UPDATE: Computer problems and very limited internet connection...

Well, it took a ridiculous amount of time just to type the title for this post. I wonder how long it will take to finish this post?...hmmm... (a very frigging looooong time! You don't even want to know!)

Firstly, this is a very nice RV park, but the (slow) internet connection goes out frequently, sometimes for a whole day. Trying to use it during the day is almost always impossible, so it's a good thing that I'm a "night owl"...but this is just nuts! If I stay up into the night to use this laptop, then I'm too tired to do anything during the day, but sleep. If I go with William during the day to do stuff and see things, which I love, ...and take pictures, which I also love to do, as most of you well know, then I'm too tired to use the computer late at night. Very frustrating.

I've seriously considered using Verizon (our phone service) internet to tether to my laptop, which I usually do for only a few days at a time when we're actually on the road, but as a monthly usage while here in Texas for the winter, it's just too darn expensive (I would easily use up the 5 gb limit in no time, and I refuse to pay $80.00 per month for their 10 gb limit (I doubt that it would be enough for me either). I keep hoping that Verizon will come up with a truly unlimited, reasonably priced plan soon. In the meantime, I'll just keep "making do" with what I have (and be grateful for it). :-)

Secondly, my laptop is showing serious signs of age and wear. It's time for a new one (thinking of a MAC), but after our fairly recent truck and RV purchases (which we plan to use for the next 20 years! LOL), we have to be very frugal for a while, ...it's just not in the budget right now. I've had this DELL XPS1710 since June of 2006. We'll never buy another DELL! This is the third replacement they sent me, since the first two didn't work. This one isn't even the same model we originally ordered...they decided that they would send me their newest top-shelf model to get me to stop calling and complaining.

It has Windows Vista, which I did not order, so I had to learn that too (still not sure if I have! LOL). They also had to replace the printer (that came with the original order) three times, same reason, didn't work. The third one worked for a little while (with very light usage), but it died over a year ago and we haven't replaced it yet, even though I do need one sometimes. I'm looking for a printer that does NOT use $28.00 ink cartidges, and will be RV friendly, but there's no rush because of the condition of this computer.

This laptop crashed a year ago, was supposedly "repaired" at a local computer shop at a high cost, the worst of which was permanently losing some very expensive professional web design programs and many, many photos that had not been backed up yet. :-(
It's been working since then, but it's never been the same as it was, and seems to have lost a huge amount of memory. I'm very careful with it (always have been) and it rarely gets moved around.

And now, for the second time in a year, some of the keys simply stopped working (they inexplicably, magically started working one day after a couple of weeks about six months ago).
Now and for the past few weeks, I have to use the "virtual" on-screen keyboard in order to use the space bar, forward slash, question mark and the letters "b" and "n" (like right now).
I don't use a mouse...just the little pad below the keys...and a couple of my fingers...LOL.
I guess I should pull out that little portable mouse that I always pack, but never use...might make this a bit easier...ya think?

I have been reading and keeping up with all of your blogs (which I enjoy immensely, it makes me feel connected to you, my blog friends)...but please forgive me for not leaving comments...sometimes I try, but then get fed up and I give up because typing on this thing is such a pain in the neck.

For the time being, and for as long as I have to, most of my posts will consist of just photos...hopefully telling a story each time...or at least keeping everyone up to date with where we are and what we're doing. Please know that I will try to respond to your comments and emails...if I can.
- Mary Ann

A little note about this RV park: http://www.ransomroadrvparkinc.com
We like it MUCH better than where we stayed last year! (Pioneer RV Beach Resort in Port Aransas). Ransom Road RV Park in Aransas Pass is very clean, quiet, pleasant and well maintained! The management and fellow rv'ers are very friendly, but they're not nosy or intrusive. I can go for days without talking to anyone if I want to...love that! It's close to all kinds of great places...and the price is right! :-)

SHOPPING: Sams Club or Costco?

OK, I've been thinking about this for some time, but Rick
gave me a nudge with his poll about which web browser people use most (it was Firefox, but I use IE, for now) ...... (thanks Rick), so, I thought I'd try a poll too.

William and I have a Sam's Club membership. Anyway, I've heard people say that they like Costco better and I've heard people say that they have memberships at both (that would cost about $80.00 per year for both)...is it worth it? Or is one better than the other for various reasons, in your opinion?

Please tell me why, if you feel like it...and please at least cast your (anonymous) vote in my poll. (Upper right corner of this page...see it? Yep, that's it!) It will be up for the next few days, then I'll let you all know the final outcome. Thank you! :-)

- Mary Ann

I screwed up our blog! ...aarrrggghh!

Well, it figures, heh? I finally get ready to post a new blog...actually something related to our travels for a change...I log in and see the message for the "new design features"....

oooooh, I think...I'll try it! Should be pretty easy, and then I can finally have the wider display that I've wanted...like some of my fellow bloggers have.
Cool, right? NOT!

I've been monkeying around with this thing for the past hour and a half and my blog is not only no where near visually what I wanted, but it's WORSE! YIKES!

I probably should have just ASKED my fellow bloggers (the ones with the wide columns) HOW to widen MY columns...I'll bet they would have helped?

Any simple, easy suggestions welcome! In the meantime, hang in there folks...I'll get this back to something I can live with soon, might take me a day or two.

- Mary Ann

UPDATE: July 25, 2010 - It seems to be ok now, I should have updated this post a day or two after I posted it. I'll most likely keep "tweaking" things, but everything seems to be working pretty well for now.
The color is a bit strange at times, but I kind of like it.

A blog everyone should check out: click link below...

"If these "pro troops" groups really wanted to help wounded warriors, they would come see them, ask what they need, and provide it. Instead, all they do is hold up signs outside Walter Reed on Friday nights. Silly. And a waste of time and effort."

Check out this blog and you'll know why I'm suggesting it to you:
http://www.CirclingTheMoon.blogspot.com

Thank you, Jack Kerouac.

Simply, thank you, Jack Kerouc.
- Mary Ann









Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family. He attended local Catholic schools and won a football scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs. He quit school in his sophmore year and joined the Merchant Marine, beginning the restless wanderings that were to continue for the greater part of his life. His first novel The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, first published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassidy, that epitomized to the world what became known as "the Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most controversial and best-known writers of his time. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered them all to be part of "one enormous comedy," which he called The Duluoz Legend. "In my old age," he wrote, "I intend to collect all my work and reinsert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy." He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.

Town and the City, the (1950)
On the Road (1957)
Dharma Bums, the (1958)
Subterraneans, the (1958)
Maggie Cassidy: A Love Story (1959)
Doctor Sax (1959)
Tristessa (1960)
Lonesome Traveler (1960)
Big Sur (1962)
Visions of Gerard (1963)
Desolation Angels (1965)
Satori in Paris (1967)
Vanity of Duluoz (1968)
Pic (1971)
Visions of Cody (1972)
Orpheus Emerged (2000)
Mexico City Blues (1959)
Scripture of the Golden Eternity, the (1960)
Scattered Poems (1971)
Old Angel Midnight (1973)
Heaven & Other Poems (1977)
Book of Dreams - Definitive, Unabridged Edition, the (2001)

"you pay through the nose for short-lived shows. . . ."
- Jack Kerouac

I know...I have a LOT of blogging (catching up) to do!

I've been blaming my lack of blogging on the very slow Internet connection here, but it shouldn't actually have kept me from writing. The slow connection is due, I believe, to what appears to be an almost full RV park, lot's of wind and rain and cold, thus EVERYONE and their brother trying to use the Internet at the same doggone time! When it's warm and sunny, we try to get out and RIDE or hang out on the beach or do SOMETHING. I get on this computer almost every day and check my MySpace, Facebook, email, do maintenance on websites I've made for other people, read blogs I follow and by then HOURS have gone by and I'm too tired (or too lazy) to think clearly enough to write anything, SO, here I am telling you all that I'm going back about a month or so and will be posting LOTS of photos of our adventures here in Port Aransas as my slow Internet connection allows. Heck, I haven't even gone back yet to update my previous blogs...oh well, I hope that gives you all something to look forward to. By the way, I sure do enjoy reading other's blogs!
:-)

Who does this look like? (click pic to enlarge)

We know who these faces look like to us, but we're curious to find out what names other people come up with. The bodies don't have anything to do with it. Just concentrate on the two faces.

Who do they remind YOU of?
Please tell us in a comment, thanks.

Next time you you visit...

...our blog... please scroll down towards the bottom of the page and sign our new guestbook before you leave? We see that people are visiting from all over the world and it would be fun for us to put faces to those visits...or at least a few words. And please don't be shy about commenting on the blogs too. Much appreciated! Thank you!