Well, not blogging, but I do get paid to work on my computer from home. A few months ago, I started dabbling in online freelance work on a couple of the big freelance sites, Guru.com and Elance.com. I upgraded my membership on Guru.com so I could bid more aggressively and hoped to get a job or two out of it. The upgrade cost $80 for three months, so I figured the odds were in my favor I could make back the $80 within three months.

Then my “real world” job fell apart (long story) and I went the freelance route full-throttle. In less than a week I had secured three projects that combined paid more than my “real” job had. Needless to say, I made my $80 back. That’s also about the time our RV dreams began to flourish.

Yesterday, we bit the bullet and signed a cell phone contract with Verizon, for no other reason than have portable EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) Internet access. We’re starting with just a phone, but in a couple months we’ll be adding an EVDO ExpressCard to our account which will give us speedy internet just about anywhere we can get a Verizon signal, which is most of the U.S. Speeds in digital coverage areas are faster than DSL and are rapidly approaching the speeds of cable internet. Couple with an EVDO router, we will have a portable WiFi zone wherever we go for just $60 a month.

$60 a month! To have internet wherever we can get a cellular signal. This was unheard of just a few years ago, and without these kinds of advances in technology and drastic reductions in the prices for mobile broadband, our Unending Adventure would not be possible.

Ok, new computer came yesterday and, drumroll, I love it. There are some tasks that I am convinced that is does better than my desktop could. In fact, Adobe InDesign and Photoshop are much more responsive on my new laptop.

There’s one thing that is going to take some getting used to. Storage.

This is the first time since I’ve owned a computer that my main machine is a laptop. I’m not used to having a “measily” 250GB drive to work with. In my last three desktops, I always had at least 1TB of storage and in my Mac Pro I had 2TB. Now, I have 250GB to work with and I’m using that up very quickly. That 250GB drive actually dwindles down to 233GB after formatting. I have a 32GB partition set aside for running Windows (I’m giving Vista SP1 a shot), leaving me just 200GB for my main Mac HD. It’s a tight fit. FInal Cut Pro Studio 2 takes up about 40GB, the fulle Adobe CS3 Premium takes up something like 33. Microsoft Office comes in around 15GB, and all of Apple’s iLife and iWork apps chime in with another 10-15GB. And these all have to be installed before I can really consider my computer “useful.”

Oh, and our family iPhoto library is 25GB. My iTunes collection is about 90GB, but I keep it on an external drive and hook it up when I need to sync new stuff to my iPod.

So after getting everything installed, the amount of usable internal disk space I have is… 81.3GB. Yikes. Still, though, that’s more than enough room to have several projects going at once.

Externally, I have a 1TB drive and a 320GB drive. The 320GB is my raw video drive that I dump my video camera’s hard drive to. I would like to be able to keep all raw footage I shoot, but that’s no possible because I simply don’t have the storge capacity or the money to upgrade my storage capacity. To that end, I usually delete all raw footage a few weeks a after a project is complete (just to make sure I don’t want to go back and change something).

Overall, the internal storage limitation is the only negative aspect of swithing from a desktop to a laptop, so far. There are many positives, not the least of which is that I am no longer confined to my home office when I want to work on something. I am a natural multitasker, so I am now able to sit in my recliner downstairs and work while still feeling like I am in contact with my family. My home office is nice, but its upstairs and away from all the action.

Most people are probably thinking, “Well, yeah, isn’t that the point of a home office?” It is, and that’s what I thought when I set it up. In reality though, I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m in a cave, locked away from my family. I just get antsy when I’m left alone to work. I can do it, but I’d much rather have the input of people around me, especially my family.

So I’m glad I’m downstairs working now. My kids are glad, too, and that doubly makes it the right decision.

Wow! What an awesome achievement!

BEIJING —  Michael Phelps got one of his toughest races out of the way, and it couldn’t have been any easier.

With President Bush cheering him on, Phelps dominated his first event of the Beijing Olympics on Sunday morning, crushing his own world record and all hopes of his challengers with a mark of 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds in the 400-meter individual medley.

This was thought to be a potential stumbling block in Phelps’ quest to win eight gold medals after fellow American and good friend Ryan Lochte matched him stroke for stroke at the U.S. Olympic trials just over a month ago. Both went under the previous world record in the 400 IM then, with Phelps touching first in 4:05.25.

But Phelps beat Lochte when it really mattered. Laszlo Cseh of Hungary took the silver in 4:06.16, while Lochte faded to third in 4:08.09 — more than 4 seconds behind the amazing Phelps.

“I’m pretty happy. That was a pretty emotional race,” Phelps said. “I knew it was going to be a tough race all the way through.”

Well, it was for a while.

(more…)

My new MacBook Pro is on its way! I got a great deal on a new MacBook Pro through a bankrupty liquidation firm. If I had went to an Apple Store, this same laptop would have cost $2,700. Even if I had used my educational discount (my wife and I are both full-time students through Liberty University), it would have been $2,550. I got a great deal at $2,100. AND it includes AppleCare through 2011! So I saved not just $600 over the normal price, but another $250 for the AppleCare.

God’s good.

Well, God still knows what He’s doing. I had a couple questions on my eBay auction over the night. One person I made contact with earlier in the week said he wanted to use it in his photography business. I googled his name and found out his “photography business” was the adult industry. I did not want this computer to be used for that, since it was originally purchased to be used for ministry. I’ve done several videos for my church on it, and I wanted it to continue to be used for what it was dedicated to do. I prayed and believed God would line up the right buyer that was going to use the computer for ministry.

So about 45 minutes ago, I get a “Your Item Has Sold” email from eBay. Yay! Then about a minute later I get a message from the buyer, introducing himself as the pastor of a church in California and that he was buying it so his church could start making videos.

Praise the Lord!

In the end, I am going to pay eBay and PayPal a total of $182.48. Ouch! But… I am so very grateful that the computer sold so quickly. I’ll have enough left over to buy a great laptop and then some. God’s good.

Aaron has been getting on me to post on our family blog, so here I am, posting on our family blog.

He’s much more into this kind of thing than I am, so I can’t promise regular posts, but I will try to post every once in a while from my perspective. My husband talks so much, he pretty much covers everything for both of us.

See you on the road,
Hannah

Someone at the Justice Department needs to look into how people are being gouged by ONE company handling both the auctions and the ONLY sanctioned online payment service offered by eBay.

To list my Mac Pro on eBay, it cost me $37. When it sells, its going to add on another $60-70 in “final value fees.” THEN if the buyer isn’t local (please be local, please be local), and they pay via PayPal (also owned by eBay), that will be ANOTHER $70 in fees paid to them.

$37 to list
~$70 based on the final auction bid
~$70 for PayPal's cut
-----
$177 in fees!

That’s equal to the entire six-month insurance policy quote I received on a travel trailer we’re looking into buying.

I think eBay has lost its person-to-person charm. I have used eBay since 1999 when it was in its infancy. It was SOO much better back then. It was a time before every company in the world decided to cash in on the eBay craze. Nowadays its really hard to find items that are sold by actual PEOPLE and not businesses. Personally, I wish eBay would have developed a completely separate business-postings site (ebayscams.com, for example) and left eBay as a strict person-to-person exchange. What it is now is not what it once was, and I miss the good ole’ days. Wow. I’m only 32, and I’m talking about the “good ole’ days.”

But, where else is there to go? Yahoo! gave up on auctions. The other auctions sites have at most a hundred users or so, if that. Sounds like a monopoly charging whatever it wants because it can to me.

A family member asked me how we’re going to get our mail while we’re out wandering around the country. At first at thought about getting a P.O. box and then having family check it every week and mail us the import stuff. That was until I came across this really cool service:

This is probably one of the coolest way to completely rethink snail mail. All your snail mail is received and the envelopes scanned and their images put into your inbox. You log in, look at the envelopes and select the ones you want them to open, scan completely and email to you. You can also select pieces of mail to be shredded, recycled or forwarded to wherever you currently are. Their plans start at $10 a month and will give us piece of mind knowing we won’t be without old-fashioned snail mail while we’re on the road.

I used to use a service back in the 90s called PayMyBills.com that handled your bill payments. You would change your billing address on your accounts to a special address they gave you and they would process all your incoming invoices, statements, etc. I’d log into the website, see scans of all my bills and then pay them electronically through a check they would print and mail. Now I pay all my bills online with a debit card, but PayMyBills.com was so cool for the 90s.

Today I collected three bags of junk from our aptly named “junk closet.” I don’t even know why we’ve held on to most of this stuff.

I put my Mac Pro up for sale on Craigslist to see if I can sell it there before taking it to eBay, where I’ll have to deal with shipping three boxes weighing more than 80 pounds total. It’s not going to be cheap. Not to mention the eBay AND PayPal feels which will total about $100. I really hope I can sell this locally.

I also posted an ad on Craigslist to start looking for temporary housing after our lease is up where we live now. We are kind of thinking it would be best to leave on our adventure the first week of March 2009, after we receive our federal tax return, which is usually pretty sizable thanks to Earned Income Credit we receive for having kids and being middle-income. With our tax return, school refunds and money we can save from now until February, we should have close to $20,000 to spend on a decent truck and trailer or used motorhome. It all depends on the market at the time.

Most of the money we are making from the stuff we are selling now is going into a savings account to pay for our diesel/SVO engine conversion. I kicked around the idea of using biodiesel but there’s no real safe way to make it on the road and getting into biodiesel co-ops is difficult, especially for people who won’t be in the co-op’s area long-term. Still, even with a converted engine we can use biodiesel if we can get it or make it somewhere along the way.

Madeline and I sat down with Microsoft Streets and Trips yesterday and talked about all the places we could go and all the things we’re going to see. I’m not sure she completely understands the whole concept quite yet, but she’s processing it and knows we’ll be on the road staying at campgrounds and such. I don’t think she understands that when we come back to the area we are now, we will have to stay with grandmas and grandpas because we won’t have a house of our own here any more.

Madeline’s also very excited to start school. I’ve been working with her from an incredible book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She is doing great! Every day she is gaining confidence and learning more and more words, actually teaching them to herself. At first I was skeptical of the book because it is a method of teaching children to read that is so different than anything I’ve seen before. But Madeline caught on instantly and is progessing through the 100 lessons right on track. 100 lessons in 100 days for 20 minutes a day. At the end of the 100 lessons, she’ll be reading a 2nd grade level. Amazing!

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  ~St. Augustine

When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money.  Then take half the clothes and twice the money.  ~Susan Heller

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.  ~Lao Tzu

It is not down in any map; true places never are.  ~Herman Melville

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.  ~G.K. Chesterton