Monday, October 21, 2013

The Rally in Atlanta

This past week we were at the Camping World / Good Sam Rally held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.  We were parked in the Infield, along with a few hundred of our close RVing friends!

It was just a short walk to the tent that served as our seminar room for the week.

We gave 14 classes in all over the 5 days of the rally.  Four of them were our special hands-on classes for iPhones/iPads and Android devices.  We kept registrations under 20 people so they could get personal attention as we gave them exercises to do.

There was only once that we left our tent and wandered around the vendor Exhibit hall.  We were happy to see the TechnoRV booth looking busy and a big smile from Ally handling business while Phil and Tracey are still in England.

We did take advantage of the Entertainment on Friday night and went to see the Beach Boys.  They were great!  And it was a beautiful evening at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Here's a little video:

We were very happy to have Devon (Jim’s son) with us.  We got to spend some quality time with him, and he was a great help signing people up for Geeks on Tour memberships after each seminar.  I think it was fun for him to get a glimpse of how his crazy parents live!  This is the second time he’s helped us at a Rally – wish he could always be there, but I don’t think it’s going to work to fly him to Oregon.  Hopefully he’ll join us in Perry, GA in March for the FMCA rally.

Thanks to Devon’s help, we are welcoming over 90 new Geeks on Tour Members!  That’s a record.

The last night we breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a nice dinner and bottle of wine with our parking lot neighbors and friends Chris and Charles Yust.  Mountains, streams, and lakes are pretty, but we enjoy the parking lot just as much!

My Greatest Fear

We love doing these rallies and our seminars so much that we have seemingly endless stamina for it.  Years ago we would do one or two seminars.  Now we’re up to 14 at this rally!  My greatest fear is that one (or both) of us will be sick and not able to do it.  I had to face that fear this week, and stared it right down!

At the end of the dive trip last week I had a cold.  No big deal, I skipped the last day of diving, stayed in bed and read my Kindle books (actually that’s a treat!)  By the time we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale, I felt fine.   I thought my cold was over, but I started coughing and feeling sick again on the way to Atlanta on Monday.  I woke up at 4am on Wednesday morning (the first day of our classes) knowing I was indeed still sick and that just wouldn't do with 5 days of solid teaching scheduled.  So I used my phone, and Google, to find a 24hr urgent care/Emergency center nearby.  It came up with one and I tapped on Navigate.  What would I do without my phone and Google?  Jim wanted to go with me but I told him he had to stay in case I didn’t get back and he had to do the seminars alone!

I drove there, got a diagnosis of acute bronchitis, got some shots and some pills.  I felt SOO much better!  And, I made it thru the week.  Ahhhh … better living with drugs!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Geeks go Diving

Ahhhhh a vacation in Paradise!  Actually it's Bonaire, NA (Netherland Antilles)  That's an island just off the coast of Venezuela in what's known as the Dutch Caribbean.  It is well-known among scuba divers and that's why we went!  We stayed at the Divi Flamingo resort.


It was Jim's old dive buddy, Jimmy Lyon who told us about the trip organized by his local dive shop up in New Jersey - American Diving Supply.  The timing worked, so we signed up.  These two have been diving together for nearly 40 years!

Here's some video that Jim edited from our First Day of diving in Bonaire.


We had a beautiful sunset almost every night.  And lots of other opportunities for taking pretty pictures.







Great trip!  Lots more pictures on our Web Album. And Jim is editing more video too ... coming soon.