A shared album has been created at Sharpcast.com for everyone to add their rally photos so they will be available all in one place.
Lynda has uploaded several videos to Veoh.com
Airstream25
This rally FAR FAR exceeded my expectations - thank you all who participated - you made it a very special experience for all. And a big thank you goes to Jackie Lange who but together an incredible workbook with great restoration tips and instruction. Also thank-you to the great food committee that kept us all fed and watered. And last but not least THANK YOU to our sponsors - Vintage Trailer Supply, Dexter, Camping World, Lew Farber (AKA our very own Lewster) and our old friend on the forums, Ken Levan.
When we first came up with the idea for this rally, we thought it would be good and I remember when we first talked to the campground about bringing all our tools and told them we were going to make noise, I really was not sure how this would turn out - I’m here to tell you it was unreal - the amount of time that presenters put into their presentations and the hands on experience that everyone got was just incredible - as rallies go it will be very difficult to top this one - the presenters, attendees, sponsors and the stars really aligned, but I promise that now that we have one under our belt, next years will be even better - YES! this is now an annual FCU event - so mark your calanders for the last weekend in April 2009 for an even better event!
Ken J
AirstreamGypsy is photo of the month!
One of the advantages of the WBCCI is that as a member, you can attend the rallies offered by any unit, (space available of course).
We attended the Unit #69 VLA Rally last weekend and had very interesting tours of the VLA facility, Magdalena and the old Kelly Mine.
photos, videos, and music about the Airstream lifestyle
(This blog is also accessible in “Links” under “Menu”)
Welcome! It’s great to see all you new members joining and uploading their Airstream lifestyle photos. (Editors Note: Uploading photos/videos/music is free)
We’re looking for Airstream photos for the magazine! Check my blog post for details (see below or on my home page).
Don’t forget, we can also host video, so please upload any Airstream-related short videos that you have shot.
When you submit photos, go ahead and add them to the Albums I’ve created. If you see a need for another Album, just make one. It’s easy.
Presidents weekend brought 30 Airstreams to Cottonwood, AZ for the second 4CU Dead Horse Rally. It was great to meet with our friends and make some new ones as well. The highlight of the weekend was Dale “PeeWee” Schwamborn who did a Q & A session with the members and visited many of the trailers at the rally. PeeWee is the son of Helen Schwamborn who was Wally’s first cousin and founder of the WBCCI. PeeWee was on many of the early caravans and was an advanced scout on the famous Capetown to Cairo Caravan almost 50 years ago. At the rally PeeWee was awarded with lifetime membership in our unit.
In case you missed Dead Horse 2, don’t worry plans are now being made for Dead Horse 3.
Greetings and Happy New Year,
While most of us have our Airstreams tucked in for the winter, this is a good time to learn something new and something that appears to be a natural fit for the FCU which touts itself as a modern online connected unit.
I am talking about the free software program called Skype available for Windows, Mac, Linux and WiFi enabled cell phones.
Visit your local Radio Shack or an online store for a web cam & mic if you don’t have them already built into your laptop.
Join jheald, Worner, Hatfield, Duke and others who are already online.
Skype is a great way to stay connected with one on one video calls. It also supports group audio only calls that may be useful for conducting FCU business online.
Once you have Skype set up, give me a call to try it out; jheald is my Skype name.
wbcci.net graciously offers 20mb of web space to every Region and Unit. While that is enough for several web pages, pictures or videos could easily exceed this allowance.
The solution is to have the pictures and videos stored elsewhere and just provide links on the wbcci.net web site to them.
For example, pictures can be stored at your free Picasa web site, (http://picasaweb.google.com/home), a free Sharpcast web site, (http://www.sharpcast.com/), etc.
Videos can be stored for free at http://video.google.com/, http://www.youtube.com/, etc.
The FCU has used Sharpcast to store most of our rally photos except the balloon rally which has some photos at Picasa and a video at Youtube.
If you have rally or other FCU related pictures/video, send me the URL address to them along with a short description and I will link them to our web site.
Note: FCU officers can make their own additions to our web site. If you are interested and need help, ask me how to do this.
Here are some photos from my Picasa web album.
The Balloon Rally in Albuquerque was a HUGE success. We managed to get 21 Airstream trailers and motorhomes from Camping World outside of town to the Fiesta park – and didn’t loose anyone! It was an incredible sight to see all these trailers parade down Interstate 40 onto Interstate 25 and into the park – a long band of silver I would say. We had lead and caboose rigs and my wife in a vehicle (without anything attached) keep track of where everyone was and made sure we kept together – not to mention a lot of radio contact. It was really cool.
Once into the Fiesta grounds we all settled in quickly – we had a GREAT location and the balloons literally were landing all around us – some of us jumped in the help the balloonists get their balloons settled down. This is a great event and the only event in the world that I’m aware of where you have about 750+ balloons going up at once and you can walk right up to them as they are taking off – there were a number of “special shapes” balloons too – Bees, monsters, turtles, all kinds of bottles, cans, a big milk cow and even Smokey bear.
Click picture for larger view