This is Wednesday, so if you are part of the working world, this is probably hump day for you. No, that doesn’t mean getting frisky with the receptionist in the supply closet; it means that your work week is half over.
Even though we are not retired and run our business from the road, we don’t have a hump day. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a hump day. When you run a small-town newspaper, it’s often a seven day a week job, and many times those days run twelve or fourteen hours or more. Several nights a week would find me covering town council meetings, planning and zoning commission meetings, school activities, or some other community event. I always told people that I only made minimum wage, but I got a whole lot of overtime every week! 🙂
For nonworking RVers, hump day doesn’t matter. In fact, I know a lot of them who never seem to know what day of the week it is. Their schedule might be, “It must be Sunday because America’s Funniest Home Videos are on,” or “It’s Thursday night, time for Mike and Molly.” I know a lot of them that don’t even wear a wristwatch. Then again, I guess you don’t need one if you have a cell phone in your pocket all the time. It will tell you what time it is if you have to be someplace at a certain time. And if you don’t have to be, who cares what time it is?
Time is a funny thing for fulltime RVers and snowbirds. I know some who never set the alarm clock, who go to sleep when they feel like it and wake up when they do, and don’t worry about time. I also know a lot of them who seem to still be locked into their old working schedules, they’re up at 6 AM every morning, and in bed by 10 PM.
Then you have people like Terry and me, who are night owls and seldom get to bed before 1:30 or 2 AM, and quite often 3 AM. Which means, of course, we don’t wake up very early. Unless we are traveling or have an appointment, we are almost never out of bed before 9 AM, and 10 or 11 o’clock is not unheard of.
It’s always amazed me how many of the early birds take offense to our schedule. More than once, someone has said to us, “It’s about time you got up, you wasted half the day.” Hey, I don’t complain when they go to bed so early, or that they’re up making noise and disturbing me early in the morning. What’s that all about?
Fortunately, some of our best friends seem to have the same schedule we do. I know I can call Greg White at midnight without fear of waking him up. The same for our pals Tom and Barbara Westerfield, or Charles and Chris Yust. Maybe that’s why we are such good friends, our biorhythms are in sync or something.
Terry and I have to start weaning ourselves away from our regular schedule in the next week or so and going to bed earlier, so we can start waking up earlier. Otherwise we’re going to have a hard time adjusting to the early hours ahead of us at our Ohio Gypsy Journal Rally.
Speaking of the rally, yesterday we e-mailed or snail mailed rally information letters to everybody who is registered. I also uploaded the new issue of the Gypsy Journal and sent the link to our digital subscribers. Now I guess I had better go to bed and start that weaning process I wrote about.
Thought For The Day – It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. – Mark Twain
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick I am disappointed that there wont be an SKP weighing crew at your rally but not surprised by the lack of response from Livingston to your followup inquiries. It is indicative of what seems to be a growing new mindset from Escapees. It seems the days of caring and sharing are over and the second and third generation family members are focused on other things these days. Sad to see.
Nick,
Being self employed means you get to help choose which 80 hour you’re going to work this week.
Butch
I do not care much about Wednesdays except for us, hump day is dump day.
see you soon
Really liked this blog today Nick. Hours we keep are the talk of our house all the time. Linda my wife is just like you and Terry, stay up till 3:00 am without a problem. But me, I’m gone to bed by 10:00 pm up by 5:00 am. Some say how do you guys have that different of schedule and I just say we both get our private time this way. When you fulltime, for us it’s a much needed time.
Dave
I wish forgetting what day it is was my only problem. Just the other day (I don’t remember what day) I was talking with a fellow parked in the site across from us and he asked me where we came in from. I had to stop and ask him “what state are we in now?” (Michigan), Then just yesterday I was paying the bartender here at the Elks Lodge in Niagara Falls and had to ask her what the date was so I could put it on the check. She said it was the 14th. I followed that up with “what month?”. Then a little while later I had to go back in and have her tear up that check so I could replace it with another because I didn’t pay for enough days. I knew we were staying thru Saturday, but I thought it was Wednesday, not Tuesday, so I had to pay for one more day. I guess I need to start paying more attention. 8^)
I can’t wait for the day I can throw away my watch. I too am a night owl, but teaching school only allows my night-time muse to come out on weekends and summers.
We do not follow a time schedule any longer. Like most full timers we go with our flow. We usually are in bed by midnight but have been know to stay up until 1 or so. It is not so much what the time is it is we never know what time zone we are in, this was apparent when we went to the movies the other day and were told the could not sell us a ticket for the movie we wanted to see since it started over an hour ago, yep we changed time zones again and did no know it. It sure plays havoc with my internal clock. See you in a few day in Ohio, sure hope it is on Eastern Time
Hey Nick,
It’s your rally. Why not start at 10 or 11am and have seminars until 8 or 9pm? That way you wouldn’t need to change your rhythm. Let the early birds eat worms.
I like Huggins’ dump day. We’re not that organized.
Days and times matter only when we present our seminars and classes.
Looking forward to your new book.
I know there is lots to do, but get some rest before the rally. You aren’t as young as you look. And take good care of our Terry.
Disclaimer: I wrote this before reading Jim Guld’s comment.
I think you should have a night owls’ rally. The coffee and donuts start at 10 am and there are no programs before then. The lunch break would be in what most people think of as afternoon coffee break time and seminars would go into primetime TV hours. Think how many of us would love that!
When I attended my first Gypsy Journal Rally I hoped that would be the timing since I know you live on my clock. I was disappointed to learn I had to either get up or miss things.
As to knowing what time it is, I do my computer backups on Sundays because my on-line comics look different so I know it is time to do backups.
That’s pretty crappy that the Escapees would not even let you know they would not be coming so you could make other arrangements for RV weighing. I sure have seen you giving them lots of support and publicity over the years. I guess it isn’t a 2 way street is it?
I agree with Linda and Jim. The early birds have had their way for too long. It’s time to give us night-owls a chance.
Could the obesity problem be caused by early birds over-stuffing themselves with worms? Just a thought.