30 July 2007
Day Twenty-seven at Bristol
I don’t usually do my KRuMB post this early in the day. After all, we like for The Daily KRuMB to be indicative of . . . our day! So, who knows what each day will bring, right? I like to wait until the day is drawing to a close to create my new post. Kyle generally waits until the day after for the same reason.
But, today, I am confident that NOTHING could surpass this as the defining aspect of my day!
After thirteen years on the road—almost to the day—my Mondays have gone high tech! For thirteen years, Monday morning meant finishing up my “numbers” and inventory and faxing those pages to Jim and Nicole in California. During Scarborough Renaissance Festival when we’re home every Sunday night, that’s not a problem at all. But, at any show on the road, it becomes the primary focus of every Monday morning, to find and travel to a working fax machine as quickly as possible. Sometimes the office supply store or other random small business with this capability is many miles from the faire site. So, often it is midday before the weekend’s work is actually complete.
This year, with my daily commitment to the KRuMB, Kyle and I splurged and bought for me, a wireless internet device that allows me to check my email and be online from my little wooden box at faire. This has been a truly wonderful, liberating thing—not to have to drive ten or more miles to a WiFi spot, and hope that all worked properly just to look at the internet. In the early days of email for me, it even involved public libraries and attempting to prove residency and . . . the hoops we jumped through were tiring at best. I love my little wireless thingy.
The internet card can be seen in this silly photo, at the right side of my computer—it plugs into my USB port. And on the screen of the computer is part of one of our three inventory pages.
So, now, as of today, I am using the technology at hand to its fullest advantage. After much encouragement throughout the past, from Nicole and Jim and Kyle, I sat here in my little living space above the booth, and with the help of forms from Jim, and a little experimentation (and advice from Kyle)with Excel, I have emailed my “paperwork” to California! I am so excited, it’s stupid! I cannot believe it took me this long—we’re four weekends into this faire—to get my little act in gear on this, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never look back!
Thanks Jim. Thanks Nicole. Thanks Kyle. Woo Hoo!
~MB
You make me smile!
Love you,
Miss you,
lisa