The Showoffs Perform Chicago! Watch out Renee Zellwegger and Catherine Zeta-Jones! The showoffs are here! What a night! Women's Executive Club, an organization that I have belonged to for over 20 years had it's annual fundraiser last night. It was held at the Fort Lauderdale Antique Car Museum and had a 1920s theme. So The Showoffs, a dance group that I've been with for the past few years, performed our special choreography to the opening medley from Chicago. It's a dance that I've been wanting to learn and I'm so glad I had this opportunity. Here's a few of us in our opening pose. I'm the one in the middle, in case you don't recognize me! hmmm, I think I like being a redhead. Thanx to Jim for snapping a few photos during the dance. It's not easy to capture a moving target: There were 7 of us in the dance And, here's our teacher/choreographer John Wittenborn We had a very nice audience: We've been learning/practicing/rehearsing for about 6 weeks, but we need that last rehearsal on location to know our spots on this dance floor. Here we are with John shouting instructions and showing us how. After the performance we posed for photos in one of the antique cars. Here's all 7 dancers: Valerie, Hermine, Denise, Sharon, Cathy, Wendy, and me with John and Russ the manager of the museum: Do you think I'm having fun? And here's a photo (scanned) taken of Jim and me. I think he's having a good time too!

I haven't written in here for a while because I've been in class. It seemed a good idea to me to use our last couple months in town to get some good training in. Once we're on the road, my primary work will be website development. I've been doing this for about a year now, but not 100%. For $600, I was able to sign up at New Horizons and take all the web/development/graphics classses I could handle. I'm sure that some people treat this like a gym membership - they go once or twice then get slack and forget about it. Not this time! I've taken 11 one-day classes so far: html 1, 2 &3, Dreamweaver 1 & 2, Fireworks 1, Coldfusion 1 & 2, XML and Flash 1 & 2. Some of it has been review and some has been brand new. It's all been good ... and fun! Flash has been the most different. Click on the link below to see one of the exercises I did in class: Click here to see what I learned to do in Flash! Going to school is so cool. No responsibilities, just learn. And, learning is my passion! You meet nice people there too. One guy, Bob, has been in several of the same classes and we've shared some good laughs. He's a steel drum musician and wanted his own website, so, he took these classes and updates his website after every class. It's looking really good!! www.steeldrummusic.net He's especially proud of the fact that his site comes up either first or second in a google search for steel drum music. And, this is without any 'pay per click' technology! Pretty impressive.

Windy, dreary Sunday morning. No diving today. I went out yesterday in pretty sloppy conditions. We took the coach over to Markham Park on Friday to dump the tanks. When we got back, the DataStorm was not working. I made a diagnosis after several experiments. A bad transmit modem. A call to Ground Control confirmed the problem. Luckily, I still had the modem from the original install. When Ground Control sent a replacement for the original defective receive modem, they sent a transmit modem as well. I replaced both as a set. Turns out, the only easily transferrable item in the stack is the transmit unit. I plugged it all up and voila! Internet. I sure am glad we didn't have to wait for a replacement over the weekend. We were already making plans to return to Paradise Island just to have Internet. Connectivity is essential for us. More so for Chris. She can get some billable work done. I need it to support Coach Connect users.

Waterway Cleanup Yesterday was the 27th annual Waterway Cleanup. It's an event by the Marine Industry Association of South Florida. Our kayak/dive club, kayuba, has volunteered for the past 3 years and Jim is the site coordinator for the Bonnet House. Most people never see the Intracoastal side of the Bonnet house property. It is natural mangroves which really collect the garbage that falls off the passing boats. It is our job to paddle our kayaks to this otherwise inaccessible area, climb around in the mangrove roots and pick up the garbage. It's hard work, but it feels good to do some community service. Here's a volunteer doing just that: And, here I am coming back to the collection point with a load that I've picked up. Mom also volunteered for the event. She ran the registration table and handed out tShirts to all the participants. And here's Rick, another kayuba member with quite a haul! If you look close, you'll see a coconut that he's holding up. There are thousands of these washed ashore - they're not garbage, they're natural. Since this one is sprouting so nicely, my guess is that he'll take it home and plant it. Speaking of mangroves and the Bonnet House, you gotta go check out the painting by my good friend Emily. She took up watercolors 4-5 years ago I think, and she's really become good at it. She has a painting called "Mangroves at Bonnet House" and it is currently hanging at the Bonnet House in an exhibit called "Impressions of Old South Florida". You can see it at Emily's website: www.emilyrushin.com then click on Portfolio. My favorite is "Woodland Stream". By the way, I created her website and I'd love to get some feedback from you ... drop me an email and let me know what you think.

Donna's Backyard RV Park As you can see, the maintenance crew is hard at work keeping "Donna's Backyard RV Park" clean and manicured! We give it a Five Star Plus rating. Hey! Do you need a license to drive that thing Donna? Any excuse for a picnic We had to go to the dump station again today. Every 4 days is pretty standard. We pick Tuesday and Friday as good days of the week. Luckily, there is a county park (Markham Park) within 5 minutes of Donna's Backyard RV Park, so it's a quick and pleasant trip. Today, we decided to stay awhile and have lunch at the park. Then we took a shower and dumped again on our way out ... maybe we'll be able to stretch another day out of it this time. I wonder how long it takes for the novelty to wear off? I still feel like a kid on Christmas morning whenever we move our home somewhere and can do things like take a shower, in our own shower, while at a beautiful park. It's just the greatest gift you can give yourself. To live your dream. My dream has always been total freedom. There was a time that I thought that meant being alone ... no attachments to a person. Now, I'm experiencing how having a partner (who shares your dream) can enable you to make them come true. And, the sharing makes it that much better. Ok, you can say it ... 'aaawwwwwwww isn't that sweet?' We are just having a great time. And we haven't even 'hit the road' yet!