July 7, 2014 Boat Cards

Another boat neighbor asked me to join her for lunch today.  Bev was from Minnesota and had spent the last 23 years sailing around the world.  We visited with them last week on our boat.  It was fun to visit more about their adventures and how they handled some routine things.  I then showed her how to use the free trolly in Charleston.  Then at the visitor’s center, she showed me how to use the city bus system to go beyond the historical part of Charleston.  I should have checked into that sooner.  I guess if we unexpectedly stay longer, I will check out the surrounding area. 

When the UPS truck arrived today, no one was in the marina office, so they didn’t leave our packages!!  Dave is going to camp out at the office tomorrow.

One thing I did accomplish was to input “boat cards” into a system on our computer called Evernote.  Everyone we meet gives us a boat card.  And they keep telling us we need to get our own boat card.  It’s like a business card, but it has your contact information for you on your boat.  I am sorry, but I am not going to carry around a stack of cards to hand out, or put their cards into a card holder to refer to in the future.  This is the 21st century people!  What I have done so far is take a picture of their card and give it back or throw it away.  Then I can contact them with my information (if I choose to).  I met a guy in a bus stop that gave me his boat card.  I am not going to hand out my contact information to everyone I meet.  I have been planning to come up with a spreadsheet where I could input all this information.  

We recently read a tip about using Evernote for important documents.  Then if we are away from our boat, we could access this information through our phones, since it will sync with our phones, or through another computer.  We are always trying to figure out how to store important documents.  Some you need to have with you, but you could lose them if the boat goes down.  So while I was working with this, I saw where you could upload photos of business cards, recipes, instructions and warrantees, etc.  So I decided to try it with the boat cards.  It is fantastic.  I upload the boat card photo.  Then I can add where I met them and when, maybe some info to help remember them, whatever I want.  Each card is a “note” in my boat cards “notebook”.  And I can search by any word, even if it’s in the text of the boat card photo.  So in a year from now, if I want to remember the name of the guy we met in Charleston, I can search Charleston.  Makes so much more sense to me than flipping through a book of boat cards.  Besides, I couldn’t remember how to do a spreadsheet, so this saved me.  I am still computer challenged, but I am learning.