It’s New Year's Day and I haven’t changed campgrounds or RV parks in more than 3 months.  That’s unusual for me and I’m getting restless.  We’ll probably be in this same campground until May as we await several monumental family events we plan to attend.  Sitting still got me thinking of ways to entertain my nomadic camping urge without being able to go places. When I get restless like this, I usually start planning my next trip or two just to soothe the urge.   I thought I’d share a few cool things I found, even if they are a bit unusual.

I was scanning my RSS Reader and ran across an article on Untwisted Vortex.  It’s a blog by an American living in the Philippines.  His article was about “American Goulash”. That caught my eye and I couldn’t resist reading it.  Karen loves to make what she calls Goulash as well, especially when we’re camping in a more primitive area.  She say’s it brings back some of her fondest childhood camping memories.   Her dad made Goulash a lot as a camping dish. Reading the article took my mind off the 27 degree weather and snow on the ground and reminded me of a campground we like to stay at by the Kentucky River.

After reminiscing about Karen's Goulash and camping by the river, I resumed scanning my RSS Reader. The next article that caught my eye was about Arizona golf packages. We normally winter in Arizona or Florida and we like to play golf, although we're not very good. Reading about some of the great places in Arizona to play golf did help however. I'm sure it isn't 27 degrees in Mesa right now. I'm looking forward to next Winter.

I realize this article has been little more than musing my part. If I still have your interest, let me make a quick shameless plug. I'm getting this stuff from my RSS Reader because I subscribe to a lot of blogs. Many of them are very useful and many are just plain weird, but I enjoy them all at one point or another. If you haven't done it yet, read my earlier article on what RSS is and how you can subscribe to my blog and others. You can either use an RSS Reader like I prefer to do, or you can get them automatically in your email. I don't read every article from every blog I subscribe to. But, you never know when an article will peak your interest. The great thing is you only get a short abstract for each one and you choose which to read fully and which to skip. Back to the musing.

Baby Back Pork Ribs Done Right (barbecue recipes). If that doesn't make you reminisce about Summer and camping by the lake, nothing will. I added this new blog about BBQ recipes to my reader just last week. The writer is just getting started, but already I like the look of some of the recipes and plan to try them out just as soon as the grill thaws out. I'm a BBQ fanatic and have even been known to BBQ in a snow storm. Karen is always giving me a hard time about the fact that we carry a full sized BBQ grill with us. If we ever go looking at new RV's, one major prerequisite is the ability to carry my grill. Another BBQ blog I read occasionally is Best BBQ Tips Now. If you're into competition BBQ, they've got some cool tips and tricks.

Finally, under the heading of cool but often useless technology information is a blog I get and occasional kick out of the cool stuff called EBCAK. The definition of EBCAK is "Error Between Chair and Keyboard". It’s a way the technology geek crowd describes the origin of computer related issues, the end user. How do you tell if you're an EBCAK? I made my living in the computer industry for almost 35 years and even I am an EBCAK from time to time. Here's the top ten list of how you can tell:

10. You sound out every letter in the word E B C A K
9. You still turn off your computer by pressing and holding the power button
8. You’re still using the DVD tray to hold your coffee
7. You conjure images of pickup trucks when a geek tells you to “Get More RAM”
6. You refer to your computer case as a “Hard Drive”
5. The words “Stupid Computer” can often be heard resonating from you
4.Your computer case still has a dent on it from the last time you booted it
3. Your mouse slips off the side of your desk often
2. You get upset when asked to hit the windows key, insisting that you are not near a window
1. You find EBCAK offensive

What's the point of all this? Not much really except that reading blogs can otherwise fill a gloomy Winter day. Who knows, once in a while you might even read something useful.

Happy RV'ing