'BLOG EVOLUTION'.....AND SO IT GROWS:))

Our sunny long week-end weather has turned unexpectedly rainy putting a big damper on week-end boaters & beach people.  Our daytime temps have dropped to 70F making for nice outside gardening weather though.

Yes, I know just a few days ago I said, no more blogging topics for awhile but this one is ok & it's something I have touched on several times before.  After some recent comments & emails I thought I would touch on it again because it does concern everyone writing a blog.  Relax, it's not a 'do's & don'ts blog like before & this topic is survivable.

I, like most other bloggers started blogging with the thought in mind of keeping family & friends informed of traveling whereabouts & activities.  One of the side benefits would be in having a record of dates, adventures & places traveled.  That was all well & fine......in the beginning.  It soon became apparent that most friends & family members were not interested & very few of them ever checked the blog & still don't.  (my Aunt Jean & cousin Norma do though:))  And, it seems, this is a very common occurrence for RV bloggers.  Well, that presented a bit of a problem because if nobody was interested, why write a blog (and Publish it) in the first place.   Therein began the early evolution stage of this blog.

I have always had an interest in writing, photography & traveling & with the advent of the blogging idea it all just magically fell into place.  But, if family & friends weren't interested, who was.......if anybody.  I belonged to an online forum group at the time called 50+ & every once & awhile I would write a little something & put it in the forum.  That was enough to get me further interested & before long the blog idea was born.  We weren't traveling at the time but every once & awhile I would reach into my memory vaults & write about something I had experienced at one time or another along the highway of life.  Had a few more responses & that spurred me on to write more. 

As our travels increased, so did our readership.  Very slowly at first but at least it was a start & most responses seemed to be coming in from other RV people.  Not the family & friends as first expected.  The blog also evolved into a platform for my photography hobby as well.  Noticed people were beginning to comment on some photos I included & that of course spurred me on to take more photographs. The blog concept was slowly growing.

I blogged occasionally at first while at home & then every day of our 07/08 trip.  When we returned home for the summer in 08 I dropped back from the daily travel blogging routine but noticed within a week or so the comments, emails, & responses were encouraging me to keep the blog going.  Well, encouragement was all I needed (never had much of that as a kid) and by the end of that summer I was blogging full tilt every day & have pretty much continued with that ever since.  The evolution of the blog from beginning to present has had a lot to do with motivation.  I was no longer inspired to do the blog for friends & family like in the beginning but I was motivated & encouraged to write the blog & take the photos by all the people responding to the blog.

Some folks say they write their blog for themselves & if they didn't have anyone reading, it wouldn't really matter.  Well, that's fine for them I guess but it sure doesn't work for me that way.   If I was just doing this for me I wouldn't bother to hit the 'Publish' button at the end of each blog.  It is people with an interest in reading my blog & looking at the photos that keeps my enjoyable hobby going & that is why I gear the blog towards people with like minded interests to mine.  If I wrote the blog just for myself it would not look like it does today either.  I would not bother with all the graphics, colors & sidebar stuff & it would probably not include any photos because there would be no purpose for me to take any.  My blog journal would just be a plain white background with the standard black print & look simply like an everyday newspaper article.  Not much imagination there so not much of a challenge for me.  Just a simple journal with a few simple thoughts & events I suppose.  Knowing me, I would probably get bored with that pretty quick & the whole thing would just simply slip quietly into obscurity.

If it were not for the blog I would not have the all the camera equipment I have today & what camera equipment I had would probably be sitting in a dust covered camera bag in the bottom of a closet somewhere.  Again, the evolution of the blog is apparent.  As stated before, I have no interest in photo contests or printing pics to hang on walls or putting in albums.  The blog's photo platform has given me a way to display my photos for anyone interested & I am totally happy with that.  If readers enjoy looking at the pictures as much as I enjoy taking them, then that is good enough for me. 

In early 1993 I lost all interest in photography & packed all my 35mm equipment away simply because there just wasn't any point in wasting money on film & processing just to look at the pics a couple times & then throw them in a box or slide carousel.  Aside from doing some travelogues I just didn't have a purpose.  And, the problem with doing travelogues was my fear of having to stand up in front of a bunch of people & narrate my slide show.  Now I can get my pics out there from the quiet comfort & obscurity of my recliner chair, the Motor Home or our scenic sunroom.  And, it's all because the blog has evolved from it's original concept.  Now I have a purpose.

So, I guess what this long post (again) is trying to say is simply that your blog is whatever you want to make it as you, along with your blog, evolve with it's growth.  If you are new to blogging & are finding friends & family not as responsive as you hoped, don't give up, just take your blog in a different direction, change your priorities & let it evolve into something you enjoy doing.   Find a niche & share your interests with others. 

For Kelly & I, it has been the RV community that has been our main blog supporters & we have met more people on the road & made more friends on-line than we ever have here at home.  And, it has been the blog that has done all that.  If it wasn't for the blog we would probably not have met one single person on that 'friends we have met' list I posted last week.

So, in conclusion (thank heavens) I say to all my fellow bloggers.....keep on blogging & grow with your blog.  May your purpose & ideas evolve into something greater than what you started out with............mine did:))

And, just in case you were wondering....all of tonight's photos were caused by a dripping garden hose on a cold January Arizona night this past winder while we were staying at the ranch near McNeal, Az........................:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down, but says nothing.
The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention, but the drunk continues to sit there.
Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall.  The drunk mumbles, 'Ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either.

Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UN-AWAKENED"

It's not the concept of God I have a problem with.......it's his fan club!!

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

NEWER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER!!

I think it was back around the end of March when I saw the last one.  We see them every day while traveling & generally most of them in the southwest during the winter months.  This morning on my way to Goderich to pick up the mobility van I was fortunate enough to see another one.........A sunrise:))   And, what a beautiful sunrise it was too.  Am looking forward to many more sunrises in the next 3 weeks as my days, for the most part, will begin early.

AN ARIZONA SUNRISE

Turned out to be a long day with the mobility van but there was enough 'wait time' between runs to catch a few winks & take a few pics.

I WAS THINKING OF YOUR RV QUEST WHEN I SAW THIS TODAY, GYPSY  ($14,500)

NELLIE had a question about what kind of spam we have been getting since dropping the verification tool.  Nothing gross so far but some of it has been 'computer speak' meaning unreadable symbols.  Some emails pretend to be interested in our blog but are just scammers trying to gain a toehold for their products.  Nothing real bad yet!!

         

THIS LITTLE FELLOW SITS ATOP OUR JEEP AERIAL

As with most couples, Kelly & I have our morning computer routines.  For the past few years we have just had one computer on board while traveling.  Last winter while in the southwest we bought a second Toshiba laptop in Sierra Vista, Arizona.  Although we couldn't use the 2 computers at the same time on-line it did set up some patterns for me to work at things on one computer while Kelly did the same on the other.  In another month we will look into what equipment we need to run 2 computers simultaneously on-line before we head south again this winter.  As it is now, I start my days with the laptop in my recliner while Kelly does her stuff on the desktop in the sunroom.  Just started this double morning routine in the last 4 months & can't imagine going back to sharing one computer again while on the road.  And besides,  I'm an only child & I do not like to share!!  So there...................

SAM  left a comment question in Thursday's blog which asked,  "Since I am an all XP family right now I guess I will have to wait till I either buy a Windows 7 machine or the Beta upgrade becomes the defacto standard and will support XP, hate to sound old fashioned but my XP keeps chugging along and I am used to it like an old friend."

AN ELDERLY AFTERNOON STROLL ON THE BOARDWALK

Well Sam, I guess you & I are part of a shrinking 'old fashioned' club & I know what you mean by XP seeming like an old friend.   We have two computers running XP & one with Win 7.  I'm sure Win 7 is a fine program in it's own right but I still prefer my old easy to use & understandable XP & regularly grab my XP laptop ahead of the Win 7 laptop.   If we didn't have XP I probably would be up & running fine with Win 7 now, but given the choice...................

I THINK THIS IS THE SAME COAST GUARD BOAT I HAD A LITTLE TOUR ON ABOUT A MONTH AGO

In this ever expanding technology age of whatever is newer & smaller is better, some of us seem to be getting steadily farther behind.  Too many times I have automatically upgraded different programs believing new was going to be a big improvement & too many times I have been sadly disappointed!!   Music program upgrades especially come to mind.  Since they started integrating everything with mobile phones, live video uploads, live this, live that, etc. etc. I have been left further in the dust.  The only mobile things I am comfortable with these days are my shoes.

FOUND A NICE SHADY SPOT AT THE BEACH THIS AFTERNOON FOR A FEW ZZZZZZZZZZ'S

A lot of the new wiz-mo stuff is fine for the techie guys who enjoy the increasingly complex technologies & have the right number of brain cells in place, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep up I just don't seem to have the patience or memory for stuff anymore like I once did.   For the most part I do love most of this computer stuff with all it's wiz-bang gadgets but my aging brain is having difficulty keeping up with everything & I find I am becoming increasingly discouraged. 

Decades ago there was a huge race between America & Russia to put a man on the moon.  Now there seems to be a big race going on amongst tech companies to see who is going to be the first company to shrink things like cell phones, cameras, I-products & computers down to the size of sand grains. 

LAKE HURON BATHERS WITH GODERICH'S SALT MINE IN THE BACKGROUND

I'm sure a lot of folks will disagree with me here Sam, but in my opinion.....stick with the Live Writer you have for as long as you can.  It works fine, is easy to use & has everything you need.  Enjoy your XP platform for as long as you can as well & remember, newer is not always better. 

'GURU AT WORK'  (File photo from August 09)

And, the truth be known.......if it wasn't for Kelly's wily computer smarts & patient problem solving ways you probably would not be reading this blog because I would likely have thrown this Mossmagator of a computer into the front yard frog pond a long time ago.......................10-4!! 

THIS DUTCH WINDMILL IS JUST DOWN THE ROAD FROM US

GROANER'S CORNER:((    A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the engine of a class ‘A’ Motor Home when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop. The surgeon was there waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his RV when the mechanic shouted across the garage "Hey doc, can I ask  you  a question?"
The surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to where the mechanic was working on the Motor Home. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take the valves out, repair any damage, and then put them back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?
The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over and whispered to the mechanic, "Try doing it with the engine running."

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UN-AWAKENED"

It's not the concept of God I have a problem with......it's his fan club!!

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

FROG POND DILEMMA & A SUCCESSFUL LIVE WRITER 'BETA' DOWNLOAD

SOUTHWEST LANDSCAPING....I was short of pics tonight so included a few from outside the Borrego Springs Medical Center in Borrego Springs, California which I took last Feb. 24th 2010

Wednesday's late afternoon thunderstorms brought in a cooler weather front overnight & chased all that miserable humidity out of the air....again.  What a pleasant relief it was this morning to feel cool air on my skin as I took Max & Checker's for a walk through the pine forest.

Upon returning from our walk I noticed my waterfall pump in the pond had was not pumping water.  A recently added second pump was sputtering as well so I quickly pulled the electrical plugs.  A closer look told me the pond had lost most of it's water.  I immediately assumed a tree root in search of water had finally made it's way underground over to the pond & punctured the plastic liner from beneath.  Figured I only had 2 options.  Fill in the pond with earth & re-landscape the area or pull the whole pond & flowerbed apart & try to find the leak.  Decided on the first option because it was the lesser of the 2 big work & reconstruction evils. 

 

WE WERE HIKING WITH SOCKY JEEPERS THIS DAY (that's him lying on the back pack:))  And, I think somebody was not too happy about carrying around a sock puppet!!

YEP, THERE'S THE LITTLE SOCK BOY NOW:))

I knew there were a lot of poly-wogs & small frogs in the pond so figured I had better get some water back in there to help the guys out.  Filled the near empty pond with the hose fully expecting it to be drained again in an hour or so but would deal with that when we came home later.

THE POND WAS NEARLY DRAINED THIS MORNING:((

We Jeeped ourselves over to Mitchell & visited with Uncle Harry for awhile.  He's doing well & really likes the new music channels we were able to have set up for him.  Glen Miller was playing Moonlight Serenade when we walked into his room & how nice is that:))

BORREGO SPRINGS MEDICAL CENTER

Arriving home a couple hours later I was surprised to find the small frog pond still full of water.  Took me another minute or so to finally figure out what the problem was.  I have a pump in the pond that pumps water over a small waterfall.  Wednesday morning I had added a second, more powerful pump in the middle of the pond & that one had a fountain attachment shooting water up through a plastic fountain nozzle.  Sometime in the night the pump had gradually tipped itself over to one side a bit therefore pumping all the pond's water out of the pond into the flowerbed beside it.  What a pleasant relief knowing it was not going to be the demise of our little frog pond after all.  Plugged the pumps in again & soon water cheerfully gurgled up & out over a bunch of stressed out but relieved tiny green frogs & their wee offspring wogs.  There was much rejoicing all around the water's edge as I heard a rousing croak filled cheer rise from the duckweed filled water into the afternoon garden air:)) "Yaaaay AL:))"

JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THOSE MOUNTAINS LIES OCEANSIDE & SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

My work place called today & said they had an early pick up for me in the morning, plus a couple of drivers in Goderich are going to be away for a few weeks so looks like I am going to be a very busy boy filling in for them.  I welcome that in more ways than one & look forward to having something constructive & useful to do for the next 3 weeks. 

 

THIS TYPE OF LANDSCAPING IS VERY TYPICAL OF MANY NICE HOMES IN BORREGO

Along with a few other bloggers I decided to remove that word verification security thingy in the comment section a few days ago.  I have already been hit 5 times by spammers & if that continues over the next few days I will have to put that annoying tricky word verification back on.  Still wish there was some kind of electronic way to send a 'charge' back through the internet lines to the very source of those miserable low life slime ball spammers & 'fry' their computers!!!!  What a scammy lot they are.

REAL MEXICAN GARDENERS

And........I successfully downloaded the new Live Writer Beta into our new laptop Win 7 computer this afternoon.  The download went off without a hitch so I guess the problem I had before was due to the fact I was trying to install the new LW on the XP platform.  I can see another learning curve coming up & I'm sure I will be fine with it after awhile but right off the bat I did not like what I saw.  One of the main difficulties I have with all new technology centers around the 'smallness' of everything.  Cell phones, I-pods TV remotes, etc are hard for me to see because everything is sooooo small & the same goes for computer programs.  With so many options, add ons, plug-ins, wizmo's & gizmos, everything has been miniaturized.  And, that's what I saw when I opened the new Live Writer.  They have crammed the whole LW work area into a narrow band across the top & all the tools are now smaller, crammed together, & harder for me to see.  I was happy with the larger bar down the right side where I could easily read everything.  No, I do not need everything the size of kindergarten printing but what is with this big techie fad to compact & diminish everything down to the size befitting the eye of a needle!!

HAD TO POSITION A PALM TREE JUST SO BECAUSE ONE OF THE 'E's WAS MISSING IN THE WORD...'CENTER'         :))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Most folks believe that Ben Franklin discovered electricity with his famous kite experiment.  Actually, a women made that discovery possible. The real story was that Ben Franklin was laying in bed with his wife one night, leaned over and whispered something in her ear.  She told him to go fly a kite. The rest is history.

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UN-AWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

DO NOT ROLL DOWN THE JEEP WINDOWS!!!!

THIS LITTLE GOLDFINCH IS HAVING HIMSELF QUITE A SPLASHY BATH

Now, before I get any further into today's post let me just quickly say this.  "Will somebody please be kind enough to email me a good swift kick in the ASSparagus if I blog about this 'blogging thing' one more time!!"  Thank you in advance:))

PUTTING THE FINAL FEW SPLOOTCHES OF PAINT ON THE UTILITY TRAILER

Over at Deer Park Lodge where Kelly works, people often have a habit of leaving things in the cabins after they check out & go home.  Guess one of the kids left his big super soaker water canon there a few days ago so Kelly brought it home for me to play with because she knew it would amuse & keep me busy for a few hours.  Well, of course she was right & I found it mighty handy for hunting down pesky varmints in the flower garden. (now you really didn't think I would harm a pesky varmint did you)

COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE

I came across a line on Facebook this morning that jumped off the screen at me because of it's simple logic.  'It's not God I have a problem with...it's his fan club!!'  Ohhhhhhhh, ain't that the truth!!  (Thanks Red:))

             

THIS IS WHAT THE UTILITY TRAILER LOOKED LIKE BEFORE

Carol over at CAROL K's JOURNEY has just started using the Picasa Photo Editing program & is already making noticeable improvements to her photos.  You might want to drop by & see how she is making good photos......better:))  And, while on the subject of Picasa, stop by RICK'S BLOG & check out his handy use of the Picasa 'Retouch' tool with additional help from the Microsoft Paint program.

A DOWNY WOODPECKER DINES ON SOME TASTY GRUBS (ya ya, how do I know they are tasty)

Helloooooo JESSICA & HARRY from upstate New York.  My wife Kelly is an American girl from Spencerport near Rochester.  Thanks for hopping aboard our Follower's List guys, much appreciated indeed & keep those RV dreams alive for 2013:))

KELLY IS THE BOOKWORM IN THE FAMILY

So nice to have our satellite radio in the Jeep now & the channel I always listen to whether in the Jeep or the Motor Home is 073 'The Spa.' (Hey DI:))  It's all Instrumental easy listening music with many of my favorite artists like, Michael Hedges, Will Ackerman, George Winston, Andreas Vollenweider, etc.  If I feel the need for speed there are many other channels to choose from with the likes of  Black Sabbath, Hank Williams, Benny Goodman, Beatles, Santana, Marty Robbins or Metallica.  All kinds of channels to choose from plus news channels like CNN etc.

Soooo glad to be rid of the repetitive 'generic sappy singer' radio stations that nauseatingly dominate the commercial airwaves these days.  Best thing I like about the music channels is no blabbering announcers, no stupid commercials & just no human voice interference whatsoever.  I like dat part da most best:)) Oh ya & Howard Stern is even on there but I wish somebody would hold his big mouth underwater for about half an hour sometime!!

 

YEP, KELLY SAYS, 'WINDOWS ARE DARK ENOUGH NOW FOR ME TO NOT SCARE PEDESTRIANS ANYMORE.'

              

FIRST BIG MOSSMAGATOR LOAD OF YARD WASTE TO THE PARK'S RE-CYCLE AREA WITH THE REFURBISHED TRAILER THIS MORNING............

The fellow who tinted our Jeep windows yesterday said not to roll the windows down for at least 3 days.  Kelly knew I would have trouble remembering that so I before I headed out with the Jeep this morning she wrote out & taped a note to my hat!!  Luckily I remembered to remove it when I got to Wal-Mart or else I might have ended up in one of those 'Wal-Mart Photos' you see going around on the internet these days.  Actually, by the looks of my old running shoes, sleeves ripped off my shirt, grubby old baseball cap & pants with half a dozen & a half holes & paint stains on them I'm liable to find myself in those files anyway.  Seems the older I'm getting, the more I'm starting to look like one of them there Redneck characters which of course reminded me of................GROANERS CORNER:(( 

             

NO WONDER I THOUGHT IT WAS FOGGY OUT THIS MORNING!!

"You know you're a redneck when......
1. You take your dog for a walk and you both use the same tree.
2. You can entertain yourself for more than 15 minutes with a fly swatter.
3. Your boat has not left the driveway in 15 years.
4. You burn your yard rather than mow it.
5. You think "The Nutcracker" is a vice on the work bench
6. The Salvation Army declines your furniture.
7. You offer to give someone the shirt off your back and they don't want it.
8. You have the local taxidermist on speed dial.
9. You come back from the dump with more than you took.
10. You keep a can of Raid on the kitchen table.
11. Your wife can climb a tree faster than your cat.
12. Your grandmother has "ammo" on her Christmas list.
13. You keep flea and tick soap in the shower.
14. You've been involved in a custody fight over a hunting dog.
15. You go to the stock car races and don't need a program.
16. You know how many bales of hay your car will hold.
17. You have a rag for a gas cap.
18. Your house doesn't have curtains, but your truck does.
19. You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean ?
20. You can spit without opening your mouth.
21. You consider your license plate personalized because your father made it.
22. Your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand.
23. You have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say "Cool Whip" on the side.
24. The biggest city you've ever been to is Wal*Mart.
25. Your working TV sits on top of your non-working TV
26. You've used your ironing board as a buffet table.
27. A tornado hits your neighborhood and does $100,000 worth of improvements.
28. You've used a toilet brush to scratch your back.
29. You missed your 5th grade graduation because you were on jury duty.
30. You think fast food is hitting a deer at 65 MPH.

And did you know that Kelly told the 'window tint' guy yesterday the real reason for getting our Jeep windows darkened was to prevent her husband from scaring people. 

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UN-AWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

AL'S SMUG MUG PHOTO GALLERY http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/ (a work in progress)

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.