On To Indy...

Caught the Navteq Road-mapping vehicle
as we were leaving Michigan City and heading to Indy

Friday it was our move day and why we really haven't been able to blog much the last couple of days. We got up, ate breakfast and then it was off to the races getting the campsite cleaned up, Arrakis ready to move, and four scurrying minions who resisted our efforts to participate in our pack and move operation.

The one thing I have to say is that Indianapolis is MUCH hotter than it was in Michigan City. Maybe it was the better shade, the lake effect, or just simply cooler up north, but it noticeably hotter the closer we got to Central Indiana. The kids had fun on the move. The gruesome twosome road with me as I hauled Arrakis and our tower of snakes. Jen, Uno, and T-Rex followed along carrying everything we could stuff in the van to make Arrakis easier to haul. Our plan worked.

Last visit to the Indiana Dunes

After a few potty stops, we arrived at our location. At first blush, Indy KOA is a pretty nice camp. Well planned out, good playground, a nice game room and pavilion. They also have fun activities such as hay rides, root beer floats, and breakfast available. The down side you may ask? Internet! OMG! It is non existent. Worse, they only allow one computer for an hour a day. Sorry charlie, that is not going to work for us. If you advertise free WiFi, I think you should also post your draconian restrictions. Let's be real, that is probably all the older RV crowd needs to get by. I am sure, if I was simply vacationing, that would also be fine. It might even seem more than enough for the older generation of RV'ers visiting here. But for us... I say Nay,Nay!

<warning.. rant!>

So, I am struggling with what to do. You see, we cannot even connect to the wireless at our campsite. Not even with our smartphones. I called the office and they said they couldn't do anything for us for the next week or so (after Labor Day). Then, we might be able to move. Should I be upset? Maybe not. Should I ask for some money back because of my lack of connectivity? Probably not since they are providing the wireless for free (with restrictions).

Saturday, it was so hot we decided to go for milkshakes, 

Dos chose milk mustaches

So I guess, I am going to break down and buy yet another pay as you go 4G plan. I had clear for over a year and the service was spotty. Some days it worked great and other days you were left in the wind. Their customer support is terrible and think that by repeating everything you say back to you is the end all of good customer service. Worse yet is if the hardware goes out on you. I have had this happened to me twice. They expect you to buy new equipment and have you send your old in. If they find it defective, they MAY reimburse you the cost of the new equipment. 

It took me forever to get my point across that I would not be paying for faulty equipment again, and that they needed to replace the equipment at no cost. Little did I know that they lied. Replaced the equipment, and charged me. As soon as I saw the charge come across, I threatened to drop their service, and they promptly dropped the charge. As you can see, I am not a fan and no longer use their service. The good or bad part of this is that Clear doesn't have service near our campsite.

This leads me to finding another solution, having to buy someone else's equipment and pay an exorbitant rate for wireless service. Such is life. Don't know if there is a better solution out there. I have been looking and really don't feel that I have found my answer.

<end of rant!> Well for now... don't get me started on our little warning we received about our kids..

Outside of my negative feedback about the KOA's wireless. The camp site is really nice. It is set beside a quiet creek. I believe we have the most shade you can get at the park. It feels ten to fifteen degrees cooler under awning and campground. I actually noticed that as I was coming in from a visit with my brother and his family. 

Amish made Holsters... Really?

My brother lives in Columbus, IN. Not too far from where we were staying. Earlier Saturday, my brother and I visited the Indy1500. It is a huge gun show in the Indianapolis area. There were lots of dealers. Some I recognized from the gun shows closer to Evansville. There seems to be a regular group of dealers that travel the shows to sell guns, accessories, and supplies. Just like the Evansville shows, the prices of guns were higher than they should be. You have to pay $12 to get into the show, see overpriced merchandise, and pay through the nose for concessions. Yet, every yahoo comes out and visits. I even saw a Congressman out there shaking hands.

Sunday we visited on the recommendation of our friends from Calvary Chapel Sunset Coast to visit Horizon's Christian Fellowship. They are a Calvary Chapel Church in the Indy area that have a couple of campuses, have a bible college, and really seem to be doing a good work in the area. We were greeted warmly, helped getting our kids to their classes, and Jen and I enjoyed a great service and challenged Jen and I about things in our life that God is trying to use teach us about trusting him and following his will.

After service, we ate at a local Mexican restaurant that I didn't feel was that spectacular. It was enjoyable, quiet for a Sunday afternoon, and provided everyone with enough choices, that even a picky eater was somewhat satisfied. After lunch we headed to my brother's house for a afternoon visit and dinner.

Pajamas...check! Movie Time!

It was a nice visit. Our kids were entertained by my brother's family dogs, a crazy zombie film on Netflix, and great food. My brother made some awesome hamburgers, with a side of fresh vegetables, yellow watermelon, and a Barnes's staple of Kraft Shells and Cheese. After seeing my family, getting a little out of hand, and Jen and I get into a little tiff in front of my brother and his wife, I knew we were just exhausted for the day and time to head back to Arrakis. 

We all unloaded, got into our pajamas, and snuggled together to watch a movie. Jen had decided to hit the hay early. We watched a great film called 'Tho none shall follow." It was a battle of course because the kids wanted to watch the Lorax for the umpteenth billionth time. I resisted. In the end, they all liked the movie, it had a great message, and I tucked them in to bed. 

Fun in the Sun, and not handling stress well

Another day in the Sun. The kids had an absolute blast yesterday when they visited Central Beach along the Lake Shore. Always careful as you can see, each of the minions wore a life jacket. It seems that the lake claims lives every year and that the under tow can pull people away. Of course this is the case whether you are in the Great Lakes, a river, or the ocean... there are always dangers.

Combine common sense, and a little extra precaution, you can have a fun day at the beach wherever you may end up. The only issue we had is that the kids came back a little sun burned. It could have been worse, all of our children take after me with fair complexion. We found earlier this year bathing suits that have UV protection and bought a swim suit for everyone in the family. That helps a lot. Me, I go from pasty white to the color a Lobster, back to pasty white.

The kids also were able to get five pounds of Michigan Blueberries from a local farmer's market. I would rather them eat healthy and delicious blueberries than snack away on unhealthy things like potato chips and other garbage easy to find at your local grocer. As you can see T-Rex in this photo, she is drinking one of the soda's made from our new SodaStream. Ok, we are not perfect! Sure, we could go the all natural way, however for our family, we live in a balance.

For me, I had a long frustrating day on the job. Coming home, I wanted to bless the wife by taking her out and buying her a new laptop since our old one crashed and the junker desktop we have been limping along at home didn't quite fit in our camper, we needed something very manageable that could server multiple purposes. 

We decided on a MacBook Air. I am a huge fan when it comes to Apple products. After supporting both Windows and Linux environments in my past, I decided several years back that I would buy a Mac and see what the hub-bub was all about. I was very surprised and happy. It combines the best in general security, had a great operating system based on Unix, that was mainstream enough to provide plenty of apps to meet my needs that worked well to integrate easily with Windows environments and networks. 

The main use of the new MacBook Air is for homeschooling. Providing kids with the tools they need to do their schoolwork, and matched with awesome and easy to use creative tools to make the whole process fun. My lovely bride would have all the tools she needed to prepare for teaching, with a small footprint to boot. And it fits really well with the RV life. It is ultra portable, lightweight, and rugged!

We found a great deal on the MacBook at the local BestBuy. They had an open boxed version for $250 less than a brand new one. I bought an external super drive as well as an AppleTV to go along with the accessories. The drive allows us to run DVD's as well as other learning programs we use to help the kids in the learning. We had to purchase this because MacBook Airs do not have a DVD/CD drive. That is fine with me because most of the time, we don't use it. Most of the material is available online to download. The AppleTV is for us to be able to send video streaming to our large TV. Thus making the material much more easily watched instead of having kids cram around a small screen.

Bought and paid for, off to the camper...that is when the trouble started. I opened the MacBook Air and everything looked fine. As soon as I booted up, I expected the normal start up and walk through that you normally see on Mac's to help you set up the computer. To my surprise, they hadn't wiped the machine. Worse they had locked the login user out from basically EVERYTHING. This along with not even providing passwords for the accounts made things more difficult. I even tried removing the setup file using terminal so that when I rebooted, it would take me through the process again of setting up the machine and creating new Admin and user accounts.

None of that worked. Instead, I had to call Apple Support. We went and wiped out the old settings and to my dismay, they wiped out the entire OS. The good thing is that you can restore the entire machine by downloading a new OS through the restore process. Unfortunately, it wouldn't find my wireless connection in the camper. I tried everything. I even walked the campground in the dark in hopes to find a good signal. No Dice. Eventually, I just gave up, put the machine in the box and tried to calm down.

In the kids excitement, they all wanted to see and look at the new machine. I was already under a lot of stress trying to get it configured. I really didn't want to be bombarded with a thousand questions and have everyone clambering around me to get a look at the new machine. I lost my cool. I yelled at the kids. Father of the year award... lost. 

I am definitely not perfect. I have lots of opportunities to grow in this area. I wasn't angry at them, I was angered that this new purchase that was supposed to be a godsend to my wife and children was utterly falling flat on its face. Instead of closing the computer and giving up an hour and a half before I did, I took the frustrations out on my children. Some things are just not worth yelling about. A smart person would realize that we should have had it checked out before we took it home. You know what they say when you assume...

Needless to say, Jen and I got up in the morning and prayed. I asked for forgiveness for my crappy attitude, and we are taking the MacBook Air back. I left it up to Jen as to whether she would take a replacement, or have the GeekSquad (who we purchased a package from) would work on the machine. Either way, I am fine with the decision. God is in control, even when I think I should be. This is a great lesson to me about living on the road. Things don't go as planned. Sometimes it will be out of your control. The best way to respond when things get away from you is to give up, seek help from those who are well suited to do so, and move on. It is not worth all the fuss nor the damage to relationships it could cause!

I was skeptical, but I was desperate...

I was skeptical, but I was desperate as to whether or not I could ever get any satisfactory wireless internet at the RV. Often times in the evening, I am logging in to make sure there are not problems and to prepare for the next day. Having a decent wireless connection speed saves me tons of time. Instead of fighting to connect, hopefully not getting dropped or suspended for an indefinite time, I want to log on, do my stuff and log off so that I can do something more meaningful like playing with the kids, fishing, or just about anything else.


As for road schooling, we don't have the extra room to store books and lots of 'paper' materials. A lot of the work has to be done online or using products such as Google docs to get the work done. Each of our children have a Amazon Kindle Fire we bought when they were selling refurbished ones for $149. This allows us to use them in conjunction with one laptop computer instead of having a laptop for each child. As you can imagine, for road-schooling like we are, connectivity is a must. Nothing like having a toddler upset that she cannot watch her PBS kids on her Kindle Fire! With the Kindle Fire's loaded down with books, and materials for homeschooling, it is just a matter of having connectivity to the Internet to allow us to facilitate and guide them through the process.


Over the last couple of years, I have tried several products from wireless tethering on my phone to buying a separate service such as Clear.com (don't get me started on them), paying for a data plan on my iPad, and just being frustrated all the time.


However, from a good suggestion I found perusing forums to find a way to amplify or extend an existing wireless network that would work well in an RV setting, I came across the NETGEAR Universal Wi-Fi Range Extender. The price was $67 and available at the local Walmart.  I have spent far more to try and get connected only to feel like I have utterly wasted my time and money. Often times products are so hard or complicated to setup or worse, they just don't work as described.


However, I did try this product after some glowing reviews in the forums along with great reviews on Walmart's own website. I was surprised at how easy it was to setup. I don't own the wireless at the campground but I was easily able to connect to, extend, and fully use it with this extender. As you can see, it takes up very little room and makes a world of difference.