It's time for a little Blog housekeeping as we get closer to departure day. I'm going to change a few things around, nothing major though, and I thought an explanation and some instructions might be in order. I've learned a few things about how to manipulate the blog website over the past few months and correspondingly a few of the changes are due to this new knowledge.
1. The two headings across the top of the web page labeled "The Plan" and
"Map Us" will be changed to "The Gulf Trip" and "Map Us" on my next posting. I'm changing the first tab because I've come to realize that I can only have a continuous list of postings (like you see on the right) under a single tab heading and as such I'll use the more general name of, "The Gulf Trip". I had initially planned to add another tab for the "Voyage" phase of our trip to separate the plans from the execution, but as I said, I cannot add more posts under a new tab.
2. And not that you probably care, but the second tab,"Map Us", which will not change, actually takes you to a different website that is private and restricted to only those who have been invited by supplying me with an email address. The purpose of this page is to allow you to follow us on a map in real time.
Now Pay Attention; If you want to follow us on "Map Us" you need to let me know via email. If you don't know how to reach me by email then I probably don't want you following me anyway. And take note that I'll automatically add friends and family just before departure day. Once added you will receive an email that invites you in. If you know me and cannot follow me please realize that it's not personal and I simply missed registering you. Just send me an email that starts out with a subject line such as, "some pal you are!", and I'll get you fixed right up. And don't be bashful about asking. Mary and I consider you to be a, "qualified acquaintance", by either of us having ever talked with you face to face in our lifetimes. Friends, family, relatives, and co-workers are all welcome. I'll keep the "Map Us" up for 30 days after which time it will be shut down for good. I think you can understand my privacy concerns, and besides, do you really want to watch me commuting to work everyday?
The last thing on this topic worth mentioning is that Google will try to push you to sign up with a gmail account when you accept the invitation to use the tracking feature. You don't have to do this but the downside is your access will expire in 30 days. That's not a problem though and it works out just fine as our trip will be history in that approximate period of time and "Map Us" will have been turned off.
3. While we're traveling I suspect it will at times be difficult to keep you updated because of the availability of internet connections. I will do my best but do expect that occasionally a post could be a day behind. Hopefully not two days. The postings will become more abbreviated and I beg pardon in advance for what will certainly be an increase in errors as I won't feel like wasting time on editing details. Some postings might be coming from my phone and I just can't produce reliably and with any accuracy on those itsy-bitsy keypads.
4. I probably won't be posting too many video clips because of the difficulty in rendering them and uploading them. I'll not be carrying a computer with enough horsepower to process them and I often expect to encounter rather narrow Internet connections. I do however plan to take video as I'll have on board 100GB of SD memory cards. But the videos will have to wait until I after the trip is over.
5. And don't you wonder why I'm not doing my postings on Facebook? I'm not really sure except to say that I might favor broadcasting over communicating. How rare it is when a guy gets to talk and everybody else has to listen. That suits me well and I'll leave the Face-booking to my more socially evolved better half, Mary.