Google, girlfriends, and good flights

As a Google product expert, they fly me somewhere once a year,  put me up in a hotel,  and put on a conference for me and all the other product experts. It's something I always look forward to.  Meeting up with all the other experts, some of whom I see every year, and some who are new to me.  We party and we learn. There's a welcome reception/ party and a farewell party.  Food, drink, music, dancing.  SO much fun.  Then all day we have breakout sessions on different products. This year it was in Austin, Texas. 

I was very disappointed this time that there were no breakout sessions on Google photos,  but I still enjoyed learning other things.  Like how to sell products on your Youtube channel and how they deal with spam in Gmail, and what improvements they've made to the pixel camera. 

I feel so lucky to be a part of this team.  It gives me a relationship with Google as well as a relationship with other product experts all over the world. 

The summit was just one evening and one day. I almost always splurge for some extra time.  For Austin I paid for one night before and one night after, then I invited Melinda to fly out from reno and join me. Sleepover!!

We talked and talked,  and walked all over Austin. It was wonderful.  I got caught up on all the changes in her life and told her my deepest secrets! We reestablished our sisterhood.  

Then,  my old friend Marty, who lives just outside of Austin,  saw my post on Facebook and made arrangements to drive in and hang out a bit, then drive me to the airport. What a delight she is,  and this was another walk down memory lane.  I don't get a lot of girlfriend time when I'm home or traveling - it's just me and Jim. These two were nourishing my soul. 

Then for the flight home I snagged a window seat and enjoyed the scenery. 

Feeling very fulfilled. 

Welcome Home!

A week diving in British Virgin Islands

We signed up for a trip with our USADiveClubUSADiveClub. It's an easy one. We pick up a flight right in Fort Lauderdale Airport,  just 15 minutes from home.  It's an hour and a half to San Juan,  Puerto Rico,  then just 30 minutes to Tortola,  BVI. We get off the plane,  our group is picked up on a bus that takes us to the boat.  It's one of the Aggressor fleet of liveaboard dive boatsAggressor fleet of liveaboard dive boats,  we've been on several before so we know the drill. Get your dive gear out of your bags and set it up on the bench provided.  That's where it will be for the rest of the week. You take off your shoes and put them in a basket.  You pick them up at the end of the week. 

Then you take your empty dive gear bag and whatever clothes and personal items you brought and find your way to your cabin.  We signed up late for this trip so we got the worst cabin.  We lived in a small RV for 14 years, and now travel in an even smaller RV. Nothing compares to how small this room was.  And no window, not even a porthole. Now we know ... if this is the only room available in the future,  we will just say no. Oh well,  your room is not the most important part. 

The first night is a nice cocktail party where we meet the crew,  some of whom are newbies,  all are sweet and delightful - and throughout the week they worked very hard for this group of very experienced,  but also very old,  divers! 😅🤣 Some of us have been diving together for over 40 years! 

We are in the British Virgin Islands,  a gorgeous collection of over 60 mountainous islands in the turquoise Caribbean sea.  We had beautiful,  sunny weather all week.  It was paradise. 

The first day started with an easy,  checkout dive to make sure you had the right amount of lead weights.  A few of our group had recently lost a lot of weight which means they need less lead to keep them down.  This is a good problem! Each day you could go on 4 dives each day. The first one was at 8am then 11, then 2 or 3 and the last one was late afternoon,  or after dinner - a night dive. A total of 22 dives was possible. Jim did 16 and I did 9 because I caught a cold on the first day,  just a simple head cold (happens a lot when I travel) but it makes it hard to dive.  It's easy as can be to just float weightless in the sea when there is little current and lots to see but just getting your gear on,  getting in the water,  getting back out - takes a lot of of you.  

Every dive boat operation has slightly different techniques.  This one was about the worst. Some liveaboards are in areas where the big boat - the one were living on - can anchor right on the dive site. Then it's up to each diver to gear up and just jump in the water.  Most liveaboard boats have to anchor a ways away,  then have tenders/zodiacs carry the divers to the actual dive site.  Here's where the rubber hits the road.  In the Maldives they had a whole separate dive boat,  called a dohnnie. All dive gear was in the dohnnie.  Everyone who wanted to dive, transferred to the dohnnie and got geared up there. The dohnnie got us to the site and we jumped in.  In indonesia they were little zodiacs that carried 4 of us at a time. We had our gear on,  sat on the side of the zodiac and backrolled into the water.  When we can up,  a zodiac came to fetch us.  

Here on BVI Aggressor, they had two tenders,  to carry 10 divers each.  The crew put our gear on the tenders - a difficult job! - and put them in a rack in the middle.  We sat on the sides and rode to the site, where we had to be helped in to our gear before we could bankroll into the water.  The tender was tethered to a mooring ball,  so when we were diving we had to pay attention to directions so we could find out way back. Each group of 10 divers had one dive guide in the water with us,  but we didn't always stay together.  Some dives were easy,  no problem.  Some dives were total clusterf...

Jim took his Pixel phone underwater in a housing that has a gel surface so you can use the touch screen like normal.  See our Fun with Photos video #22 about underwater photos. He got some great photos and we went to some iconic dive sites like the Wreck of the Rhone that I've heard about for years. Although not a dive site, I also remember heating from my mom about a favorite place of hers called The Baths at Virgin Gorda. I figured this was a good place to leave some of her ashes.

If there's one thing divers share is an ability to deal with complications.  The crew was always cheerful, helpful. The food was out of this world.

We got off the boat early in the morning and had the whole day to kill before our plane left, so the organizers got us an island tour of Tortola. Just gorgeous.

We stopped at the only remaining Rum Distillery on the island - Callwood Rum Distillery. We got a tour and then tasted 5 Rums. We liked "Panties Off" the best!

Another outing in the van - and teaching an in-person audience

We were booked to give an in-person presentation to the Sun City Center computer club Sun City Center computer club on Wednesday May 8. It's a 4 hour drive from home and we usually stay at the Elks lodge over there. But this time we decided to take 2 nights and stay at a nearby state park - Little Manatee River. Once again, we had to tear ourselves away from our homey comfort zone, but once we were on the road we felt that old familiar thrill of freedom!

We got to the campground about 6 and Jim got right to work setting up camp for dinner. What's for dinner? Well we didn't feel like doing any shopping so we brought whatever we could find in the freezer … lobster

Delicious and delightful. 

We were backed in to the site so there was no need to close curtains on the back window. So cool to be in bed and look up at the stars they the palm trees. 

Next morning got up early to take a walk before it got too hot. Too late. Summer has arrived. The coolness of the last few weeks is gone. We were so grateful for the electric hookup and the good air conditioner on the van. We just stayed in our respective offices (Jim in the front seat turned around, me in the back, on the bed. Both of us with our computers on lap desks. Comfortable, quiet, productive. I spent all day picking out just the right set of smartphone tips to present to the group that night-here's the slides I came up with slides I came up with …

We broke camp about 4:30 in time to drive in and meet our hosts for dinner. It's weird to drive away and leave an empty campsite. We leave a "This site is Occupied by Geeks on Tour" sign …

Good dinner and nice conversation

About 60 people attended and it appeared that everyone brought their phones. I picked tips that were easy for them to try right there. SO much fun. You could hear the gasps when they discovered something they had never seen before on their phones. As usual, I ran over time. About 15 minutes, but no one left! One of my tips was about making your phone into a hotspot. Then Jim opened the wifi settings on his computer to show 30 some odd networks in the room! I think they got it.

When we showed the magic eraser feature of google photos there was a unanimous WOW. 

It was so fun and I was so jazzed. Will I even be able to sleep tonight? Oh yeah. We drove back to the campsite and were so cozy. Next morning we got more work done. 

During the 4 hour drive home we listened to the book Path Between the Sea about the building of the Panama Canal. What a story! We're taking a cruise thru the Panama Canal in October.