Archive for August, 2007
August 8, 2007 at 10:26 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Our local fair is Addison County Fair and Field Days. As fairs go, it’s pretty small, but it has all the key elements of a county fair: forbidden food, a Fairway with colorfully lit rides, farm animals, 4H exhibits, a parade, and all kinds of vendors.
You can walk from one end of the fair to the other in a couple of minutes, but if you’ve lived in Addison County for more than a few years you’re likely to encounter half a dozen people you know along the way. There are some people we only see at the fair, so it’s important to go every year just to stay in touch. It’s an August routine, waving at people with a smoked turkey leg or maple milk in your hand.
County fairs seem to be everywhere, but I’ve noticed in our travels that each region reveals its culinary traditions at the fair. Here in Vermont, maple syrup is king, so we are blessed with delights such as maple bread, maple milk, maple shakes, maple doughnuts, and maple cotton candy.
We bought maple cotton candy for Emma and her friend Kati, but it turned out to be so good that soon the adults had their own (and I still pilfered a few pieces from the kids). I also had maple milk (7 oz. whole milk with a healthy shot of Grade B Dark Amber maple syrup, delicious), but I was denied my traditional maple-frosted doughnut — they were out.
Like a lot of fairs, Addison County recognizes the agricultural background of the area. Tractor sales dominated the center of the fairground, and in the evening an antique tractor parade rumbled through, with old tractors by Oliver, Case, Allis-Chalmers, and Ford. Squashes and cakes and whole stands of corn were on display with red and blue ribbons. Young future farmers were outside the Cow Palace, carefully and throughly washing their livestock for judging. My daughter rarely gets as well cleaned as some of these cows were.
Of course, the real attraction of the fair for Emma and her buddy is the rides. A 15-dollar bracelet was their ticket to unlimited fun. Tilt-A-Whirl, Dragon Rollercoaster, a couple of slides, and Merry-Go-Round … all classic amusement park rides. The warm humid evening disappeared in ride after ride until finally the kids were sweaty and exhausted, and it was time to go home and talk about going to the fair again next year.
August 6, 2007 at 11:02 pm · Filed under Maintenance, Mobile technology
The hike was too much for Emma yesterday. I’m glad we called it off rather than completing the hike, because she spent the rest of the day lounging and still slept 12 hours last night. She awoke today to find gray drippy skies, cool temperatures, and Mom and Dad firmly parked in the Airstream.
Eleanor is still deep into Harry Potter, feverishly reading Book 4 at this point. As a writer, I feel her speed-reading of the series is an affront to J.K. Rowling. It took a year to write each book and Eleanor is gulping them down like goldfish crackers. If Eleanor continues at this pace, her head will likely explode. She admits to having Harry Potter dreams each night. But she’s under a magic spell of sorts and so she spent the morning reading about Harry and Hermione and Ron again.
Being a gloomy Monday, and since I am recharged with a week’s worth of sunshine and good times, I felt it was appropriate to get right back to work and deal with some ugly accounting issues that I’ve been postponing, related to our new bookstore accounts.
New bookstore accounts, you ask? Yes! The Fall 2007 issue of Airstream Life is going to be available in select Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, and Books-A-Million bookstores as of Aug 22, 2007! That’s huge news for us, drastically broadening the reach of Airstream Life magazine, but it also means I’ve got more work to do each quarter, keeping track of the complex bookstore sales-return accounts.
Eleanor finally put down Harry and got into her long-postponed task too, which was defrosting the refrigerator. Being full-timers, our refrigerator is never turned off. So eventually, it needs defrosting. This time we let it go a little too far. The coils were completely encased in ice (above photo shows them half-cleared), which really limits the ability of the refrigerator to cool itself.
It turned out to be an ideal task for the day. The cool weather meant she could put everything in an ice chest for the hour or so it took to do the job, without worry of food spoiling, and with Emma paused by the cold virus, there wasn’t much else to do anyway.
I had another task related to full-timing, too. A few months ago I moved our company bank account because the bank we were using had completely inadequate online services. As I’ve mentioned, I run an entirely virtual business and am dependent on good online services from as many vendors as possible. Our former bank couldn’t give me online access to our business line of credit, couldn’t manage online transfers between accounts, couldn’t supply monthly statements that showed the names of payees (even when I used their bill pay service!), and in general has been about as hip to the Internet as Lawrence Welk. When I sent a payment to the line of credit at their bank using their bill pay service, it took five days to clear, because — get this — they cut a paper check and sent it to another branch of their own organization.
Today I went into the local branch to close the old accounts. I felt I needed to look the branch manager who opened the accounts for me several years ago right in the eye and tell him honestly but politely why I was switching. He understood my reasoning and sent me to the teller windows to get the job done. And here’s what happened:
1) The teller could not get a payoff amount for the line of credit. She didn’t have access to that information, even though I opened the line of credit at that specific branch.
2) The teller called the bank’s account closure department and THEY couldn’t tell us the payoff. They can only fax the payoff amount “within 24-48 hours”. (What if you don’t have a fax?)
3) They told me that once I got the payoff amount via fax, I’d need to come into the bank to actually make the payoff (or call it in). Can’t do it online, of course.
4) They couldn’t close the line of credit account, because I need to send in a “request” via fax referencing the “request number” I was given over the phone when I, uh, made the request. Got that?
5) They couldn’t close the checking account because it will take five days to clear the payment I’m making, even though that payment is from their bank to their bank.
So in the end, I got virtually nothing done as a result of my twenty minutes at the bank. I’m not mentioning the name of the bank out of respect for my friends who work there, but I’m sharing this story as an example. Those of you who want to work on the road: My recommendation is to have low tolerance for large businesses who still can’t provide decent online tools.
To those of you in the banking industry: Quit spending all your time merging with each other and start competing! My bank has been through half a dozen mergers in the past few years, and each time the changes they institute “to serve you better” haven’t done a bit of good. I don’t care how many branches you have. In the age of the Internet, for me, bank branch offices are about as useless as travel agent offices. Haven’t stepped into a travel agent’s office in over ten years… and considering how little I managed to accomplish as a result of my visit to the local bank branch, I suspect it will be a long time before I bother doing that again either.
Surprisingly, I came out of the bank amused rather than aggravated. I can only attribute this to the fact that we’ve had such a spectacular past week. Or maybe it’s just having extra space in the refrigerator …
August 5, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
A fine weekend is more than just good weather. It’s a combination of subtle cues that build up to a happy, relaxed, slightly tired, and memory-filled conclusion. For me, it’s also a collaboration of colors (green trees, blue water, pink flowers, brown wood signs, and orange hues of sunset), and sounds of people playing, and smells of plant fragrance and cedar trees. By those measures, it has been a fine weekend.
On Friday Eleanor met a friend of hers and together they took the kids out for blueberry picking. Of course you can buy pre-picked flat of blueberries in the grocery store for less money than you pay to pick them, but that’s not the point at all. If the adults don’t get that point, the kids will, but in this case everyone saw that a sunny Friday afternoon was the ideal time to wander among the bushes, and so they did.
On Saturday we drowsed and puttered until late morning, then headed back to the lake for more puttering. In the afternoon we were supposed to head 70 miles south, to attend the birthday party of “Two Ton Tillie”, the 1967 Airstream owned by our friend Gail. Tillie is, of course, 40 years old and still looking lovely at her age.
Gail and Tillie, October 2006
Alas, the beautiful weather seduced us and we never did get around to climbing in the car for the party. Instead, I joined Steve and Carolyn for a boat ride across the lake to Split Rock Point (NY).
The lake was disturbed on Saturday by sun, wind, and a cold front. In the bay the waves weren’t bad, but crossing the lake we encountered the biggest swells I’ve ever seen on Lake Champlain. The little Boston Whaler was definitely challenged at times, and we had to proceed carefully.
On the New York side of the lake, iron mining was once a huge industry. South of Split Rock Point you can see big heaps of blasted shale sliding down the steep hills to the lake’s edge. (Google Earth location.) At the shore here, a step into the water put you almost instantly in 40-50 feet of water, and not much further out, the bottom drops to 100-200 feet in depth. We tied up the boat here and hiked up the loose rock to find a few abandoned mines and some spectacular views up the lake.
The water is at its peak temperature right now, and there’s nothing better than jumping in deep clear warm water right from the rocky edge of the lake to cool off after a hike. We had just finished doing this and were hiking back to the boat when we came across a porcupine. He waddled rather haughtily away from us, and demonstrated his impressive climbing skills up a few boulders. Porcupines like rocky dens, and the loose debris from the mining operation was a bonanza for him.
Sunday morning Emma and I joined Steve and Carolyn for a hike up Mt Abraham (Google Earth location), whichi is part of the Green Mountain range that forms the spine of Vermont. We hiked the Battell Trail up to join the Long Trail and paused at a shelter. Unfortunately, Emma has had a minor cold for the past two days and she wasn’t up to the full hike, so we turned back at this point, making our hike about four miles roundtrip. The views from the peak at Mt Abe are supposed to be spectacular, and today was very clear so the viewing would have been superb, but compromises have to be made sometimes. We had a nice time checking out newts and toads along the way.
Eleanor has not been able to join us for hikes and other active things lately. A couple of weeks ago she stubbed her toe severely and may have broken it. She’s hobbling around and it seems to be healing slowly, so it’s all she can do to get down to the rocky uneven beach once in a while, and she definitely can’t walk into the lake right now. It has been frustrating for her to miss out on all that action.
Still, dinner on the deck is something everyone can enjoy, and this time of year that’s what we have almost every night. Salmon, mushroom risotto, and green beans were tonight’s dinner, which we ate while the sun dipped down into the Adirondack Mountains across the lake.
Already we can feel the end of the season coming here in northern Vermont. After dinner we are starting to pull out sweatshirts once in a while. The county fairs are starting up next week. Small towns are having their annual Fire Department Chicken BBQ’s. The blueberries are at their peak of sweetness. Last night we closed the roof vents in the Airstream and needed to pull warm comforters over our beds in the middle of the night. All of these things are subtle clues that Vermont will soon be saying goodbye to summer, and feeling the cool breezes of fall. It’s a short season here, which makes ideal weekends like this scarce and precious.
August 3, 2007 at 9:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One nice thing about playing on the water is that there is something for everyone. You can swim, wade, ride in the boat, fish, ski, tube, and take photos. This is why everyone seems to be gathering at the lakeside every night while the weather is good.
Our friend Andy has arrived for a few days, and tonight my brother and Caroline popped by to take the boat out. Our Vermont friends Kristi and Zsolt and their three kids came over as well, bearing fresh picked blueberries from the local farm.
With all the people, it was a wild scene at the beach. We hauled down platters of Brie cheese and crackers to the Tiki Bar, the kids were busy chasing each other and collecting stones, and nearly everyone got in the water at some point. The breeze was blowing in from the lake and once we dipped in the water, the air felt absolutely perfect.
Then the games began. Andy was the first, bravely volunteering to be towed around on the ski tube by my brother. I say “bravely” because my brother is known for terrorizing people with this tube. Emma loves the abuse as the tube bounces on the waves and water splashes into her face, but most people find the experience to be challenging, to say the least. Andy survived without injury, which is more than we can say for other newbies. (A few years ago the tube jostled a friend so much that he went home early, exhausted. The next day he was in the hospital with a kidney stone that apparently been dislodged by the fun.)
Carolyn is the best wakeboarder in the crowd. She’s been goading me to keep trying it. But I was a miserable failure the one time I tried snowboarding, and I’ve never learned to ski downhill, nor waterski. For these reasons, I don’t regard myself as the most qualified candidate, but as it turns out wakeboarding is not all that hard. Only three sessions and I’m already getting up on the board reliably and having a reasonably good time. The muscle aches afterward aren’t that bad, either.
OK, let all those who say I am never pictured in the blog, be silent! Here I am, sporting a fine “farmer’s tan” and attempting a fancy trick that I call “DON’T FALL DOWN”. This is about the limit of my abilities on the wakeboard at present, and even this trick fails from time to time. But it’s still fun, and I’ll probably try again. Maybe with practice I’ll be able to do some wakeboarding on Lake Mead (NV) or Roosevelt Lake (AZ) next winter.
You might wonder, with us parked so long this summer, “Is this full-timing?” Why, yes, it is. See, the definition of “Airstreaming” or “full-timing” is up to you. Most full-timers I have met have long ago come to realize that it’s not all just travel. Sometimes the best use of the RV is to stop somewhere special, near family or friends, and stay a while. We’ll be traveling again in three weeks, but in the meantime I’m glad we are stopped here to enjoy the fruits of Vermont’s summer.
August 2, 2007 at 9:56 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We’ve reached the peak of summer here in Vermont. Today the temperature soared to the mid-90s, which is just about as hot as it ever gets here. For the record, it was warmer here today than it was in Tucson, and certainly more humid.
With this weather there’s only one thing to do: head to the water. Even with all three Fantastic Vents running, the interior of the Airstream got warm. Rather than seal it up with the air conditioning running, I joined Eleanor and Emma at the town pool during the “open swim” period in the afternoon. Emma taught me how to dive properly, and then we had a competition with some other kids to see who was the fastest at swimming from one side of the deep end to the other.
I am starting to see that she will soon be a better swimmer than me, so I may drop in for post-swim class lessons from her more often. I’ll need to practice to stay up with her.
Now we are experiencing the full host of summer activities. For example, Eleanor has been sucked into the vortex known as Harry Potter. After watching all five movies and hearing my father and I discussing the events of Book 7, she has finally decided to read the series from start to finish. She started the first book last night and will probably finish it tonight. That’s more of a testament to the enjoyable readability of the book than to her reading speed. Clearly, another Harry Potter addict has been created.
I finished Book 7 within 48 hours of receiving it. For a while there I was having fun teasing my father, who was choosing to savor it more slowly, with spoilers that I made up. “I’m just amazed that Snape turned out to be Harry’s real father!” “Wow, can you believe that the Weaslys all become Dark wizards?” “McGonagle and Hagrid get married? Didn’t see that coming!” That kind of thing. Unfortunately he didn’t fall for any of those. But I can try again with Eleanor later …
Another summer activity: This evening I was cajoled into trying wakeboarding again. The last time I tried, about a week ago, I crashed three times and ingested half a quart of lake water through my nose. Like teasing my Dad about Harry Potter, this is all considered part of the fun. So today I tried again, and did much better. But wow, can I feel it now, in the muscles of my legs, arms, and lower back. My 44th birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m starting to feel like it. Will I have to take Advil every time I want to do something fun from now on?
And finally, we are approaching an annual ritual that defines August to me. I have to make the big decision of what sort of birthday cake I want. I ask for no presents, but Eleanor does always make me whatever dessert I can describe. That’s a bonus worth ten presents, and it gives her an interesting challenge. In the past she has made some incredible things, so each year I take some time, flip through a few cookbooks, and have serious long talks with Eleanor about the birthday cake/pie/exotic creation. It’s worth thinking about.
One year, long before we started Airstreaming, the birthday dessert was a sort of hazelnut butter cream and raspberry torte that was indescribably good. There were salted and sugar glazed nuts on it, as I recall. It was so good that I would take a minute to slowly let each bite dissolve in my mouth. The best part was that it sounded awful and nobody liked it as much as I, so for once I got leftovers to take home. We froze it and ate pieces of it months later during the dark cold winter. I still remember the butter cream melting in my mouth and it makes me hungry all over again. Now there‘s a dessert!
August 1, 2007 at 9:48 pm · Filed under Mobile technology
We are often asked the same questions about our life over and over again, which is not a surprise. But it does surprise me that I am asked more often about how we get Netflix on the road than I am asked about how I manage to work. Most people don’t want to talk about work in the same conversation as RV’ing, I guess.
I’m actually rather proud of my portable office. After all, I run the operations of a quarterly magazine, in addition to writing, photographing, and editing it, all from a hundred different locations each year. Ordinary “road warriors” no longer impress me — sure, it sounds glamorous working from a Business Class seat on an airplane or from the comfortable hotel in Tokyo, but try doing it while crouching outside a closed coffee shop at midnight in Las Vegas while skateboard punks roll by. Or on a picnic table in the dark somewhere in Virginia. Or in 103 degree heat in Death Valley. Then you’ll be talking my language.
If you saw the movie “RV” with Robin Williams recently, you might recall the scene where he takes his laptop into the campground bathroom to upload some files. Like most of the rest of the movie, it was a fanciful idea. I remember thinking as I watched it, “Come on, Robin! You’ll never get a signal inside that concrete blockhouse!” My mobile worker instincts kicked in and I was silently urging him to get outside and perhaps find a picnic table to stand on.
You’ve got to be flexible to work on the road 365 days a year. I mean that in the literal sense (try balancing a laptop on one knee while typing with the other and trying not to topple over into the mud), and the figurative sense (dealing with constantly changing environments).
Just as importantly, you need to be extremely efficient. I’ve often talked about my efforts to eliminate paper in order to cut weight and bulk in the trailer. By scrupulously scanning almost everything into Portable Document Format (PDF), I can keep the amount of paper on my “desk” to no more than ten sheets of paper at a time, usually.
So my “desk” is actually a backpack that I picked up at a Florida flea market a year or so ago. It contains a zip-up organizer with room for loose paper, CDs, a pen, and a pad; my laptop, charger, and Verizon aircard in a padded case; and in the outer pockets there are business cards, cables, a mini letter opener, phone charger and a few other odds and ends.
When I think of the desk I left behind two years ago, I am amazed at how things have changed. My old desk was littered with paper, tape, Post-It notes, a stapler, file folders, a multi-line telephone with headset, and fax machine. Beneath it was 50 pounds of paper in two file drawers. In the closet behind me were shelves of office supplies, discs, more files, more cables, and obsolete office equipment of every possible description.
The laptop and the Internet are responsible for most of the change, of course, but a strong desire to be light and fast has been the key. With my blue backpack I can quickly move from trailer to cybercafe to a friend’s house — and even to a concrete bathroom if I need to — in minutes. On a big day, I’ll also tote along the backup hard drive, scanner, and camera, but that’s rare.
During the Lewis and Clark expedition, Captain Lewis brought a considerable quantity of something called portable soup along. It was an emergency concentrate of boiled and defatted meats with egg whites, and it apparently didn’t appeal to the men of the expedition. When it came down to starving or eating the portable soup, they would take a vote and decide to eat one of their valuable horses instead. I mention this only to point out that sometimes people will choose a self-destructive course rather than change their ways. In talking to people on the road, I’ve found that portable offices are sometimes viewed with the same distaste as portable soup.
No question, it’s a tough concept if you’ve been in traditional offices for a long time. It’s easy to go portable for a day or two, but going longer takes a certain obsession. I’ve been working from the road for over two years, so I guess I’m one of the obsessed ones. It has become such second nature to me that I will probably never bother to set up a permanent office again. I like the atmosphere of change that comes with getting shoved off the dining room table at dinnertime, and relocated to the bed where I have to sit cross-legged while I type. The constant change of scene reminds me of the excitement of travel, and it forces me to remain as efficient as I can possibly be. Beyond that, being fully portable precludes the possibility that I might have to dust my office someday.
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