Palm Creek Sunset

By the end of this season, you’re probably going to be sick of seeing photos of sunsets on this blog. Brilliant sunsets are the norm out here in the desert, and they are just such irresistable photo subjects. So … here’s your first one! Back at Palm Creek, with their signature *tall* palms wrapped in lights.

Both Jim and I are pretty busy here. We gave our Picasa seminar on Monday, and Tuesday I got back to work on some website projects and he had service calls helping people in the park with connecting to the Internet. He also had a service call outside the park. One of our Datastorm installation customers. You would think it would be impossible to offer personal follow up service when he installed this satellite dish in Florida last January, and here we are in Arizona. But, since our customer travels too … it’s just as likely that they’re nearby! After spending the past week at the Datastorm rally and watching the top company technicians struggle over difficult satellite issues, Jim was apprehensive when he left for this call. But he was smiling when he came back! Nothing makes him happier than fixing someone’s computer/Internet problem.

Later in the afternoon, our good friends Diane and Andy pulled into Casa Grande. Oh Boy! We would love for them to stay here, parked next door, but they had a coupon for a free stay at the ‘Western Horizons’ park about five miles away. That price is hard to beat, especially compared to $42/night here! So, we went and visited them. I’d say we spent time catching up with their travels .. but we didn’t need to because Diane keeps a great blog! We already knew where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing, so we got to talk more in depth. You know … talk about those *feelings* that don’t belong on a public blog. Like Diane and I talked about how we feel about being on the road and trying to make a living. And Jim and Andy talked about how they *feel* about ‘winter’ vs. ’summer’ beers!

They did come visit us the next night and get a tour of Palm Creek. Here are their smiling faces.

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Datastorm User’s Rally is over

We really do love this group! First of all, it’s such a great size. We had about 115 RVs here, mostly with 2 people. That’s big enough to have plenty of new people to meet, but small enough that it’s almost possible to know everybody. Secondly, the purpose of the rally is to learn. Learn about satellite technology and computer technology – our favorite thing to do! And, last, of course is that we get to present a lot of seminars – and to this group we can be a little more advanced than we are normally.

The slide show above comes from our Picasa Web Albums. Here’s Jim giving his google earth seminar and he decided to show the new, included, flight simulator feature. He’s using a joystick to fly a jet over Google Earth!

And, these aren’t just a bunch of computer geeks, they’re some really fun people. The sound of laughter was everywhere.

We attended the very first Datastorm rally in Tampa, Florida in 2003. At the time we didn’t even have our dish – we were ‘wannabees.’ It didn’t take us long after that though. We were so impressed with what we saw and learned at that first rally. I think the most impressive thing was the participation of the Motosat company. From that very beginning rally to now, the top brass of the company attend the rally. And, the top engineering and support folks as well. This is the place to be if you have *any* questions about Motosat or Datastorm.

Here’s Royal Lamb (yes, that’s really his name) – he is VP of Sales and Marketing and he’s attended every Datastorm rally – all five. He’s one of the ’suits’! Ever seen a ’suit’ making a service call?

And, he knows how to have fun too!

The president, Jim Pendleton, has also attended all the Datastorm Users’ rallies. He’s the one on the left in this next photo.

They sure make me feel good about being associated with Motosat.

Next year, the rally will be the second week of November in Tampa. Sure hope we can work it into our schedule!

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

Datastorm User’s Rally is over

We really do love this group! First of all, it’s such a great size. We had about 115 RVs here, mostly with 2 people. That’s big enough to have plenty of new people to meet, but small enough that it’s almost possible to know everybody. Secondly, the purpose of the rally is to learn. Learn about satellite technology and computer technology – our favorite thing to do! And, last, of course is that we get to present a lot of seminars – and to this group we can be a little more advanced than we are normally.

The slide show above comes from our Picasa Web Albums. Here’s Jim giving his google earth seminar and he decided to show the new, included, flight simulator feature. He’s using a joystick to fly a jet over Google Earth!

And, these aren’t just a bunch of computer geeks, they’re some really fun people. The sound of laughter was everywhere.

We attended the very first Datastorm rally in Tampa, Florida in 2003. At the time we didn’t even have our dish – we were ‘wannabees.’ It didn’t take us long after that though. We were so impressed with what we saw and learned at that first rally. I think the most impressive thing was the participation of the Motosat company. From that very beginning rally to now, the top brass of the company attend the rally. And, the top engineering and support folks as well. This is the place to be if you have *any* questions about Motosat or Datastorm.

Here’s Royal Lamb (yes, that’s really his name) – he is VP of Sales and Marketing and he’s attended every Datastorm rally – all five. He’s one of the ’suits’! Ever seen a ’suit’ making a service call?

And, he knows how to have fun too!

The president, Jim Pendleton, has also attended all the Datastorm Users’ rallies. He’s the one on the left in this next photo.

They sure make me feel good about being associated with Motosat.

Next year, the rally will be the second week of November in Tampa. Sure hope we can work it into our schedule!

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

Datastorm User’s Rally is over

We really do love this group! First of all, it’s such a great size. We had about 115 RVs here, mostly with 2 people. That’s big enough to have plenty of new people to meet, but small enough that it’s almost possible to know everybody. Secondly, the purpose of the rally is to learn. Learn about satellite technology and computer technology – our favorite thing to do! And, last, of course is that we get to present a lot of seminars – and to this group we can be a little more advanced than we are normally.

The slide show above comes from our Picasa Web Albums. Here’s Jim giving his google earth seminar and he decided to show the new, included, flight simulator feature. He’s using a joystick to fly a jet over Google Earth!

And, these aren’t just a bunch of computer geeks, they’re some really fun people. The sound of laughter was everywhere.

We attended the very first Datastorm rally in Tampa, Florida in 2003. At the time we didn’t even have our dish – we were ‘wannabees.’ It didn’t take us long after that though. We were so impressed with what we saw and learned at that first rally. I think the most impressive thing was the participation of the Motosat company. From that very beginning rally to now, the top brass of the company attend the rally. And, the top engineering and support folks as well. This is the place to be if you have *any* questions about Motosat or Datastorm.

Here’s Royal Lamb (yes, that’s really his name) – he is VP of Sales and Marketing and he’s attended every Datastorm rally – all five. He’s one of the ’suits’! Ever seen a ’suit’ making a service call?

And, he knows how to have fun too!

The president, Jim Pendleton, has also attended all the Datastorm Users’ rallies. He’s the one on the left in this next photo.

They sure make me feel good about being associated with Motosat.

Next year, the rally will be the second week of November in Tampa. Sure hope we can work it into our schedule!

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

A New Seminar

We’ve presented all of our seminars many times. Here at the Datastorm rally we taught “Every RVer needs a Blog”, “Practice Safe Computing”, “Managing Digital Photos with Picasa”, and “Using Google Earth”. We are very practiced at these – no preparation needed.

Yesterday we gave a new one, “Building a Website.” As I said in my introduction, ‘There are as many ways to build a website as there are people building them.” So, it is a bit of a daunting task to cover the subject in an hour and a half! It actually came off fairly well, although I have plenty of ideas on how to improve it for next time. If you’d like to see the seminar handout, you can go to the Geeks on Tour “Articles” page. You’ll find the Build a Website handout there (at the bottom)as well as all our other handouts. These are for your personal use only please!

I forgot to count, but I think we had at least 40 attendees – more than I expected.

I think my favorite part of the seminar is when I mention Search Engine Optimization. I indulge in a little back-patting by showing if you Google for “Datastorm Installation” our website, GeeksOnTour.com, comes up first in the list! Pretty cool. My purpose in showing that is to teach that you don’t have to pay for ads or other slick tricks to get placement – I didn’t. You *do* need good content. Of course, I am exceptionally lucky! And, it may change tomorrow – but, I have 40 witnesses who saw it today

It was a gorgeous day in Tucson today. The wind has died down. We had a great day. Ending with a delicious meal! The rally organizers searched for a good caterer and found Porta-Pit. They told us the food would be good, and they weren’t kidding!

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Windy

I remember when we sat out hurricane Katrina in Fort Lauderdale. We stowed our dish then, not wanting it to blow away! This wind is not that bad! But, it is said to be gusting to 41mph.

I hate wind.

I think everybody does. It wreaks havoc with my allergies, I don’t sleep well, and it just kind of keeps you on edge. whine, whine, whine.

I figured video would be a better way to capture wind than a photo, so here’s just a little one.

Obviously, we’re just fine. Our sympathies go out to those folks in Southern California fighting deadly fires in wind.

Today is a free day from Rally activities for me. Jim is attending seminars on Satellite related Transmit (TX) and Receive (RX) Codes. Sounds fascinating doesn’t it? Yeah, me too.

I’m preparing for my new seminar tomorrow … How to Build a Website. And, I’m making a few ‘Geek’ service calls.

Windy

I remember when we sat out hurricane Katrina in Fort Lauderdale. We stowed our dish then, not wanting it to blow away! This wind is not that bad! But, it is said to be gusting to 41mph.

I hate wind.

I think everybody does. It wreaks havoc with my allergies, I don’t sleep well, and it just kind of keeps you on edge. whine, whine, whine.

I figured video would be a better way to capture wind than a photo, so here’s just a little one.

Obviously, we’re just fine. Our sympathies go out to those folks in Southern California fighting deadly fires in wind.

Today is a free day from Rally activities for me. Jim is attending seminars on Satellite related Transmit (TX) and Receive (RX) Codes. Sounds fascinating doesn’t it? Yeah, me too.

I’m preparing for my new seminar tomorrow … How to Build a Website. And, I’m making a few ‘Geek’ service calls.

Datastorm Users’ Rally, Monday

The first night is a meet and greet, potluck. There are at least 70 rigs who have never attended one of these rallies before. It’s great to get to meet new friends!

Question: How do you get more Internet Satellite dishes than RVs?

Because some rigs have more than one dish! There is actually one rig here with 3 Datastorm dishes! Two on the 5th wheel trailer and one on the truck that tows it! I’m including the picture above because that is the RV of our undisputed leader, the guru of all things Datastorm, Don Bradner.

I’ve posted LOTS mor photos on a Picasa Web Album of the Rally.

There’s a Picasa Web album of the 2006 rally too.

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

Datastorm Users’ Rally, Monday

The first night is a meet and greet, potluck. There are at least 70 rigs who have never attended one of these rallies before. It’s great to get to meet new friends!

Question: How do you get more Internet Satellite dishes than RVs?

Because some rigs have more than one dish! There is actually one rig here with 3 Datastorm dishes! Two on the 5th wheel trailer and one on the truck that tows it! I’m including the picture above because that is the RV of our undisputed leader, the guru of all things Datastorm, Don Bradner.

I’ve posted LOTS mor photos on a Picasa Web Album of the Rally.

There’s a Picasa Web album of the 2006 rally too.

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

Datastorm Users’ Rally, Monday

The first night is a meet and greet, potluck. There are at least 70 rigs who have never attended one of these rallies before. It’s great to get to meet new friends!

Question: How do you get more Internet Satellite dishes than RVs?

Because some rigs have more than one dish! There is actually one rig here with 3 Datastorm dishes! Two on the 5th wheel trailer and one on the truck that tows it! I’m including the picture above because that is the RV of our undisputed leader, the guru of all things Datastorm, Don Bradner.

I’ve posted LOTS mor photos on a Picasa Web Album of the Rally.

There’s a Picasa Web album of the 2006 rally too.

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