What a Difference a Year makes

We’re at the Escapees rally in Goshen, Indiana.  It’s the 50th Escapade.  We came for the first time last year, and, other than a few vendors – we didn’t know many people.  Most of our time was spent in a booth twiddling our thumbs.  Probably the best thing that happened last year was meeting Phil and Tracy May from Techno RV.  They have a great booth with lots of cool techie gadgets.  They’re from England originally and they now travel the US in their motorhome with their 2 teen agers Ally and Josh.  We’ve since gotten together with them for wine-tasting in Albuquerque and beer-tasting in Redmond, Oregon.  Last week we joined them for the Amish dinner and buggy ride I wrote about in a previous post.  This past Friday they threw a birthday party for Ally and Josh here at the fairgrounds and we had a blast.  We were too busy eating and dancing to even take any pictures!  But, we were tagged in an album of Phil’s facebook photos.

Sunday was spent in the booth all day … and it was a steady stream of people saying “Hello, we’re members and we love your videos!”  OR “Hi Chris and Jim, we saw your seminars in Albuquerque and can’t wait to attend more here.”  OR “Oh, there are the Geeks!  Let’s give them a big hug and take our picture with them!”  and lots of, “Hey Geeks on Tour, we love your website and have learned so much, thank you!”

I think this is going to be a great week!

Blogger for Small Business

In a recent Geeks on Tour Newsletter I wrote an article about how, with all the new improvements, I thought a small business could use Blogger for their website.  But, I didn’t have a good example to show people.  Yesterday, my step-son Devon, called with some questions on how to set up Blogger because he’s building a website for his boss who is an artist and craftsman.  Cool!

You gotta understand, I’ve been waiting for this for years!  I’ve always thought Devon would be good with creative computer stuff, but just like many kids rebel by *not* going into the family business, so Devon avoided computers for most of his young adult years.  Nowadays they simply can’t be avoided though, and I was thrilled to get his call with a couple questions on Blogger.  After I pointed out a few features, and explained how they all worked together, he said “Thanks!” and hung up.  A couple hours later, I checked it out and saw this new website.  Wow!  Tasteful colors, nice layout, gorgeous pictures, four pages, and a custom domain name: www.instanteleganceinc.com All done with *free* blogger, in just a few hours.  Of course, he has many more pages and details planned.  He helped his boss set up a Paypal account and will be adding ‘Buy Now’ buttons when that’s ready.  A website is a constant work in progress, but this looks like a great start. 

 

I’m proud of you Devon!  And thanks for giving me a sample to show in my Blogging class!

Amish Buggy Ride

Our friends from TechnoRV invited us to join them for dinner at an Amish Family’s home.  In addition to dinner, they would take us on a horse and buggy ride if we wanted to go.

Amish Dinner

The dinner was excellent.  Family style – 17 of us sat around a long dinner table and passed the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad, chicken, corn, bread, and apple butter.  All homemade.  Mostly home-grown.  You could see the corn in the field outside the window!  It was delicious!  So good that I had no room for the homemade apple pie at dessert.  But I did share a piece!

We enjoyed the dinner and conversation so much that we stayed for quite a while.  Late enough that it started to get dark. It was then that it really sunk in … this house has *no* electricity.  They do use propane for their refrigerator and an excellent, bright lamp.

Horse and Buggy Ride

The highlight was the horse and buggy ride.  We took a couple of pictures – we were told that it was OK as long as we didn’t photograph our hosts – and I turned the camera to video for a minute as we went clop-clopping down the road.

I made the little movie above with Moviemaker, and wrote about it for my weekly post in RV.net as well as in our own Geeks on Tour Computer Tips blog.

Gypsy Journal Rally

The rally is over now.  We presented 9 seminars on the schedule over the course of the three days, and we added a 10th one to teach people how to use our website.  We probably have more Geeks on Tour members at this rally than any other gathering – so we decided to take the opportunity to show them around our new website. 

In other words, we were *busy.*  We didn’t even take time to snap many pictures.  but here are a few:  This is the audience in one of our seminars – GPS Navigation and Trip Planning I think.  geez, they look like a serious bunch don’t they?  Maybe we need to come up with some better jokes?!

 

Jim and I take turns teaching.  One seminar he stands up and talks while I ‘drive’ the computer.  Another I’ll stand and talk.

I had to carry my laptop back and forth from the motorhome to to the classroom every day, sometimes more than once.  I really like my new computer bag from www.CoolComputerBags.com  More about that later, but here’s a picture:

I think my favorite seminar was our new ‘Internet Love Story’ which is just about the history of Geeks on Tour and how the Internet makes it possible to live and work on the road.  This was the second time we’d done it and we refined it a bit.  Both Jim and I take turns talking, plus we have a complete multi-media presentation to go along, with lots of pictures, videos and slide shows with music. 

We talk about Jim’s and my geeky beginnings, then how we sold the house, bought an RV on eBay, and took off with no visible means of support.  Accompanied by lots of pictures of our travels along the way, we tell of making our living by supporting Wi-Fi in RV parks, work-camping, giving seminars and selling tutorial videos, and finally by running a subscription website; GeeksOnTour.com: Computer Education for Travelers,  from the road.  The only thing I don’t really like about it is the title: Internet Love Story.  It’s really about Geeks on Tour – I think that may be a sufficient title right there.  I think we should try to present this seminar to lots of different audiences.  It’s fun to do something other than a computer ‘How-To’ class.

Now we have a week to recuperate, then it’s off to the next rally – the Escapade – at Goshen, Indiana.

Hoosier Honey

I can’t talk because I’m still laughing so hard.  If you want to read the story, go to Nick’s Blog.

But … here’s the video: