My Problem with Nick Russell

For many of our readers, Nick Russell needs no introduction.  He is a writer and a fulltime RVer.  He writes a daily blog and it pisses me off!  Literally thousands of people read his blog every day (I know – I have access to his website Stats.)  And many more thousands have now bought his novel Big Lake and its sequel Big Lake Lynching. 

I only wrote in this blog twice in the entire month of January, Jim finally had to step in and write one post so we had something to show for our time on the planet last month!  I like to write about our travel adventures - and we’ve been parked in one place all winter.  I like to write about happy stuff - and I’ve been sad a lot this winter as I watch my Mom decline into Alzheimer’s.  

Having nothing to say never stops Nick!  I read Nick’s blog and he can spend several paragraphs writing about not washing his RV, and he has me laughing all the way.  How does he do that?!  His novels are real page-turners.  It’s been suggested that I might write a book about me and Mom – but I ‘m afraid it would just make people sad and I don’t want to do that.  Or worse yet, it would just be boring due to lack of writing skills. 

It’s been suggested that writers write – and that’s what blogs are for – an easy way to write all the time.  So I should write often, even if I don’t have anything I want to share.  If Nick had been in my shoes this month, he would have written every day and had the readers laughing, crying, and pondering life’s mysteries with each and every post. 

I could blame my lack of blog posts on being busy.  I’ve written posts on our Business Blog, and our Picasa Blog, and our Facebook page, I wrote our monthly newsletter, responded to customers’ questions in our forum, I’m writing an article for Highways magazine and I’m constantly updating our website and several customers’ websites.  Hey – everybody’s busy … you and I both know that the reason I haven’t written is because I can’t write like Nick Russell. 

Damn you Nick!
(you know I love you…)

Register for the Techno-Geek Learning Rally – April in Florida. Everything you want to know about Technology for Travelers

FACUG Technology Conference@Sea

If you are wondering why there are fewer blog posts here, the mystery is easy to solve.  Just follow us on Facebook.

The blog is still the main journal of our travels, but Facebook is so easy, we find ourselves posting to social networking sites more often.

We just got back from a cruise to the Bahamas on the Norwegian Sky out of Miami.  We were working!  Really!

The Florida Association of Computer User Groups (FACUG)and the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) held their annual conference on the cruise.  We were seminar presenters as well as two of the more than 400 attendees. 

We did our Picasa and Outsmarting Your Smartphone seminars both twice to appreciative attendees. 

Here is Dave Graveline moderating a panel of experts with Rob Almanza of the Into Tomorrow radio show, Dave Whittle, Charles Oppermann, and Chuck Littman.

Chris participated in a Photo Safari.  We’ll do something like that for our TechnoGeeks Learning Rally in April.

Internet on the ship was nearly useless.  Under this dome is one of the satellite receivers.  $24/hr was a bit steep, but we paid it in order to support our members.

We met lots of nice folks and made some good contacts for more presentations.

The food was good and plentiful.  The crew were friendly.  The weather was perfect.  Who could ask for more?

The next Technology Conference is being scheduled for a Club Med.  FACUG is going to take the entire facility around this time next year.

Get back to work now.

Look Up

Blogger recently added the ability to have menu items which take the reader to different web pages completely.  So, I've added our other websites to this menu ... above (www.geeksontour.blogspot.com).  These are the places we are constantly referring people to.  If you want to see what we're talking about with our Tutorial Videos, you can click on the menu above for Our Tutorial Videos.  If you've missed getting lots of computer tips in this blog, you can click on the menu item above for Our Business Blog.  And, we especially hope you click on our Facebook page and be sure to 'Like' it!

Jim has been working all day every day this week at the Paradise Island booth here at the Tampa RV Supershow.  Although he's not working a Geeks on Tour booth - he's seen plenty of people we know here at the show, including the famous author, Nick Russell.  In case you don't know Nick - he's best known for his newspaper The Gypsy Journal, and his daily blog.  But, that is quickly being overshadowed by becoming the best selling author of Big Lake.  Jim and I read it as soon as it came out on Kindle this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Big Lake is currently at #3 in Amazon's Book, Mystery and Thriller, Police Procedural category.  Even with a sales price of only .99 and giving over half to Amazon - 30,000 sales/mo means some really nice income.  C'mon Smile Nick!

   

I've visited the show once or twice, but for the most part I've been chained to the computer.  As many RVers - my office and my dinner table are the same!

We're excited to have a visitor for the weekend.  Our old friend John as in' Lynne and John', of Cosmic Muffin fame.  We met them in our first few months of fulltime RVing back in 2003.  Now they are living (still in their RV) nearTillamook, Oregon.  John is in Florida for a few months on a construction project and we were thrilled that he got to come down to Tampa for a couple of days to visit.

And, tonight we're planning to get together with our friends Phil and Tracey from TechnoRV.  Nothing better than a few beers to get us to finalize our plans for the the Techno-Geek Learning Rally!

Further your computer education**Subscribe to the Free Geeks on Tour Newsletters**

Is it an RV Show or a Rally?

We’re at the Tampa RV Supershow for this week.  It’s part of Jim’s workcamping job to be in the Booth for Paradise Island (Riverstone RV Parks) all week.

You’d think that we’d be here giving our Geeks on Tour computer seminars like we do at the big RV rallies in the summer?  It’s been our experience that an RV Show is where people come to shop for new RVs and accessories and not generally to attend seminars.  So, we’ve never even looked into speaking here, and we haven’t been invited.  Meanwhile, I have a ton of work to do on our website, videos and Picasa book.  So, it’s just fine with me to stay in the RV all week while Jim is in at the Booth in the Expo hall.  If you’re here at the show, go find Jim and say hi!  He’s in building B at the north end (I think) of aisle 100.

Anybody recognize the little Tiki bar?  So cute!

When we got here Monday it was the most gorgeous weather possible About 72 degrees, sparkling sunshine and just the tiniest of breezes.  That continued thru Tuesday.  Jim and I said, “Aha!  That’s another difference between a Rally and an RV Show – it *always* rains at rallies!  How else do we get to watch RVs being towed out of the mud?

Come to find out there is a rally going on here along with the show.  So, guess what?  It is POURING today!

I guess it really is a Rally!

I’m definitely not leaving the RV in this!  And, I’m glad I got a video recorded earlier because the sound of rain on the roof makes it impossible to record now. I’ll bet some other fulltime RVers can relate to this … the sound of rain on the roof is so romantic when you first start living in an RV but there comes a time when it is just annoying and you’d rather hear yourself think!

That’s OK, I have non-recording work to do too.  Picasa has recently upgraded to version 3.9 so I have to revise our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’ booklet.  There’s really not that much difference in the procedures, but there are a few, and they’ve added quite a bit of stuff.  Probably the main reason I need to revise the book is for the screenshots.  Since they changed the buttons, and added some tabbed menus – every screen view is changed.    aaarrrgghhh

If you use Picasa and are wondering what I’m talking about, you can view one of our recent videos on Youtube.  I decided to upload this one -Picasa 3.9: Where did My Buttons Go?- yesterday so even non-members can watch.

Are you a Member of our GeeksonTour.TV website?

I know that a lot of you are members on our business website, so I normally don't write much about it here, on our personal blog – I don’t want to bombard you.

If you are a member, we thank you!  Because of you, we can continue this wonderful lifestyle and not have to get a real job!  If you aren’t a member, now is the time to join because our prices go up next week.  You can read more about it in our latest newsletter.

What is a Membership Website?

Let me give you a look behind the scenes.  Our work is Computer Training for Travelers – and we love what we do!  In order to make a living at it, we use the Internet and a Membership website.  What this means is that our tutorial videos are all available on that site, but if you click to watch one, you will be asked for a username and password.  That’s the membership part.  We use WordPress to create the website, and a plugin called WishList Member to manage the parts that require a login.  We use PayPal to manage the payments so we don’t have to be responsible for handling or storing people’s credit card numbers. Here’s more info on why we think a PayPal account is a good idea for everyone.

As with any way of making a living, there is a lot of work involved.  Managing the website is a big job – there are constant updates, and issues to deal with just in making the website work right.  Then, of course there are the videos that must be recorded to have something to sell!  When we started charging for it in 2008, we had a few dozen videos, now we have over 200. 

We also have to work to drum up business.  Think of us like Rock Stars (I like that!) we go on tour with our seminars to build recognition and promote our tutorial videos on our website.  Some venues pay us a little to present seminars, but many do not.  Usually they let us sell our memberships, books, and DVDs.  Just like you can buy the Rock Star’s CD after the concert!  We also write lots of free articles for our newsletters and other websites. 

Many people stay on our free newsletter email lists for years and may never become a paid member.  That’s OK!  They tell other people about us – it’s how it works.  We have over 5,000 email subscribers and about 800 paid members.  If everyone became a member – it would be too much work for us!  And lots of people receive our free newsletters for a while and then, later, sign up for a paid membership.  We like that, the newsletters let them get to know us.  We’ve even had some people just send us money to say thank you for all the free information they’ve received over the years!

We also write articles on free websites, like our PicasaTutorials, RV.net, and DigitalRVer.  Last but definitely not least, our Facebook page is becoming our favorite way to communicate with everyone and offer free tidbits of our computer training for travelers.

Did I tell you that we love what we do?