More Zoo pics – Dead camera

Glenn was pretty quick on putting up his photos. Check out his web album for some beautiful photos.

You might wonder why we didn’t take any good photos … wellllll .. my camera died a few days ago. While we were at the Air Force museum in Dayton. I took a couple pictures just fine …then the next one was half black. I thought maybe I had my hand in front of the lens or something so I took another one. Same thing. In fact as I kept taking more pictures the black starting getting bigger. Something was definitely wrong. When I got home, I tried switching batteries … no change. I tried switching camera card … lens …. no change. So, it’s definitely in the body of my camera. I did a little online research and found that, indeed, this is something that happens. The mirror inside on the shutter falls down and blocks the picture. My camera’s shutter is rated for about 10,000 pictures and I probably have taken close to 20,000. It’s time for a new one.

So how did we get the few photos we did? With our cell phones! What a modern marvel those little things are! They’ve rescued us with Internet Access when our $6,000 system failed. And they’ve rescued us with photos when our $1,000 camera failed. Meanwhile, Jim took some video and I edited it and put it on Youtube. He also took some video at the airforce museum … haven’t edited that yet.

Sure wish Youtube delivered higher quality. I’m rendering the video in another format to upload to my own website. That one will look better. I’ll link it here when it’s done.

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More Zoo pics – Dead camera

Glenn was pretty quick on putting up his photos. Check out his web album for some beautiful photos.

You might wonder why we didn’t take any good photos … wellllll .. my camera died a few days ago. While we were at the Air Force museum in Dayton. I took a couple pictures just fine …then the next one was half black. I thought maybe I had my hand in front of the lens or something so I took another one. Same thing. In fact as I kept taking more pictures the black starting getting bigger. Something was definitely wrong. When I got home, I tried switching batteries … no change. I tried switching camera card … lens …. no change. So, it’s definitely in the body of my camera. I did a little online research and found that, indeed, this is something that happens. The mirror inside on the shutter falls down and blocks the picture. My camera’s shutter is rated for about 10,000 pictures and I probably have taken close to 20,000. It’s time for a new one.

So how did we get the few photos we did? With our cell phones! What a modern marvel those little things are! They’ve rescued us with Internet Access when our $6,000 system failed. And they’ve rescued us with photos when our $1,000 camera failed. Meanwhile, Jim took some video and I edited it and put it on Youtube. He also took some video at the airforce museum … haven’t edited that yet.

Sure wish Youtube delivered higher quality. I’m rendering the video in another format to upload to my own website. That one will look better. I’ll link it here when it’s done.

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Jacksonville Zoo

We traveled without incident thru South Carolina and Georgia. Finding gas was not a problem, although we did have to pay 4.08 – the higest of all our travels.

We are now in Jacksonville, Florida. Hannah park is a city park here, and it has everything that is beatiful about Florida. Our friend, Glenn, lives here in Jacksonville and enjoyes taking photos at the Zoo – so we made plans to go there with him. Pretty cool.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

More photos from Glenn soon. Meanwhile you could look at some of his past efforts on his Picasa Web Album.

A cool way to learn more at the Jacksonville zoo is to use your cell phone to access recorded messages. We’ve probably all been to museums where you can rent an audio device that had recorded messages … here you just use your cell phone as the audio device. What will they think of next?!

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

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Greetings from South Carolina

We were hoping to stop at Chimney Rock and go for a nice walk. We stopped here many years ago – long before RVing – and I still remember it as a gorgeous place. Unfortunately it was raining, so we kept on driving. Sure is pretty country though … even in the rain.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

As you’ve heard on the news, the gas stations really are out of gas here. Prices are blank and nobody’s home. One station was open and had a line of cars out in the street. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

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Headed South

We’re in Knoxville, Tennessee staying at the Escapees park – Raccoon Valley. We stayed put yesterday to give me a chance to write our newsletter. My weekly article for RV.net was also due yesterday. So, while I sat at the computer and wrote … Jim did the laundry and grocery shopping. If you’ve ever seen or read Joe and Vicki Kieva talk about RVing, they label the various jobs as blue or pink – and it’s true, we have lots of jobs that are either Jim’s or my responsibility. But then, there are all those *purple* jobs! We throw them back and forth according to what else is going on, and laundry is definitely one of those jobs.

We’re headed ‘home’ for the winter .. to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. That’s where our family is and our home park of Paradise Island. I’m looking forward to swapping travel stories with my Mom. How do you think I’ll compare? She’s traveled to China and North Korea. We went to Celina, Ohio!

We’re entering Florida on the east side this time so we can visit with a couple friends in Jacksonville.

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Cincinnati Ice Cream

We had such a nice time visiting at FMCA national offices offices yesterday. I always am impressed with an organization when the staff has such longevity. I think the ‘newest’ employee we met had been working there for 13 years! Most were 20+ years.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

Here I am with Robbin, Editor of the FMC magazine. The magazine I’m holding is the very first FMC magazine from February 1964.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

After a tour of their facility and a great lunch, Mary Anne decided to give us a true taste treat. It’s called Graeter’s Black Raspberry Chip ice cream and it is OMG To Die For.

The memory of that ice cream lingered well past dinnertime and I decided to look for a website to learn more. I couldn’t remember the name. Google to the rescue. I just typed ‘Cincinnati Ice Cream’ into a google search, and Graeter’s came up first. I never cease to be amazed with the Internet and Google! Uh-oh …. Graeter’s will ship and promises your ice cream will arrive frozen.

hmmmmmm

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FMCA Cincinnati

We love FMCA! We’ve had such great response to our seminars at all the International Conventions over the last 4 years. The person, Mary Ann, who got us going with all those seminars is retiring and we’re thrilled that Cincinnati was close enough on our route that we could stop here at FMCA headquarters and say goodbye – and Thank You – personally.

FMCA has a nice little RV park here for members … and it’s free!

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

On the same property is their membership office and mail forwarding facility.

From Geeks on Tour Blog 200809

We were told that they handle approximately 3,000 members’ mail forwarding. It has always been a free benefit of membership. I understand they are instituting a charge of $5/mo starting next year.

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Busy Week

We gave 3 seminars here at the Gypsy Journal rally. Blogger, Picasa and Google Earth. There were probably 60-100 people in each session. We had lots of good feedback. Jim did a couple of service calls and I did some private tutoring.

We also did our Computer Boot Camp on the weekend before the rally AND the weekend after. The ‘post rally’ Boot Camp had 13 people. That’s a pretty big crowd for a hands-on class.

From Gypsy Journal Rally

From Gypsy Journal Rally

Especially considering that some people had Vista and some had XP. One person even had a Mac. She worked with her husband on his XP machine during the class, but I spent a little time with her after class to translate what she learned to her Macintosh.

Internet connection was a real challenge. We definitely prefer to hold these classes in a place that has free Wi-Fi. Not only was there no free Wi-Fi here, there was NO Wi-Fi at all. We originally thought that we could park our motorhome nearby and use Wi-Fi from our Satellite Dish. If you’ve followed this blog carefully, you know our modems for the Satellite dish died just a few days before we arrived here! Jim used a few spare parts, chewing gum, and bailing wire to get it going once in while but nothing reliable enough to supply a class. For ourselves, we can use our cell phone with Broadband Access connect to get high speed Internet. Amazingly, Jim was able to connect our phone to the server computer, use Internet Connection sharing, a Bridge and a Wireless Access Point to make a Wi-Fi hotspot for the class. Many of the people in the class had their own Data Cards – so we were able to manage.

A good time was had by all!

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Rally Life

Here’s how it works. One guy decides to take out the garbage. Another guy stops him to talk. Another guy is out walking the dogs and joins in the conversation.

From Gypsy Journal Rally

From Gypsy Journal Rally

The crowd of guys gets larger, the dogs give up on going for a walk, and the garbage never does get tossed.

From Gypsy Journal Rally

Here’s our ‘booth’ at the gypsy journal rally:

From Gypsy Journal Rally

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Bootcamp to Rally

We finished our Computer Bootcamp yesterday and I think it went quite well. It’s not easy to cover 6 topics in two days so that beginners and experienced computer users both learn something, but we did it. Bonnie, with her very first computer, created, saved and edited a word processing document for the first time and learned how to transfer photos from her camera to the computer. Sharon, who has been using a computer for 20+ years identified some connections on her laptop that she didn’t know existed, and became more comfortable using Windows Vista. Everyone assured us they learned something.

They look happy don’t they?

From Gypsy Journal Rally

From Gypsy Journal Rally

Yesterday, the remains of hurricane Ike blew thru here. it destroyed one vendor’s tent and knocked down a few big tree limbs. All is fine with us and we’re getting ready for the rally now. We’ll be teaching 3 of our seminars here: How to make a Blog, Using Picasa for Digital Photos, and Using Google Earth. We made sure that we were free for the time slot that Nick is giving his seminar “Highway History and Back Road Mystery.” It seems we always miss this one whenever we’ve had the opportunity. If it sounds as interesting to you, it’s available as a book at the Gypsy Journal Bookstore. And, if there’s enough interest, we might be doing our bootcamp again next weekend.

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