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In January 2003, I decided to start producing a periodic newsletter Retirement Tips and RV Stuff. Below, you'll find a copy of the newsletters to date. If you'd like to get on the distribution for the next newsletter, send me email at rjhoffman@yahoo.com.
I've talked about it, put the plan on the website, and now ... I (actually we) did it! Planned to finish Retire and Travel - 20 Years Later in January 2004 and finally did. I had Joyce read and critique it. She had so many suggestions that I ended up pretty much re-organizing the whole book and adding quite a bit to it. Then she finished her chapter on Tiny Pockets of Happiness, so we ended up with a mix of views from an RV enthusiast (me) AND an RV non-enthusiast (her). The result is (IMHO) an excellent combination of entertainment and information. To check it out this great $10 ebook deal, just go to Retirement-Tips.com and click on the book.
And what about Wi-Fi? I am really enthused about it! Last week, I finally had time to do more research on it. I found the Jwire website, one of the better sites that offers a directory of Wi-Fi Hotspots. To my surprise, a hotel a few miles away had one and it was free! I drove down, parked in their parking lot, set up my laptop, and got online through their Hotspot. Later calculations showed that it's over 200 times faster than the 50kbps that I customarily get on my phone connections! For now, I'm sold on Wi-Fi as being the best, cheapest way to get to the internet while traveling! As a matter of fact, I'm going to be using it to email out my new book. With my phone modem connection, attaching a 2.4MB file to an email would take me about 10 hours -- with Wi-Fi, 3 minutes! That upload is real slow on the phone! To learn more about Wi-Fi, just go to InternetOnTheRoad.com.
I read a news article recently that told of an RV they've put into the Smithsonian Institute! Seems like we're finally becoming an official part of the American landscape. Take a look at the Smithsonian Exhibit on America on the Move to see a picture of the RV and other great Smithsonian exhibits.
Read on for calendar quotes, notes on my latest site updates, an unfinished idea on the featured website, and wrapping up with my Ramblings on whatever occurs to me between now and then.
I have an apology for all of you that breathlessly wait for my calendar trivia and quote each month. After working for months to catch up to the calendar, I'm finally synchronized in January 2004 -- I can now finally start just putting one quote/trivia of the month out there each month. Wrong! Seems that I'm in Alabama this month and the calendar is in Florida, so I'm once again behind a month. Sorry about that -- you don't get any quotes or trivia this month.
- Years ago, I started a website that I called WW II Maps, on which I'd planned to include year-by-year maps of the world from 1939 through 1945. My intent was to show the parts of the world controlled by the Allies and the Axis powers during each of those years. I've not worked on it for quite sometime, mostly due to the many other higher-priority activities that I've gotten involved in. Take a look and tell me if you think I should raise its priority and get it done.
Here's a list of some interesting things, some of which will make me a few bucks if you need them and buy them here:
- Dream Lifestyles to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How to Get a Life By .... whatever .. you fill in the blank. Check them out at http://www.dreamjobstogo.com/titles/dltg0005.html?11120
- Camp at Half of What Everyone Else is Paying! No home park, no monthly maintenance fees, no long-term obligation, just pay the small annual fee and camp for half-price. Check it out at http://www.passportamerica.com/default.asp?net_id=Rob40
- Dream Jobs to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How To Break Into ... whatever is your dream job. Check them out at http://www.dreamjobstogo.com/titles/djtg0051.html?11120
- $50 Websites! Instead of the hundreds or even thousands charged by most, I've decided to build websites for $50. Why so cheap? -- I enjoy building them and I'm trying to build a business. If you or any acquaintances would like to have a presence on the world-wide internet, either for personal or business, check out my websites listed at http://www.robert-hoffman-consulting.com/
On New Year's Eve 2003, I knew that 2004 was going to be a great year! We were driving to a party and I was thinking about how the DOW finished above 10,000, the NASDAQ finished above 2000, and things were looking pretty good. Then, to top it all off, our 1994 Lincoln Town Car turned over 120,000 -- right then and there! Put them all together and that's eleven zeros! Hey! Anything followed by eleven zeros has got to be good luck!
Well, I think I was right. The year is barely 16 days old and already I've finished the book, learned about Wi-Fi, put a vehicle on Mars, and now we're talking about going back to the moon! I guess I didn't really put that onto Mars, but I watched the whole thing. The excitement on the Space Coast (around Cocoa Beach and the Cape) right now reminds me of the glory days when I worked on Apollo in Houston in the late 1960's. You'd think we were already heading toward the moon, rather than just talking about it.
The bad news appears to be that gas prices may top $3.00 this summer. There's a little Web Poll on my Retirement-Tips home page if you're interested. You know, as much fuel as we RVers buy, seems like we ought to have a little clout that could be wielded one way or another. What if we tried to get all RVers in the USA to park for one week sometime this summer? Do you think that would be noticed? Oh well, if you hear of any good ideas, email me.
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Email rjhoffman@yahoo.com to sign up for the next newsletter, coming whenever I'm in the mood again.
I'm early this month, because I've got some exciting topics for you! I've just completed reading two great new mystery stories! The Da Vinci Code, which I'm sure you've heard of, is a best-selling tale of a conspiracy involving the church. False Signals is a lesser-known work, but I found it equally as engrossing. It describes a conspiracy similar to the Da Vinci story, but involving several U.S. Government agencies. I highly recommend reading both, which are available in my library as ebooks at $10 each. I've included a review of both books below in the Reviews section.
What's the new SPAM law? Well, the Federal Government has passed a law requiring that all commercial emails follow certain rules. They must have a valid return email address, they must have a simple means for receivers to choose to not receive future mailings, and they must contain a valid street address for the organization. In keeping with this new law, I've included my permanent street address at the bottom of the newsletter, since that's the only requirement that I haven't been meeting. Go to website: http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html if you want to read the entire law.
On a lighter note, check out: http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1.html. I was sent this really great webpage that tells you how old you are relative to a bunch of celebrities, relative to significant historical events, Top 40, TV, and movies.
Read on for calendar quotes, notes on my latest site updates, one of my latest works on the featured website, and wrapping up with my Ramblings on whatever occurs to me between now and then.
Here are the 2 for this month, then we're really caught up!
January quote "Nothing is far when one wants to get there." - Queen Marie of Rumania. The Trivia Challenge "Which state has 75% of its land at an altitude over 10,000 feet?" -- answer in Ramblings below.
February quote "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." - Douglas Adams. Challenge : "What Confederate city, east of the Mississippi, was never captured by the Union Army?" -- there are several of you out there who'd better know this one!
- I've just completed a fairly complete revision to OceanViewRV.com -- complete with a webcam that shows our "surf" here on the Space Coast. If you're ever looking for a great campground on the beach near the Cape, this is it! Check out the new website.
Here's a list of some interesting things, some of which will make me a few bucks if you need them and buy them here:
- Dream Lifestyles to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How to Get a Life By .... whatever .. you fill in the blank. Check them out at http://www.dreamjobstogo.com/titles/dltg0005.html?11120
- Camp at Half of What Everyone Else is Paying! No home park, no monthly maintenance fees, no long-term obligation, just pay the small annual fee and camp for half-price. Check it out at http://www.passportamerica.com/default.asp?net_id=Rob40
- Dream Jobs to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How To Break Into ... whatever is your dream job. Check them out at http://www.dreamjobstogo.com/titles/djtg0051.html?11120
- $50 Websites! Instead of the hundreds or even thousands charged by most, I've decided to build websites for $50. Why so cheap? -- I enjoy building them and I'm trying to build a business. If you or any acquaintances would like to have a presence on the world-wide internet, either for personal or business, check out my websites listed at http://www.robert-hoffman-consulting.com/
- Read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. This much-publicized best-seller really lived up to the publicity. It weaves a tale that questions many of the basics of Christianity, leaving the reader wondering where the fact ends and the fiction begins. I found it quite helpful to have my computer in front of me while reading it, to check out some of the claims made. To my surprise, there really is an Opus Dei, an Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN) and a website named http://www.odan.org/. The peculiarities noted in Da Vinci's paintings are really there (like the woman at the famous Last Supper) and all of the other surprising observations appear to be true also. This was truly one of the best mysteries I've ever read. It's available in the library as hardback or in ebook form at $10.47.
- Also read False Signals by Holly Hoffman. Although this mystery centers around a world-wide conspiracy involving several Federal agencies, I was struck by the similarities to The Da Vinci Code. Both involve misdoings by supposedly trusted organizations, both have a female lead, and both lead the reader around the globe in search of the solutions. I'd suggest reading this one after you've finished The Da Vinci Code. False Signals is also in the library in ebook form for $10.
If you've read this far, you're in for a treat. I'm going to groan a little about how much time I put into my new book that I talked about last newsletter (Retire and Travel - 20 Years Later) and how few have sold. I spent roughly a year putting it together and revising it, until I was completely satisfied with it. Of the 100 or so friends, family, and supposed retirement/RV fans that my newsletter goes out to, only one was interested in reading/buying it. All the rest of the sales have been to total strangers, not even on my newsletter distribution. I'm really surprised, but I guess that's what I've always heard from other new authors -- selling books is hard. Well, it's still there and it's in the library, so if you decide you'd like to be entertained and educated about retiring, RVs, and how to save money in various ways, check it out!
TRIVIA ANSWERS: I knew both of these! Colorado is the state with 75% of its land at an altitude over 10,000 feet. Tallahassee, Florida (my home town) was the Confederate city, east of the Mississippi, that was never captured by the Union Army. Now, that's the answer that was on the calendar. When I was growing up, I always heard that it was the only state capital in the South that wasn't captured by the Yankees.
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Email rjhoffman@yahoo.com to sign up for the next newsletter, coming whenever I'm in the mood again.
Permanent Mailing Address: R. Hoffman, 2805 Oak Trail Court, #3437, Arlington, Texas 76016.
If you're looking for a specific topic in one of the old newsletters, the Search box on the right will find it for you. It will also point you to other references to the topic throughout the website.
Beware the Ides of March! No reason, just thought I'd let you know that I know about the Ides. The only thing I know of that happens then is that corporate income taxes are due -- but I've got mine done, so no problem there.
I've hinted to several of you about the secret that I recently discovered and I'm sure you're dying to learn more! Well, now I'm ready to tell all! Basically, I've been playing Poker for nearly 50 years and have never been a consistent winner. Recently, I got interested in Hold'Em Poker and, more specifically, in ONLINE Hold'Em Poker. I started playing in December, lost a little, then ... on Valentine's Day 2004, I discovered a secret about online poker that has made me a fairly consistent winner since then. I actually win over 70% of the times that I play! I've been keeping a record, so I know that to be a fact. I'm ready to pass it on to my friends FREE! If you're interested, click here to go to my Poker Page.
Now what, you ask, does Poker have to do with retirement or RVs? Well, I cover that on my Poker Page, also.
Something else that's emerging on the Retirement Tips website -- HIDDEN PAGES! When I was completing my book Retire and Travel - 20 Years Later, I got to a point where I wanted to provide a large amount of data and graphs, but didn't want to bulk up the book anymore than it already was. So, I built a webpage, put all of the information there, then provided a link to it from the book. The only way you'll find the page is to get it from the book, so I refer to it as one of my hidden pages. I'll be doing the same thing with the Poker System referenced above, so jump onboard and you'll be viewing the hidden pages right along with everyone else!
I know it's probably not fashionable to talk about someone else's RVing newsletter, but I found several interesting RVing things in Chuck Woodbury's recent issues, so I'd like to pass those along to you. First, a very funny photo just back from the Mars Rover at http://rvtravel.com/mars2.html. Second, a survey on how much RVers are willing to pay for a campsite at http://www.rvtravel.com/rvtravel/rvresult22.aspx. Third, a very interesting article on RVing in Mexico at http://www.ontheroadin.com/?source=fulltimerver.com. Finally, an article about the importance of exercising your generator at http://www.rvtravel.com/news7.html. I've known since my first RV that it's better to run your generator every now and then, rather than just ignoring it, but I didn't know that it's recommended that you run it for 2 hours every 30 days! Now, that's valuable information -- read the article!
Read on for calendar quotes, notes on my latest site updates, one of my latest works on the featured website, and wrapping up with my Ramblings on whatever occurs to me between now and then.
March 2004 quote from my Happy Traveling RV Calendar: "A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places." - Isabelle Eberhardt. The Trivia Challenge "Which state has more glaciers than the other 47 contiguous states combined?" -- answer in Ramblings below, but surely we all know this one!
- Retirement-Tips.com has a whole new look! I've set up standard menu buttons on the primary pages, with a categorized topic list. Check it out! I'm hoping you'll find that the things you're most interested in are easier to find.
- Several new chapters in the Travel Log: Chapter 55. An Afternoon with Willie: Willie Nelson visits the Satellite Beach Texas Roadhouse restaurant.; Chapter 56. Another View of Lazydays: A not-so-pleasant visit to the country's largest RV dealership. Chapter 57. Weather, Repairs, Bikes, Pugs, and Alaska : Multiple events on a short trip to Huntsville, Alabama.
- On Leap Day, February 29th, I decided I should do something significant, so I created two new pages. One is the laughable Setting Up My RV, the other is the Poker Page that I've spoken of above.
- About that same time, I received a letter with what I thought was a great idea for fighting back on the outrageous price of gasoline, so I generated the page 2004 Gas War telling you what you might want to do to possibly have an affect on those prices.
- On InternetOnTheRoad.com, I've put some additional information about Satellite for Internet Access while RVing. I thought it an interesting coincidence that Willie Nelson, who was the subject of my Travel Log Chapter 55, is also a spokesperson for these Motosat systems.
- If you're looking for a new investment option, read about Indexed Annuities and Long-Term Care Annuities on my page of Investment Tips.
- I've added a FREE downloadable Wi-Fi locator (12mb) on my IOTR Wi-Fi page.
- This month, I put together a new website Pro Bono! My niece in Gainesville, Florida leads a Junior Girl Scout troop and asked me to put a site together for them. Check out the Girl Scout Troop 611 website -- and don't miss the huge cookie pictures -- they'll make your mouth water! Go to Cookie page and click any cookie picture.
Here's a list of some interesting things, some of which will make me a few bucks if you need them and buy them here:
- Dream Lifestyles to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How to Get a Life By .... whatever .. you fill in the blank. Check them out here.
- Camp at Half of What Everyone Else is Paying! No home park, no monthly maintenance fees, no long-term obligation, just pay the small annual fee and camp for half-price. Check it out here.
- Dream Jobs to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All you need to know about How To Break Into ... whatever is your dream job. Check them out here.
- $50 Websites! Instead of the hundreds or even thousands charged by most, I've decided to build websites for $50. Why so cheap? -- I enjoy building them and I'm trying to build a business. If you or any acquaintances would like to have a presence on the world-wide internet, either for personal or business, check out my websites listed on my business website at http://www.robert-hoffman-consulting.com/
- No reading this month. We saw the movie Hidalgo. Not bad. Plenty of action. Some suspense. A little romance. And a happy ending. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it about a 7.
Guess what? It's taken me about two days to put this together, because I kept thinking of things that I needed to finish before I could talk about them (e.g., Gas Wars page, Chapter 57, etc.). So, now I'm here and I'm tired and the Ides are almost over and don't have anything significant left to ramble about. Let me just point you to a couple of really neat webpages and then end the newsletter. Then I can go relax and play some Poker.
By the way, one of my Poker hidden pages will be a record of every online session that I have, showing how much I win or lose each time. I plan to continue to keep it updated for an extended period, including notes on additional gaming sites as I check them out. To get onboard, just go to the Poker page and signup.
The first neat webpage is one that I created. After Joyce finished the wall mural in our guest room, I decided to take a 360-degree photo of the room. I think it turned out great! Check it out and see if you agree.
Finally, someone sent me the link to a quiz that tells you if you're more of a Yankee or Southerner. It's really interesting, unless of course you're from Canada ... LOL. Check it out here. Oops! Just checked the link. It's gone. Sorry about that ... maybe someone will find it again and send me the new link.
TRIVIA ANSWER: The state with more glaciers than the other 47 contiguous states combined is, of course, Washington. Do any other of the contiguous states even have any glaciers?
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Email rjhoffman@yahoo.com to sign up for the next newsletter, coming whenever I'm in the mood again.
Permanent Mailing Address: R. Hoffman, 2805 Oak Trail Court, #3437, Arlington, Texas 76016.
Okay, I'm late this month -- it's already May and this is the April newsletter. Why am I late? Because I'm busy enjoying my retirement. I hope you are doing the same, if you're retired. If you're not yet retired, I hope you're planning ahead so you'll be able to enjoy it when the time comes. Other than RV Stuff, Retirement Tips is what my website is all about. Hopefully, you'll find information on the site to help you in your planning. If you don't find what you need, email me -- maybe I know where you need to look.
So what am I doing that's keeping me so busy? I'm building animated GIFs, playing online Hold'Em Poker, fishing, RVing, consulting online, selling books, and generally pursuing my Multiple Revenue Streams. Let me talk about the last one first, since it explains many of the others. Multiple Revenue Streams is a term I heard once when I attended a seminar on making money on Ebay auctions. I never did an auction, but I learned the value of Multiple Revenue Streams -- making a little money in a number of ways so that the sum total of the streams adds up to a worthwhile amount of income. I make a little bit on this, a little bit on that, and am not getting rich, but I'm pleased with the resulting total, which increases a little each month. The seminar didn't present it as a mechanism for surviving in retirement, but it certainly is appropriate if you're not lucky enough to have a fat pension.
Animated GIFs: I finally bit the bullet and spent $25 to become a little more professional in my website building stream. I bought the Animated GIF Construction Set Professional, so I can now build those neat eye-catching graphics. For example, take a look at the Iceberg logo on the home page at Retirement-Tips.com. If you want to see a really spiffy one, check out the dancing paintbrushes on Joyce's FauxByJoyce.com.
Hold'Em Poker: I've only passed my winning secret on to a few of you, but am getting good reports back from everyone who's playing at ParadisePoker.com. NOW, I've discovered another secret -- if you've been to Paradise and played using the info I sent, you're probably going to figure this out for yourself. I've found that when I play in a specific mode, I almost never lose! Join the club, let me send you the first secret, join Paradise, and I'll send you this new one plus some other observations I've made in the 160 hours I've played online since Valentine's Day! Everyone who has already set up their Paradise account has already got my second secret and is happily winning easy money! Why not make Hold'Em one of your streams?
Fishing and RVing: Not making money on these, but they provide entertaining stories to tell in my Travel Log, like Chapter 58 A Bad Day at Fishing ..., which brings people to my website, so they might buy some little thing there and Voila! Another revenue stream!
Consulting Online: This is currently my largest stream. Thanks to several happy coincidences, new technology, and some cooperative employers, I'm able to work a few hours a day over the internet. I make a few bucks and help them get some things done without having to keep someone on full-time.
Selling Books: Since my mournful plea in the February newsletter, my book Retire and Travel - 20 Years Later, has been selling much better. Hey, if people buy out of sympathy, that's okay too. All the feedback I've gotten back sofar has been quite positive. The readers are finding it entertaining, as well as giving them some great ideas on retirement and on RVing. Some have even accused me of being a real professional author. hahaha .. I became one of those when I sold my first book 20 years ago. I'm just not one all the time and that's just another of those Multiple Revenue Streams.
I'm going on about all this to suggest you might add this idea into your retirement planning. Start creating your revenue streams before you retire and you might find yourself in better shape when the time actually comes.
Just like last month, I'm going to provide some links to some very interesting RVing Stuff that I noted in Chuck Woodbury's RV Travel newsletters. He puts out a newsletter every week, I read them all, and here are the best this month. First, his index to RV parks with Wi-Fi hotspots: http://www.rvtravel.com/wifi.html. Some really interesting surveys on several RV-related topics : http://www.rvtravel.com/rvtravel/results.aspx. A neat article on Tiny Houses, some on wheels and some on the ground: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/index.htm.
Read on for calendar quotes, notes on my latest site updates, some great USA photos on the featured website, and wrapping up with my Ramblings on whatever occurs to me between now and then.
April 2004 quote from my Happy Traveling RV Calendar: "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Trivia Challenge "Originally started in Montana, when was the first Interstate Highway system completed?" -- answer in Ramblings below.
- Last year, I got a free domain name in payment from Homestead.com, so I created AmericaViews.com to showcase some of my best photos of the U.S.A. Later, I shut down the domain name, but moved the pictures to RetirementTips.com to form a website within the website. You can click on America Views under the RV Travel section of just Click Here to see photos featuring Arizona, Texas, Cacti, Campsites, Classic Cars, Roads, and Sunrises/Sunsets.
Here's a list of some interesting things, some of which will make me a few bucks if you need them and buy them here:
- Dream Lifestyles to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All about How to Get a Life By .... whatever .. you fill in the blank. Check them out here.
- Camp at Half of What Everyone Else is Paying! No home park, no monthly maintenance fees, no long-term obligation, just pay the small annual fee and camp for half-price. Check it out here.
- Dream Jobs to Go! Great electronic books for $12.95 that download to your computer immediately. All you need to know about How To Break Into ... whatever is your dream job. Check them out here.
- $50 Websites! Instead of the hundreds or even thousands charged by most, I've decided to build websites for $50. Why so cheap? -- I enjoy building them and I'm trying to build a business. If you or any acquaintances would like to have a presence on the world-wide internet, either for personal or business, check out my websites listed on my business website at http://www.robert-hoffman-consulting.com/
I'm not going to ramble much here, because I kind of rambled on a little in the first section. What I am going to complain about is these high gasoline prices. Now, I've heard the tales about how it's OPEC's fault, etc., etc., but I've also heard that the oil companies are making some of the highest profits ever. To me, that means they could cut the prices some if they wanted to. That's why I put my 2004 Gas War page out there and that's why I'm really pleased when I go past the expensive stations and see almost nobody there, then find the Murphy Station at Walmart nearly full. I'm using my 3-cent discount card and getting my gas about 15 cents cheaper than at most of the local stations. It's still not cheap, but I'm hoping it might help to get the prices lowered eventually. Check out that Gas War page and see if you think it's a good idea. By the way, for those of you who don't like Walmart, the Murphy Stations are independent, not owned by Walmart.
I've taken three RV trips sofar this year and have been able to buy all my gas from Murphy thus far. Joyce and I each have our Walmart cash card and are happily saving money. Suggest you all join in!
TRIVIA ANSWER: 1956 -- Were you RVing then?
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Email rjhoffman@yahoo.com to sign up for the next newsletter, coming whenever I'm in the mood again.
Permanent Mailing Address: R. Hoffman, 2805 Oak Trail Court, #3437, Arlington, Texas 76016.
