Social Media At Its Best

March 18, 2009 – 9:04pm

Well, I just got back from Bingo – Bingo Wednesday nights from 7 to 8:45. I didn’t win anything this time but my mom won ten bucks. Speaking of winning at Bingo, last Wednesday when I was at Bingo, they often give out gift certificates from local businesses as prizes, and last Wednesday I won a free haircut gift certificate to a cute little salon down the street from us called Letty’s Beauty Salon. Well, my appointment was for 5pm today. I was putting off getting a haircut all winter long, but when I got that free haircut gift certificate at Bingo, it was a sign….I needed a haircut. I got my haircut and dyed my hair to a medium brown for a total of $40 bucks. Back home it would of been twice that much at some of the places in my home town. The lady that did my hair was very nice and the hair color came out great. Before the hair cut appointment we ran errands and ate lunch at the golf course here at the RV Park.

I want to talk about something for a second…..I’ve had a few of my blog visitors catch up with me through social media applications throughout this winter. Some of my blog visitors have Facebook accounts, MySpace accounts, and Twitter accounts and if you  know me better….I am a complete Twitter-holic. Facebook and MySpace are very similar to each other but I get alot more of the mature connections through Facebook. I check my Facebook account several times throughout the day on my Blackberry and don’t even start with me about my Twitter account….I have my Twitter account open and active all day long (on my Blackberry). Facebook is a great way of keeping in touch with long distance pals that just want to drop you a little hello, send you a virtual-gift, and start a Facebook Group and invite members to share an interest in a particular topic. My Facebook Groups range from RVing groups to a NASCAR Fantasy League group (which I participate in weekly). When you sign up for Facebook, it will give you the option to automatically gently go through your email address book to tell you which of your friends in your email address book has a Facebook account. Very convenient.

As for Twitter – ohhhhh, my secret love affair with Twitter. I found an GREAT article written on the Business Week’s website that can explain Twitter better than I can and you can read it here. I’ll give you my best shot too – Twitter is harder to  explain. If you ask 10 people to describe Twitter, you will get 10 different answers. It’s one of those social media applications that IF you use it the right way, you can get the world to “follow” you….well, not really, but you know what I mean. Twitter is a social media application that you jot down a mini-blog posting, called a “Tweet” (140 characters only) and anyone that wants to “follow” you will catch everything you post. You, in turn, can follow the person back to follow his tweets or you don’t have to. So, basically, you are choosing to follow the people that posts what interests you in topic. I follow alot of RVers and many other people that tweets what peaks my interest. The neat thing about Twitter is that you can post a tweet (remember, no more than 140 characters) directly from your cell phone. I have over 600 followers on my Twitter account and I posted a tweet today that said, Can anyone tell me the name of a casino in a little town in Louisiana (since we are heading that way on Sunday and need a place to stay over night – and yes, it’s got to have a casino, I’m going thru withdrawals here *smile*). I got many responses back about the name of the casino I was looking for and one of my followers even posted the phone number for me. If you are looking for anything, you can post it on Twitter. If you want to put forth your expertise on a topic, you can follow people looking for information on that topic and tweet information about that particular topic. Some people that I follow: Mostly newspaper companies, TV news channels (Fox, MSN), RVing companies, and RVers all over this countries that likes to post about their trip. You will hear about news that happening in real time on Twitter before the news people even catches a sniff of what’s going on. An earthquake in southern California broke ground one morning recently. It was posted on twitter the second it happened and talked about widely by many Twitter users before the news people got to the scene. Twitter is free to use just like Facebook.

I’m not a fan of MySpace, I do have an account for the people that I run into along my trip that uses MySpace to socialize, that is, if I can’t ween them off from MySpace to a Facebook account . Well, that’s my little two cents about  the social media applications. I’m not sure what I’m up to tomorrow, but I’m sure we will be doing something exciting Have a great day!

South Padre Island

March 17, 2009 – 6:13pm

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Today we went to South  Padre Island which is a 90 mile drive from where we are staying. It was foggy this morning on the road but by noon it was 82 degrees. When we got to South Padre Island (around 9:30am) we went to three stores for souvenirs and then had lunch at a great seafood restaurant called “The Lost Galleon Seafood Restaurant”. There’s not alot on the menu but the all-you-can-eat fried fish, and it really was delicious. Got to be careful, all they have is fried fish and you got to be careful with any fried food. I’m not a big fan of fried food so by the time I torn everything apart, at the end I have a big heap of fried batter leftover that was around the fish. Well, now you know how I really feel about fried food, but the fish was great! Delicious

After lunch we sat on the beach for a while, OH I remember now, this is great!!…..Okay, while we were sitting on the beach we saw a huge oil tanker at sea about 1 mile out that was facing us. The boat was huge. So it was moving along coming towards us and to the left of the beach in the section we were sitting in is a big dock that continues to the left of us and goes behind a building. The big tanker is getting closer to the shore and passes 1/4 mile from us and goes to dock left of us. It was a huge boat, huge tanker. I know you know what a tanker is but to see this massive tanker, well, I’ve never seen a boat that big in person. It was so close to shore and then disappeared behind the building that was directly behind us. Of course I was on the beach relaxing so I left my camera in the car. Figures

The ocean temperature was around 65 degrees and I was surprised to see the water that cold at South Padre Island, I was expecting the ocean to be a little warmer. We have friends at the RV Park on South Padre Island, at Isla Blanca Park, so we stopped by there and chatted with our friends for a little while and got some information on the RV Park that is walking distance to the beach. I definitely found all the NH snowbirds, there were RVers there from Pinardville, Manchester, and Suncook, New Hampshire. And it’s not too expensive to stay there. I was expecting it to be alittle more pricey. To stay at that RV Park  it is $349 per month and you pay your own electricity (add another 40 bucks for cable). We don’t have time to stay there this winter but next winter we will spend a few weeks there. Look at that, we are already planning stops for next winter’s trip! Ha! I love it! So let’s look at some pictures I took around South Padre Island………

This is one of the souvenir shops that we went to……

The souvenir shop’s entrance……

When you go through the souvenir shop’s doors, this is what you walk underneath……

Another souvenir shop that we went to………..

This is where we had lunch……

A statue near the beach. We just walked around taking in the sights…….

This is a picture I got while riding in the car – not a bad picture at all for going about 20 miles an hour……

Well, I’m a bit sun stroked today. I definitely have a nice tan going and I can see my shoulders are red. I hope everyone had a great day! I’m off to bed, have a great night!

And don’t forget to take part in my poll that is listed under my “About Us” section – I’ll be adding up the votes and post the results by the end of this week and a new poll will be up and listed then too!

Easy Monday

March 16, 2009 – 8:45pm

Hi! Well, we all made it through Monday. Today was a nice easy day for us. I slept in a little late. We had a few leisurely errands to do today so our first stop was to the Sprint store and I bought a case for my Blackberry and a transparent screen protector to protect my new cell phone from scratches! That’s important….take care of your stuff so it’ll last twice as long. I’ve got take care of this baby, it’s my portable lifeline to cyber-space. Ok, moving on……

We had lunch at a new restaurant…..well, it’s not new, it’s just new to me!! It’s called P.F.Chang and I was very impressed by the food and service! Excellent food and great service. I would definitely recommend it for a lunch stop!
After lunch we went to the grocery store HEB to pick up some goodies and headed back home again!

This evening we all played cards together with our friends here at the RV park! It was a nice day, OH, and the weather hit 81 today.

Tomorrow we are going to South Padre Island for the day and you better believe that I’m charging my camera batteries as I write this. I can’t wait to take 100 pictures. And it IS spring break this week so it should be wild!!
Have a great day and I’ll be back with pictures tomorrow!!

Weekend with Friends and Family

March 15, 2009 – 7:50 pm

Hello! How was your weekend? I really didn’t do too much this weekend. On Saturday we (with some friends here at the RV Park) all went over to my aunt and uncle’s house for social hour that lasted all afternoon into the evening. I love that. We had a delicious homemade dinner and we played cards all night long. My version of a perfect day. Today (Sunday) was a quiet day too. We didn’t leave the RV. We mostly watched TV and I spent some time online. Nothing too exciting about today. It rained all weekend but the weatherman says that there is hope for us to see sunshine this week.

We do have some plans this week to return to Pepe and to spend the day at South Padre Island, but we’ve got to wait for the rain and wind to die down a little bit. OH, and of course,  I spent some of this weekend still exploring the ins and outs of my Blackberry Curve! I’ll keep you updated on our events as we work through our last week here. We are leaving March 22nd off towards I-10 toward Louisiana. I just know we are going to be hitting some casinos along the way, but you knew that already! Have a great night and this week I’ll be bringing you to some neat places! Nite Nite!

Rainy out and Mimi’s Cafe

March 13th, 2009 – 8:28pm

Hello! I’m not only typing this from my NEW Blackberry Curve from Nextel, but I am totally in love with this thing. I can’t wait to get back home and wave this little device in all my family and friend’s face just showing them all the neat things it can do!!

Today it rained most of the day. We went to Wal-Mart and had lunch at a cute little restaurant named Mimi’s Cafe, here’s their website. It was delicious and I would highly recommend it to anyone coming down south. I say that because I can see on their location map on their website that they are no where near New England .  I had the pot roast, corn, and baby baked potatoes. Little tiny baked potatoes. Everything was so yummy and Jake lucked out today too because I couldn’t finish all of my pot roast. What a lucky dog he is! The service at Mimi’s Cafe was excellent and this place is right on the access road of highway 83. We will definitely be going back there again before we leave Texas.

After we left Mimi’s Cafe we drove across the street to make a pit stop at Barnes and Nobles. Now THAT is my second home. I bought two books and a magazine to hold over my love for reading.

Other than that we came back to the RV and relaxed for the rest of the night. Last night while I suppose to be sleeping I was up late on my Blackberry Curve talking to all my pals on Twitter. Well, I wish we did more today so I could keep yapping, but maybe tomorrow will bring new adventures. Have a great day! And HEY – Go enjoy your weekend! Smile!

Rainy Day….

March 12, 2009 – 7:04pm

Well, it’s a rainy day today. Cold and Rainy. Yuck. Where did all the tropical weather go? It’s suppose to be cold and rainy for the next three days. We didn’t go anywhere today. I brought Jake out to do his business and for a mini-walk, but it was misting out, so we kept the walk short and resided to staying in. So I already have a feeling that this blog will be short and there’s not much news in the RV industry except for Monaco and Country Coach RV and Fleetwood RV Manufacturer claiming bankruptcy and laying off their employees. Typical and sad economy news.

I did spend most of my day brushing up my skills working with my new Blackberry Curve today. I uploaded all my email accounts to it, so now I’m literally attached to a computer all day long . I’m getting use to the Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress applications on it and they are all working out great. The text messaging application is pretty easy to use once you are use to it and you know what this neat little device does. It turns it self on and off automatically. I have it set to turn on at 12 noon and to turn itself off at 7pm. I am loving that!

Well, I might as well call it a day and we are all making plans to go back to Pepe On The River next week and back to Mexico again! You can read about Pepe On The River Bar and Grill and see pictures if you scroll down a few days back. Have a great day!

My Blackberry and I

March 11, 2009 – 11:56pm

My NEW Blackberry and I are happy together. I don’t test it and it doesn’t test me. Smile. Today I did not turn on my Laptop at all. I know…..I can’t even believe it as I am typing out my 100th Blog Post directly on my NEW Blackberry! How cool is THAT! No, I haven’t disowned my Laptop yet and I would like to say that I was away from a computer all day, but you know me better.

Today I downloaded all kinds of cool applications that I use online on my laptop. I downloaded the mobile application to Facebook, Twitter, and of course, WordPress. THIS is too cool.

What else did I do today? We visited our neighbor friends today. They are great and a lot of fun to hang out with. After we left them we went out to a late lunch at Red Lobster. I have never been to a Red Lobster before and it was delicious! We ordered the Lobster Pizza for an appetizer (yummy) and I ordered the two pound lobster (comes with one side) for my meal. While we were enjoying our appetizer our waiter brings out this live 2 pound lobster for me to see trying to talk me into ordering the 3 pound lobster. He was nice about it, but I stayed with my 2 pound lobster which I just then relectantly developed a personal connection with now that I’ve seen him alive. The meal was good, the service was great, and I managed to make it through lunch. After lunch we came back to the RV Park and relaxed and finished the evening at Bingo here at 7pm.

I hope this blog post comes out good online to you as it looks fine to me here on my Blackberry. Have a great night and thanks for checking on me! Smile!

I am Super Mobile now! :)

March 10, 2009 – 6:14pm

Well well well, as I try my best to slow the calendar down so I don’t have to go back to the inevitable, my life has picked up speed. And I must say…..alot of speed too! I’m Super-Mobile now!

LOOK what I bought today…….

No, no, look closer……..

You’ve GOT to get a closer look…….*SMILE*

 Today I bought the NEW (don’t you just love that word – NEW!) Blackberry Nextel Curve 8350!!!! And I must say, this mobile gadget can do Everything. Well, okay, maybe not everything, but the Blackberry company has come along way and it shows in the Curve. This Nextel, Direct Connect, push to talk, voice dialing (yeah, just talk the phone number into it, no more dialing)…..it’s got Windows Mobile….who can live without Windows Mobile….I can’t! You can check all your email accounts (I have several) and has a neat browser for internet surfing! You can’t get lost with the GPS system it has and a calendar/calculator to keep your life in order.

Some people don’t like PDA units. I can’t blame them either. There is enough high-tech, wireless, temperamental devices around (have you met my laptop yet)…..why make life anymore complicated and dependant ON PURPOSE! I asked the girl at the Nextel store if she had a chance to test drive the Curve yet and if she had any tips to give me on how it works. She took out her Sprint little tiny flip phone and opened it up to show me and said, “I don’t like PDAs. I like a simple phone that I can still find the number buttons to dial the number I want to call.” Well, enough said about that. I even got a rebate form for $100 dollars back to me through the mail from Nextel.

So after we did that we went to the mall and then Wal-Mart. So today was a pretty good day. And that’s basically all we did. OH, we went to lunch at Denny’s next to the mall but you could of figured that out by the pictures! Have a great day! *Smile*

A Trip To Mexico

March 9, 2009 – 9:59pm

OH, how time flies. It’s almost mid-march! I try and try to stop that calendar from moving forward, but I’m fighting against the wind……..

Today we went to Mexico! I’ve been to this part of Mexico before and it hasn’t changed at all. Except for the pedestrian toll. The first time I came to Progreso, Mexico was a few years back and there was a pedestrian toll to enter Mexico, but not to exit. Today there was a people toll each way! It’s a quarter to get into Mexico and 30 cents to exit Mexico. So a round trip on foot to Mexico is going to cost you a whopping 55 cents! I’ve got pictures……….

Find a quarter to get through…….

After to pay toll and walk over the Rio Grande River bridge you come to another border patrol for the ones who want to get out of Mexico…….

Time to go shopping……

I love Kokopellis! This picture is for you Don! – I hope you are enjoying Florida!

More shopping……

I was thinking of buying Jake a chair……aren’t those so cute……..

After we left Mexico we went to another part of the Mexican border and they have a small ferry there to take people back and forth across the Rio Grande River. It’s 50 cents to go from USA to Mexico and 70 cents (no change provided) to get back to the US. The ferry holds three cars and about 30 people. We just rode the ferry over and back, we didn’t get off the ferry on the other side. This afternoon I took the tricycle out with Jake and rode around the RV Park for a little while. That’s what we did today! Have a great day!

Winter Texans Party on the Rio Grande – Let’s go to Pepe!

March 8, 2009 – 7:35pm

Today we went to Pepe! You don’t know Pepe is?? Hey, me neither until today! Pepe is an open aired bar in a tropical setting that sits right on the Rio Grande. It’s fun, relaxing, great music, and good food and drinks. Pepe plays live country music while the waitresses keeps your pitchers filled and keeps the food coming out the kitchen! It has a small food menu that provides mostly appetizers and BBQ food. It is free to get in. Let’s look at some pictures I got………

We parked at Pepe’s in front of this tree……..A very tropical environment and I’m just waiting for Jimmy Buffett to appear…….

Let’s look around inside……..We did get there just when they opened for business for the day…..

Through the front door and straight to the back of Pepe, this place sits right on the Rio Grande…….

This is our table…..alot of people, I think there was 18 of us all having a great time! I love good company!

I heard some bikes coming in to the side parking lot……..

That’s the Pepe establishment in the background…….
Wow, what a bike……or should I say, trike!

Well, that’s what we did today! Good weather, good margaritas, good music, and great company! Tomorrow we are going to Progressive, Mexico, a little town across the river to explore Mexico! I’ll take my camera with me so check back tomorrow night as we enjoy the day at Mexico! Have a great night. OH, if you want more information on Pepe, they do not have their own website, but their address is 2601 South Conway Avenue, Mission, Texas 78572 and their phone number is 956-583-3092. If you have any more questions about Pepe On The River Bar & Grill, feel free to email me at dpjake11002@aol.com. Nite Nite!