Since it was kind of windy and chilly yesterday, we decided it would be another good one to stay at home. We seem to be getting pretty good at that.
I spent part of the day writing and got most of another chapter finished in my new book. It’s rolling right along, I just wish I could type as fast as I can think. If there is one regret I have in my time spent in classrooms, it is that I never learned to type. I’m strictly a two finger guy, and they are fat little fingers at that. So not only do I type slow, I also hit the wrong keys often enough to have to spend more time than I want to going back and making corrections.
A while back somebody gave me one of those Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing CDs, and I tried it, but it got me so messed up I was even slower than before. I guess you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Or at least, not this old dog.
Last year I wasted a lot of time and money on Dragon Dictate voice to text software. I also bought their tutorial DVD. Even at my slow typing speeds, I’m still faster than the time it takes to dictate something and then go back and fix all of the typos.
Maybe I need a secretary who can transcribe my dictation. Yeah, that’s it. A secretary! And as long as I’m getting a secretary, I might as well get a cute young blonde secretary. What’s that you say, Miss Terry? Okay, I’ll stop dreaming and get back to typing, ever so slowly.
During the afternoon, Greg White came over and tried to figure out why our internet connection is so terribly slow. We have better luck working off Greg’s WiFi signal than our Verizon 3G air card and Cradlepoint router, and our 4G MiFi won’t work here at all. I don’t know that we really resolved anything except to agree that yes, the service here sucks.
While we were at that, the campground’s maintenance man came by to tell us to fill our fresh water tanks because the water was being shut off due to a major break in the line and won’t be back on again until sometime today (hopefully). No problem, our fresh water tank was almost full and it only took a couple of minutes to top it off.
We know a lot of RVers who only keep their fresh water tanks about a quarter full so they don’t have to haul the extra weight around. But more than once we have come back to a campground after a day of exploring in our SUV to find the water turned off, or else weather or a mechanical issue has brought us off the road unexpectedly and we have had to dry camp. That’s when I’m glad to have that extra water onboard.
About 5 PM we went into town with Greg and Jan and Janis and Lenny Thomas for dinner at Hunan Diner, an excellent little Chinese restaurant. Good food with good friends always equals good times. Back at home, I tried to get online, finally gave up, and watched the premier of the new Men Who Built America series on the History Channel. It was pretty good, and interesting to see how the robber barons of the 19th century rose to power.
Thought For The Day – Don’t annoy authors. They may put you in a book and then kill you.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Hey Nick, did you get my email about Macintosh’s new dictation feature? It’s supposed to be pretty good – even for lengthy text – since it doesn’t rely on software on your computer – it takes your voice recording and sends it to Apple’s servers for transcription. Here’s more info: http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/13/inside_os_x_108_mountain_lion_gm_dictation_speech
I looked it over briefly but we have such a slow internet connection I have to wait to see it when we get someplace else.
Nick, we always keep our fresh water tank full (140 gallons) for the very reasons you stated. Many people subscribe to the notion that they don’t want to haul a lot of water up hill, but in the overall scheme of things the extra weight does not make a noticeable difference in mileage. When you consider that combined (coach + car trailer) I weigh 39,000 lbs. a few hundred extra pounds of water really is not going to make a difference.
I agree, the mileage difference is not measurable but it makes for lots of discussion on-line. Empty to full water tank is a 2% difference in weight. Wind, hills, and speed will have more effect than a partially empty tank.
Our 4G Verizon mifi also sucks. Do you still recommend the 3G aircard and cradlepoint router?
Wally, we use the 3G air card and CradlePoint router every day. Have not had the MiFi on in a long time because it’s worthless.