Steve and Judy's Travels!

Sunday. Cousin Ed, the Las Vegas taxi driver, stopped by for a visit last night. He
assured me that traffic on Sunday would be completely different from traffic
on Saturday. He even explained the logic. This is Las Vegas. The crowds
arrive Friday night. Saturday they fill the city with their cars. Sunday
they go home. Saturday is the worst day of the week for traffic. It makes
sense. Sort of. I decided to try it again today. Carefully. We drove the route Ed suggested. He was right. It worked. I attended the
Sole Practitioner’s Brunch. The drive worked so well, I’ll even try it
tomorrow for an 8am start. We’ll see if his explanation holds up to weekday
rush hour traffic. It’s a hundred six degrees outside on the sunny side. That’s not in the
sun, that’s under the awning. In the shade. Over on the other side, on the
shady side, it’s only 99. It makes a difference. Inside, it’s 76 degrees.
This is much better air conditioning than we had in Shamu. It’s still
roof-air, but it’s vented into the ceiling. It doesn’t just blow cold air
out from directly under each air conditioning unit. Both the air
conditioners feed into ducts that vent out at regular intervals all along
the ceiling. It’s a good design. The Jeep parks in the direct sun here. I leave the tailgate of the Jeep
open any time we’re not in it to cut down on the solar gain. Driving along, on the way here, I realized we’ve come full circle. All
those years ago, traveling in the VW Bus, sitting over the front wheels,
rear engine pushing us along. It’s the same design. Nothing has changed.
We’re back to doing what we started with. It’s just a big VW Bus. When we’re plugged into 50 amp power, we can run both air conditioners, the
coffee maker, the microwave, the hair dryer. It doesn’t matter. The lights
don’t even dim. I wonder how much power the house in Louisville is plugged
into. The lights in Louisville dim when the air conditioner kicks on.
Circuit breakers pop if we turn on the hair dryer while the coffeemaker and
toaster are already going. Fueling has evolved into a generally benign experience. It’s better than it
used to be. With pay at the pump, we never get stuck standing in line in a
smoky building, waiting for the cashier to ring us up. But fueling in
Colorado, I forget what the experience can be like in other places. In
California and Nevada, at least parts of California and Nevada, they have
discovered a wonderful offset to their costs. Advertising. The pay at the
pump screen? After it has collected your credit card information, they can
make it yell advertising at you. And better than that… they can disable
the pump handle so it won’t stay on unless you stand there and hold it, or
they can abbreviate that spring shaped wire that helps the nozzle stay in
the filler hole, so again, you have to stand right there, and you can’t walk
away while they’re advertising at you. And. And. You don’t have any
volume control. You can’t turn it down. I don’t know how much the station
gains by doing this. If it is a penny or two a gallon, I would gladly pay
that much more for my fuel to avoid this. I would pay a lot more than a
penny or two to avoid this experience. Wait! Wait! There is something else. I’m not done yet. I’m standing
there filling a motorhome at the diesel pump, and they cut me off at $50.
$50! If I’m willing to stand there and put $100 in my tank, why would they
want to cut me off at $50? It’s not like they have to. The tank before
this, I got to put $150 in my tank off one credit card ring. Why do they
only want me to spend $50 with them? That’s it. Gas stations suck. Let’s all boycott gas stations. The ones
that suck, anyway.
Today we talked about succession planning and paperless offices. Tomorrow, the conference starts in earnest.

Monday. Hey. This is not like vacation. I have to get up at 6:30 to make the 8am
conference start each day. Here at this park, we’re at another WiFi location. If you can connect, you
get high speed wireless access. I have a modern laptop computer. We use a
wireless network at work all the time. I thought maybe I could change the
configuration, and log on to their WiFi service. The WiFi service offers a
tech support line. I called. It’s not that easy. First, the tech support
guy had me change all my internet settings, then he told me it wouldn’t
work. Matt, I’m going to need some help when I get home. I went back to
the park office and bought the wireless LAN unit I can plug into my
computer. That works. Now I own the unit. For a subscription fee of $30
per month, I have WiFi at any park that offers it. Now, when we’re working
out of town, we need to start scheduling which parks to stay at by whether
they offer WiFi or not. As cool as the GPS navigator system is, when you put the right address in,
know what they don’t show? Rest stops. Think about it. If you’re planning
a program to help people travel, wouldn’t you want to indicate where the
next rest stop is? I can’t believe they didn’t do that. In fact, I’m so
convinced they wouldn’t do that, I think it’s pilot error. I think they did
it, and Judy and I just haven’t been able to find it yet. A ten-hour day at the conference. Long day. We talked about the future,
billing what you’re worth, digital CPA firms, and managing conflict. Tomorrow…. More.