google is a cooking method!

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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Water in Arizona!

Jim and I are both water-babies. We've always lived near the ocean and we spend as much time *in* the water as possible. It has surprised us how we can enjoy the beauty of the desert where there is no water. The Saguaro cactus and the sunsets are exquisite and quite beautiful. But, when we got an email inviting us for a boat ride on a lake in this desert, we jumped at the chance. A Lake! Where around here is there a lake? It's only an hour and a half away! We were able to put in a half-day of work, drive up there, have a nice lunch and take a great boat ride, stop at Trader Joe's on the way back, and be home before 8.
The invitation came from Brent and Molly. They both took a couple of our seminars at the FMCA rally in Redmond this summer, and we contacted each other via email afterward. They are RVers, but they usually spend winters on their sailboat in Mexico. This winter, Brent is the captain on the Desert Belle, a tour boat at Saguaro Lake. They have a great Blog, so you can read all about sailboating in Mexico or take (virtually) the same tour we did on Saguaro Lake ... just visit Adventures with Brent and Molly!
Here's a few photos from our wonderful day. See more on our web album - just click on any photo below and you'll be at our web album - then you can click on the next or previous arrows above the photo to see more.
Thanx Brent!! Sure hope to visit with you more someday - sorry we didn't get to meet Molly.
You gotta bring her down to see us in Palm Creek. Come to some more seminars!
Here's Captain Brent: We were lucky to spot a total of 4 bald eagles! I had to put the camera on extreme telephoto to get them.
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Sunday, November 25, 2007

A French lesson

How do you say "Network Connections" in French? Hmmmmmm This is what Jim had to figure out today. A couple of guests in the park here today needed help getting connected to the Wi-Fi network here. He said, "No problem, I can help" and took a look at their computer. These people were from Quebec and all the titles and instructions on their computer were in french! Ah! But of course! This will take me a few minutes longer. :-) But, he did it. ... in case you're wondering ... "Network Connection" translates into french as "raccordement de réseau." At least that's what Babelfish translation website tells me!
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Saturday, November 24, 2007

Palm Creek Photo Albums

As I mentioned in a previous post, we were asked to take photos at some Palm Creek events when the normal photographer was unavailable. This means we've taken a lot of pictures of activities here. What they want is a CD of all the photos we take. But, you *know* we can't do just that! Photos deserve to be on the web for all to see! So, we've just created a Picasa Web Albums for Palm Creek. Yesterday, we went hiking with the Palm Creek Hiking club. Another gorgeous hike in the desert around the Superstition mountains. All the photos are on the Palm Creek web album, but here are a few just for us. I sure wish we could be there at sunset time for better photos, but - till then, I just played around with color settings in Picasa to make a more interesting photo Picasa is SO much fun! Here's the original photo, untouched by Picasa:
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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Giving Thanks

I think Thanksgiving is a great holiday. No pressure or commercialization of giving gifts. Just a time to be together and give thanks for the good things in our lives. A day to accentuate the positive. Mostly, Jim and I give thanks for each other. We know that we are very lucky to share the same dream and have the health and skills to accomplish it! We are living our dream - starting our 5th year of the fulltime RV lifestyle - and we couldn't do it without each other. We wish Health and Happiness to all of you on this Thanksgiving Day!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Geek Work

This weekend we gave our "High-Speed Internet on the Road" seminar. We discuss the 3 choices: Satellite, Cellular, and Wi-Fi. Most of the class discusses Wi-Fi because that is the most popular choice and there is a LOT to know about it. The seminar is also sponsored by MatrixRV who provides the Wi-Fi here in the park. Here's a video giving just a taste of our seminars: Then, Sunday, Jim had an unusual assignment - to take a Datastorm satellite dish down from a motorhome's roof! When you put a dish up, it is on a mounting plate that makes it easy to just slide on the ladder. When you take one down, you leave the mounting plate on the roof - no holes that way - making it much more difficult to get it down a ladder. I'm not sure what is wrong with it - it's not one of Jim's installations. The people had to get on the road, and, since Jim had helped them with some issues over the phone in the past - they trusted him to take it and see if he can fix it. That's nearly 100 pounds he's holding on to there. As for me, I'm just writing and doing web-work. Not much to take a picture of there. So, here's a picture of pretty flowers! With the Arizona setting sun for lighting, they're even more brilliant than normal.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Jane Seymour at Palm Creek

This park, Palm Creek, has lots of events and entertainment scheduled throughout the season. We've never really taken advantage of it before, but we're more interested this year since we're here all season. So, when they asked if we would attend the Jane Seymour event and take pictures - we gladly accepted. Jim decided to be the photographer, but I had to grab the camera at least to get a picture of him with Jane ... "Beauty and the Geek!" It was an interesting event, not at all what I was expecting. It was about a new website by the founder of Monster.com - Jeff Taylor. The website is a social networking site for those of us, "Lovin Life on the flip side of 50." The name of the site is eons.com and it does look pretty interesting. Here's Jeff Taylor lovin' this 55 - 80 year old crowd. So, the event was a little bit about Jeff Taylor, a little bit about the joys of middle age :-) and, then the headliner was Jane Seymour - their celebrity spokesperson. I really liked her! Lots more photos on our web album.
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Friday, November 16, 2007

Changing of the Quilts

I own two quilts, both of which I love, both of which have rich sentimental value to me. So - I use one in the summer season, and one in the winter. The white and pastel colored one is the summer quilt. This quilt was started by my grandmother ... when she was pregnant with my mother! She painstakenly created all the squares in the design of 'dresden plate'. When my grandmother died, I inherited the box with all the squares and, eventually, I got around to getting it quilted. I love that I have something to remember my sweet grandmother by. The darker colored 'tshirt quilt' is our winter quilt and we put it on last night. No, it's nowhere near winter here ... 80 degrees and sunny right now ... but it's past time to make the switch if we're going to use each quilt half of the year. This quilt is made up of pieces of all those tshirts that we just couldn't throw away because of memories, but we knew we'd never wear again. I love staring at each piece and remembering those times. There are tshirts of Jim's before we met as well as some of mine from before we met, then there are a lot of memories from our early years together. We don't have many possessions in our tiny home, but the ones we do have are meaningful.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Jim's Turn

Well, I'm feeling better now, and Jim is down for the count. It's so weird to be alone ... when you're not. He was committed to monitor the computer room this afternoon, and he made it. So, I did a WiFi service call. Geeez, this technology is a killer. It works, and it doesn't work. There are SO many factors. You really have to spend a full day or more with someone's computer, in their location, to determine what the problem is ... IF there's a problem. But people don't have an appreciation for the complexity, they just want it to work. Duh.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Catching up

Geez - 5 days since my last post. Days slip by unnoticed when you're parked. When we're traveling, each day is so new, time goes by slower. Sitting still is good also though ... a little time to relax ... some time to get involved with the community. We didn't go on the Friday hike last week because there was an organizational meeting of the Palm Creek Computer Club. Sounds like something we should be involved in right? Saturday we presented our 'Safe Computing' class. Sunday, I gave myself permission to take the whole day to read a book and hang out by the pool. aaaaaahhhhhhh Jim did some computer support/service calls and worked in *his* computer room, getting all the computers set up how he wants them. My 'veg' day turned into 2 days since I came down with some kind of bug that had me hugging the toilet and nursing a fever. I cleaned myself up enough to go help Jim present our 'Slide Shows with Photostory 3' seminar. I think that's my favorite seminar. Photostory is so cool - the slide shows it creates are wonderful, and so easy. AND - you can *really* teach it in our 1.5 hour format. It's that easy. To see a sample of a Photostory slide show, just go to our www.geeksontour.com home page ... in the first paragraph, click on the link to our introductory video. To see the class handout, go to the 'Articles & Lins' page - it's down at the bottom. Feeling fine today and have a lot to catch up on!>
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Thursday, November 08, 2007

Birthday Dinner

We are now 'legal' here at Palm Creek. You see, this is an age 55 plus park and, up until today, neither of us has been 55. Those days are gone - my birthday today ended that :-( When we saw the 'start of season celebration' dinner party was scheduled for today, we had to sign up. I mean they must have scheduled this just for me right? Would you believe the party started at 3:30?! I actually like it. We had a full 4 hours of drink, dinner, conversation and entertainment and still were home before 8. I have time to walk the dog and post to the blog before crashing! We rode bikes up to the ballroom where the dinner was held. We saw old friends, and met some new ones. The woman seated beside me at the table had the same name as my grandmother - Zella - I enjoyed talking with her. And, my sweet husband was on my other side. People asked us if we are newlyweds! They say we're so nice to each other! The food was excellent (pulled pork and taco fixin's) and the entertainment was inspiring. Flamenco guitar and dancers - see CBJmusic.us. My only regret is that we didn't take the video camera. Lots more photos on the Web Album. I think 55 plus ain't gonna be so bad!
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