RVfor5 Map now updated.

For those that are interested, I've updated the map to include everything up to the last trip (through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate - more on that soon). The navigation on the map doesn't seem to want to work very well, so use the previous and next links at the bottom of the right side to scroll through the different pages Google has made me break it into. Probably best to open the link in its own browser (click the link below the graphic).

View RVfor5 Route (travelled) in a larger map

Catastrophic Failure

AAARGGHHHHHHHHHOOOOoohhhhhhhhhhahaaaaahhhhhhh...sob.sob....whimper.

I lost everything. E-mail, graphics, Google-frickin-earth. Anything and everything I did for the last year or so. My laptop had a complete and utter drive failure and it just 'went away'... So, now I'm rebuilding - with an eye toward keeping everything backed-up in duplicate.

Work stuff I can recover or remake. Most of it is posted to the website, so that shouldn't be a problem. E-mail - much of it is unimportant (although it has created my first hole is past email since 1996), however work stuff I was able to pinpoint and have Gregg send. Overall, not too bad.

The biggest problem is that I lost ALL my google earth stuff. All that work, all that research - and I have no idea what I put there or how I found it. I'm getting glimmers here and there, and I think I can replace some of it - but there are a TON of hours wasted. Oh well - moving forward...

I have to plan on how to do backups (online?) and have the ability to pull a machine back together on the road (have a second one setup to accept the backup? backup hard drive? how much equipment do I need to carry to be absolutely certain I have no downtime?) Now, there is another step - what about the servers? I need to make sure that access is 100%, that Gregg has everything, absolutely everything to back me up. I need to be sure things are running very well and that my disappearance on a weekend is not going to kill the job. Iglou will be a big help with things - I can trust them, and everyone else should be just fine - but I've got to keep an eye on things and make sure I have everything perfectly dialed in... Make a list - More Research ;)

Google Earth - the greatest thing ever.

I don't know what people did before google earth. For this trip I plan to use it in a myriad of ways, but for now it is all about the planning. This allows me to 'pin' every destination that we think we might want to see, and then fly around it to see what's close to what. Best of all it is not only portable, it can be manipulated by both of us, either on the same map or independently so we'll be able to really put on there everything we want to do.

Right now I have many different categories (I'm sure Jill will set up more, and we'll break some of these out further...) including:

• Places we've lived
• Family
• Friends
• Places of Interest
• Must see Campgrounds
• Restaurant/Food Shops to check out
• Strictly for the Kids
• Museums
• Factory Tours
• and of course - Card Rooms

I'm hoping that when we get this thing moving we'll be able to port our current location to a website so people can see what we're doing and where we are. there are a couple of programming solutions out there right now, but within another year I'm guessing there will be a perfect solution. Very exciting!

--R.

Oops...

I missed a book on my list yesterday, and its turning out to be an interesting read. Window Seat, Reading the Landscape from the Air is really meant for people who spend a lot of time in an airplane, but with the amount of time I'm devoting to Google Earth - looking for places to visit, and sites to stop - I'm seeing basically the same type of thing. Now, granted I can zoom in and see more than a passenger at 35,000 feet, its still nice to know what those circular fields are stacked together in the center of the country. (answer: fields that are watered from a pivot waterer. Each field has its own, hence the corners get cut off.)

--R.

Google Earth

Jill's Journal: Google Earth is a man’s best friend, or at least my man’s best friend these days! Rob is obsessed. For weeks now, he’s been spending every spare moment mapping out interest points all over the U.S., plus adding the addresses of friends and family members we’d like to visit.

At this point, just about every place is a potential stop and an itinerary of sorts is starting to form. We can already see we’ll be spending a significant amount of time in both the Northeast and the Northwest and not so much in other areas. We may entirely skip the Southeast for now, as that could be a whole separate trip on its own. And we’re also thinking a year may not be long enough! TWO years is a distinct possibility, especially as we’d also love to do the Alaskan Highway…

Can you imagine what an education this is going to be for our girls? Yes, they’re young, but when they learn about ... oh, say, the Mayflower in school, they’ll have actually seen it (or at least the replica of it). How cool is that?