The Rally in Atlanta

This past week we were at the Camping World / Good Sam Rally held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.  We were parked in the Infield, along with a few hundred of our close RVing friends!

It was just a short walk to the tent that served as our seminar room for the week.

We gave 14 classes in all over the 5 days of the rally.  Four of them were our special hands-on classes for iPhones/iPads and Android devices.  We kept registrations under 20 people so they could get personal attention as we gave them exercises to do.

There was only once that we left our tent and wandered around the vendor Exhibit hall.  We were happy to see the TechnoRV booth looking busy and a big smile from Ally handling business while Phil and Tracey are still in England.

We did take advantage of the Entertainment on Friday night and went to see the Beach Boys.  They were great!  And it was a beautiful evening at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Here's a little video:

We were very happy to have Devon (Jim’s son) with us.  We got to spend some quality time with him, and he was a great help signing people up for Geeks on Tour memberships after each seminar.  I think it was fun for him to get a glimpse of how his crazy parents live!  This is the second time he’s helped us at a Rally – wish he could always be there, but I don’t think it’s going to work to fly him to Oregon.  Hopefully he’ll join us in Perry, GA in March for the FMCA rally.

Thanks to Devon’s help, we are welcoming over 90 new Geeks on Tour Members!  That’s a record.

The last night we breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a nice dinner and bottle of wine with our parking lot neighbors and friends Chris and Charles Yust.  Mountains, streams, and lakes are pretty, but we enjoy the parking lot just as much!

My Greatest Fear

We love doing these rallies and our seminars so much that we have seemingly endless stamina for it.  Years ago we would do one or two seminars.  Now we’re up to 14 at this rally!  My greatest fear is that one (or both) of us will be sick and not able to do it.  I had to face that fear this week, and stared it right down!

At the end of the dive trip last week I had a cold.  No big deal, I skipped the last day of diving, stayed in bed and read my Kindle books (actually that’s a treat!)  By the time we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale, I felt fine.   I thought my cold was over, but I started coughing and feeling sick again on the way to Atlanta on Monday.  I woke up at 4am on Wednesday morning (the first day of our classes) knowing I was indeed still sick and that just wouldn't do with 5 days of solid teaching scheduled.  So I used my phone, and Google, to find a 24hr urgent care/Emergency center nearby.  It came up with one and I tapped on Navigate.  What would I do without my phone and Google?  Jim wanted to go with me but I told him he had to stay in case I didn’t get back and he had to do the seminars alone!

I drove there, got a diagnosis of acute bronchitis, got some shots and some pills.  I felt SOO much better!  And, I made it thru the week.  Ahhhh … better living with drugs!

Geeks go Diving

Ahhhhh a vacation in Paradise!  Actually it's Bonaire, NA (Netherland Antilles)  That's an island just off the coast of Venezuela in what's known as the Dutch Caribbean.  It is well-known among scuba divers and that's why we went!  We stayed at the Divi Flamingo resort.

It was Jim's old dive buddy, Jimmy Lyon who told us about the trip organized by his local dive shop up in New Jersey - American Diving Supply.  The timing worked, so we signed up.  These two have been diving together for nearly 40 years!

Here's some video that Jim edited from our First Day of diving in Bonaire.


We had a beautiful sunset almost every night.  And lots of other opportunities for taking pretty pictures.

Great trip!  Lots more pictures on our Web Album. And Jim is editing more video too ... coming soon.

A Working Visit to Hilton Head

We knew we would be passing thru the Hilton Head area on our way back to Florida and we had a few days to spare, so we contacted our friend Catherine with the Sun City Hilton Head Computer Club and asked if they were interested in us presenting a seminar on those dates.

Their monthly meeting happened to fall on the day after we could arrive so, we scheduled our Cloud Computing Seminar for the full group, and then hands-on classes for our Smartphone/Tablet topics.  We’re continually revising our topics and welcomed the chance to teach their members on both iPhone/iPads as well as Android phones and tablets.  Within a few hours both classes were full, and there was a waiting list for the iPhone/iPad class – so we agreed to open another session. 

Here’s the Sun City Computer Group at our Cloud Computing Seminar.  See the ‘Cloud’ over Jim’s head?!

The club has a fully equipped computer lab where they teach their own classes all the time.  I hope the residents here know just how lucky they are to have all these resources!  An interesting part of teaching Smartphones and Tablets however, is that you don’t need any computer equipment!  In fact, we had to push the keyboards out of the way so they had more desk space to work with their device and take notes in their workbooks.  We did enjoy using all the teacher presentation equipment and we got in some practice using AppleTV to project the iPad.  We could even enlist a helper to display her iPhone on the big screen while she was sitting at her seat in the back of the room.  They also had a document camera we could use to project our phone complete with seeing our hands so they could see the touches involved.

 

We made people pick a buddy and gave them exercises to do.  This worked quite well, but we found that 3 hours just isn’t enough time, even though we’re just teaching basics!

We were quite pleased with our workbooks.  They kept us on track and gave students a reference as well as specific exercises to complete.  We might even figure out a way to provide the books so the club could teach our class themselves.  Cool idea don’t ya think?  Wouldn’t you know that a new version of the iPhone/iPad operating system was released the day before our first class!  The books will have to be modified … again.  That’s why we like producing them ourselves … print on demand!  We change them before every class!

 

Hilton Head Island Computer Club

When the Hilton Head Island Computer Club heard we would be in the area, they asked for a seminar too.  Sure!  When we were finished with the classes at Sun City, we stayed one more day and were able to present the same Cloud Computing seminar to the Island group.

They had new facilities since we were there last.  A nice big room and a Smart TV for display purposes.  And a fast, fiber-optic connection to the Internet!

We still brought our own cloud!

If you look at our calendar and see that we may be coming your way, please contact us to present to your group.  We’ll give you all the details.  You’ll be surprised at how inexpensive we are – sometimes even free!

Military Honors for Jim Guld, Sr. at Arlington National Cemetery

This took a while to get scheduled, but it all came together and quite a few family members were able to attend. 

Jim set up an event page for the day so his Hangout video would be posted there in addition to pictures from anyone who attended.

Family came from Boston, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida.  We were so pleased that we could all be together to honor Jim’s wonderful Dad.  First we gathered in the administration building.

Then we caravaned to the gravesite.

It was a bit of a drizzly day, but not so bad that we couldn’t comfortable be outside.  The flag was meticulously folded and handed to Jim’s sister, Debbie.  Taps played and a gunfire salute was offered in the distance.

Then we walked over to where Jim’s Mom, Frankie is already buried – she was in the Navy also.  Jim Sr’s name will be inscribed on the opposite side of the headstone.

Here’s Jim and his sister, Debbie.

And here’s the family group shot.

Please take a look at the event page to view the video and hear Taps! 

George Washington’s Mt. Vernon

We arrived in the D.C. area with 3 whole days to spare before the Arlington ceremony on Monday.  So we agreed to play tourist for one day and Saturday was just beautiful.  We were staying at the Elks lodge in Alexandria which is very convenient to the harbor where we saw boat tours advertised that take you to George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate.  Perfect!  We went with the Potomac Riverboat Company.

I love going to places by boat.  I think you get the best perspective this way rather than driving to a parking lot and then walking to the attraction.  Here’s Mt. Vernon up on the hill as seen from the water.


I told you it was a beautiful day!

If you walked around long enough you were treated to a re-enactment of soldiers from Revolutionary war times.

Here’s where George and Martha are buried.

There was also a whole village of tents where crafts were being displayed and sold.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of a George Washington lookalike though who was using a smartphone with a a credit card swiper attachment to make his sales.  I wonder what the real George would have thought?


The museum was great.  Probably the closest thing to a Presidential museum that exists for George Washington.  I think we can add it to our list of Presidential Libraries visited! I wonder if it is because his time was long before any of us can remember … or was George really as dedicated, honest, smart, and humble as they say?  One of his greatest achievements is stepping down from the presidency when everyone was more than happy to re-elect him again.  He believed in term limits!
Back in the boat and back to Alexandria at the end of the day.