Wednesday, October 17, 2018

WTF is the Blockchain?

For those still befuddled, here's a valiant attempt at a layman's explanation:
Unless you’re hiding under the rock, I am sure you’d have heard of Bitcoins and Blockchain. After all, they are the trending and media’s favorite topics these days — the buzzwords of the year. Even the people who’ve never mined a cryptocurrency or understand how it works, are talking about it. I have more non-technical friends than technical ones. They have been bugging me for weeks to explain this new buzzword to them. I guess there are thousands out there who feel the same. And when that happens, there comes a time to write something to which everyone can point the other lost souls to — that’s the purpose of this post — written in plain english that any regular internet user understands. 
Read it here, now.

Monday, October 15, 2018

The Pressure Isn't Real

 At The Ascent, Anthony Moore writes:
Pressure isn’t real — it’s just the stress you put on yourself in your head. Pressure is the result of limitations we put on ourselves to produce outcomes we don’t control. When we focus on the outcome, we begin to expect things out of our control, which sets us up for failure.
...
Ordinary people focus on the outcome. But extraordinary people focus on the process. This is how they achieve such enormous goals.
...
You don’t need to pressure yourself to compete, to win, to come out on top.
...
Because the truth is, you don’t control the outcome. You don’t control anything — except yourself. The only parts you truly have control over are your attitude, your mindset, and your actions. The rest is out of your control.
Read it here, now.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Santa Cruz

Last weekend (well, my weekend, Thursday & Friday) we stayed at the Santa Cruz Elks Lodge and it was beautiful.  They have a fantastic pool and it is nice and quiet at night.  The only downside - due to county regulations they can not have a dump station, but we found one very near at a gas station and stopped on our way back over the mountain.

So we are in Santa Cruz .. what does one do in Santa Cruz....That's right - Hit the Boardwalk!
We started in the huge arcade they have and it was ... for lack of a better term ... WHOA!  It has been so long since I was in one, I had no idea of all the games they have now.  It was the definition of sensory overload ... I loved it!  We didn't play any games or even go on any rides, but just had a blast taking in all the sites.


The Boardwalk is just a couple miles from the Lodge 
and to get there to the we rode our bikes along the San Lorenzo River Trail.  
It's a really nice paved trail straight to the beach. 
 It's mostly level, with a few slopes taking you under various streets.
We just took a leisurely pace enjoying the scenery.


Just a side note, there are a few groups of homeless along the path but they are nothing to worry about and actually were very nice and remember that they are just trying to make it like the rest of us.

Basic Income! Basic Income! Basic Income!  Check it out here:  http://j.mp/WhatIsBasicIncome



OK back on topic ...
We also went out on the wharf 


and watched baby sea lions for a while. 


And just meandered around on our bikes. It was one of the best days I have ever had!  I thought it couldn't be better than that and then .... it was!



On Friday we went on the

Roaring Camp Railroad Beach Train 

The ride takes you up through the 
Redwoods to Felton and back. 

It was awesome!

The trip up and back takes about three hours 
and the cost $26 for adults and it is worth every penny!  
The scenery just takes your breath away.






Until next time ... Happy and safe Trekkin and may your turtle always land shell up!




Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Another Amazing Weekend

This last weekend we went to Half Moon Bay.  To a fairly new RV Campground at Cameron's English Pub on Hwy 1.  It was a basic park, a little rough, not paved and they are not finished building the bathrooms and showers so currently there are port-o-potties.

BUT, the surrounding area is beautiful.  There are all kinds of trails to the beach, I think you could walk for hours and stay on trails, and you are close enough to get downtown walking or biking.

We arrived on Thursday and the the park was very quiet that day and Friday.  Saturday was another story.  Down the middle of the park, which is a big rectangle, there are spaces for tent camping.  And boy are they popular.  My husband said it was kind of like pitching a tent in the Walmart parking lot, you pull your car up and pitch your tent next to all the other cars in the row - pretty funny.  There were all kinds of campers.  Lots and lots of kids, I think maybe it was a baseball team of something, bikers, birthdays, large groups and even one guy camping alone - if you can call being surrounded by 100 people camping alone.

Ok and although the hiking was beautiful, I did almost step on a garter snake and I did find a few tics (ICK), so be sure to be careful ... but oh the views -

Happy Safe Trekkin

Friday, June 8, 2012

Here are just a few pics from the weeks so far with Pearl:


This is from Casa de Fruta where we spent 4 days just hanging out and relaxing.

These were from the site out of our front window when we stayed at Saratoga Springs right up Hwy 9 towards Santa Cruz.


Here we have our tootin around town transportation.  Since this image was taken I have bought a bike that is much lighter so I can lift it up to the rack easier.

And THIS is our very very content Road Dog!

Happy Safe Trekkin




Last week we spent my days off at Uvas Canyon. It was so beautiful and I am feeling motivated to continue my Turtle Trekking blog that I started so long ago.

Like Steve Martin exclaimed in the movie the jerk, the phone books are here the phone books are here, recently I just as giddily exclaimed, the license plates are here, the license plates are here.   Wohoo, who ever thought a pair of personalized licence plates could make you feel so happy.  It took forever to get them but now that they have arrived I feel like we are really really for real doing this.






We have been to several beautiful places in Pearl so far.  I am so much more excited and content with this lifestyle than I honestly ever thought I would be.  The adjustments have been minor and the ease of the life has been major.  Cooking has been a breeze once I got use to the oven.  I have no complaints about shower size or kitchen size, in fact I love how little space there is to keep clean.  The one thing I thought I would hate was the dumping task, but it turns out to be a very easy process that doesn't bother me at all,

Another thing that has really surprised me is how good I have been sleeping. We thought we would try to put our mattress that we owned before into Pearl but it turns out that it mattress that is in here is amazingly comfortable.  So I find myself doing something I've never done before and that is sleeping past 7 o'clock in the morning.  Its thrills my husband but I'm not sure about it, it makes me feel like I'm sort of missing part of the day.  Yesterday and today I didn't get up until after 9:00.

We have quite a few places around Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale that we park at for a few days then we move to another spot.  That aspect of it was something that my husband was worried would bother me, but it doesn't at all.  Most of the places are very quiet and not really near houses, so we don't disturb anyone if we have to use the generator for a bit.

When we went out for a walk last Friday we actually had a deer run in front of us, not even 10 feet in front of us, Inca found it extremely exciting, something she had never experienced before.  We saw quail and wild turkeys. And it smelled wonderful there. It came from these lovely small yellow wild flowers.

Here is an image of my husband sitting next to the creek that was basically our backyard.

I hope that now that we are starting to really get out and go places I will be better at posting here.

Safe trekkin







Sunday, February 19, 2012

Days 4,5,6


Day 4 More Settling:  First full shower - wonderful.  Water pressure fine, hot water excellent, and even roominess of shower, all fine.  Lots of little things to pick up, lots of little things to organize, lots of little lessons learned.  Everybody settling in a little further.

Day 5 & 6 Working:  these two days were really about my husband settling in to a work routine.  Finding comfortable spots to park for the day and setting up for 8 or so hours of working.  Really the routine that will dominate most of our time for the foreseeable future.  I'm gone all day and Pearl is the home office for my husband and Inca the Road Dog chills out all day watching out the windows and sleeping on the couch.  Not a bad life I must say.

Day 3 Settling In:

 Had to work today so didn't get to spend much time in Pearl.  Started the morning with a shower in the apartment, I mention that because I was chicken to take one in the coach.  Just need to work a bit more on my comfort level.  I will get there quickly!

My husband spent the day at the Baylands taking care of business details.  Used generator - very quiet, less than traffic noise!

Road Dog Inca is beside herself happy.  She loves to be out and about more than anything so she is just in her element.  Sitting up front looking out the window at the world going by and LOVIN it!

Found that to get a owners manual for Pearl Fleetwood requires that you actually write a check and send it snail mail and then they will snail mail or email you the manual.  Wow seriously????  Ordered personalized plate for Pearl (TTREKN) to officially take Turtle Trekkin on the road!  Ordered Good Sam extended warranty and Insurance so Pearl is all official and protected.

Tonight we are dry camping at a spot that we have scoped out where other campers have set up.  Able to put the bedroom slide out and have a bit more room.  Growing awareness of full timer reality, like realistic water consumption levels, reality of bathroom size (tiny but manageable), power management, wifi availability,  true gas mileage numbers, the danger of low hanging trees, and what I have termed the "RV Dance".  This is what all three of us do to move about in Pearl.  Inca's in the aisle and I walk forward and she walks back; we dance until we get where we need to be, same with my husband.  It's not too small a space, to navigate around each other, it's the RV Dance and it can actually be quite fun and amusing.

Came home and opened a cabinet to get a book and they all fell on my head.  I believe the stewardess told us to "Use caution when opening the over head bins as items may have shifted in flight".  LESSON LEARNED!