Cards, Windows, Memories

Val took this shot on her walk yesterday. There are hundreds blooming now in the lakes and ponds on the preserve. 

We noticed a couple of years ago that we are often given a "business" card when we talked to fellow travelers.  Sometimes it included some business information if the folks were still working, but more often than not it was just a card with personal info that would let us know how to contact them when we were on the road.  Since starting our full-time adventure, we have collected quite a few, and so we knew it was time to create our own.  Ours has a pic of Val and me in font of the Volvo.
It definitely makes exchanging information easy and quick.

On a completely different note, I just wanted to tell all you Windows (vs.Mac) users that after 2 years of a hate-hate (and disgust and loathing and, well, you get the picture)  relationship with Windows Vista on my desktop replacement Gateway laptop, I did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro.  It meant I had to back-up all my files and do some magic with nearly 60 GB of IPod music files, but I'm here to say that it was all worth it.  I had problems with Vista from the first week.  It was slow.  It crashed.  At one point (actually several) I threatened to throw the laptop out the door.  If it hadn't cost so much, I would have.  But Windows 7 has changed all that.  My computer is easily 5 to 10 times faster starting up and running programs.  It has changed my computer life, so much so that I emailed Microsoft and let them know.  That's how impressed I am.
So if you've got Vista, don't wait.  Change to 7 now.  You won't regret it.

And now, having some time to reminisce due to the down-time from my surgery, I came across some pics from some of my favorite places.  The first is a post-storm pic from the deck of our family house in Fenwick Island, DE.

Here's the family on a 30 degree Thanksgiving morning in Yosemite.  I still don't know how Emily was able to play the guitar in the cold.  As I remember, we had the best granola pancakes with syrup and peaches heated over the fire.  Possibly the best Thanksgiving we have ever had.

And finally, the first west coast sunset that Val, Emily and I had ever seen.  We stopped in Big Sur and this is what we were present for.