Karaoke

I love to sing. So, when I heard that there was Karaoke on Wednesday nights at Wauchula Elks club ... I dragged Jim and went. Of course, it helped that there was steak dinner too! It was Ron from Blue Heaven bus that told us, and he and Linda met us there. He took some photos and put together this slide show/movie (using PhotoStory3). Thanx Ron! ... I think. Lucky for you, he found music by the real singer to provide the sound! Hey - I said I loved to sing, I didn't say I was any good at it. My primary qualification for karaoke is that I'm all too willing to make a fool of myself. I could get hooked tho - it would be so fun to pick a song I like and practice it enough to actually sound good. After having been to a few karaoke bars now, I realize that lots of folks bring their own CDs with the karaoke graphics - the words. That way, they know what to expect. Or, you can go to a website like SingShot where you can listen to others as well as record your own versions of songs. Yikes! As if I don't spend enough time in front of the computer as it is!

Where do the Vultures go?

For a few days we had cold, rainy weather and there was not a vulture to be found. Yesterday the sun came back out and it was absolutely glorious. Still cool, but with the brilliant sunshine it warmed up into the 70s by afternoon. Odie and I were up pretty early for a walk along the nature trail this morning and we saw all the vultures back on their perches, silhouetted against the morning sky. I'm learning to like the Vultures. They're clean - no messy nests, and they keep the area clean by eating any dead stuff. There's lots of road kill around here for them, it doesn't stay on the road for long! They keep their distance. Spooking easily, they'll take off from their perch with a deep 'swooshing' sound of their big wings. Sure do wonder where they go in the cold.

A Surge in Satellite Internet Connections

Jim says, "I'm sorry". You see, there are only so many satellites up there. All of us who use the satellites as our Internet connection are sharing. When more people are using any given satellite, it can slow down operations for all of us. There are now 3 more satellite Internet connections because of Jim's work in January. I'm kidding, of course. 3 connections is a tiny drop in the bucket. Jim's not sorry at all! In fact, he's rather proud of the fact that you can look at the DatastormUsers.com map of where we are and, of the 4 other users in our immediate area - Jim installed 3 of them. Jim says he's on a roll, he wants to do more. Anyone else want a Datastorm? Aww, c'mon, it's only $5500 (plus tax)!

A New RV Internet Connection

Lynne and John have been waiting for this for a long time! We became dealers forDustyfoot and got the tripod way back last January, when we were all in Quartzsite together. Due to a variety of glitches, we were unable to get the dish delivered before the four of us went our separate ways. Jim and I kinda forgot all about it, and every once in a while Lynne would ask, "uh ... when are we going to get our dish?" Now that we're back in the same area again, she asked, "HEY!! When are we going to get our DISH!!" And, here we are. I think they're excited. I see Jim as a kind of midwife ... bringing a new Internet connection into the world for another RVer. Everything went real smooth. They took a while to figure out how to get the 'skew' just right (the 'twist' angle of the dish). But, once they figured that out - they were on! Now they need to tear it all down to take it home and set it up again. I still like my 'push-a-button-and-wait' automatic Datastorm, but there certainly are advantages to the tripod system. Primarily, it's the price $1500 vs. $5500 (approximately), but there's also the issue of trees. With the tripod, you have some flexibility of positioning so you can avoid some trees. Congratulations Lynne and John! Check it out ... they're on the map!

No Storm Here

Apparently Florida dominated all the news stations yesterday with images of a horrendous tornado that killed several people and demolished a mobile home park. We knew nothing about it until someone in Ohio called us and asked if we were ok! It happened about 200 miles away from us. It's a little dark and rainy here, but no storms ... whew! We were busy yesterday giving our 'Safe Computing' seminar. We had a nice turnout, and very attentive students interested in learning how to maintain their computers - we think this should be a required course for every computer user. It's SO important. I also added a new feature to our website www.geeksontour.com. I call it '5-Minute Computer Lessons'. The two latest lessons are about Internet Explorer 7 and Updating your Outlook program.