Modern Life

Last night's episode of "Modern Family" was hilarious. Especially the part about the family with the 3 kids who made a contest out of going cold turkey from any kind of electronic gadgets. You know, like cell phones and texting, IPads, video games, etc. One kid complained to her parents that she wound up with a B instead of an A on her school report because she had to use the family's (somewhat) complete set of encyclopedias instead of the Internet to do her research.

On Facebook, I notice more and more of my friends are posting from their IPhones or Droid phones. They are posting almost every move they make during the day including pictures of funny things that happen, when they actually happen. Frankly, I'm a little jealous. While I am not necessarily technology challenged. I'm definitely travelling in the slow lane. We just got a laptop last year. And my phone doesn't have those qwerty keypads for easy texting, so I have to do it the old fashioned, slow way.

But it is enough for me. We finally got the laptop because we hated not getting emails, etc. when we were on vacation or away from home for the weekend. I was so excited on our vacation in May to be able to post pics from Disney World for family and friends.

Then we decided to get into camping this summer. That's when the laptop really became a superstar for me. I could keep up with emails and Facebook. I could watch DVDs or access my instant queue on Netflix. The possibilities were (almost) endless. On our first trip it helped pass time after dark before bedtime.

But on the second trip, I discovered around dinnertime on the first night that I had forgotten to pack the little connector cable for the MiFi thing we have from Verizon. I really started to freak out. Lord, what would I do after dark? I would have to resort to simple, non-Internet Solitaire. Horrors! No Facebook. No Netflix. I would be bored out of my mind. I vowed to go get another cable the very next morning. Surely there was a Verizon store somewhere. But then I realized we were on the Eastern Shore. Not exactly a bustling metropolis. I knew it would be hopeless to find what we needed. Sigh...



But then, like the Grinch finally getting what Christmas is all about, I realized I had a great CANDACE BUSHNELL BOOK with me. So after dinner and after dark, I borrowed Hunter's head lamp, fixed a cocktail and situated myself on the air mattress to read. And amazingly, I survived the night. And actually had a very relaxing evening listening to the sounds coming from around the campground. Between the book, the nightcap and the peaceful location, I drifted into a very relaxed sleep.

However, the next morning I woke to find Hunter fiddling with the laptop. He excitedly announced that he had gotten the Internet thingy to work without the cable. Oh joy! Oh joy! I was back in action! So there it is, I'm guilty as charged and hopelessly hooked on all this technology as the next person. And, by the way, I'm looking into one of them Droid phones.

Hanging on to Summer

I promise some new posts soon. I've just been busy trying to squeeze everything I can out of the last of summertime. Had our first real camping trip two weekends ago in Virginia Beach. Boy, was that an experience. But not so bad that we're not ready to go again this weekend. Our plan is to camp on the Eastern Shore near Cape Charles, Virginia. But, alas, that's gonna depend a lot on Earl and his girlfriend, Fiona.

Looks like we will have to drag 15 dock pilons to higher ground tonight. This is the result of our dock not being complete yet. If they stay where they are, they will just float away when the waters rise over the dock like they do when we have this kind of storm. Then tomorrow we have to take the speed boat out of the water and make provisions for the Boston Whaler and wooden skiff my Dad has decided will live at our house from now on. All that to accomplish before Thursday, and even then we won't know if it will be okay to travel 3 hours to get to the campground on Saturday. By the way, if they have to evacuate the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Tidewater region of Virginia, we basically would be like salmon swimming upstream trying to get there. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it all.

Update: Mission accomplished for tonight.





Tomorrow night we deal with these.



My uncle who is a meteorological genius told me that a sure sign that a bad storm is coming is if it got real still and calm before. The water was so still tonight as seen in the pictures. And there was not a breath of air out there tonight. Stay tuned...

The Great Camping Experiment-continued

We had a good night camping in the backyard. They were calling for a very hot day. But by the time we got out to the tent, it was comfortable. We had our little fan going. The air mattress was just right. So off to sleep we went. Around 3am I heard a little scratching noise at the backside of the tent. I said, "What's that?". Hunter mumbled, "I don't know". Silence followed and then I heard it again. "What's that?", I asked again. Hunter mumbled, "I don't know". Then I heard a faint "Meow". It was our cat, Sassy (short for Sassafras). She's is our night patrol. She is out all night and sleeps all day. I think she was highly confused as to why the folks were sleeping in this contraption outside. But she joined us for awhile and then went back on patrol.

We woke up about 8:30am. It was already starting to get hot. So I grabbed a little more sleep indoors. Overall, not a bad experience. I think I can do it for 1 or 2 nights at a time. We left the tent up. But sometime this evening one of the supporting rods snapped. So, it looks like we will be taking the tent back for a replacement.

It occurs to me that I should do a little tribute to our kitty. She gives us so much joy. Hunter had always been a dog person before we got married. So he sort of "adopted" Sassy. It was a little rough in the beginning, but he loves her so much. They have their morning ritual and their favorite pastime is Hop on Pop where they snuggle up together in his La-Z-Boy recliner.

Not sure about our future camping excursions at this point. To be continued...

The Great Camping Experiment

Last weekend we invested in some camping basics. A tent, an air mattress, a lantern and a fan. Our intention yesterday was to spend the night under the stars since it was a pretty mild day temperature wise. Well first, we decided to do a 3 mile run since the Firecracker 5K is coming up. That went pretty well. Then my task was to cook dinner while Hunter baited his crab pots. By that time it was 8 o'clock. He started putting up the tent as I grilled and got dinner ready. It took about an hour to get the thing up. We decided to break for dinner at 9pm. We still hadn't inflated the air mattress, and there was no way I was sleeping on that hard ground. Needless to say, we both fell asleep indoors after dinner. So we inflated the mattress this morning with the plan to sleep in the tent tonight. To be continued...