S-N-O-W: A four-letter word
We’re from Chicago. We’ve both lived there all of our lives – still not sure why!! Between the housing prices, taxes, politicians, and the HORRIBLE weather in winter, I seriously think we were nuts for staying there all these years. Last week they got a foot of snow back home in Chicago, while we were all warm and toasty down here in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Truth be told, it was kind of fun to laugh at them back home.
Today I found this video on YouTube that pretty much sums it up, called “Snow Is A Four Letter Word”. Its pretty funny! Enjoy!
Just Beachy
We are here in Gulf Shores, Alabama still. We’ve been here since November 2, and will be here until December 2. This is a lovely area!! Its a super cute town, with lots of beachy-themed stores and souvenir shops. The weather is fantastic!! Today its 71 degrees and sunny, and the rest of the week is going to be mid-70’s and sunny too. However, the mosquitoes are hell!! Our RV park is basically on a swamp so there are lots of mosquitoes and they are vicious! They seem to like me a lot!! They don’t like Jim or Brian quite so much. I try not to mind them too much – after all I’m living in Paradise here!!
So last week I got up early and went down to the beach with my camera, and boy was I blessed with an awesome sunrise!! So today I figured I would just post a few images of my morning on the beach. All of my images can be purchased through Fine Art America. When you purchase one of my images, you are supporting a small business, which to me is much better than giving Walmart all your money!! Thanks for looking!
Tech Tuesday: USB Charging Ports
Welcome to Tech Tuesday! Each week we will post anything techie that we have done in our RV. If you missed it, last week’s post was all about WIFI That Works and was a very popular post!! If this is something that you have questions about, you can read all about it here.
This week we are installing USB charging ports in our Class A motorhome. It seems we are just full of things that need USB based charging. Multiple phones, iPad, Kindle, every outlet in our bus seems to be full of little chargers!
Worse, while most of our outlets are powered by the inverter and always live, a few are not. The ones in the bedroom slide are dead unless we are plugged in. Ditto for the one next to the couch. And up front where DW sits, the outlet in under the dash, if I stop to take the dogs out or get fuel, I trip over all her cords.
So, the first trick was to find DC powered charging ports. These days you can walk into any home center or hardware store and find A/C charging ports like these,
I bought 10 of them. Figure I’ll use 4, and offer the rest to fellow RV’ers for a small fee, installed. They can be found on Amazon here: White dual usb charger socket
The first one I put in was on my DW’s side of the bed. She plugs her iPhone charger in here when she sleeps, but this outlet isn’t on the inverter, it is dead when we’re not plugged in.
Lots of action here, first step was to pull everything out and see what’s behind the wall.
With DC circuits, you always have a positive and a negative (ground). Many times, where there is a switch, there may be only 2 wires, power in (from the fuse) and power out (to the controlled device). For our charger port, we need one of each, unswitched power, and ground.
In this location, I had a light switch, and a switch for the ceiling fan (round one) along with an A/C outlet. There was also some aluminum framing inside the wall.
I did some poking around with my voltmeter, and decided to use the power in to the fan switch, and just screw into the aluminum framing for my ground. (there just weren’t any ground wires for me to tap into!)
I used a green wire, crimped on a ring terminal, and used a self tapping screw to secure it to the aluminum behind the a/c outlet.
For the power, I stripped back some insulation from the black power wire into the fan switch. I wrapped my new wire around the stripped section, soldered it, and taped it up good.
Next step is to drill a hole. I VERY carefully made sure there was NOTHING behind where I put the drill. I was above the horizontal aluminum support, right of the wall stud next to the window, and CERTAIN there were no wires inside that wall. Then I used a hole saw to punch the hole, making sure not to drill right thru the side of the RV! 
The next step was to fish the wires through the wall and out the hole.
Finally, I reinstalled the switches and outlets I’d removed, connected the USB charger port to the new wires (the connections are different colors, and the positive is marked with a +). It’s vital to observe the proper polarity. If the wires are backwards, your phone will probably blow up!
I pushed the new charging port thru the hole, screwed it down, and done. The job took less than an hour, and the next one will be faster.
Here’s the finished product.
The Location Independent Lifestyle Series – Work From Anywhere Jobs: Freelancing
Welcome to Part II of The Location Independent Lifestyle Series – Work From Anywhere Jobs! Today we are going to talk about freelancing. If you missed Part I, which talked about avoiding work from home scams, you can read it here.
We consciously chose this location independent lifestyle, which obviously means that we love freedom! What better way to choose freedom than by freelancing for your work. Millions of people have discovered the benefits of freelancing. Us digital nomads are not alone though – a recent poll shows that 78% of people would go freelance, if they could make enough money to live on. And it looks like many of them are doing just that – there are over 30 million freelancers in the United States. 49% of these freelancers make between $25,000 and $75,000 per year, and a whopping 27% make over $75,000 per year. As of 2015, there are approximately 2.9 million freelancers who earned in excess of $100,000. Not a bad gig!!
But what types of jobs are these freelancers doing, and where do they find them? Some of the most popular freelance careers include:
*Marketing Manager, Marketing Coordinator
*Project Manager, Process Analyst
*Web Developer
*Accounting
*Insurance Inspector or Appraiser
*Teaching or Tutoring
*Graphic Design
*Administrative Assistant
*Social Media Coordinator
*Writer
Since my background is in photography, I myself have done some freelance photography work for Demand Media. The projects were fairly easy, and the pay was not bad for the amount of time spent on each one. They also work with writers, producers and filmmakers. I also shoot stock photography for several stock companies including Shutterstock and I-Stock.
Using freelance workers is a great way for employers to keep their costs down (no office to house employees), and allows them to stay competitive in a tough economy. With the advent of the internet, employee meetings can now go online via sites such as GoToMeeting, HighFive, or even Google Hangouts.
Some great places to look for freelance jobs include:
Flexjobs: They boast over 50 job categories from entry-level to executive. Every job has been hand-screened and researched so there are no scams. All jobs provide some kind of job flexibility.
Upwork or Outsource: With 4+ million clients looking for freelancers on Upwork, there’s sure to be plenty of jobs. Freelancers create a portfolio, then submit applications for projects and get hired just like a traditional job.
Freelancer: Potential freelancers submit competitive bids on posted projects. Employers can also hire for hourly projects, or run contests to find the best freelancer for their project.
Fiverr: You can sell just about anything on Fiverr to millions of people from around the world, for $5. You keep 80% of each gig you sell and Fiverr takes 20%. The sky is pretty much the limit on Fiverr, so get creative on what you will offer (within reason of course).
Craigslist: It’s more than just a place to sell your crap you no longer need now that you’re on the road! Craigslist is actually a great place to look for freelance gigs. You can browse for local jobs, or search the big cities for a chance to find remote work.
But what if you don’t feel that you have the skills necessary to perform these freelance jobs? There is such a wide variety of jobs, from simple customer service telephone work to coding complicated websites, that I think every skill level is represented. Most of the time all you need is a good internet connection (see our blog post on WiFi That Works!) and the self-discipline to get the job done!
Whether you are a customer service agent, graphic designer, a computer programmer or anything in between, there is a freelance job out there for you. Hopefully this article has given you some new ideas to think about, and some places to go to look for work! Be sure to follow my Work From Home Pinterest board! I’m always adding new pins to it with great ideas for work from anywhere jobs!
Happy Sunday! Grab A Cup Of Coffee And Read About Our Week!
Happy Sunday! I hope you are all having a nice mellow morning. Grab a cup of coffee and relax and enjoy a wrap up of our week!
I found this quote sitting on my Pinterest board titled “Quotes I Love” and fell in love with it all over again. I must have pinned it a while ago, because I forgot it was there. Such a fitting poem for this lifestyle we have been blessed to have been able to choose.
Its been a whirlwind week for sure! I knew I wanted to start getting more serious about this whole blogging thing, and I really had no idea where to begin. We (Jim and I) are completely and totally winging it here, but you guys have blown us completely away and exceeded all of our expectations! I never dreamed that our posts would be received so well, or read and shared so much, and for that I humbly thank you all. We are having a blast writing our posts for your information and enjoyment!!
On that note, our number one, numero uno most popular post award goes to Jim this week for his killer post “Tech Tuesday: WiFi That Works!”. If you missed it, you can click on the title of the post and read it now. We got tons of questions, comments and shares on this post, so we are so happy to have been able to help some of you out!! I know I was miserable before we got our Verizon Unlimited Hotspot Plan, but I’m a much happier wife now!!
Running a close second was my post “How To Sell All Your Crap And Take Off In Your RV”. This post was so much fun to write, because it all actually happened exactly the way I wrote it. It’s awesome to know I was able to make a bunch of you laugh!! Thanks so much for all your likes, comments and shares! Join us each Friday as we try to tickle your funny bone with silly posts, because well, its Friday!!
I started a series on Monday on The Location Independent Lifestyle – Work From Anywhere Jobs, and my first post was all about “How To Avoid The Scams”. I feel this is a very important topic, because so many people are asking about how they can find a location-independent job and hit the road too. Go fill that cup of coffee and come on back and read this post – its a good one. I got quite a few followers on my Work From Home Pinterest Board from this post too, so thanks for the follows!
One day I just needed a break, so I put Jim in charge of homeschooling that day, and he and Brian went on a Field Trip To The USS Alabama, which they really seemed to enjoy! If you’re a history buff (like Jim is), come on over and read all about their day, and how we incorporated homeschooling into the field trip.
And finally, I just had to share some photographs from our time in The Smoky Mountains In Fall. What a spectacular time of year to be there!
Again, thank you all so much for all of your blog-loving that you have shown us this week! We really look forward to bringing you more information and fun, and hope you will join us!! If you haven’t already, please go give our Facebook page a “like” – that way you will see when we put up new posts!
Peace and Popsicles!
Jim & Carol
How To Sell All Of Your Crap And Take Off In Your RV
When we decided to start this full-time RV-ing adventure, we had 3 properties (1 house, 2 commercial properties) and a TON of crap. At one point, six people lived in my 4000 square foot crap-holder house, including a pack-rat mother-in-law whose favorite hobbies included beading, puzzles and books. I swear her crap filled up half the house alone.
Warning: Getting rid of all your crap is NOT for the faint-of-heart. And these tips may not work for everybody. But its what worked for us, so I’m sharing them here for you.
Declutter
The first thing you need to do is go through all your crap and decide what’s completely useless and what may hold some value. You will be amazed at how much of your crap is utterly useless to the rest of the world. You will wonder where all this crap came from??? Throw it out – its crap. Seriously, nobody wants it. I made the mistake of thinking my crap was actually worth something, and that somebody would want it. So I filled 3 big tables in my garage sale full of useless crap. And at the end of the garage sale, I had 3 big tables of useless crap, that I hauled to Goodwill, cuz God knows everyone in Goodwill wants my crap, right???
Inventory And Storage
Now, you need to decide which of your stuff is actually useful. A good guide is to deem useful anything that you yourself used on a daily basis, like your TV, sofa, end tables, Playstation, computer, dishes – ya know, useful crap. Decide which of the useful crap you actually want to keep (hint: family heirlooms and pictures – the end), and find some sucker to store this useful crap for you, or get a storage unit. We opted for a storage unit, because we had 2 businesses right before we sold it all, and by law you have to keep all business paperwork for 7 years for tax purposes, in case Uncle Sam decides he wants to audit you (talk about crap!) We used large storage bins like THESE to store many of our things that were going into storage. The bin is clear so you can see what’s inside and they’re a great size.
Take Photos of All Your Crap
Once you have figured out which of your crap to sell, you need to take photos of it all so you can list it online. A small point and shoot camera, or even your cell phone camera will work just fine for this. This is no time to channel Ansel Adams here, just git ‘er done! I recommend creating a “Crap To Sell” folder on your computer’s hard drive and putting all the photos in there for easy access.
Post Your Crap On Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace
Trust me, just use Craigslist or Facebook Markeplace. I tried a few of the other fancy-schmancy sites like BooKoo and Wallapop. Nobody goes there. Folks who are looking for your crap are on Craigslist and Facebook, period. If your crap doesn’t sell right away, or the jerk doesn’t show up after they say they want your crap (which happens often), you may have to lower the price and re-list it. Re-list it every other day if you don’t get any action right away. And EVERYTHING is sold on a first-come-first-serve basis. First dude to show up with the money gets your crap. That way if the jerk doesn’t show up when he says he will, hopefully there is somebody right behind him with cash in hand who DOES show up. I used Craigslist and Facebook to sell bigger items like large furniture pieces. Smaller furniture pieces and other chatchke went in the garage sale.
Hold a Garage Sale
Again, first dude to show up with the money gets the crap. I had people say, “I want this item but I don’t have enough money. Will you hold it for me?” Your answer should be, “Hell, no.” Because you have no idea if the jerk is actually gonna show back up with the cash and take your crap. THESE labels are great for pricing your crap – they’re removable (important!) and just the right size.
Everything Left Goes To Goodwill
Whatever crap is left at the end of garage sale day gets hauled to Goodwill. Now I don’t wanna hear all about how “the Goodwill guy is making a killing on my crap because people DONATE their stuff and then he SELLS it at 100% profit” (insert whiney voice here). I don’t care. My crap is gone, and that’s all I care about! Remember those 3 tables full of crap nobody wanted? It’s no longer MY problem! Snerk!!
Bon Voyage Baby!
Now, wave to all your neighbors and the poor saps in your town who are gonna be stuck there all winter walking through a blizzard to get to the train to get to work, and head for the beach Honey! You worked hard and you deserve it!! I’ll meet ya there with the Margaritas and guacamole!
Field Trip! USS Alabama
Sometimes, you just have to take your roadschooling “on the road.” And yesterday, Brian and I did just that.
East of Mobile, AL, in Mobile Bay, is Battleship Memorial Park, home of the USS Alabama, BB60, a WW2 Sub, and a host of warbirds of all ages.
Below is the text of the report Brian wrote the day before:
The USS Alabama was first launched in 1942, and after her shakedown cruise in Chesapeake Bay, headed to Casco Bay, Maine to conduct operational training. After returning to Chesapeake Bay to finish training, she went back to Casco Bay to join Task Group 22.2 for tactical maneuvers in February 1943. The Alabama and the South Dakota were then sent to join the Home Fleet of Britain to aid in covering the northern convoy routes after Britain sent a large number of ships to Sicily to prepare for an attack there. The Alabama and her sister ship changed Task Forces and locations for a little while, eventually ending up covering the reinforcement for the garrison on the island of Spitzbergen. The ship then went to southern Norway to create a diversion for the primary Allied force’s attack to take Sicily.
After returning to America for repairs, it was sent to the Japanese controlled Gilbert Islands, and saw combat as a defensive unit for the other ships, taking down aircraft to stop counterattacks. The Alabama continued to fight in World War II. After its time in World War II, the people of Alabama raised the funds for the preservation of the ship. The ship was awarded to them, and is now in Battleship Memorial Park, Mobile, Alabama as a memorial to those who served in World War II.
The Alabama has also appeared in several movies, including most of the battleship scenes in the 1992 movie Under Siege, as a stand in for the USS Iowa in the ABC miniseries War and Remembrance, and the opening scene in the movie Rapid Fire.
As a Navy veteran, and someone who spent a lot of time reading WW2 novels as a kid, I had a gas wandering around that old girl. They had maybe 50% of the space wide open, we could wander around at will. The entire site was pretty cool. They had various warbirds scattered about the grounds, everything from a Sea Sprite rescue helicopter to a B52. Then there was a huge building where they kept the “good stuff” including a modern FA/18, and a Lockheed A-12, the predecessor of the SR-71 Blackbird. There was also a WW2 submarine, we didn’t go in as the day was getting late.
Here is the report Brian wrote about our visit:
I had a ton of fun when we visited the Alabama. I learned a lot about how the ship worked, how it did the things it needed to do to provide the services it needed to provide for 2,200 enlisted and 140 officers to survive. Everything from boilers heating ocean water into steam to power the engines to a chef, a doctor, a barber, a dentist, and several stores were on the ship. It was essentially a floating city for the people onboard. We saw the whole ship, everything from the outside to the inner mechanisms of the giant guns. To say it was cool is an understatement. The giant guns came up from all the way down in the bottom floor of the ship, with a huge loading mechanism, they wrapped chairs and a curving table around the center of it to give people a place to eat. The ammunition would be pulled up right past where everyone was eating into the rest of the loading mechanism. Steam boilers would intake salt water, boil it into steam, and then output fresh water when it condensed. The fresh water would then be used either to power the turbines or as drinking water. They had a fully stocked kitchen, shops, doctor’s office, dentist’s office, and tons of other services for everyone there.
As we were leaving, we stopped at the Alabama Vietnam Memorial, a moving experience for someone who served during that time. I totally enjoyed taking my son to this place, and he get’s an “A”!
Tech Tuesday: WiFi That Works!
I see a lot of posts and questions on wifi and data. Everyone wants to get online, and it seems people want more every day.
When we first started, what, 7 years ago? We were happy just driving around a nieghborhood till we sniffed out a hot spot without a password, and sit on the side of the road in front of someone’s house and check email.
Campgrounds started putting in wifi, but it was mostly up at the office, spotty or minimal service back in the campground. So I put in a Hawking HW2R1 router. This is a wifi repeater / router, similar to today’s wifi rangers and pepwaves. The input side connects to campground wifi, and the output side gives us our own campsite personal network. I particularly like being able to have our printer, Dish Hopper, and file server all connected to our personal wifi, and we connect to it with our phones, laptops, etc. 
On the input side I put a 3′ antenna strapped to the TV Batwing. This thing will sniff out some wifi! Works great. Almost.
Problem is, campground wifi still sucks. Bandwidth is the problem, and every time a campground writes a 5 figure check to improve their wifi, 20 new campers try to stream video. Ever hear the term “herding cats”? For campground owners, trying to keep up with campers’ wifi demands is like herding cats.
And what if we are someplace where there is no wifi? State and municipal parks, wild areas, just rolling down the road? That’s when we would hotspot a phone, and connect our Hawking router to that. Still same “bus wide” personal wifi, but now it is drawing data from our Verizon plan. We had to watch for overages, and it seemed the Hawking would get lost sometimes and I’d have to reboot it, but other than the cost of Verizon data, this worked.
Prior to our last trip “out west” I decided we needed a cellular amp, to help pull in our Verizon signal when we were “in the middle of nowhere.” I got a Wilson Amp, with an antenna on the roof. 
This worked great, I’d get 3 bars instead of 1 on my phone with the Wilson switched on. Unfortunately the device is 3G. Technology went to 4G, and then LTE, and then xLTE pretty quickly, so this thing is basically obsolete, though I do think it will pull in a 3G signal from pretty far away, should we need it.
It’s on my list to replace, but due to new federal FCC regulations and such, good xLTE amps with external antennas do not exist yet.
Even with all the bases covered (or so I thought) I was spending a lot of time dealing with our internet connection. First thing at any campground was to get on the router and try to sniff out some wifi. And then try to keep it going. Certain things, such as those requiring a login, Jellystone’s, and Tengo Internet, were real hard to deal with on the Hawking. And I was hearing “I can’t get on the internet” way too often, rebooting the router too often, and messing with stuff too often. I went camping to get away from tech support. On top of that, our Verizon bill was approaching $350! For that kind of $$$, we should have seamless service, and I should be nursing a cold beer in front of a campfire, not rebooting routers.
So I agreed to bite the big one. We got a recommendation from a fellow “fulltime family” member on Facebook, and “rented” a grandfathered unlimited MiFi from a seller on Ebay. The first device we received was an older 4420, and it didn’t make me happy. It was slow, irregular, and I was still rebooting the Hawking several times a day. Cherie at Internet for RVer’s suggested I ask my vendor for newer hardware, and he sent me an MHS291. THIS THING ROCKS! It is xLTE, the fastest cellular technology available today. Our Hawking router gets a solid connection always, no rebooting required. Our computers and phones connect reliably. I cut our Verizon plan down almost enough to make up the difference.
The 291 has an external antenna jack, so that’s on my list before we go out west again, but for now, we have a fast reliable internet connection, always. Happy wife, happy life! 🙂
The Location Independent Lifestyle Series – Work From Anywhere Jobs: Avoiding The Scams
This is our first in a series of location independent lifestyle articles that I will be posting each Monday. Be sure to come back every Monday for more in my series on the subject of working from your RV!
One of the most asked questions that I see on the full-time RV-er related Facebook pages and forums is, “We would love to be able to travel full-time in our RV, but how do you earn money while on the road?”
With the advent of the internet, our nation’s workforce is no longer expected to go to our employer’s place of employment, put in our 40-hour workweek, then go home and not think about work on Saturday and Sunday. The tides have shifted toward more employers being willing to allow their employees to work from home (or RV), either full-time or for part of their hours worked. In fact, according to the 2014 National Study of Employers, conducted by the Families and Work Institute, 67% of employers now allow some of their employees to work from home occasionally.
But what’s the best way to ensure that the job you are applying for is a legitimate work-from-home position? After all, the work-from-home industry is fraught with scams. If you’re not very careful, you could be out money, with your identity stolen, and a real mess on your hands. Here are a few ways you can tell that a job or company may not be on the up-and-up:
Think About It: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! If the employer offers you a “get-rich-quick” pitch or promises high pay for part-time-hours, they are probably not a legitimate employer.
Read Carefully: Read any offers that you get VERY carefully. Consider the young lady who, upon reading the employment offer, noticed that buried deep within the offer was a line asking for her bank account information, supposedly so they could pay her. However, she had not accepted their offer yet! It was a scam to steal her personal information. NEVER give out your personal information until you are certain the job and offer is legit! Also, make sure the potential employer describes the job that you will be doing well. If they don’t CLEARLY explain the job you will be doing, keep looking.
Do Not Send Money: If the employer asks you for any money, under the guise of providing you with “work-from-home materials” “software or hardware” or “start-up kits”, think again! No legitimate company will EVER ask you for money in order for you to work for them.
Ask For References: Don’t be afraid to ask the potential employer for references of former employers or contractors, and then check those references. If the company refuses to provide you with references, then they are probably not somebody you would want to waste your time with.
Ask To Speak To An Actual Person: If they won’t allow you to speak to a real person, move along.
Identify The Owners Or Principals: If you cannot identify the owners of the company, chances are they don’t want to be identified because they are not legit.
When searching online, do not search using the keywords “work from home” or “work at home”: These keywords are “scam bait”. Instead search using “telecommute” or “flexible hours”.
There can be great advantages to working from home, especially for those of us in the full-time RV community. Often, you can make your own hours, and still have plenty of time left to go on day-trips or be with your family. After all, that’s why we picked this lifestyle to begin with – to be able to experience more of life than a 9 to 5-er! With care and forethought, there are plenty of good opportunities out there to be able to make an income while traveling.
I have spent a few months collecting some (to me) legit looking work from home jobs, and other information on the work-from-home lifestyle. You can see a bunch of opportunities that I have found on my Pinterest board. (Disclaimer: PLEASE don’t take my word that any of these positions are legitimate. Check them out for yourself before committing to any jobs!) Feel free to follow my board and keep up-to-date as I add more jobs and information to it. I have also found a site called www.teleworkrecruiting.com, started in 1999, which matches virtual workers with over 1800 employers, all of whom have been vetted in advance. Basic membership on the site is free, which allows you to upload your resume and receive their newsletter. They also have a paid premium membership for a one-time fee of $59.95, which then gives you access to further services such as resume critique, setting up job alerts, and other more advanced options.
As you can see, there are many ways to avoid the scams while searching for a location independent job. Be sure to check back next Monday as we continue our series on the location independent lifestyle.
Fall In The Smoky Mountains
Ahhhhhhh, Autumn. Leaves crunching beneath my feet, and a crisp nip in the air. Campfires and marshmallows and beautiful color. Its been a dream of mine for many years to see Autumn in The Smoky Mountains, and this year my dream came true!! To say it completely took my breath away would be an understatement. There were tears in my eyes, it was so amazing!! I highly recommend getting to Smoky Mountains National Park about the 3rd week of October, when colors are at their peak. Just drive, and get lost, and drive some more.
We stayed at Camping In The Smokies Campground. It’s a nice campground – right near downtown Gatlinburg, which is very convenient. There’s even a trolley that will pick you up at the campground and take you downtown. While downtown, we visited a few shops (for candy apples and ice cream of course!), restaurants, and went to the Aquarium, which is always a favorite way to spend a day.
Enjoy some of my photos of The Smokies in Autumn. If you love any of these photos and would like to have one for your own, you may purchase these and many others at Fine Art America. Your purchases help support my small business, and I appreciate it!!
