Gold Canyon, Arizona

We are back in Internet land, and while I love the Internet there are some ways that Internet accessibility and use are a pain.

Like most people, I use Google to find things. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s effective.

Google’s great!

However, I think Google has changed my expectations for the way I retrieve and process information. And many of those changes aren’t for the better.

• I expect answers immediately and get frustrated when I can’t find information in a nanosecond.
• I purposely don’t remember some things because I can readily look them up in the cloud.
• And, most importantly, I sometimes expect others to be Google-ized and able to provide information on demand.

I realized this big time when Rich and I moved back into unlimited Internet connectivity.

Google’s not the problem. I am.

While I will continue to use and love Google, I’m now on a personal mission to use Google more discriminately and effectively.

*’*’*’*’*

Explanation of “Gucking Foogle”:

I went to Reno High School and our mascot was a husky. A friend of my sister’s also went to RHS and told a story of when she was a cheerleader.  The basketball team was to play crosstown rivals who made a huge sign encouragng the team to “Huck the Fuskies!”

(Switch the first two letters… 🙂 )

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We are back at Gold Canyon RV Resort, and we are back with Dish television and Internet.

It’s hardwired to each spot in the resort.

Color me HAPPY!

I have loved data all my life.

One of my first jobs was as a data entry clerk entering numbers into columns in bookkeeping ledgers. And don’t even get me started on the thrill of running a 10-key adding machine.

Later when computers came along, I did data processing: entering data into computers where the computer programs did the calculations.

My first computer was a Commodore 64. It had a whopping 64 kilobytes of RAM (random access memory). I LOVED that machine!

As computers got more powerful and after graduation from college, I dove into databases: both design and implementation. Their capacity to store and manipulate data was a perfect fit for a data geek like me.

I loved my job as a data analyst and could lose myself for hours writing SQL code to extract data to help organizations solve problems.

I’m not working with data while I’m on ‘faux retirement’, but I still love data although now it’s in a different form.

I love Internet data!

I’m so thrilled to be back with full data that I can access through my phone, my computer, and my tablet. Sometimes all at once.

Yeeehaaaawwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

El Mirage, Arizona

Sometimes I am surprised at how little Rich and I are spending on this journey compared to what I thought it would cost.

Sure, we have the huge expense of buying Homer. And then there is the cost of diesel to move from place to place. Homer gets a whopping ten miles per gallon.

But motor home insurance and registration have been less than we anticipated, and there are a lot of standard expenses we don’t have because we’re homeless: no property taxes, no utilities bills, less than half the auto insurance because we’re down to two cars and one is in storage.

All that being said, we are still incredibly tight with our money on some stuff.

Case in point–we are struggling with paying extra for Internet.

Actually, I should say were struggling. I’m not struggling anymore…

I started looking at our resort neighbors and most of them golf once a week. And good for them.

So I got to thinking, I don’t golf and pickleball doesn’t cost me anything for my daily sweat.

What if I pretended I golfed and applied my golf round money toward my Internet cost?

Problem solved. Now I have no problem paying for Internet.

Hmmm… I wonder what else I can justify buying because I don’t play golf… 🙂