You’ve met Dianne in this blog before.  Most recently on a houseboat here in Long Beach Island.  And a few years ago at her house in Florida. 

Now you get to see her house on the river up here.  She invited us to come over for a Labor Day party.  Jimmy decided to go too even though, in 30 years of living here, he’s never left the Island on Labor Day.  Here’s why – all the thousands of people who came to LBI for the weekend, or the whole summer, are leaving that day:

But, we finally made it.  What a cool spot!  You see, in addition to the ocean and the bay, there are also rivers around here.  She is on the Mullica river, we paddled the nearby Batsto river when we were here in 2004.

What a great spot!

And, here’s our hostess showing off the view from her dining room.

Lots of clams to feast on – a local delicacy.

Here’s Dianne with her two daughters, Susan (left) and Carol (right):

It’s always good to get around families with kids.  The younger generation gives us a fresh perspective!

Here’s a view of the house from the dock.

Thanks Dianne!  We had a great time. 

and the traffic getting back onto the Island was non-existent!

It’s tradition here at Jimmy’s house on Labor Day weekend.  See the post from 2004 for the story.

It was a 5-star day weather-wise on the island. Hot, sunny, great waves for body-surfing over at the ocean, and nice calm water on the bay.  We took advantage of all of it.

Even I got in the surf and let it put me thru the spin cycle.  Water temp was about 73, and the waves were perfect.  A few of them were big enough to grab you and toss you around, but they were all manageable.

Then we had some BLTs for lunch with scrumptious New Jersey tomatoes.  We played with the water in the bay for the rest of the day.  One of Jimmy’s old friends, who used to be a lifeguard here on the island is a master of the Stand Up Paddle board.  We had to try it.

Actually, Odie was the first to try – he just jumped right on and showed us how it’s done!  We told you our dog walks on water!

Then I tried it.  Believe it or not, these boards are inflatable!  So they have a little bit of give to them.  It took a few minutes to get my bearings, but then it was actually pretty easy.  At least on a flat calm day like this!

Then it was Jim’s turn.

They were really fun!  Chris K (who owns the boards) uses them to surf in the ocean.  Just, instead of laying down, he’s standing up all the time.  You can see photos of that on Jimmy’s web album.

Next up came kayaking!  Dianne and her daughter Carol came over for the party, and I took them out for a little bay tour on the kayaks first:

OK, now it’s time for the party.  The gorgeous weather held out the entire day, so all the festivities were outside.

Jim has to test the corned ham first!

Then there’s all the other dishes that people brought.

And even a soft-serv ice cream machine.

YUM

See lots more photos on Tom Pernal’s web album.

And then, to cap it off … you guessed it!  There was yet another beautiful sunset!

Jim and I talked about going out to dinner last night.  He knows that there are many excellent restaurants here on Long Beach Island, and we have yet to visit any of them this time around.

But then we looked out the window and said, ‘Nope, looks like it’s going to be a great sunset, we gotta stay home.’

We were right:

If we could take thank you notes to the store instead of cash or credit – we wouldn’t charge for any of our services!  This is *really* what we work for …

The latest note came in from Anita and Ron.  They thanked us for teaching them how to Blog.  Not only did they create a personal blog, but they also created a blog for their Square Dance Association.  They posted their note as a comment on our Geeks on Tour Articles blog so you can read it too!

We’re still having fun and enjoying beautiful weather here on the Jersey Shore, but Jim chained me to my computer yesterday and I finally got our monthly Geeks on Tour newsletter published (I still called it August’s newsletter , as well as our weekly Picasa Tip.

Jim keeps having to print more Picasa booklets to fulfill the orders coming in, and we’re also up to nearly 600 paid members for our online classroom of tutorial Videos.  So, we haven’t had to try to redeem our thank you notes for legal tender lately, but we sure do love getting them.

In case you don’t know, LBI stands for Long Beach Island.  That’s where we are.

And, it’s a place to party in the summertime.  Staying with our friend Jimmy Lyon – we just slipped right into the round of parties.

We even met up with an old friend from Florida, Dianne, and her daughter, Carol who are spending some time on their houseboat right here on Long Beach Island.

Here’s how we look at photo albums:

Here’s the beach:

Then there’s a concert in the park – on the mainland:

And birthday parties at Jimmy’s:

And more parties at Jimmy’s:

And, dinner with best old friends’ of Jim’s – Tom and Betty:

We are  just having a great time.  The weather has been gorgeous – hot and sunny days with cool nights.  The food and friends have been overwhelming.

And, I thought we were going to have 3 quiet weeks to get caught up on work!  Is it any wonder that our Geeks on Tour August newsletter isn’t done yet?  Hopefully, no one will notice and I’ll get it done today.  It’s a little quieter here on the weekdays – many of the friends and family

come in for the weekend from other parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvannia, and even Boston.

Oh yeah … here’s another sunset for ya!

No, it’s New Jersey!

I know that New Jersey does not have a good reputation in general, but from my viewpoint – in our friend Jimmy’s driveway – it just doesn’t get any better.

Our schedule calls for 3 weeks here, so we’d made a pretty long list of all the work to be done while we’re here.  I’m working on websites – our own plus some clients’.  And Jim is responding to emails, orders, printing and mailing.  Our new ‘Beginners Guide to Picasa’ booklet has sold several dozen copies!  We’re actually working kinda hard.  But, I’ll bet our ‘office conditions’ beat anyone’s!!

We have plenty of time for fun, food, and friends too.

And, I never get tired of the sunsets here!

By Jim

Chris and I both enjoy dabbling in American History.  Visiting presidential libraries and museums is a wonderful way to learn more about a particular time slice of this wonderful country.

Franklin Roosevelt was president during two major world crises.  He came into office at the beginning of the Great Depression.  Europe and Asia were on the brink of World War II.  Presidential powers were used to great effect throughout his time in office.  Roosevelt was elected four times.  He was confined to a wheel chair, a victim of Polio.  Franklin died before the war ended.

He was born into affluence, but became a champion of the common population.  His wife, Eleanor, was a prolific writer and proponent of feminist causes.  Lots of interesting stories.

There is much more to see in Hyde Park.  We just got a taste – and a reason to return.

Long Beach Island New Jersey

When people ask me where I grew up, I usually tell them I never did!

LBI is where I spent all of my high school years.  It is truly a special place.  Many of my friends and family are still in the area.

Hurricane Bill was stirring up the surf.  The waves were coming up to the dune line and the lifeguards had to move their chairs to higher ground.  Here they are bringing the chair back down to the beach.

We went out for a paddle on the bay.  And then a short swim.  Odie was the first to get wet.  Refreshing!

Sunsets are often spectacular over the bay.

Thanks to my long time friend and dive buddy, Jimmy L. for allowing us to stay with him on LBI.  And Happy Birthday!

I find facebook.com a little complex – there’s so much you can do with it; notes, photos, blogs – it’s hard to know where to start.  But, I’m on it (Christine Guld) and I check in fairly regularly.

The amazing thing is how many people are connected to facebook.  Within minutes of joining, I had at least a dozen ‘friends.’ Over the last few months, I’ve reconnected – thru facebook – with dozens more people, many of whom I haven’t seen in many years.  There are even a couple that I haven’t seen since high school, and I graduated in 1971!

If you like having –and keeping- friends, you will like being on facebook.

One man, Eric Somers, was a friend who I met back in the 80s.  I met him when my Mom and I had just started our computer training center (Computer Savvy) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  He was involved with a high tech company that was taking advantage of the Internet … realize the Web didn’t even exist back then!  He ended up giving guest classes at Computer Savvy – teaching telecommunications – you know, 300 baud modems and Compuserve!  Eric is probably the brainiest person I’ve ever met and I always enjoyed our fascinating conversations.  We haven’t seen each other in over 10 years, but we would always share at least one annual email. 

Eric is one of my Facebook friends and he left a comment when we posted photos of Salem, MA.  That started a conversation and when our next stop was Hyde Park, NY (to go to FDR museum) I noticed that we were right next to Poughkeepsie where Eric lives.  We were able to meet up for breakfast and it’s definitely Facebook that made this possible.

So nice to get to visit with you Eric!

I almost titled this, “A Three Hour Tour” (thnk theme song from Gilligan’s Island) because that’s exactly what we did. We had to stop for a domestic day yesterday. When we run out of toilet paper, dog food, and clean underwear – we gotta do laundry and go to the grocery store. Add to that the normal 3-4 hours of answering emails, and the day is pretty shot.

So we decided to stay an extra day here in Salem because we really wanted to get the kayaks wet. We had to dump our holding tanks this morning … even at $37/night there’s no full hookups here. And, the nearest dump is at the power plant around the corner. So … we did our website/email thing, and went to the dump .. it was about 2:00 before we were ready to paddle. Luckily the weather cooperated. We paddled all around the Salem harbor, and out around Marblehead. We got back about 5. According to my measurements on Google Earth, we paddled about 6 miles (the white line):

Our first destination was this 3-masted ship we saw on display – the Peacemaker. I think the tourists on board were more impressed with the dog on the kayak going by! Cool view.

Then we paddled thru all the anchored boats in the harbor. We saw one seal poke his head up and take a look around.

Beautiful homes on Marblehead! Almost makes me think it would be worth winter.

I feel like a broken record, but – it just doesn’t get any better than this! 

Our home is parked in Winter Island City park in Salem, and the ferry dock is, at most, a mile away.  We took the ferry to Boston – about an hour ride.  ahh, smell that salt air!  And the cool breeze was welcome on this hot summer day.  Here’s the route we took from Salem to Boston.

The weather was setting record highs (95 degrees I heard) – so it was an especially good way to travel today – nice and cool.

What a great way to come in to Boston!

After the boat ride, we took the subway, then a shuttle bus to get to the JFK Library.  I felt like a real country bumpkin in the big city trying to figure it all out!  We didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes for either subway or bus … really quite nice.

This was our 10th Presidential Library in our travels (you can click on the category “Presidential libraries” in the right sidebar to see all of them) and, I think it was the most inspiring yet. 

The architect is the same – I.M. Pei – as for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Louvre.  You can see it in the ‘Pavilion’ with the stories-high glass:

Kennedy was elected on my 8th birthday and, especially with his assassination 3 years later, is the first president in my memory.  I remember learning to get under our desks during bomb alerts in my Alaska elementary school.  So, watching the video about the Cuban Missile crisis was especially poignant.

He was our first real TV president, and there were lots of clips to watch.  We spent a little over 3 hours there and, as I say at every Presidential library, I could have stayed much longer.  Both Jim and I just love history.  Reviewing American history gives you perspective on current affairs.

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

Here’s the map of Nixon (red) and Kennedy (blue) votes from the 1960 election.

After the museum, we reversed our course and took the bus and the subway again, but we also walked several blocks of the ‘Freedom Trail’ in the heart of Boston.

When we got back to the docks, our chariot was waiting to ferry us back to Salem.  Glorious day!

For more pictures, go to our Picasa Web album.