Miss Terry worked her magic again this week, and as of this morning, the newest issue of the Gypsy Journal is moving through the mail toward their eagerly waiting subscribers. Now it is, officially, playing time! 🙂
Well, if playing includes trying to finish the sequel to Big Lake by the end of the month, working on the schedule for our Arizona Gypsy Journal Rally, blogging, and filling orders as they come in. But I have it easy. Poor Terry has to to clean up after me, cook for me, clean up after I eat, and keep me from getting into trouble, which is way too easy for me to do.
Yesterday morning, Lenny Thomas stopped by to drop off some fresh bagels he had picked up for us at a place in Kissimmee called A Roll With A Hole Bagels and Ice Cream. Terry heated us each one in her new toaster oven and served them with butter. Yummy! Thanks Lenny!
In the afternoon, we made a run to the post office to drop off several bins of envelopes, and then to the UPS Store to send off the boxes of papers that go to the various mail forwarding services that many of our RVing subscribers use. We got to chatting with the lady behind the counter, and as it turns out, her cousin and her husband are RV snowbirds who are spending part of the winter nearby, so we gave her a copy of the paper to take to them.
Back at the campground, I stretched out on the couch for a quick nap, that lasted well over an hour. As a kid I hated them, but I have come to value naps as I get older. They are like taking a short vacation from life.
Part of the reason I needed a nap (besides my innate laziness) is that the lady in the motorhome parked behind us has three or four (or maybe five very yappy little Chihuahuas that just love to make noise. If they see anything moving, they all go off in unison, and don’t stop until they run out of oxygen. And these aren’t dogs who just bark when the owner is away and unaware of it. The other day she was sitting outside with them and they barked and barked at everything that moved, and it didn’t seem to bother her at all.
We have been taking advantage of the nice weather to sleep with our windows open, and yesterday morning about 6 a.m. they serenaded me awake. I love dogs, but I hate undisciplined noisemakers, and I’m not too fond of their owners either. I eventually got back to sleep, after grumbling for an hour or so. Yesterday I stopped at the office to complain, and they said they would handle it. I’m really becoming a grouchy old fart, huh?
Back in October, my buddy Greg White wrote a blog post titled Buns and Bays, in which he talked about the Amazon Prime service, which is an Amazon program that gives you free Second Day shipping on everything you order. At about $80 a year, it’s not cheap, but if you order much from Amazon, it pays for itself quickly. And as Greg wrote in his blog, it’s fantastic for RVers, because anything you order gets delivered to your campground quickly, so you can coordinate your Amazon orders and your travel schedule.
They had a free 30 day trial on Prime, so we decided give it a shot, and it has already paid for itself in savings over retail prices, as well as shipping costs, between a couple of orders we have placed for ourselves, and Christmas presents we sent to Arizona.
And it’s really convenient to get items so fast! Even though I do most of my reading on my Kindle these days, I still buy a number of reference books in printed format, and I have found that if I come across a book in a bookstore and like it, I can use my Droid to find it online at Amazon, and usually save a bunch of money. Now, with Prime, it’s at the campground in two days. Way cool!
Thought For The Day – When scientists eventually discover the center of the universe, a lot of people are going to be disappointed to learn that it’s not them.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
ah, but the almost better things about Amazon Prime, besides the free 2-day shipping, is the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library (thousands of books available for a 30-day lending period if you’re a Prime member with a Kindle)!
There’s also their growing collection of free movies and TV shows that can be streamed for free to a computer or TV with a streaming device (such as a Roku), but this will likely not be used much by RVers due to bandwidth limitations at most RV parks.
Nick;I once had a neighbor that owned a barking dog that would sit next to them on their deck and bark his head off at ( Whatever ) for hours at a time.
I belleive that it was out of total disreguard that the owners allowed it to happen.
I did find on line a solution…
A train your neighbors dog to stop barking on line via Google.
The devices offered seem to send out a frequency once the dog barks that they fund unconfortable to them.
I’m thinking that with a couple of suction cups it could be mounted on your coach and directed to the perp.
Too bad that it coulden’t be directer to the owner..huh?
We love to go to book stores. But I fear they are an endangered species. Amazon will probably end up putting them out of business. Boarders book store is gone, and from what I’ve read, Barnes & Noble is on a slide. With that said, I have to confess that we are not helping their bottom line much, since we buy less books from them than we have in the past. We just ordered 9 books through Amazon which saved us about 35% from the B&N price.
I hate to see bookstores close, too, but my heart rests with libraries. Before bookstores the libraries were a lot more prosperous and used by people of all income levels. Now, E-books have come into existence, and even I have an E-reader.
However, I download books from libraries, so time will tell what impact E-readers will have on libraries. I guess I don’t personally care about Barnes & Noble or Borders.
We are currently taking advantage of the 30 day trial Prime service from Amazon as well. It has certainly come in handy at this time of year but not sure if we will continue or not – gonna check out the benefits for the period of time we spend back home in Canada. Have to admit that Amazon has some great marketing techniques.
Both the Cowboy and I are anxiously (no pressure ;-)) awaiting for your next book. We Loved ‘Big Lake’ !!!
Thank You!
I’m with you on the barking dog problem. It’s not the dogs fault, it’s the owner’s lack of training… as for the bookstores: I LOVE secondhand bookstores and can always find such great deals. I’m thinking that Barnes and Noble will survive just fine though as that is where most of the colleges have their bookstores affiliate with. We all know how outrageous textbooks are so they should be able to stay afloat even though. Along with the Nook they will probably be around for awhile. Now, as for the amazon prime… only wish I would have signed up sooner. Wonderful savings on my shipping and the other perks mentioned are great too. I totally LOVED your book Nick and am looking forward to the new one…again as stated before… no pressure. Merry Christmas to you both!
I learn good, useful things when I visit this blog. Thanks for the heads up about Amazon Prime, Nick (and other readers)!