I spend a lot of hours every day working at my computer, and a lot of that time is spent online, either answering e-mails from our readers, updating my blogs and websites, or researching new places we want to visit to see what kinds of stories I can find there for the Gypsy Journal.

But you know what they say about all work and no play, so occasionally I take a break from whatever I’m working at to check out interesting, fun, or even goofy websites. But why should I have all the fun? So I thought I’d share a few of them with you.

1. People of Walmart.com – I guarantee that if you spend a few minutes browsing this collection of candid photos of the denizens who hang out at your local WalMart store, you’ll be amazed, appalled, and get a chuckle or two. I also bet you’ll double check your RV’s door locks the next time you spend the night at Camp WalMart!

2. Mental Floss – Mental Floss magazine, and its sister website, bills itself as “Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix.” Here you will finds all kinds of interesting trivia, from The Weird & Scary History of Winter Olympic Mascots, to People Born on the (Exact) Same Day You Were, to 9 Tasty Foods Named After People, and a lot of other information that would come in really handy if you ever land a spot as a contestant on Jeopardy or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

3. My Parents Were Awesome – Long before they were introduced to dirty diapers and 2 a.m. feedings, our parents were hip youngsters who had the world by the tail. Contributors to this website send in photos of their parents that you’ll find interesting and even funny at times. My only concern, when looking at these photographs, is that sometimes I suspect it is our kids sending in pictures of us when we were kids!

4. Today’s Front Pages – After a career in the small town newspaper business, I’m a born newshound. I pick up newspapers wherever we are traveling just to get a feel for the community. At Today’s Front Pages you can view the current front pages of newspapers around the country.

5. Newspapers, USA And Worldwide – Just one part of the great refdesk.com website, which is a wealth of information, their links to small town and big city newspapers worldwide is another favorite site for news junkies like me.

6. Thinkexist.com – This is another one of those neat websites where you can get lost for hours. With more than 300,000 quotations by over 20,000 authors, you’ll be able to find just the right words for any occasion here.

7. Find A Grave – Whether you’re searching for your great uncle Harry’s final resting place, or the graves of the rich and famous, you’ll probably find it here. It’s a great resource for genealogists.

8.  Speedtest – Do you ever wonder how your current internet connection compares to the average for that server, or to your last location? You can check it quickly at Speedtest.

9. Snopes.com – Before you blindly forward the next wild story that shows up in your e-mail inbox, check out its validity at Snopes.com.

10. Post Secret - PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on a postcard. The voyeur in all of us will find it interesting.

Thought For The Day – If at first you don’t succeed, give up, there’s no use being a fool.

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We were up early again yesterday morning (do you see a disturbing pattern here?), and left the motorhome at the Apache Junction Elks lodge while we took the van and went scouting for an RV space.

The last couple of years, most of the RV parks in Apache Junction and East Mesa have had vacancies all winter long, but that doesn’t seem to be the case this winter. Maybe it’s because fuel prices are down, or maybe it’s because people have stopped worrying that the sky is falling, and are traveling again. Of course, the extreme cold in so much of the country may also be a factor.

Whatever the reason, we stopped at a couple of places where we have stayed before, but they were booked solid, as were several other RV parks where we stopped. This area has a lot of small, run down RV parks where I wouldn’t be comfortable, and even those were full, or else they were asking way too much for what they had to offer. I mean really, how much of a premium do you place on folks standing outside drinking in the middle of the day, derelict trailers, and piles of dog crap?

Friends had recommended a couple of very nice upscale RV resorts, but their monthly rates were way beyond this poor boy’s budget. There is nothing wrong with these types of places, but we’re not “resort” people. We don’t use things like swimming pools, spas, and craft shops, and since our purpose in being here is to spend time with our family, we won’t have time to participate in the activities that many of these places offer.

After looking at several places that didn’t work for us, we noticed a mobile home park called Patio Gardens, with a sign out front that said “RV Spaces For Rent,” and on a whim, we stopped to check it out. They had three RV sites available, all back in 50 amp full hookups, with parking on gravel and a cement patio. The price of $365 a month, plus electric, was the best bargain we had seen all morning, and less than the dumps we had looked at earlier.

Unlike some of the mobile home parks in this area, this place was very clean, the managers are super friendly, as are all of the residents we have met. An added benefit is that it’s less than a mile from Terry’s parents’ house. We immediately wrote them a check, and then went back to the Elks lodge to pick up our motorhome.

Since it was only four or five miles, we didn’t bother hooking up the van, Terry just followed me back to Patio Gardens, and by about 1:30 p.m. we were all settled into our site and hooked up. Several men who live here were sitting under the awning of a mobile home across the street from us, and they watched as Miss Terry guided me into our site in one smooth maneuver. Once I was parked, they all clapped and said it looked like Terry and I knew what we were doing. I told them we’ve done this a time or two before.

Soon after we were parked, Terry’s mom came by to see our Winnebago, and she was very pleased with our new home on wheels.      

Now that we’re settled in for a while, we will hopefully have time to get the motorhome cleaned up, and maybe even organize the storage bays underneath. Of course, that’s after we run up to our old hometown of Show Low to see my daughter and her family, and give those granddaughters of ours some long overdue spoiling.  

Thought For The Day – Some people create and maintain problems because they give them a sense of identity.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Gee, I miss one day of watching the evening news and I miss everything! The war on terrorism is over, the economy is no longer in the toilet, fuel prices are down, stock prices are up, and all of the illegal aliens have gone back south of the border.  It must be true, because every newscast I have seen for two days now doesn’t talk about anything but the death of Michael Jackson.  

I find it interesting that while there is so much discussion of the singer’s grand career, in which they call him the King of Pop music, we hear very little about the other side of his life; the repeated accusations of child molestation, his bizarre behavior, his prescription drug use, and his financial troubles.

No, let’s just glorify the King. I’m sorry, he wasn’t a king to me, or even an interesting performer. He was just a freak wacko that had been idolized and coddled since he was a little boy, had been allowed to do things that society would not tolerate from the rest of us, and never had to live in the real world. All because he was an “artist.” Let’s get on with life.

I reported in yesterday’s blog that a couple of subscribers to our digital edition of the Gypsy Journal had to download a newer version of Adobe Reader to access the file. We have also discovered that some users of the Firefox web browser cannot access the file, unless they use Internet Explorer to do so.

While Terry was busy stuffing envelopes with the new issue of the Gypsy Journal yesterday, I spent the afternoon working on a new seminar called 100 Miles From Here for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally. The seminar will highlight dozens of interesting places to visit within a 100 mile drive of the rally site.

No matter where we go in this country, we find interesting places to explore, from historic sites, to oddball museums, to the homes and graves of notable people. I created this new seminar to illustrate how, wherever you are traveling, there is plenty to see and do.

Miss Terry has been dealing with computer problems for quite a while now, and yesterday evening her Compaq laptop died. When she turns it on, whether on battery power or plugged into an AC outlet, the power light comes on, but that’s it. No fan, no screen, it doesn’t even begin to boot up. We have taken the battery out and put it back in, it’s fully charged, and we’ve tried every fix we could find online.

The laptop is less than two years old, but these days the quality of HP and Compaq products seems to be pretty bad. We’ll give Jim from Geeks on Tour a call today to see if he has any ideas, but I think we should just buy her a Dell and be done with it.

Thought For The Day – Don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally