Searching .... Searching .... No Signal

 

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.

 

Don’t you just hate it when you’re expecting a call or maybe even not expecting a call and notice that your cell phone is searching for a signal.  It wouldn’t matter if someone was trying to call you or not because without a signal you certainly can’t answer.

Recently I have noticed that at night and usually fairly early in the morning my cell phone has issues with that signal.  Having a No Signal message seems to be more the norm lately during the wee hours.  As the morning moves along my phone’s signal does too.  It goes back and forth from No Signal to Searching …. to a few bars. 

I also have an air card with the same carrier and on the same account.  I have service on my air card.  I can get on the internet, write emails and also send them.  Thus, I have answered the question I keep asking myself about why not just switch from the air card to an iPhone hotspot.  I’ve often wondered if the signal was as good, better or worse using the hotspot as the air card.  I think I have my answer.  The answer to that is definitely not.

Others had also come to the same conclusion indicating there was a slower delay in the hotspot and not in the air card.  The biggest advantage for us would be that we’d save about $35 a month to switch over to the hotspot.  However, if  it doesn’t work as well, saving that $35 just wouldn't be worth it.  When we want signal, we want signal.  Well, we also want good bandwidth but don’t have much control over that.

The other morning I received a text at 7:04 AM.  However, that text had been sent the night before at 10:00 PM.    That is just a little bit of a delay … don’t you think?  

There are a couple websites that indicate they will send to any carrier’s text.  One is smseverywhere.com and the other one is Cellphonemessagesender.com.  I’m guessing there are probably more but these two were easy to find.  You can send the text for free.  Free is usually good but not always.  I’m not sure about the speed of the text going out.  I tried both of those and discovered there was a problem.  The problem I found is that it was easy to send but the sample texts were never received.

I also sent a message to my phone using my own email.  I received that text message on my phone almost instantly.  Of course, it just happened to be when I also had a few bars so I could test it.  It can be handy to send a text to someone else's phone especially when you know they don't have access to their computer or internet.  For a Verizon cell signal this is the email address 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com and for an AT&T cell phone, this is the email address 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net. 

It's amazing what you can discover on the internet.  Here's a little tip I found.  The website shows how to boost your WiFi signal with a beer can.   If you’re interested,   check out complete instructions here.

‘Tis life on the road.

September is Just Around the Corner

 

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

 

At the Gun Show

Labor Day usually marks the end of summer for many people.  I think we’ve all been conditioned with that.  It used to be when the kids started back to school vacations were over and so was summer.  However, when we lived in Texas schools started back again the first part of August.  It's still very hot in Texas in August.  Summer definitely wasn't over.  The vacation part of it might have been over but not the hot days.

The Pacific Northwest is known for late summers.  Nice summer weather really doesn’t start to arrive until sometime around the middle of July.  August usually brings the hotter days and September is usually pretty nice.  This last weekend the weather was only near perfect but the people I spent it with were really perfect.  

We had another family gathering.  We tend to have a lot of those during the summer.  This time even Justin was back.  The only one missing from our family outing was Terry.  He is still in Arizona with his family.  Eventually, he’ll board that plane and head north again … eventually.  He's thinking once his father gets settled again he'll head back for a few days.  Besides there are enough people coming in right now that chaos is in the air.  When they head back home, he may head back to Arizona or maybe just get the wheels on the motorhome moving.  I'm sure most of you know how this works.   This definitely is not the time of year to be in Arizona anyway.  The best time to be there is winter … not summer when temperatures soar above the 100 degree mark.

Getting ready for the games

Just posing

 

Saturday started off with a trip to the Gun Show.  We didn’t buy a thing.  It was something to do so we went.  We even drove through the outlet parking lot in Centralia but none of the stores grabbed us so we kept going.  It was a stop at Joann’s and a stop at Michael’s.  We had taken two cars.  The boys were in one and the girls were in another.  Sometimes this works best and other times … well, not so much.  This was one of those times it just worked best.

<<-- The black smudges under his eyes were self inflicted with charcoal ... to look the part of BBQ King!

Justin had asked his mom to fix one of his absolutely favorite meals while home on leave … Rouladen.  We all love rouladen.

An intermission in Saturdays’ activity was taken so she could cook and the rest of us could eat.  As usual … it was delicious.  Once dinner was over a few card games were set up at Tammi’s place. We had a group playing a game of “Magic” and another group playing a game of “Spades”.  I'm sure I was the only reason they played Spades because I love the game and don’t play Magic. However, they humored me.

Sunday wasn’t much different. We were back at eating and playing cards again.  This time Justin was in charge of the barbecue.  The rest of us were either in charge of buying the food, eating the food or cleaning up after.  It was a perfect day.

More cards were played and then three took off to run a few miles.  The rest of us let them do it.  Why spoil their enjoyment if we tagged along.  Sabrina usually runs about 7 miles at a time and Sandi is running a couple miles with her.  Justin runs with them but part of his personal workout usually includes a gym and a pool where he normally swims for two miles.  Don't you feel the pain  -- running miles and swimming miles at a time ???  Ugh!!  I hurt just thinking about it.

Sandi, Justin and Sabrina (even though she never comments she's just about my most faithful reader.)

‘Tis life on the road.

Change is in the Air

I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.

With us I bet the title of this blog does not surprise you.  Remember this posted over a month ago?

Florida Keys

Remember what I said?

I was pretty clear when I said maybe, we’re thinking and only time will tell.  I also titled that one as Half the Fun of Travel is the Research.  Here is the blog.

I also said that sometimes when we researched something to death, it’s almost time to look at other places.  We’ve been looking at alternate options too.  Isn’t it fun to be on the road?  In other words we’re still in the thinking, considering and in the planning stage.  Do we really have to decide right now where we’ll be in October or even December?   I think not.  We know we’ll be someplace but we’re not quite sure where.

Here are some considerations.  It is about 3700 miles to travel from Portland to Key West on the route that is in consideration.  Is it really some place we want to drive? That's a long ways just to go down and turn around and come back. It’s not that we haven’t been to the Keys.  We have.  Right now we don’t have an answer.  Don’t you just love people who can’t make up their minds?  The good thing is that we don't have to make a decision now.

So, here’s route #2 that's currently on the table.  Now being on the table doesn’t mean anything more than route #1.  It’s just a thought or a "maybe" and has nothing to do with the ending location.

Corpus Christie

The deal is winter is winter.  You can never tell what southern destination is going to have the best weather without the rain, the ice or even the winds.  Unusual winters do happen.  It happened when we were going to Florida and a hurricane decided to head our way.

Average temperature certainly isn’t all of it.  There is the wind, the rain and most definitely the humidity.  During the winter the humidity can even make a place feel warmer than one that is dry.  Of course, you may also have other side effects but we’re not going to go into that.  You have to click on the little thumbnails below to read the average temperatures.

Yuma, AZ – January avg = high 69, Low 42

Corpus Christie, TX  - January avg = high 67, Low 47

Click on the weather thumbnails in order to check out monthly averages.

We still aren’t sure of anything.  We do know that the wind blows and blows in South Texas close to the Gulf.  Sometimes it blows so much you don’t want to be outside.  So, here are a couple more options.

California desert
	January avg … High: 72  Low 40

Now here’s one more question we’ve been asking ourselves.  Should we take our ATVs south?  If we do, the complete routing changes.

‘Tis life on the road.  The question is … what road?