weblog

January 13, 2005 2:59 PM
Good afternoon! It's sunny still here in Quartzsite. Today began with a massage and haircut, no pictures of that (forgot the camera). The massage was wonderful and I have to admit that the masseuse was better at the job than I ever was. Every painful point was pressed and she sighed half way through the hour and said, you're going to need a lot more work. Oh well, I'm flexible right now, though I do have a headache. After that I went looking for Tom the naked book guy but he wasn't there so I headed down to the net cafe to pay my five dollars and do the mail and work during the real people time - daylight, instead of late at night with the Verizon dialup.

What a shock! They cafe has decided to offer the wireless connection for free if you don't use their power. If you need help setting up they want $15.00. Joanne, the lady you see below was exhausted with people's computer problems and couldn't say no because they were charging by the hour. Now that it's free, she is less underfire. Good for me!!! Except, drats - what about power? 1 1/2 hours is all my batteries will last, but my work goes on and on and on. Did an hour's worth of work, took some pictures on the way back to the trailer, and built a 12V charging cord for the Dell out of an end that Tedd gave me -
Thanks Tedd - works.

Pictures form today's goofing off and one of the solenoid replacement from yesterday.

This is a cooperative effort by Dusty foot Satellite and Tom's Bus Cafe.
	Left - Tom's bus and sign outside the front door. It's a 1972, not the same as Gary's but similar. He lives in a restored 1960 which is to the right of this one. Had to slip in my beautiful solenoid bolted into position. In a sign of faith I took the picture before starting the truck. Works. Yeah. Don't know if that actually solved the problem, time will tell. This morning it started without a hesitation. So far so good.
Here's a shot of the inside of the cafe looking towards the wireless access point, about 1/2 way up the pole in on the left table. I'm sitting at my table - see below- and that is Joanne over to the right. She is running the operation for Dustyfoot. You can see one of the two direct PC dishes at the apex of the tent.
My table. Tom was eating scrambled eggs with gravy - yesterday when I met him and we talked about Spetzler's bus project. I asked him to make them for me - they are not on the menu, but have no carbs - just cholesterol. 16 oz coffee with a huge plate of eggs. $3 and free high speed internet today. This is where I'm sitting to upload all this (or will be this later when I head back to town.
The two dishes on top of the bus supply internet that is shared by wireless access point, or you can sit at the front two tables and plug into a net cable.
On the way back to the trailer. For Tedd. The only porn store in town. Old people porn I bet.
I filled the white 55 gal drum at the last free water stop in Barstow, only about 1/2 way up because of the power truck. I haven't run out of the 40 gals from last week, but today I topped up and emptied the white barrel. I bleached all components Cindy, including the hoses and both barrels as well as the filler cap and my hands.
	My solar oven yesterday cooking a turkey breast. Above you can see the oven temp at about 225 degrees. I put it in at about 9am and took it out at 5pm when I was back. Very tender and well done.

January 12, 2005 1:42 PM
Wednesday at the netcafe tent. I haven't found a battery for my old camera yet, so no pictures today, but on the home page here I've put one of the pictures showing how green the desert is from a day or two ago. I've been uploading and downloading for five hours - 2 cups of coffee from Tom the bus guy, who met Gary last year. Gary is on his speed dial for those who follow the Spetler saga. Nice guy. I'm done working for the day and I'm out to play in the desert and ride my bicycle. Flat repair is holding. I've got a haircut and massage scheduled for tomorrow at the Curl palace.
The truck's solenoid didn't click right in this morning so I stopped at Napa and bought a solenoid. How about that. Can't find a camera battery, but for a 1985 Ford F250 I had three different solenoids to choose from. I'm headed back to the desert to change out the solenoid. I've got a turkey roast in the solar oven and it's bright blue and hot in the sun (cold in the netcafe tent).

January 11, 2005 9:57 AM
Starting the weblog up for the first time in two years. I'm going to add a personal emotional transition tab to the left navigation column today. Typically I only want to write when I'm "winning". The last 4 days have not felt like I am winning so I've said nothing. However my friend TJ suggested that honesty is critical to me, emotional honesty - not that I'm any good at it - but he is right. So I'll start today, and I've sent this link to you who are in my distribution list.

So far, this trip, this transformation to living what I write is really painful. Everything seems to be breaking, just to show that it can, and that I'm not master of the universe, as I often think and feel. The weather is great, the desert is large and green and dwarfs me, makes my efforts to create this life feel very small. It's windy and warm and soon I'll go out on my bicycle to find other humans. I say I'm going to town for a battery, but in fact I'm bicycling to town to find a woman. Of course I won't and if I did I would run away, but just a person to talk to would be nice, and those of you who know me, know that I can talk.

For those who don't know me, I'm in Quartzsite AZ camping for free in the 14 day free area just south of I-10, slightly east of Quartzsite. I'm exactly here: 33.3982 latitude 114.0857 longitude. Emotionally I'm all over the place.

While working at my job these are the things I didn't see happening.
1. My life was work, and working on my websites, and then going home to watch TV and sleep, only to do it all again the next working day. Weekends were to shop for food, fix all the things that broke during the week, and visit with my step daughter and ex. So here I am in Quartzsite and now subtract, all the work days. Subtract the TV. Subtract contact with all my coworkers (I miss you all dearly), and subtract contact with my stepdaughter who all but cried last night on the phone that she missed. me. God, can I say these things out loud?

I thought this would simply give me time to explore, write 2 travel books and a novel, build my seed website (which you're on) and meet new people. I didn't count on the emotional roller coaster that sometimes feels like pure panic. I love the quiet of being in the desert alone. And I hate that I'm alone in it. I need lots of money more, to buy satellite connection so I can have speed back and work fast. I need my friends back to feel their life stories running along. I need something good to happen emotionally so that I don't feel so weak and stupid. All my life I've feared coming up against an infinitely large nothing. So of you have religious beliefs, or at least a belief in the American way of life. If you have read the other pages, you know that I don't have either comfort. Garfunkel sang: "I am alone without beliefs, the only truth I know is you." I'm like that without the "you".

Leaving for Quartzsite has put my life into a perspective that I was too close to see before. I have died in my job and in my relationships. Everything got so small, but was covered up by the noise of work and thinking and motion and sound. The only sound here this morning is the wind, which is making huffing low ripping sounds coming around the trailer. No other sounds, no motion, no place to hide from what I have created.

I think it is a good thing to face this, and truly open up all possibilities. So people get depressed and simply kill themselves. I have never been that sort of person, so I will bicycle to town and look for love. Isn't that what we really do all day anyway?

If this is all too personal then I think you are in the wrong place. If I have any courage at all in my life, my life of safety and comfort, then it is that eventually I do lead and examined life. Sometimes this truly sucks. Stay tuned next time to see what happens to our unlikely hero. Does he get lucky in Quartzsite? Is he so old that there's not even a chance of a pity fuck? How about just a cup of coffee? What will he do? Will it affect you? Stay tuned.

October 2, 2003 3:02 PM
How embarrassing to have been away from the weblog for all summer. No excuses.
Made one long trip in September to Las Vegas from Eugene. Had a wonderful night at Walker lake between Reno and Las Vegas. Here are a few pictures.
Work on the truck has consisted of replacing the carburetor which was almost $220, doing the work myself.
I learned quite a bit on my 3 weeks of driving. RV's are still second class citizens at Travel Center's (read - truck stops). The Flying J's north of Bakersfield was great. The Travel Americas pretty much asked me if I was nuts when I asked if there was an overnighting lot that I could stay in. Free campground books to the contrary, it is still important to build your list of where to stay but learning it first hand one at a time.
I found that other desert rates - like at Walker lake, share good information, the beginnings of a oral culture of the road which does not make it into books. I learned a good place to cross into Mexico and even which pharmacy to go to for perscription drugs (without a perscription), to where the best places to stay south of Las Vegas. I see there is a need and probably exists, many underground private lists of good people, places and safety for the boondocker. However these will not likely exist in a public forum.
As I traveled I because very aware that this was my whole house and existence traveling with me. If it broke in a serious way, how would I fix it? This means that either lots of money to replace it quick, time, or place where the work could be done more slowly has to exist. For me it would seem the best fix possible for me might be to find an inexpensive home base to own or lease at each end of the range of travel that I plan. For instance, in Eugene and then a spot in Arizona, or even south of Guadalajara in Mexico. This could be a simple as a pole structure that I could tow to (if broken) where I would have tools, water, and possible a septic dump connection. This could be part of an overwintering spot, or just connection agreement with firends who have land and a little space that could be used. It needn't be fancy. IF the trailer was destroyed it would be a place to pitch a tent while the trailer was salvaged for all the specialized equipment I've installed, and another used Airstream found.
June 16, 2003 7:37 AM
Painted the truck Sunday out at TJ's with a big assist from Gary. Bought the tools, primer, paint, paper, tape, etc at 9AM and drove the truck home at 9pm all painted and dry enough. Here's a link to pictures of the process!
June 10, 2003 1:55 PM
Punctuated theory of social change:
Biological evolution has many proponents who believe that evolution is not gradual (Robert Leakey's punctuated theory of evolution). Instead they believe that change occurs at the edge of a herd first where resources are not plentiful, and genetic changes for the better would have a great positive effect on which animals of a herd survived a drought, for example. This means that where the grass grows great, a change that allowed this herd animal to eat a broader group of grasses would not have n advantage as there is plenty of the grass it already can eat, but out at the edge of the herd where the grass is not doing well, but other weeds are, a genetic change to utilize a broader selection of weeds would make that animal more successful in passing on its genes. Then one year a big drought comes and the only survivors are those from the edges of the herd who have the genetic advantage of weed eating. So in just a few years we have complete disappearance of the the first genetic type and a complete take over by the second. Leakey says that this explains why the fossil record moves in abrupt changes instead of gradually.
I was thinking that this is also a valid idea when considering lifestyle, which is nothing more than a collection of Dawkin's social memes. I am thinking that in the center of the middle class herd the grass is good and there is no pressure to change the status quo. On the edge of the "herd" however, people are already changing their social structures to "feed" off different "plants". Criminals, gypsies, retired people have already been doing this for generations. However now mainstream people are opting out of the middle of the herd and developing new social ideas and habits (memes) necessary to successfully survive and prosper outside of the middle class in America.
So what would be required to facilitate this change to a mobile society would be the development of new memes that are inherently easier, saner, productive and rewarding. I think that means the meme would have to be more fun and rewarding than TV and work.
June 10, 2003 1:46 PM
Here's a link to a full timer's blog who is doing it and not just talking about it:
Tioga and George's Blog!
May 29, 2003 9:42 AM
This is a response to my post about change.
"Before I took drawing class, I couldn't draw. But the instructor taught me, not how to draw, but how to see. I learned how to see the shapes of light and shadow, like you learned to see the sharp edge. People like you and I spend a lot of time and energy making changes that don't need to be made because we are looking for a place to fit. The reality is - as new-age as it might sound - that we are fine just the way we are. We fit in better than we understand, other's (those we perceive as "fitting in") don't have the same questions we do about ourselves.
Better to use our energy to listen to our own instincts and intuitions about what changes we need or want to make. Then seek out the teachers - like your saw guy, or my art teacher - and be ready to reject or accept what they tell us depending on what that information teaches us about ourselves.
I took riding lessons from a woman who ran a stable of starving, filthy nags that I nearly wept over. She told those who came to learn from her "just remember that you never know all there is to know, and be very careful who you learn from" I took her advice and never went back. An unlikely source of this idea is g.l. (stay with me here) who said she quit reading women's magazines because they were all geared to fixing what was wrong with women, which assumes there is always something wrong. They don't teach us to be proud of who we already are, but to immediately start to change into some "other".
There is little or no support for self-initiated change because to do so is to disrupt the status-quo. If you can change your reality, that means anyone can change their reality, which means there is something wrong with their reality. Change is uncomfortable and hard and above all, questions the way things are now. Which is where we are all so comfortably miserable." e.l.

May 27, 2003 3:19 PM
Self-initiated change -I've been slothful on trailer projects. The weather has been great and I've been reading about the South Pacific again, especially Tahiti. However today a conversation came up about change and I realized I wanted to get a few thoughts down about that here. Change is not the problem, we all deal with change everyday. There are two major types of life change.
Are we initiating the change or are we responding to changes that are acting upon us, without our consent or direction - NOT intiated by us? An example would be being fired or promoted. Those experiences are certainly stressful, as all change is, but we are wagging tail of the dog in these changes and we gain much sympathy from the people around us for these events.
Self-initiated change is a different condition. When we quit our job to take another, to write a book, or to travel, we have acted on our belief that this will not result in great hardship, death, etc., to ourselves. This takes some courage (or lack of foresight) and is rejected by those close to us. There is little or no sympathy for the self-initiated change.
People who have made considered changes in themselves or their condition have grown used to being around people who risk less. But this does not help the self-initiating person to know what to change. How do we know what to change and what to leave alone? Who teaches us and supports us in our considered changes?
I had a friend once teach me to sharpen my chainsaw. I did everything he said, lowered the rakers the same amount, held my file at the same angle as I filed the cutting part of the teeth, and to me I did it exactly right. However my saw remained very dull while his cut through the oak like butter. He stopped me and looked at my work. I remember him clearly looking up at me with disbelief. "It's dull!" No I said, "It's sharp. I did just what you did!"
"No you didn't! You're not seeing the dull part and you can't see what it looks like when it's sharp." Then he taught me to see the only thing that mattered. He taught me to look for the sharp edge, or the absence of reflection from the leading edge of the tooth, to see nothing but that one thing. Then and ever since then, I can sharpen a chain saw chain to razor sharp. Because someone taught me.
Who teaches us "different" people how to focus on what is important to change? How much effort and energy is lost in changing the things that don't need changing?

May 9, 2003 5:03 PM The Rhodies are out, so it must be spring in Oregon, even though it doesn't really feel that way. Had a talk with a friend from work that has been bubbling in my mind. The essence is "what use is a single older male to women, to anyone actually?" Maybe we're both just losers - well certainly we are, in many ways - but if we don't want to raise more children, of what use are we to women? To big a topic for here, and of course its is cynical to think everything is a transaction. And, what is it that I want of another person anyway? I've constructed this trailer life to be complete and nomadic. I'm not tilling the soil and I wish to travel, but with a tribe. Where the hell is my tribe? Maybe I am condemned by my choice to create my own life to be alone? Well, happy mother's day to all the world's women anyway. At 13 I was pretty sure I would be comfortable if not clear about women, loneliness, desire, sexual passion, etc., before I reached 50. Wrong. Just as confused as ever.

I really dislike rhododendrons as a shrub, but for a few days each spring, they discard their bee filled sticky, evil personality and put on a show of exquisite beauty.

May 6, 2003 9:40 PM
Solved a bothersome problem finally, or rather technology caught up with my requirement. When I connect through either of my inverters to power the laptop through the Sony switching power supply - the normal power supply - my connection speed through the internal modem drops from 49000 baud to 24000 baud. This is a big drop for no reason - though of course there is a reason. Noise from the inverters is carried directly across the switching power supply and into the computer - messing up the modem. Three answers were possible - use the laptop to modem out only when connected to the power grid - not a serious consideration - I wasn't going to find a place to plug in when I had excess 12V power always available. The second choice was to buy a pure sine wave inverter - which would PROBABLY not have the problem. The third solution was to build or buy a 12V to 19V power supply. The Sony provides 19.5V to the power plug on the back, and the battery is 14V. So I knew if I could build that switching supply I wouldn't have the noise of the inverter screwing things up. I tried off and on to find all the pieces I needed. However cruising ebay last week I saw that one company was offering a power regulator to bump the 12V of an auto up to 7 different voltages - from 15V to 24V for a "buy it now" price of $36. There were several listed and I won one of them for $27 plus $4 of shipping. Received it tonight, and I'm connected at 50,000 baud on the phone and also tested it (right now) on the Ositech which has no problems and is connected at 19200 through my cell phone. So another problem solved - and this time I just had to wait and keep my eyes open.

April 24, 2003 10:35 AM
I received a sort lesson in photovoltaic's this morning. No charging once the sun was up. Scratched my head a little and looked outside the trailer. Blossoms from the tree near the trailer were carpeting the ground and the trailer - a pink quilt of beauty. I thought that was beautiful, but knew I'd have to wash them off the airstream tonight after work so they don't stain the aluminum. Then it dawned on me, and I climbed up to look, and yes, the blossoms had completely covered the solar panels too. I hosed them off and was back in the electric business moments later. Light doesn't go through flowers, at least not enough to make electricity.
I haven't been good about posting this week as I've been using my free time to work on other areas of this website, and I realized there are things I would like to write about that are just too personal to through onto the web.
Life in the trailer is good. Summer is coming and soon I'll be using my weekends to travel with the trailer and my kayak to the various lakes and big rivers in Oregon. Looking forward to being on the move again.

April 18, 2003 2:48 PM
The Gutenberg project. I should kill my TV and put together a reading list from their extensive collection of online books. There are also good free programs for reading the books that make the plain text look considerably better than WordPad to view the files. Gutenberg is the digital equivalent of the library at Alexandria- which at one time contained all the written knowledge of the civilized world. Certainly no spot on earth can claim that, but the Gutenberg project has more material than I could read in a life time, and much of it is the real meat of literature. If you're not downloading these and burring CD's you are missing an important moment in internet life. Free education.
project gutenberg - public domain literature on line - extensive

ybook - a good reader program that splits the books into pages and looks like parchment.

April 17, 2003 9:00 AM
Information Input-Output - to continue on the idea of input-output in a mobile living arrangement. Houses, RVs, card board boxes, any can serve as a living unit, but to be a quality living unit the "home" must also have many inputs and outputs - water, electricity, sewage, gray water, heat, etc. But one of the most interesting ones to me is information. Information in and out can be communication or it can be one way. Here are the information paths of my Airstream:

In Only
1. books - by purchase or library
2. TV - satellite TV - which I can setup in under 10 minutes in a new location.
3. AM/FM/World Band shortwave
4. Scanner - police, fire, everything broadcast as an analog signal.

IN and OUT- communication:
Cell phone - no long distance - anywhere to anywhere from anywhere, no roaming USA
CB radio
Ham Radio KD7ABF 2M handheld
internet email and instant messaging with video.
internet phone
internet FAX

I won't make a point by point comparison with a stick built home but you can immediately see that I cannot receive newspapers, physical mail, have a real FAX machine, and I loose face to face with existing friends.

So current events and entertainment is no problem. Family and friends is also no problem via phone and email. I am bothered by the lack of a newspaper, just an old habit. Also, a simplified low weight life style means I can't accumulate thousands of books, magazines and newspapers. This is probably a benefit rather than a loss.

To offset the lack of book browsing, I've downloaded much of the Gutenberg project onto CDs and can read them on my laptop. They have a huge number of volumes including the best history and philosophy of the world's authors. My main problem is that my laptop is usually occupied in chat, email or work when I'm stopped, and I'm too lazy to have a book running in the background. Also, I like to read laying down and this is not as nice as a real book. However, it's all free, so I'll have to adapt a bit.


April 15, 2003 11:23 AM
Communication - Internet while on the road. I struggled with this one for the last two years. I take care of two websites that require daily changes as well as do the email for one of the sites which takes about 1/2 hour per day. But I they must get a daily touch to keep my jobs. This means that I must have an internet connection every day.
Over the last three years I've come to actually get angry at almost every connection method. For a mobile user there are only a few options if you need connect every day to browse, email and FTP.
1. Finding land-line connections and choosing a ISP dialup that has numbers in most cities. This is not reliable enough and rarely can you find a dialup every night unless you stay in expensive campgrounds. Even then it usually requires that you use a laptop with a good battery that you can carry to the campground headquarters to beg their analog fax line for a few minutes. I gave up on this option.
2. Two way satellite - Direct PC and Star band. This is a quagmire. There are class action suits forming against Starband, bankruptcies, and terrific problems in aiming the dishes and getting service when you move. There are exceptions to this with a few companies making auto tracking systems that find the satellites themselves with a minute, and use Direct PC for the satellite connection. Cost prohibited this for me, over $6000.
3. Dialup through cellular modem. This is what I have successfully used. I'm using a verizon 3285 that has the plug for a cable to go to my laptop. I use the King of Clubs card from Ositech -a Canadian company that makes a card that will use whatever type of dialup connection that was made - analog or digital. This worked on my trip last month and I could dialup from anywhere that Verizon has service. That gave me broad freedom, but was still limited. When I was south of Florence Oregon on the coast I could not get a Verizon digital signal, so I had to reverse the next day back to Florence to complete my work. Now verizon has the most coverage, so this is the best I can do now, and I'm happy with it. I'm very disappointed in the Satellite two way.
4. WIFI - wireless networking. This is increasing in popularity, and is a buzzword in Computer info now. The problem is that it is rare, not always accessible and in campgrounds that have it - two problems - you have to be paying for the campground, and you have to pay for the connection - often over $5/night - pretty expensive ISP charges and have a card that is compatible in your laptop. This makes it a poor choice so far.
My suggestion for a full timer wanting to get away from it but still with connection - the dialup through Verizon with a free long distance plan and unlimited time on the weekends, etc. Slow but useable and the least expensive.
April 14, 2003 11:02 AM
Living in a small space - The 22' foot Airstream Safari, 1965 is about 9 feet wide at waist height, and 19 feet long. That's 171 square feet of living area. After 1800 square feet of stick built home, you can imagine that the same living strategies don't work. This is what I've found so far that works:
1. Rule- if something comes in, something of equal weight must leave. This is to stay within the weight constraints of the trailer wheels, tires and axle. In my case that is 5200 lbs. The trailer weighs 3350 lbs without propane or water or my personal items.
2. There is no place to leave anything for a "while". It has forced me to be neat and clean and to put things away after their use. It only takes about 10 minutes to make the trailer look trashed. Luckily it only takes about 10 minutes to put everything away.
3. Conservation of space. I have to think of volume instead of floor space. Closets and cupboards cannot be all junk drawers. Plastic trays and drawers maximize the space in one of my closets, and plastic trays are in each of the overhead bins and compartments.

April 12, 2003 9:20 PM
Stories from the farm- I'll have a few of these tonight as the rain is hitting the aluminum and trying to lull me to sleep, and I'm not ready to give in. I created a farm with my first wife in 1976 and lived there until I just couldn't stand it anymore in 1986. It was largely uneventful because I'm the kind of person who tries to be safe all the time - a timid soul. But still things happen on the farm, and I learned that people who don't fit well in the city are pushed from suburbs farther out, where their weirdness won't be so apparent. I rode that breaking wave of misfits onto twenty acres of oak and puckerbrush. These are a few of the farm stories. Be warned, farm stories don't fit very well with the politicall correct thinking of city dwellers. Why, because farmers can pee wherever they want. It's a broader view.

WARNING - FARM STORY -Chicken shift:
Summer, hot. Drove home from the dentist, 1 hour drive back to the farm, and the dental work, which escapees me now, was extensive, requiring many shots. I got back and the shed (no house) was hot. I opened all the windows and laid on the bed. There are two rooms in the shed, and the second room is the bedroom with a door leading out alongside the shed. After a brief disturbed nap, I awoke sweating and nauseous, feeling awful and feeling really awful about feeling awful - very sorry for myself, but I didn't have time to dwell on that, but luckily I did have time to fall out the side door of the bedroom onto the warm long bent grass that ran along side the structure. Actually it was bent grass, tall fawn fescue and sub clover. I know that because I planted this whole hill side by hand. But that moment it was more of a target than a product and I puked my pre dental lunch in great gasping spasms onto the pasture mixture mentioned above.
Even though there was no one there to applaud the performance, I collapsed to the ground, seriously distressed, yet very dramatic. I felt a 10 out 10 miserable and sorry for myself. Yet the sun was shining on my cheek, and the grass underneath my face smelt of warm hay, and a bit itchy. My reverie was shattered by the feeling of rough clawed feet trying to find purchase on that same sun-ward cheek. I groggily tried to roll over as the rest of the flock thought it was a good idea to cross over my head, and quickly became aware of their excitement, no, their glee, at their good fortune. Lunch was served. It's just a matter of perspective.

WARNING- FARM STORY 2. How to run down chickens with your truck. First you get a chicken and a truck. Sounds easy doesn't it? I started in 1977 with my wife's first batch of break out artists, two dozen mail order chickens. The big companies that raise chickens reward you for buying a dozen chicks by giving you a free chicken. This free chicken is invariably psychotic. It is usually some male chicken (no market for the male chicks in the egg laying world - you figure it out - I not going to tell you). Not only is it a male chick, it is usually some breed of banty fighting chick straight from hell. This is usually OK because you're basically only going to keep the male long enough to make a meal out of him. Unless he is beautiful, and the more psychotic and twisted a banty rooster is, the more beautiful he is. The banty story, the gun, the operation, the whole thing will be in a later story. I'm not ready to talk about it. It's only been 26 years. Maybe next week.
But even the most docile egg layers, with wings clipped and only good and pure thoughts in their heads, escape their runs. They want to lay their eggs in hidden spots where they can do their egg laying song, and make the other chickens jealous. Oh- did you know that chickens lie? OH Yes. One of the chickens who was not a layer - you can turn them upside down and tell who is actually a layer, and who's a liar. One who was not a layer would escape and run behind the shed and make a nest and make all the noises and then crow to the others that she had done great work. Only there never was a egg. Appropriate human farm action is to eat said liars, but I loved the duplicity, the ideas that animals lied, and she lived for many years on the farm.
But escaping their confinement means that the whole flock would hang out on the gravel road leading up to the shed. Warm gravel.
I however had no warm gravel, I had a full time job an hour away from the farm and every night would come home in my 1/2 ton Chevy 6 with the three speed Saginaw transmission, which is nothing much at all in the truck world, and so very very cautiously edge through the flock up to the door of the shed where I would get out of the truck and lecture said ladies about the hazards of being in the road, and how lucky they were that I was nice.
But that was 1976. By 1979 I had lost all caution. I would set up in a slide on the road leading to the farm driveway and try to keep the speed at about 40 MPH and still miss the mailbox and the gatepost. I could hit the driveway at least at 30 mph using this technique, and watch the new group of layers scatter to all points of the compass. But no matter how fast I came in, they always managed to get out of the way. Clearly I needed more power.
Just in the name of science, my friend Dan put a Muncie 4 speed in the truck, we rebuilt the engine and cut down the drive line to fit the new transmission. I told my wife it was because we needed more hauling power for farm chores. In my heart I just wanted to get one chicken, just one, to see how fast they really were. The rebuilt engine and new 4 speed transmission gave me considerably less RPM drop between the gears as I did my full brake lock up turn past the gate and I'm sure I was reaching 45 MPH before having to stop at the shed. That is how I know scientifically that you can't hit a chicken with a truck unless the chicken is restrained.

April 10, 2003 8:08 AM
Input-Output - Houses, tents, cardboard boxes, RV's, all are living units that have many functions in common. In designing your own life, me designing my own life - compared to have it just "happen" to me, it is important to understand the basic mechanisms of how I live, rather than just live out of habit.
All living units provide certain static functions - safety, privacy, and protection from weather, and many people think that a living unit is primarily that. However the living unit is also a machine that interacts with the world and society.
A living unit as a machine - it has the following inputs and outputs when viewed as a machine:
1. water in - waste water stored and released
2. food packaging in and food packaging out as garbage, and excrement.
3. information in and information out.
4. energy in and energy consumed - heat, electricity.
A living unit as a social interface- The living unit is also an interface to society. Often I think that I am the only interaction point with the world around me. I mean they tax me, they fine me or arrest me if I do something wrong. But I also see that a living unit is also a direct interaction point itself with society, separate from me. Most houses sit on real property and are taxed for schools, roads, wars. They can be inventoried, valued and that information used to form representation government. So an RV presents a very different social interface point. Here's a list of first thoughts on that:
1. RV's are mobile. This is the big problem for our current society. Historically you knew that the person could move but not the house. Now the house moves too. Government hates this. Police hate this. The very foundation of finding any one centers on our car and our house in this society. If you live a truly mobile home you are a threat - but that's a different subject.
2. IT is hard to take a census of RV's and use them to assign representatives for government to them. (our laws and customs are based on the civilization after the advent of agriculture and fixed dwellings - RV's are a return to Nomadic life).
3. RV's usually are not taxable as real property. Even though RV's are taxed in other ways - excise tax, or sales tax or registration fees, these are a very small percentage of what they would have been taxed as real estate if they were fixed dwellings.

April 9, 2003 2:55 PM
Travel- When I used to travel to the coast from Eugene the trip seemed to be divided into these parts
a. driving
b. finding the motel
c. unloading the car and getting use to the room - figuring out where things are.
d. participating in the reason for going there - shopping, coffee, book stores, beach, etc.
e. Buying supper for many - always expensive
f. Sleeping on beds and trying not to think of the number of people that had screwed their brains out on the spread, and trying not to think of the 60 minutes episode that with ultraviolet light showed that even the best hotel have sperm pretty much splashed everywhere.
g. The reluctant trip home to responsibilities, including pets that had to be fed or boarded.

Travel in a Full time RV - None of the above except d. Being there. Never have to be without your normal bed, pillow, food prep costs the same as home - because I am home. Even the act of traveling is easier. I found that out last month as I stopped at a beautiful overview above the Pacific ocean and went back to the airstream and fixed lunch. Bathroom break - fully self contained, washed up and laid down and took a nap. The interesting part for me is that for about an hour, I forgot that I was in the middle of a trip. I was simply home. I stepped out of the trailer later, and remembered that I was on may way somewhere. And where was not nearly as important because home was with me.

April 9, 2003 8:31 AM
Using water means conserving water. Traveling in my airstream involves holding costs down as this is a full time lifestyle. That means that often evenings are NOT spent in the concrete ghettos of commercial campgrounds, but on forest or BLM land or in state parks. That means no water or sewer hookups. Being self contained means:
1. making your own electricity
2. pumping your own stored water
3. disposing of your own waste water, both gray and black water.
Previous to being on my last trip I thought the problem would be with black water, then gray water storage and last, fresh water as I can hold 20 gallons in my fresh water tank. I was very wrong. Fresh water was the limiting factor. So I learned how to conserve water and having read other people's experiences I instituted the following changes:
1. I bought two plastic wash basins, one that is about 10" by 8" and a larger second one. The small one sits in the kitchen sink and the larger one I leave in the bath tub.
2. All wash water for dishes and rinsing goes into the smaller tub in the sink. This water is used to flush the toilet (which requires that I shut off the electric pump first). As this builds up I pour it into the larger washtub nearer the toilet.
3. When washing dishes I do not run rinse water, but instead fill the second side of the sink up an inch or two with clean water and rinse the dishes in that water. When done, I used the warm rinse water with detergent added to wash out underwear, socks and wash clothes. After this I drop this water and let it go to the gray water tank under the sink, which can hold 11.6 gallons.
These changes allowed me to go from one days water use - 20gal/day to 4 days without refilling.

April 8, 2003 9:25 AM
Doing taxes - yech. Also watching the war, and first day back at work after my month vacation. I wanted to comment on some of the issues that came up as I traveled and live in my Airstream that are different than living in a house.

Moisture - the much smaller airspace and the fact that an airstream is much tighter built than a stick built home means that the air can become saturated faster, or drier faster. When I was traveling I use a propane catalytic heater to heat - which cracks propane into CO2 and water. Combine this with the cold interior walls of the airstream (only 1" installation between the out shell and inner shell) and that means all the windows and inner shell sweat water. Dealing with this was a time consuming issue. It meant that when I cooked or heated I had to open a vent out the top of the trailer, and when boiling water, keep the lid on the pots and sometimes run the Fantastic fan to exhaust the moisture laden air. Phred's poop sheets cover moisture but the problem is much worse in the Airstreams because they are built tight, like airplanes. The lesson about moisture is to put up with throwing away some of the heat by venting, and when the air outside the trailer is dry, open the cabinets and remove any bedding that touches the interior walls and run the vent fan.

Dirt - The total living space in a 22' Safari airstream is actually 8' by 20' or 160 square feet, and that is being generous. While it is extremely efficiently designed and sculpted so that it feels larger when in the trailer, the fact is that all dirt is now concentrated in an area 10 times smaller than an average home. This means dirt and clutter are constant problems. My first solution was to put in a vinyl floor - the 1 ft sq pieces. That was easy to clean but cold. My current solution is to vacuum every day - liar!!! almost every day, and to replace the wall to wall every season. For a house this would be pretty expensive, but for 100' of floor area, I can by good carpet remnants cheaply - the last was $32 - and simply replace the entire rug. It took me 1.5 hours the last time to lay the caret and run it up on the base boards and make it look factory installed. Replacing is imperative because the kitchen is right next to the bed that I use normally and I don't want tile under my feet when I get up, but food and tea bags and garbage does hit and stain the carpet. Vacuuming and spot cleaner helps but replacing the carpet at the beginning of the cold season is the best choice. more later about water control and disposal - gray water and black and fresh water. I was amazed at how much water I use in one day. Next time how I solved that.

April 6, 2003
My first blog entry today. I built the site months ago, but I realized I need a place to get my thoughts out were I can see them.
So I'm back from my first real fun trip with my Airstream. Previously I've been living it for about two years, but it has been in a park, while I worked on it in my spare time.

I had almost a week of work to do to get it ready. My Airstream is a 1965 Safari, single axle, with a dry weight of 3350 lbs. Loaded it should be closed to 4000 lbs. But there were several projects that didn't get completed in the two year period that always seemed too large to do while I was living in the trailer. So beginning on March 10 2003 I got down to business and went to work on the electric brakes, which had never worked. Finally I ordered the necessary electric brake pads from Inland RV.

While working on the trailer I moved it out to my friend's house - TJ's and soon realized that the lack of a gray water system was going to be a big problem. I had a fresh water tank and pump to supply pressured water when mobile but no place to store the water as it left the sink. In 1965 people thought it was fine to just let it dump on the ground. New-think says gray water is evil and must be handled similarly to black water. So I invented a gray water system that catches everything from the sink in a 11.6 gallon polyethylene tank, originally designed as a built in gasoline tank for a boat. It took three days to plumb in and about five extra trips to hardware stores but finally success, a non leaking tank.

Another miscalculation was thinking that the weather in March while being awful in Oregon would probably be better as I went south. This was not true. The whole west was the same temperature and rainy all the way down to southern Nevada. Also, gas prices hit their highest point as I was completing the trailer work. So I modified the trip and made shorter trips to to the coast. More later.

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