Saturday, March 24, 2012

“It’s Raining Again…”

We sort of needed a day off from all of our endeavours lately, so today turned out to be that day, mainly due to rain… yes there is lots of green around here, and it does not stay green without rain!

Laundry was due, and they have beautiful facilities here at Marina Dunes RV Resort, so Judy took advantage… I reluctantly stayed at the RV to keep Patra company, and play with the new iPad!  Why not!

One thing on my agenda today was to get Apple TV working.  It was an added on luxury that we purchased along with the iPad.  This device lets you project anything on your iPad unto your HD TV, without the use of wires of course!  It uses the local WiFi network, we have set up in the RV.  It took me a while to get it set up, as I realized that I had to have my Hughes Net Internet working to accomplish this.  So, up goes the dish… and soon had Apple TV running! 

One of the first things we ended up watching on Apple TV was Skype!  Little Gwenny called us on the iPad along with her Mom and Dad… We had a great call, and I must say, we have never had a skype call as good as the one we had today with them for call quality!  The iPad is amazing and Apple TV worked perfect!  The sound also projects over the TV.

This is a picture I took of our 32 inch Sony Bravia TV mounted in the RV… Gwenny was right into that call!

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Last evening, Judy and I took a walk down to the ocean, there is a right of way to follow to get there… it is a nice sand beach.  The first picture below is a large sand dune that is under rehabilitation.  You can see plants actually starting to re-grow in the sand.  Years back, a private Company mined this sand!  WOW… right off the beach… they don’t do that any more here… the Gov’t took over.

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Another view of the sand dune…

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This beach looks to be at least 5 miles long…

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Yes, the sun has to set…

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In last night’s blog, we received a comment from Michael and Dee, at Gone RVing!    They commented that they also use an iPad for navigation, and that they used NavFree Canada, and NavFree USA as maps.  You download these maps onto your iPad, and presto, you have a full GPS function complete with voice, turn by turn navigation, speed, etc…  Thanks for the tip Michael and Dee… appreciate it!  Yes, the downloads were free.  So we headed out towards Santa Cruz this afternoon just to try out the iPad as a GPS, and it was a resounding success!  Works great, and we find it much more functional that a standard GPS that we now use… (TomTom).  You can get a terrific overall view of the area you are travelling in, and can easily plan ahead from the navigator’s seat! 

Along the road back this afternoon, I found this Company, J&S Eagle Iron, that does some neat stuff… being a motorcycle fanatic I could not resist!

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It looks like he creates these art pieces, and sells them… yes, the one below on the right is made of old licence plates off cars…

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Judy spent the afternoon, reading an iPad manual that she downloaded into the E Book feature of the iPad… and learned all kinds of neat things… yes, there is a learning curve for us, as we keep wanting to do things like “right clicking” and moving the mouse, when there is none!  It will come!  We are enjoying!

Till tomorrow…

4 comments:

  1. glad that you are enjoying your new gadgets!!..nice when you buy something and it actually works the way it is suppose to!!

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  2. You are becoming a great salesperson for Apple. The iPad is a marvelous tool though.

    Hope you get back to sun and warmer temps soon.

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  3. If you get a chance and are bored someday with nothing to do, can you see if there is an app that would use a route created with Microsoft Streets and Trips and display it on the iPad. I would buy the iPad in a second if I knew this was possible. Thanks.

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  4. John, you are seriously making me look bad.

    I can't figure out how to use our non-smart cell phone, let alone tackle an iPad.

    You are my guru, for sure ... lol

    Take care ... TnT

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