To Mom’s and back

We just took a couple days to go to Fort Lauderdale and attend the memorial for Matt Barton. We didn’t think we could stay at Mom’s cuz she’s in that last-minute rush to pack and get ready for a big trip. But, she said she was all ready to go – no problem.

So, here she is, having to share her favorite chair-and-a-half with Odie.

Now that I have a laptop too, here’s the common view of me and Jim at our computers in her kitchen. She wasn’t sure if she liked talking to the back of our computers, but, believe me – she understands – she spends almost as much time at her computer as we do! It’s just in another room.

Here I am getting ready to go to the memorial. I borrowed a hawaiian shirt from Mom because I didn’t think that all black was appropriate. Matt was a hawaiian-shirt kinda guy.

There were over 100 people there and we learned things about Matt we didn’t know. Like – he played the didgeridoo, and he was an archaeology buff. People were there from several dive clubs, his karate dojo, archaeology group, and FAU (where he worked.) I hope we get to join the FAU dive club when they dive a local reef to place a memorial and name it after Matt! It was not a funeral – he had already been cremated – it was a gathering of friends to celebrate his life. Thanks for putting this together Mardie and Matt’s mom.

The next day we took the long way back home, detouring to drop Mom off at Miami airport. She’s on her way to Indonesia for a whole month! Another dive trip on the Adventure Komodo.

To Mom’s and back

We just took a couple days to go to Fort Lauderdale and attend the memorial for Matt Barton. We didn’t think we could stay at Mom’s cuz she’s in that last-minute rush to pack and get ready for a big trip. But, she said she was all ready to go – no problem.

So, here she is, having to share her favorite chair-and-a-half with Odie.

Now that I have a laptop too, here’s the common view of me and Jim at our computers in her kitchen. She wasn’t sure if she liked talking to the back of our computers, but, believe me – she understands – she spends almost as much time at her computer as we do! It’s just in another room.

Here I am getting ready to go to the memorial. I borrowed a hawaiian shirt from Mom because I didn’t think that all black was appropriate. Matt was a hawaiian-shirt kinda guy.

There were over 100 people there and we learned things about Matt we didn’t know. Like – he played the didgeridoo, and he was an archaeology buff. People were there from several dive clubs, his karate dojo, archaeology group, and FAU (where he worked.) I hope we get to join the FAU dive club when they dive a local reef to place a memorial and name it after Matt! It was not a funeral – he had already been cremated – it was a gathering of friends to celebrate his life. Thanks for putting this together Mardie and Matt’s mom.

The next day we took the long way back home, detouring to drop Mom off at Miami airport. She’s on her way to Indonesia for a whole month! Another dive trip on the Adventure Komodo.

To Mom’s and back

We just took a couple days to go to Fort Lauderdale and attend the memorial for Matt Barton. We didn’t think we could stay at Mom’s cuz she’s in that last-minute rush to pack and get ready for a big trip. But, she said she was all ready to go – no problem.

So, here she is, having to share her favorite chair-and-a-half with Odie.

Now that I have a laptop too, here’s the common view of me and Jim at our computers in her kitchen. She wasn’t sure if she liked talking to the back of our computers, but, believe me – she understands – she spends almost as much time at her computer as we do! It’s just in another room.

Here I am getting ready to go to the memorial. I borrowed a hawaiian shirt from Mom because I didn’t think that all black was appropriate. Matt was a hawaiian-shirt kinda guy.

There were over 100 people there and we learned things about Matt we didn’t know. Like – he played the didgeridoo, and he was an archaeology buff. People were there from several dive clubs, his karate dojo, archaeology group, and FAU (where he worked.) I hope we get to join the FAU dive club when they dive a local reef to place a memorial and name it after Matt! It was not a funeral – he had already been cremated – it was a gathering of friends to celebrate his life. Thanks for putting this together Mardie and Matt’s mom.

The next day we took the long way back home, detouring to drop Mom off at Miami airport. She’s on her way to Indonesia for a whole month! Another dive trip on the Adventure Komodo.

New Computer, Two monitors, Windows Vista

Over the years, Jim and I have been involved in the purchase of several hundred personal computers. Some for clients, some for ourselves and lots for our Training Center classrooms. We have a real good feel for when a computer should be replaced. In our experience, after 2 years of use, a computer will be getting sluggish and have developed some problems. At that point, you should clean it off (reformat it) and re-set it up. It will feel like a brand new computer for a while. A 3-year old computer is geting old. If anything goes wrong, it’s not worth putting much time or money into that computer. If you’re good at maintaining your computer and keep it going to 4 years old – you’re doing really good. But, at 4 years you really do need a new one. Technology has changed to the extent that your 4-year old computer is just not the same machine as the new ones. And, besides they cost a lot less now than when you bought yours!

We think that every year of a computer’s life is akin to 4 years in a car. A 3 year old computer is like a 12 year old car. We’ve been asked to work on 7 year-old computers and make them work on a Wi-Fi network. Sorry, it’s not worth our time. That’s like asking a 28 year old car to match the features of today’s cars. Not to mention that the computer ‘highway’ has changed significantly.

All this is leading up to justifying the fact that I just bought a new computer to replace my nearly 4yr old one, even though I had to dig deep into savings to do it!

I bought a Toshiba Satellite notebook computer, model #A135 S4487 for $1350 at Best Buy. It has 2 gigabytes of RAM, the Intel Core2 Duo processor, 2 hard drives totaling 200 gigabytes, a writeable CD/DVD drive, it weighs 6 pounds and comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. I thought I was going to get a Sony Vaio, since Jim has liked his so much, but both Jim and I really liked the fact that this one had 2 hard drives – and Toshiba has always been a good name in laptops also.

It was Jim’s computer for the first couple days because I wanted him to do all the upgrades, security, and installing/configuring all my software.

It was his idea to keep my old monitor on my desk, set the laptop beside it, and configure the computer to use *both* monitors at the same time! I thought that was a little excessive, but now that I’m getting used to it, I *Love* it! Instead of switching back and forth between 2 windows – you drag one of those windows to the other monitor. When I drag my mouse to the edge of one screen, it continues on the other one! It is so cool. I’ve seen other people with setups like this, but I never thought I’d have it. And, I’m still using my same wireless keyboard and mouse on the keyboard drawer – so I haven’t lost any of the comfort of my workstation due to the laptop.

So, what are we doing with my old, desktop, computer? Jim hooked it up to our projector and the big screen! The Geeks just keep getting Geekier!

Goodbye Matt Barton

Live life to its fullest … NOW!

That’s the message from Mardie who was Matt’s significant other.

We got the horrible news the other day that Matt, a scuba-buddy and friend of ours, died of a massive heart attack last Sunday. He was 45 years old and in excellent physical condition. ??!#@*

It was very difficult to take a serious photo of Matt as you’ll see if you take a look at the group I uploaded to a Web Album.

If you knew Matt and would like to join us at the memorial, “Celebration of Life”. You can read more about the arrangements on this Scubaboard message thread.

We’ll miss you Matt.

Family visit to the Castle

Jim’s sister and brother-in-law live in West Palm Beach. That’s about a 3 hour drive from here. They are visiting us for the President’s Day holiday weekend (staying in one of the cute little cabins). We hoped to paddle the river, but with temperatures in the 50s plus a wind-chill, we decided to go visit Solomon’s Castle instead. We’ve been there once before when my Dad was visiting.

Here’s Jim and Debbie – clearly brother and sister. He’s the little brother. She tells stories of how she used to boss him around when he was little till he got taller than her! Now she’s very sweet to him

It really is a fun place to visit.

I love all the stained glass windows, I think they say he’s created 90+ windows, and they all have a story. Here’s the dragon that awaits you at the entrance.

This is the four _______ (virtues?). I forgot what they called them, but I remember each one … from bottom to top: wisdom, reflection, learning, and generosity.

And, this one is all about a castle!

Here’s the artist himself, Howard Solomon, creating something new. We saw several things this visit that weren’t here before.

And now they’re off – headed back home. Y’know, I may start getting a complex that people aren’t really coming to see us – they just want a destination for taking their nice cars for a drive!

Family visit to the Castle

Jim’s sister and brother-in-law live in West Palm Beach. That’s about a 3 hour drive from here. They are visiting us for the President’s Day holiday weekend (staying in one of the cute little cabins). We hoped to paddle the river, but with temperatures in the 50s plus a wind-chill, we decided to go visit Solomon’s Castle instead. We’ve been there once before when my Dad was visiting.

Here’s Jim and Debbie – clearly brother and sister. He’s the little brother. She tells stories of how she used to boss him around when he was little till he got taller than her! Now she’s very sweet to him

It really is a fun place to visit.

I love all the stained glass windows, I think they say he’s created 90+ windows, and they all have a story. Here’s the dragon that awaits you at the entrance.

This is the four _______ (virtues?). I forgot what they called them, but I remember each one … from bottom to top: wisdom, reflection, learning, and generosity.

And, this one is all about a castle!

Here’s the artist himself, Howard Solomon, creating something new. We saw several things this visit that weren’t here before.

And now they’re off – headed back home. Y’know, I may start getting a complex that people aren’t really coming to see us – they just want a destination for taking their nice cars for a drive!

Searching Blogs and Searching for Blogs

We gave our ‘Every RVer Needs a Blog’ seminar today. I’m expecting great things from this group! We had about a dozen people and they all brought their laptops. If any of the participants are reading this … I hope you’ll go to Geeks on Tour website and add your new Blog to the ‘Your Blogs’ list! Then we can all go visit.

One question I always get in these seminars is ‘How can I search for other Blogs?’ I’m afraid that I’ve never answered that question very well. It’s been a long time since I’ve searched for new Blogs because I already have so many that I like to follow. If you’re looking for RVing Blogs, I really like Hitch Itch – (see link at the left sidebar of this blog also). He categorizes his RV adventurers by 1)New Sites, 2)Sites updated daily or weekly 3)Sites updated monthly 4)sites updated irregularly. These aren’t all Blogs – some are custom-designed websites – but ALL are about RVing adventures.

Right on Blogger’s home page, they have a small ’search’ button to search for Blogs. Blogger is owned by Google, so, I assume it’s the same search as you’ll get on a standard Google page. Just, instead of doing a normal Google search, click on the ‘more…’ button and select Blogs.

Once you’re in a Blog search, you can also limit your search to just Blogs that have been updated within a specified period of time:

Google also provides a way to search within a Blog for whatever you want. So, for example, if you wanted to search this blog to find where we’ve mentioned our Safari motorhome, you would use the little search box in the upper left corner of the screen.

When you click ‘Search’ the blog will now show all posts where the word ’safari’ appears.

Happy Hunting!

RV Lifestyle, Dentists and Vets

One of the issues of living on the road is finding medical care. Some people see this as a severe negative of the RV Lifestyle. They purposely schedule a month or two each year at ‘home’ so they can get all their appointments in with all their doctors. We’re still young enough and healthy enough that we don’t have a long history with any particular doctor. I have actually found it a positive aspect of our lifestyle. There are walk-in medical clinics all over these days, and we’ve had really good luck with them. And, since we’re usually seeing a doctor who doesn’t have our history, they spend a few more minutes with us! I have learned to get copies of everything that is done and to keep those records with us.

The only real problem we’ve had is with Dentists. We were in California when it was time for a teeth-cleaning, but we couldn’t get an appointment for that. We had to have a Dentist exam before we could get our teeth cleaned and we couldn’t find a Dentist who was taking new patients. So, we had to wait till we were back in Fort Lauderdale for that.

We’ve had great luck with Veterinarians for Odie. I especially liked the woman we visited in Lake Havasu City. Unfortunately, when we tried to visit her the same time the following year, she had retired. She is the one who convinced me that having a dog’s teeth cleaned was important to their health and longevity. It’s time for his annual vaccinations, so we asked around and got a recommendation for Dr. Hendry here in Wauchula. Odie sat patiently as Dr. Hendry gave him his shots and I chatted with the Doctor. Come to find out his great-great-grandfather was a pioneer in this area … I had notice that there is a neighboring county called ‘Hendry’.

He said it was time for Odie’s teeth to be cleaned. What do you think of his ‘Pearly Whites’ now?

Having a dog’s teeth cleaned is a pretty big deal. It costs about $140! Mostly because they have to sedate him to do it. As long as he was going to be under, I asked if they would remove a cyst on his back that’s been bothering him. I didn’t realize that would be such a big deal. Poor Odie!

It doesn’t seem to bother him as much as it bothers me. He’s eating, walking, and generally acting fine. But, he told me that’s enough of Vets for a while!

What a Beautiful Day

We had a few days of cold, rainy weather. Just enough to make us appreciate the normal, beautiful, perfectly gorgeous, truly awesome weather here in Florida in the winter. It’s been getting into the 50s at night, cold enough to enjoy cuddling under the blankets, but not really cold enough to need the heater. Then the sparkling sunshine comes filtering thru the trees and the spanish moss. It warms up to the high 70s in the afternoon. The warm sunshine is even appealing enough to lure me away from the computer to sit outside with a book for a while.

And, of course, Odie and I take a walk along the nature trail while Jim is doing his ‘help-desk’ duty at the WiFi hotspot here.

We just love this nature trail. We always notice something new each time, like these colorful little flowers.