Yesterday we had a quiet day at home. Sometimes we need one of those, just to get caught up on paperwork and household chores, to relax and enjoy each other’s company, and just decompress.

I updated the calendars on our RV website, motorcycle travel website, and self-publishing website, and added some events to the Small Town Festivals page on the RV website. Then I spent a couple of hours updating our mailing lists. 

I need to make some changes to Carlyle Lehman’s Focal Wood website, because several of the links are not working. I struggled with the links for over two hours, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t get them to work, no matter what I did. It’s time to call on my pal Greg White. I know it’s probably a simple thing that he can do in his sleep, because Greg’s a simple man.

I also watched one of our neighbors climb up the ladder on the back of her motorhome, wearing a pair of flip flops, and trip when the toe of one caught on the top step. She managed to catch herself, but I was afraid it was going to be time to call 911. I don’t trust RV ladders. We have had a couple of friends seriously injured using them in the past, and one friend who just bought a new high end coach discovered that at least some of the screws holding his  ladder in place were not secure. To climb up on one without proper footwear is just plain foolish!

In the late afternoon, Linda Spindle stopped by our motorhome and visited for a while. We saw Linda and her husband Dave when we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and now they are parked just a short distance across from us. Linda told us about a great place to buy fresh seafood in Gloucester, and we’ll definitely be stopping by there!

We spent the evening watching a movie about 1950s singer Buddy Holly, which we found interesting, because we visited the musician’s grave in Lubbock, Texas several years ago, and the site of the airplane crash that took his life a couple of months ago when we were in Iowa. Did you know that his name was actually spelled Holley, but a secretary at Decca records misspelled his name on a recording contract, and it stuck?

Today we don’t have any solid plans. We may do some exploring, taking in the local sights, and we have a couple of orders to mail out. We’re just enjoying a slow pace for a while. It’s a nice change from the hectic schedule we have kept for too long now.

Thought For The Day – Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I spent most of yesterday working on a website for Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Many people are surprised to learn that while the Amish people live a much simpler lifestyle than most of us, with their horses and buggies, they do in fact make use of many modern conveniences, including telephones, electricity, and even the internet.

Every Amish community has its own rules as to how much of the “English world” (as they call life among the non-Amish), they can incorporate into their homes and businesses. While the Amish don’t own or drive cars, they will hire someone to take them where they need to go if it is too far for their buggies, and crews of Amish workers at local factories car pool in vans driven by non-Amish co-workers.

If you drive past the Amish farms on some of the back roads here in northern Indiana, you will see small wooden structures at the end of the driveway at every third or fourth home. These are shared telephone booths, where they can make and receive calls relating to business. But these booths are not heated and do not have a seat, to prevent them from spending much time chatting. We often see newspaper advertisements for items for sale, with a telephone number and the notation “Call between 7:30 and 8 a.m.” Those are the hours when they will be monitoring the telephone to receive calls. For businesses such as Focal Wood Products, they have a voice mail system, so if we call when Carlyle is busy, we leave a message and he calls us back. It’s not quite as convenient as calling a traditional business, but it works for them.

In the case of his website, Carlyle received permission from his community to have one to advertise his products, but he cannot build or maintain it himself. That’s where I got involved, and it’s been an interesting experience working with someone whose culture is different in so many ways from our own.

I mentioned a while back that I have co-authored a new book on self-publishing, titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit. Last week I received my first copy of the book, hot off the press, and I’m very pleased with it. All of the credit goes to my co-author, Christy Pinheiro, who conceived the project and handled all of the production details. For more information, here is a link to the book’s website. Check it out; you too could be a published author!  

One of the things I suggest on my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit, is producing small niche guides aimed at very targeted markets. Examples would be our Guide to Free Campgrounds and Overnight Parking Places, and our Guide to Casino Camping.

I don’t know if Dale Sumner from Mobile RV Medic, Inc. spent any time reading the website or coming to any of my seminars, but he recently published a very good guide, titled Basic RV Electricity and Protection, which is an excellent primer for anyone who owns an RV. Dale packs a lot of excellent information into the book, without getting buried in technical details that the average RVer could not understand. If you want to know what happens when you plug your RV’s electrical cord into a campground’s pedestal, and how to avoid overloading the circuit, and how to protect your rig from problems, this is an easy to understand guide that is well worth the money. You can order your copy at www.lulu.com/basicRVelectricity or e-mail Dale at sales@mobileRVmedic.com.

Of course, if you’re staying at an upscale RV resort such as Retama Village in Mission, Texas, you won’t have to worry about things like electrical problems. My friend Jack Mayer owns a couple of RV lots at Retama Village, and Jack and some of the other lot owners have set up a website, Retama Rentals, to market their lots when they are not staying on them. We paid a visit to friends at Retama last winter, and I can tell you it’s the nicest RV resort we have ever seen! So if you’re thinking about spending some time in the Valley this winter, check out Jack’s website.

While I was busy building a website this weekend, Bad Nick wrote a new post for the Bad Nick Blog titled We’re Going To Lose The War On Terror. Check it out, it will give you something to think about.

Thought For The Day – Anything in the future will always look better because there’s always something wrong in the present.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally