The last month has been so chaotic that it seems like we were always on the go, pushing deadlines, or dealing with one problem after another. Yesterday, we had a much needed quiet day, and it did wonders to rejuvenate both of us!

We slept in, then just stayed warm and cozy snuggling under the covers, talking, and putting off starting our day as long as possible. The temperature had dropped down to 29 degrees overnight, and the day’s high was only in the mid-50s, with a gloomy gray sky. Except for a quick walk down to the dumpster, we never even stepped outside all day long.

The day passed peacefully, watching TV, browsing the internet, and I even laid down on the couch for a quick nap late in the afternoon. In short, it was a lazy day! We all need those now and then.

I mentioned the many deer that live here at the Thousand Trails preserve in yesterday’s blog. They provided quite a bit of entertainment as we watched them cavorting around our campsite. Some of the yearlings chased each other around like so many children playing tag, and it was obvious that they were having a lot of fun. We had fun just enjoying the show!

After close to a month without television, I sure am enjoying having the new automatic Winegard rooftop dish. We watched several holiday movies on the Hallmark channel, and caught up on the news broadcasts, to see who we’re at war with this week.

I spent an hour or two catching up on paperwork, and logging in several new reservations for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally. For some reason, people who use Firefox as their internet web browser are having problems registering online, but if they use Internet Explorer or another browser, everything works fine.

We have almost 80 registrations already, and we already have over 20 vendors registered who will be selling everything from tire pressure monitoring systems to jewelry, RV cleaning supplies, Fantastic vents, computer accessories, RV insurance, windshield repair, and more. I think this is going to be a big one, folks!

Miss Terry made us a delicious dinner, and we spent the evening doing what we had done all day long, which was not much of anything. Some people would call a day like this wasted, and back in my old workaholic days, I’d have felt guilty for not doing anything productive all day long. But it sure was nice not to have to do anything we didn’t want to do. I just may do the same thing again today!

Thought For The Day – Life is messy. Wear your apron!

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I was hoping that the cold weather here in northern Indiana may have forced the gremlins who inhabit my computer to follow the rest of the RV snowbirds south, but alas, the little buggers are still hanging on.

We use a commercial mail service for sending the Gypsy Journal to most of our subscribers, who chose the Standard Mail rate. But we also send out separate mailings to subscribers who use the Escapees Mail Service, FMCA mail service, and some of the commercial mail forwarding services such as Alternative Resources, as well as for our subscribers in Canada, and those who choose to pay an extra fee for First Class postage.

Yesterday as I was trying to print the mailing labels for those subscribers, I suddenly starting getting an error message and they would not print. This has happened before, for no apparent reason, and usually after a lot of frustration, whatever the problem is seems to clear up and they finally print. But yesterday I spent hours fighting with the mailing lists, with no success at all.

Our friends Rick Schafer and Marcia Gantz stopped over to see our new motorhome and tell us all about their summer travels in Alaska. Between the two of them, they have forgotten more about computers and computer programs than I’ll ever hope to learn, and when I mentioned the problems I was having with the mailing list, they put their heads together and tried to come up with a solution. Rick downloaded new drivers for our HP laser printer, which we hoped would do the job.

As it turns out, the problem still persisted, and I tried to get the mailing labels to print out all evening. Finally, about midnight, the gremlins must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the problem disappeared and the labels printed just fine. I didn’t do anything different, so what gives?

I think we have figured out a problem a few subscribers to the digital edition of the Gypsy Journal had with the current issue. In each case, they could not open the new issue, and by a process of elimination, I discovered that all of their computers had recently done an automatic update to Adobe Reader version 9.

Miss Terry experienced it with her laptop, which did the automatic update after she had already opened the new issue on the older version of Reader. She deleted the update and reinstalled the earlier version 8 of Reader and once again could open the file with no problems.

We have also had subscribers who use Firefox as their web browser report the same problem, but when they use , it works. Did I mention that sometimes I hate computers?

Even with all of the computer problems, it was nice to see Rick and Marcia again, and to hear about their travels since we last crossed paths. Terry and I have not made the Alaska trip yet, but it’s very high on our bucket list.

Quite a few Gypsy Journal subscribers were readers of a great little tabloid called Two Lane Roads that a fellow named Loren Eyrich published a few years back. I was a fan of Loren’s work, and when he was diagnosed with cancer and had to stop traveling and publishing, we took over the balance of his unfulfilled subscriptions.

Several people have asked me from time to time how Loren is doing, and I’m happy to report that I got an e-mail from him yesterday. Loren has been cancer free for seven years now, and he told me that while he has some long term effected from the chemo and/or radiation, he’s well and happy to be alive. Loren posts occasional updates on his website at http://www.two-lane.com/, and I know he’d be happy to have you log in and pay him a visit. 

Thought For The Day – Don’t assume malice for what stupidity can explain.

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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.

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