Thanks to everybody who e-mailed me saying get well. It seems to be working. I was in bed by midnight Saturday night. I just crashed and slept eleven hours. When I woke up yesterday I felt a lot better, and by day’s end I was almost back to normal. I knew I was feeling better when my appetite returned!
While I was so out of it, Terry was working hard, and managed to get all of the envelopes stuffed for the new issue. I don’t know how that lady does it! Today we’ll drive back to Flagstaff to drop everything off at the mail service, and we’ll hit a few RV parks in Flagstaff and here in Williams, dropping off bundles of sample copies of the paper. Then we can relax and get back to having fun.
I’m afraid to even look at the news right now. In addition to the two forest fires burning around Flagstaff that I wrote about previously, two new fires have started. One burned over 3,000 acres yesterday, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate their homes, and the other, the fourth fire currently burning in the area, was still going strong yesterday evening. Here is the view of the smoke from one of the fires, looking out our RV windshield from our site at Canyon Gateway RV Park.
While Terry was finishing up the mailing yesterday, I uploaded the new digital edition for our online subscribers, and discovered an unexpected benefit of using the new InDesign page layout program. Previous PDF issues of the digital paper averaged about 22 MB in size, and InDesign lets me upload them with the same quality, at just under 6 MB, which means it opens and downloads faster for our subscribers.
Now that we have the paper done, we plan to head toward the California coast. We originally were going to stop in Kingman, Arizona for a day or so to visit my friend Mike Howard, but having just been sick, I don’t want to take any chance of passing anything on to him. So we’ll stop and abuse Mike’s hospitality another time.
That is if the wind dies down a bit. It’s been blowing hard ever since we got here, and I don’t like to drive the motorhome when I have to battle the wind every mile. What fun is that? That’s the great thing about the fulltime RV lifestyle, we don’t have to rush to get anywhere, because wherever we are, we’re at home!
Bad Nick spent some time at the computer yesterday, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled This Land Isn’t Our Land. Check it out and leave a comment.
Thought For The Day – If you can’t feed ’em, don’t breed ’em.
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Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
We loved your Thought fot the Day today. We presume you aren’t talking about just puppies and kittens and fuzzy baby rabbits. As the old (VERY old!) cartoon used to say: “There Oughta Be A Law!” Actually there was or is a law in China that a family can’t have more than one child. That’s why (shudder!) so many girl babies were drowned or otherwise eliminated.
6 KB???? or 6 MB perhaps?
Always hate to see wildfires in Az.
I just downloaded the lates electronict issue of the Gypsy Journal, and was pleased with how fast it loaded. I also was pleased with the razor sharp resolution of text and images, and with the overall “readability” (as well as the content) of the issue. As a frequent reader of your blog, much of the content was familiar to me, but, at my age and stage of mind, repetition is a desirable thing.
As a very small caveat, I found that the five column “Letters to the Editor” section required a fair amount of up-and-down scrolling, but that’s a minor point. I always found the five column format highly readable in the print version; I am guessing that is still the bulk of your subscription base. Overall, I am very pleased with the e-version, and am glad I no longer must pay the folks in livingston to forward my print issue.
While I am on the subject of electronic media, I just bought my wife a Barnes and Noble Nook. She came to this format kicking and screaming, but she gave it a fair trial, and now likes it very much. I like it because I will no longer have to carry 30 pounds of books all over the world! My point is to ask if you have considered publishing your books electronically? I have no idea how many of your potential customers own a Nook or a Kindle, or a Sony e-reader; it might not be worth your while financially, but I thought I would plant a bug in your bonnet (if I may mix metaphors).
Travel safe. I look forward top meeting you in Elkhart.
Love your Thought For The Day.
I have always believed that all the major problems of the world have the underlying fact that human over population whether locally or in the world in general was the real root cause of the problem. When I was still teaching the world population was rushing toward 6 billion. It’s now rushing or has just passed 6 and 1/2 billion. Half of the world’s population is in China and India. That’s why so many of the 7-11 type stores are run by India Indians. They want OUT of overcrowding. Unfortunately for all of us the world is ROUND. There is no where else to go except the earth. The moon, Mars and all our closest planets are presently uninhabitable. The technology to terraform them to be like earth is LOTS of year away. So it’s earth or nowhere. Will we overpopulate and destroy the earth? Probably. It is not of matter of if, it’s when.
Mexicans want a better lifestyle. It’s better here than in Mexico. Therefore here they come. Frankly, I think enough is enough. While we are a nation of immigrants, that was when we had lots of open land and we were able to expand. No where to go now. We hit the Pacific Ocean and across it is only China, India and overcrowded Indonesia. It’s time to realize there are too many people on the earth. How to stop it? Stop having babies. I know that’s controversial too. People have rights. Well so, do I. Stop having so many babies. China understands it. When will other countries learn? When we have war, people flooding over borders from one country to another, poverty, people living in the dump, famines, diseases associated with overpopulation, epidemics. Oops, begins to sound like NOW!!!!!!!!!!
I have to second Keith Sheffler’s request for your books in eBook format, Nick. I’m one of those people who is a voracious reader, and now being a full-timer, finding it difficult to carry around all of my books because of space and weight limitations. I bought a Sony eReader and have been either downloading electronic versions of the books I really want to keep, manually converting the ones that aren’t available in electronic formats by scanning them into my computer page by page (a laborious process), or giving away books that I just cannot carry, in hopes to find them again when I can get around to reading them. Don’t get me wrong, I love the feel of a real book in my hand, and often times prefer it, but this lifestyle just doesn’t lend itself to book-aholics like myself. 😉
I realize that electronic publishing can have its drawbacks, but you might make even more sales considering the audience you’re writing to. The more RVers I talk to, the more I find are requesting their magazine subscriptions be available to download online and are buying eBook Readers. Just a thought. 🙂
Right now I’m enjoying reading your newest electronic edition of the Gypsy Journal. Thanks for all your hard work and stay clear of those fires!
We are happy to read that you are feeling better. AZ has changed place with California as far as fires go. Maybe there is not any thing left to burn. Just be super careful with any fires we learned in California those darn things move very fast with the wind. We got caught on one a few years back. We stopped for gas, we knew there was a fire burning about 20 miles from where we were, half way thru pumping the CHP with lights a blinking telling every one to get out the fire was three blocks away, nice thought at a gas station. We got the hell out but only driven a few miles when the fire caught up to us. Thank God that we did out run it.. It was the scariest and sadist day knowing that several hundred people would be displaced when their homes burnt. I liked your thought for the day, wish it would be.
Keith and Cheryl.
All of our guides (Free Campgrounds, Fairgrounds RV Parking, Casino Camping, etc.) are available in PDF format, so if your e-book reader will read a PDF, no problem.
My other RVing books (Highway History, Meandering Down The Highway, The Frugal RVer, and Work Your Way Across The USA) are also available in PDF format. Until now I have not advertised them this way, but with the growth of e-book readers, it sounds like a good idea.