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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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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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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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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