My blog is dedicated to folding trailers (AKA PopUps or PUP’s). Hopefully non-PUP owners will find some of the posts of interest/value.
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
Open letter to "Dave the Publisher"
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Dave,
You may be aware that I’m a big support of Pop Up Times. I’ve featured your magazine in my SmugMug photo gallery and have one blog post promoting your magazine. Here is a quote from my blog:
“However, I finally found what I was searching with Pop Up Times Magazine that was a God send. Off went the subscription. Later I read Dave’s blog on how he started the magazine and all the opposition and obstacles he ran into… but he persevered and as the title of the blog suggest he took the recommendation to “Follow your dream”
Having said this I have to say that I was extremely disappointed with the last issue. I was in the hospital bed when my daughter brought me the mail and I lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw the September issue Pop Up Times. All my health issues were set aside as I took it from her. However, my excitement turned quickly to a big disappointment when I started reading,
So what got me frustrated?
First, was your feature article “What’s new for ‘98” . As you said “… this issue may be déjà ve for those who have subscribe since day one.” An exact REPRINT of a ten year only article was not giving me any new information on folding trailers. What would have been helpful would have been to take excerpts from that 10 year old article and show how the Popups have changed over the last 10 years. Obviously you did include photographs of new Popups but that was not good enough.
Second was the number of articles that were not related to folding trailers. Note I cancelled my subscription to Trailer Life because of the number of items that were not related to camping trailers (e.g.,, Truck articles). Your September issue fell into that same trap.
If I wanted to read about outdoor photography there are lots of magazines covering that topic. The same applies to “Keeping Fido save and healthy while on the road” If I need to read about addressing heatstroke, cold weather, frost bite there are lots of pet magazines that covers these issues. On the other hand “Mary Alice Everhart’s article was OK as it specifically addressed issue camping with a pet in a folding trailer.
I know you have subscribers that are interested in travel trailers and under different circumstances I could have accepted the “Coachmen brings back the classic Shasta”. But its inclusion with all the non-folding trailer articles was just more fuel on the fire.
The straw that broke my back was the article under RV Maintenance. I personally don’t view a knife as an RV tool and if I need to read how to sharpen a knife I can get that information by reading the host of knife magazines that are available. I do hope that you don’t plan an article on Popup security and then talk about “Buying and maintaining hand guns”.
Interestingly, a couple days later I got a notice to renew my subscription. As disappointed as I am with the last issue I still plan to renew as I feel the September issue was just a mistake or maybe you were too busy with other things (e.g., camping).
You have the only magazine that supports a niche within the camping community and I will continue to support and promote it. However, I am pleading with you to keep the focus on folding trailers and please don’t go down the path of other magazines by including material that one can find elsewhere.
Ruide
Total Comments 1
Comments
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Dave's responseThe following is Dave's response to my letter. Although it was not my intention and I did not expect it, Dave published my letter in the current edition of Pop Up Times taking up a whole page of the 32 pages.
This month's edition featured light weight Pop Ups and the publication has gone digital and this month's edition can viewed on line. Ruide __________________________________________________ _____________________ Dear Ruide, I’m sorry you were disappointed with our last issue. Our lead article wasn’t meant to show how pop-up campers have changed since we started the magazine in 1998, but how the basics are still the same. Some of our articles come from our readers and many of them feel that camping is more than just popping up. We try to include any many as we can that pertain to being in the outdoors. I guess my problem is that I like every pop-up, little hard-sided camper and retro trailer that I see. I also like the other topics that have to do with camping, dogs and knives included. I really appreciate everybody’s support and hope you continue to hang with us. We invite you to submit your ideas, articles and comments as they help to keep Pop UP Times magazine interesting – most of the time. Dave V |
 
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Recent Blog Entries by heruide
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