January Family Visit

This is the longest stretch between blog posts in a while. Let me catch up.

We went to Fort Lauderdale for a visit. Gotta have a picture of the baby at least once a month right? Let’s see, he was born last July … so he’s 6 months old now. What a cute little guy! Here’s 4 generations of Guld men. There’s James 1 (seated), James 2 (standing at the right), Devon (standing at left) and August James (on top!).

And here’s Mom (Lacie) and Dad (Devon) with their happy baby.

We stayed at Mom’s house. Odie must know that Mom’s more accustomed to cats than dogs. Don’t ya think he looks cat-like laying on top of the back of the couch?

We also had a nice dinner with friends, and were happy to get a dentist appointment in too. Then back to Peace River and a waiting Datastorm install.

We were also so happy to have a visit from Bill and Susan. We’ve run into Bill and Susan on the road 4 times now. Two in Utah, once in Big Bend, Texas, and now here. It’s a great example of how friendships can develop thru traveling all over the country, and especially with the help of the DatastormUsers.com map. This is the map where each of us with a satellite dish can have an icon representing where we are at any time. Whenever you follow our link to the map, you can see where we are – and we can see who is nearby. We have met new people this way, as well as keeping up with folks like Bill and Susan. I encourage you to check out their website, and also this wonderful magazine article about their journey!

This must be winter

The thermometer said 44 degrees when we got up this morning. Quite chilly, but also clear and beautiful. I made sure to grab the camera before taking Odie for a walk.

You can tell it’s cold by the steam rising from the river.

Sunbeams thru the trees are always appealing to me, but especially when it’s cold out!

Have we been watching too manyHarry Potter movies? Nothing wrong with a little magic to warm up the coach!

Fun with Friends

All four of us, Jim, Me, Lynne and John, went to the RV Super Show. We just went to have fun. We weren’t working it. We weren’t looking to buy a new RV. Of course, we’re always interested to check out what’s new. And, we were also checking out the suppliers area, wondering if we should have a booth there ourselves someday. But, the main purpose was to have fun.

How d’you think we did?

The photo above was taken inside an Anderson Mobile Estate. It’s a 2-story, 1.6 million dollar tractor/trailer … used! It was originally built for Will Smith. Will now has a new one that includes a recording studio. You can’t just buy one of these … you can ‘buy’ a place in line to get one custom-built. Oh yeah … that’s us.

Our motorhome made the trip just fine, so nice to know everything still works after so long sitting still. And, after looking at lots of $100,000 to $400,000 motorhomes … we still like ours the best!

That’s a successful show.

Goin to the Show

Oh Boy! We’re going to roll the wheels of our motorhome today. We’ve been parked since the first week of November … the tires are getting square on the bottom! I’ve also missed that feeling of ‘rebooting your life’ that comes when you pull the plug and turn on the ignition key.

We want to check out the 2007 Florida RV Supershow. We’ve never been before, and we feel like we’re the only ones. It’s supposed to be huge. We’re also interested in looking at it from the point of view of maybe having a booth next year. Originally, we thought we’d just drive the car up and visit for the day. But, with Lynne and John staying in an RV park nearby, we decided to get a space there and take the motorhome for a couple nights.

OK, gotta get busy cleaning and stowing!

Nothing Special to Report

It’s been a quiet work-week at Peace River. I haven’t had much to say … obviously

Jim did his help-desk work each day. We presented 2 seminars this week – Photostory 3 on Thursday, and Google Earth today.

We set up movie night on Thursday and showed ‘Starman’, one of my favorites.

I worked on some more tutorial videos. And I made a new video to be an introduction to our website, Geeksontour.com. I used Photostory 3 to create it, inspired by our seminar! I’ve always known that the best way to really learn something is to teach it. Check it out. There’s a few more changes I want to make, but you’ll get the idea – whaddaya think? Photostory really is fun.

Off to see the Big City

We took a drive today to the big city of St. Petersburg. We are getting accustomed to being country bumpkins in the middle of nowhere that is Zolfo Springs, and it is quite an adventure to get on the freeway and go over big bridges like the Sunshine Skyway that spans Tampa Bay.

It was a Chamber of Commerce day in the Tampa Bay area – 78 – 80 degrees. Just gorgeous. That’s St. Pete up ahead.

Admittedly we had a couple errands that required an office supply store. (geez those ink cartridges drain quickly when you’re printing seminar handouts!) but, that would not be enough to get us to drive 1.5 hours to St. Pete. The occasion was Lynne and John’s arrival. Up until 12 days ago they were in the frozen north on Whidbey Island near Seattle! They got word that there was a job waiting for them if they could get to St. Pete by today. And they’re here!

At first we told them we’d let them get settled in a day or so before we came to visit. But, this morning Jim and I looked at each other and said, ‘naaahhh, they don’t need to settle in!’ So we started driving, planning to surprise them. We ended up surprising ourselves, our timing was so good. We pulled in right behind them. Before they even had a chance to unhook the car from the motorhome!

Hey! What are friends for, if not to bug ya?! Welcome to Florida guys! We’ve missed you.

Kayuba Visitors

After a hard day at work helping campers with their computer issues and giving seminars, we welcomed Commander Kayuba to our Peace River campground.

Yes, Dick is probably the primary reason that our Kayuba dive club started so many years ago, and we’re so happy that he and Geri decided to come visit us for the weekend. Of course, we know that the main reason for the trip was to have an excuse to take his fancy new sports car for a road trip! And, since there’s no room in there for a tent, they opted to stay in one of the cabins.

And, since they certainly can’t put kayaks on the top, we’ll need to rent canoes to paddle the river tomorrow.

Meet Bob and Polly and new baby, Datastorm

One thing I notice, and like, about couples you meet while RVing … they really get along well. Think about it, if you’re gonna live 24/7 in a 35X12 (approx) box, you *BETTER* get along! Bob and Polly exemplify this philosophy, and they’re a joy to be around.

They are also fellow geeks. They used to live in Tampa and they had a software business which developed data systems for Juvenile Assessment Centers in several counties in Florida. They got out of that business a few years ago to follow Bob’s dream of living on the road. Now they spend summers in Southwest Wyoming, some of the winter here in Florida, and their legal residence is in South Dakota. True full-time RVers, we have a lot in common with Bob and Polly. And, they decided to add to our common factors by getting a Datastorm Internet Satellite dish from us! This will help them in their new business ventures and stock-trading.

Here’s Jim and Bob getting their new dish onto the roof of their Dutch Star motorhome.

Although the dish has to be secured to the roof with screws, Jim was happy that he didn’t have to drill a big hole for the cabling because it worked to pass them inside the coach next to the exhaust vent.

Here’s the proud new owners admiring their magic dish.

I snapped a photo of ‘the boys’ as they were playing with the new toy. They looked up at the sound of the flash popping up, and immediately went back to their toy. Aren’t they cute?

And, here’s Polly, calling friends to tell about their new purchase.

As the sun set, we have a new Satellite Internet connection here at Peace River. You’ll be seeing them on the DatastormUsers.com map very soon now.

Happy Birthday Jim!

Jim and Elvis both had their birthdays yesterday. We had nothing special planned, but Bob and Polly invited us over for dinner not knowing it was his birthday. Perfect! I brought a cake and candles, they made a great dinner and we had a wonderful time. Polly snapped this photo

Today we went for a short paddle with another couple from the park, Darwin and Sheila. hmmm, are we sociable geeks? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Find the Alligator

John posted a comment that he couldn’t see the alligator in my last blog entry. I thought I’d follow up. If you’re going to frequent these parts, you better learn how to spot an alligator! It’s not always easy, they are often in the water with just their eyes showing – kinda like an iceberg, 90% is underwater. Sometimes they’re totally submerged and the only way you know they’re there is by the bubbles popping to the surface.

Anyway, if you couldn’t spot the alligator, here’s some help: