weblog

March 1, 2005 1:15 PM
It's been a while chicklets. It is so easy to write when I'm blazing new trails (for me) and difficult when life is captured (at work) and projects and life are moving incrementally forward, or backwards for that matter.
As you know from previous posts I was excited to be in contact with a woman through eharmony and looking forward to meeting and exploration. Well we did meet last week. I drove the 6 plus hours to Eastern Washington and met her. I was ill with a cold for the preceding seven days and was still sick when we met. It was not a perfect fit and my ancient problem infected ears developed in the middle of the night while I was at a motel. I drove back to Eugene on Friday and tried to express my concerns to her, as we have had such open honest communication before that. My concerns were not received too well and she has decided not to continue any communication with me.
On other fronts, I've received the plug in blocks for my satellite dish, which will allow me to make the second cable for the satellite controller. That means that this weekend the truck/satellite project will be complete and finally allow me to take just the truck, without the trailer anywhere and connect to the internet.
That means that I can be in a library or cafe, and as long as the truck is within 150 feet, I can activate the dish and get on the internet without getting out of my seat. Think about that for a moment, the look up capability of google, and yahoo while working on my novel without carrying any support material. Last night I used it while choosing character names from the island of Kosrae in Micronesia. I was able to bring up the the entire white pages of micronesia and had all those names at my fingertips. It's a moveable research and entertainment center that can come anywhere with me (within 150'). No cables no cords. Just a wireless access router in the truck connected to the satellite and a wireless card in the laptop.
The pictures below are from my trip up through eastern Washington. It is a beautiful rolling country along the upper Columbia river. Fruit trees alternate with vast open rolling stretches.

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On other issues - I continue to try to negotiate a 6 months on/ 6 months off with my employer. I have the support of immedate boss and his boss but I'm working for a company that is spread out over three states, and anything new is inherently a bad idea until proven otherwise. Hopefully this will have a positive ending within two weeks. I'm still hopeful, but less so. Of course this chicken is not feeling much like a rooster right now at all. Here's another picture of the volcanos in the distance from the same rest stop.

February 15, 2005 12:24 PM

Garth shaved his head last night in some sort of religious/sexual perverse rite with his wife. He is very evasive about why, but we've all been stopping by to sign his head (see bottom picture for Tedd's art work) and to see our reflection in his scalp. Garth is a phenomenal mind and good friend. And what is more interesting is that he believes even less believable stuff than I do. Makes me seem conservative in my thought patterns. And he is a linux dweeb too.

A perfect profile. Loved the contrast of the headset and so snapped another picture. NOTES: Hey DAVID, still waiting for a picture of Andrea???? Also, last night at the Shamrock RV park where my Casa de Rolltec is parked, dish up, Kathy, a chicklet herself, asked me about a wireless setup for the park and I'm doing a little research on that. I love wireless and the magic of it. Sometimes when reaching out to the internet in my airstream I realize the magic of it - it's wireless from my laptop to the wireless router and then really wireless from the dish on the truck to the Hughes G4R Satellite 22,000 miles in Space, then down to Germantown Pennsylvania and then onto the phone net, and then back all the way more than 44,000 miles in total, every click of the mouse. Wow.

How many batteries are enough? After many calls to JJ in Washington (see yesterday's post) I finally had to plug my charger in. Luckily I have a back up phone and the occasional extra battery. I'm prepared. Long talkers always have extra batteries.

Molly poses with flowers from her husband Chuck. She lives the life that we all are a bit jealous of. AND she always gets flowers and not just on the holidays. Note carefully the smiley face that Tedd painted on the back of Garth's new bald head while Garth was asleep.

February 13, 2005 10:25 PM
Sunday night. It's been an eventful week, but not many pictures to share. Saturday was a day where everything I touched - broke. Broke the cell phone antenna off, broke the vacuum, and then the satellite stopped working. All problems solved now, but I have been stumbling through life since February 7th. I'll explain that in a few minutes.
I've floated the idea at work of working 6 months on and 6 off. It is more likely to happen now that one of the chicklets on my mailing list is willing to do job share 1/2 1/2 with me. That will make it easier for the hospital to accept, but the decision maker is on vacation, and it will be another two weeks I think before I know.
The truck sprung a leak in one of the heater hoses today, and thanks to TJ's help we found the problem even before it lost much coolant. I will pick up the correct Ford hoses this week. In the meantime I used rescue tape which I got in Quartzsite. You stretch it and wrap it around the leak and it's instantly sealed - wet with water, oil, hydraulic fluid, makes no difference. It's a relabeled military product. I actually bought the bulk hose but it turns out it's not usable on the Ford F250 - the hose is different sized on each end. So repaired the defective hose and put it back on. Have to always have the truck in running condition.
So you might remember that I mentioned that one of my problems in working and working and getting ready to be free was that my life had shrunk to the size of a pea. This was punishingly apparent when I left to build a new future and noticed that I was alone without a paddle. No one to share the joys with. Of course, if you've been following this blog for a while you know that I got quite busy in Quartzsite and had fun, but I was very aware that I have elected to be alone for quite a while. So one of my decisions when I was coming back was to join a writing group (and I have made some progress there), the idea being if I could find a woman to be my partner who shared my interests and might not be too shocked by the free chicken lifestyle, I would be so happy. What I didn't expect is that I would attempt to meet such a person, mostly because I don't believe that anyone would really want to share my strange world too closely - one thing to read about it from the comfort of your cubicle or warm house, but another to actually come up against the sundog in person.
Many of you on the list are well aware of the troubles of the last 7 years that made this free chicken life a wonderful peaceful choice for me, but you also know how lonely I have been.
To make a short story longer, because it is my blog - make your own and send me a link and I'll read it- I found myself completely possessed one day. Garth the wonder dog mentioned that another co worker was a a member of eharmony.com. I jumped on because I had seen ads for it and about an hour later I was a member. I filled out all the forms and it took hours. Thank good my job is a joke, and I can do what I want about 82.5% of the time. What was different for me, is that for the first time in this chicken's life I didn't spin anything. .No painting a better picture. I knew that meant I would never have anyone interested in even talking to me, as who wants to know a 55 year old diabetic who lives in a little can and travels constantly, commenting on everything? But I did and found about 5 matches per day through eharmony. Everyone lasted as long as it took for them to really read through my information and look at my pictures.
You can see it coming right? No one on the list is stupid except for one, so you can guess that one woman was not appalled by what she read. In fact she thought it was good. She didn't have pictures posted, but I didn't care, anyone sharp enough to spot that I'm the most unusual incredible person in the over 55 classic airstream retired early no asset crowd was worth talking to. If only massage my ego. (see how I worked the massage into there -for those of you who have experienced it).
What happened was this whole honesty thing immediately gave me headaches and led to more honest revelations, which threatened any tenuous connection between this possible future chicklet and myself. She sent me her real email address - wait for it - bogus address. Well well well, beat me, lie to me and make me write bad checks. Back to the desert of the soul for me.
She followed up with the real address a day later. I rewarded that act of courage by sending her a link to this website, figuring I would save time and finish her off. She loved it and now I'm a little twiterpatted, with over tones of flumoxed. I learned she has been planning this free chicken life style for herself for years.
Now I am facing all the self doubt, hope, despair, and glimpsing how good and exciting my world could be with a co conspirator.
We talk. I'm talking for the first time in my life about things only my closet friends know. I have no idea what will happen, except that we will meet soon I hope. Years ago, when I bought my sea kayak I bought a Greenland II double. I did it as an act of faith. There was no one for the front seat. You see, despite self deprecation to the contrary, I have never given up on my dreams, but sometimes they seemed so unlikely so far away and forever unlikely, but I took them out in the dark in the few moments before sleep and turned them over and wondered. Maybe I will have someone in the front seat sometime. Wouldn't that be something?

Out of the desert and into the cubicle, happy to be with friends, longing for sun and warmth of the desert. Well good things come to those who work. The day and 1/2 have been very fruitful on the nerdy side. I finished getting the Airstream's linux server up on the wireless router so that I can no reach into my server for files from anywhere within a 100 yards of the trailer form my laptop wirelessly. My stepdaughter stopped in for a hour at lunch to look at her class schedule, and I enjoyed that much! I'm looking forward to the weekend and work on the airstream and truck back out at TJ's house. Cold and foggy today here, I hope you're enjoying better weather. caged chicken

February 7, 2005 9:38 AM
Here are the pictures from yesterday morning's installation of the old solar panel on top of the truck. Also I ramble on a little at the end - what a surprise right? - about a call from my nephew Dave and about how happy I am to be back in the frigid, cold, damp, depressing, sunless Northwest again. If you're not a technogeekiedweeb, you're going to hate the first three frames.

	Left: TJ and I install the old solar panel on the truck next to the satellite dish. I found some stainless steel brackets that were left over from the installation 3 years ago of the big solar panels on the airstream. We mounted the brackets to the end of the old panel, that you have seen in previous posts leaning against the trailer. So what the heck are we up to? Since there is no sun in the Willamette valley during the winter, installing a solar panel is an act of faith. Read on.
Because I will rarely use the dish away from the trailer, the solar panel which only puts out about 2.5 amps (it's from the 70's and still works!) will be able to keep the separate 12V car battery completely charged. I chose the same battery for this application as is installed as the truck's real battery, so that if I flatten the truck battery by being stupid (lights left on, etc.) I can just swap the two batteries and be on my way.	Here we have drilled and mounted the solar panel, including drilling the four mounting holes and the access hole for the wires. We then removed it and used a sealer similar one that scott used on the satellite dish to seal everything completely. Remaining is to make a short set of cables so that the modem and controller for the satellite can be moved from the trailer to the truck whenever I want to have high speed internet on a trip without taking the trailer. The wireless access point, the modem and controller will sit on a shelf inside the canopy and be fed power from a 12V car battery. The car battery is in turn charge by this single solar panel. Note the sky in this photo. God, what am I doing here?
The one remaining connector problem is that green block. The wires come too it and need to be inserted one at a time (is that right Scott?) We intend to buy a male/female connection block and make install the plug about 10" down from the green block. It would be cumbersome to reattach these wires when moving the controller to the truck canopy.	So what is this all about:? A few days ago when moving back into the Shamrock I parked and had good signal but after moving the truck I was never able to get adequate signal to reconnect. Trees everywhere. I had to move the trailer 3 more times to find a space that allows easy connection - finding the satellite - every time, without being fussy about parking the truck. When I have the cables made I'll be able to have the computer in the front of the truck and the dish up and controlled without taking the trailer with me. On the left is the back of the stack of controller that points the satellite - on the bottom, and the modem, which actually talks to the satellite up and down.

Now, about Dave. Dave called me last night to say that he is quite enamored of his new girlfriend, a long time friend. I don't know if Andrea has a link to this page, but Andrea, if you are there, many blog readers would like to see a picture of you. Just email me a photo by clicking here. We already have pictures of Dave, so no need to include him, unless he insists. I offered Dave my advice on romance, but he's pretty sharp, and noted that I live alone in an aluminum trailer, and declined. But he is so polite!

So being back has been hard for me. The bright sun of the desert was a tonic and I flourished. Projects were completed in a day, dry and warm. Yesterday we kept running back into TJ's house just to get out of the rain and get warm. Well I did, TJ is immune; oregon native.

It's hard to have a retirement - transition interrupted - and that is part of what I'm feeling. Like I was half way down the diving board and I got pulled back up by my shorts. I miss talking to you all from the solitude of my trailer.

February 6, 2005 7:42 AM
Adding the old solar panel to the truck, behind the satellite dish today, out at TJ's will have some pictures. It is the weekend, and I don't feel much like a free chicken. More later and I have to update the mailing list as one of you just got a broadband cable connection - congratulations Dave!
My location is 44.0413N by 123.027W, which is almost on the banks of the Willamette River in Eugene at Shamrock Park. This is my home away from the road, and a great small park. The managers are friends and I'm biased but they are great people. Their daughter Teresa works here too and is a dynamo. Recommend this park highly.

February 1, 2005 9:11 AM
Funky Chicken blues - I'm back at work for 6 months now to pay for the Datastorm satellite dish and get some projects done on my truck and trailer. This short retirement showed me where my planning was faulty, where I was focused on the wrong things, and as you know, it made me aware of how small I had let my life become.
So here I am with my "normal" group of chickens, back in the cage on the wall, watching free chickens through the wire again.

As you can imagine I'm not happy that I had to buy the satellite because at $6100 it made me so uncomfortable about cutting into my savings that I decided to return to work where I'm paid too much for too little, but a comfortable cage is still a cage. Don't get me wrong, I love the satellite dish. I'm a boy who listened to the first Sputnik launch in the early 60's and I listened to it for hours at it went beep, beep, beep, as it orbited. From that to me directly controlling and talking to a transponder on a telecommunications satellite 22,000 miles away is freaking unbelievable and so cool.

So now what to do with this website for the next six months. I certainly will be updating links and doing a piece of the Motosat dish. There really is no other choice for the mobile user. Scott's tripod system is great for people who move less often then I, and it is much less expensive. But for me, between being on Verizon after 9pm to get free minutes and dialing up through that at 14,400 was just pitifully slow, and I couldn't see how I could create and run businesses and do my work. I'll also be taking pictures of repairs and improvements that have become necessary or that will make my life more comfortable within the small space of the trailer.

Personally I'm going to use the 6 months to work on expanding my shrunken human existence. I'm attending a writing group meeting on Thursday. I plan to be moving the trailer to TJ's most weekends throughout the spring and summer, to have room for repairs. I'm looking actively around me, for that human warm and femininity that I miss. I don't know that I actually want it, but not looking is like folding into a black hole.
So please check back from time to time. I'll send an email to my distribution list when something new comes on. Most of all thank each of you for supporting me through these times of change, by your email and by the fact that even the lurkers give me something, a reason to look with eyes more than mine. Love you all.

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