It seems like recently I have not spent much time talking about the nuts and bolts of this van operation.  I am slowly working my way through a short list of items that need to be addressed on the old girl.  Problem is, of course, the list never gets any shorter.  Kevin and myself were installing some new shock absorbers in the rear on Thursday and he noticed I have some odd tire wear on my fronts!  also, wile we had it up I noticed another brake line leak.

     I was pretty stoked to get those shocks on because they were the second to last thing on my list, but now, it would appear, I have a few more things.  And as for that O2 sensor, who knows when that will get done.  Cruddy part is I have to pay for a front end alighnment, and I can't just do that myself.  Thankfully, I still have my Firestone credit card.  They prolly do more alighnments than anyone in town.  Of course, they sell tires too.

     On a positive note, the van is running and driving fantasic.  It rides like a dream with the new shocks and its been tracking as true as can be (another reason this alighnment issue is baffling to me).  It is hard to imagine what I will have to work on next but i am sure something will arise.  

     One other job Kevin and I tackled was to build a LP bottle bracket for the back door of the van.  We scabbed a partial bracket from the scrap pile and did some modifications.  I have not mounted it yet and I don't think i will until next weekend.  my tank is sitting at about 3/8 and the next week is looking rather cold.  I may as well try to use up as much of that big tank as I can before i switch over to the little ones.  I am also very hopefull that these grill tanks will finally put to rest some wierd supply pressure issues I have been pleagued with.  It would be nice to go through my big tank this summer and see if I can figure out what is up with it.  If nothing else it would be cool to make a lp fill station out of it and keep it at my parents house so I can fill my grill tanks every other weekend.  

     It is hard to put a value on having resources like my parents garage and my friend Kevin.  I suppose if I had a brand new van with a new furnace and electrical I would not need them nearly as much. Or if I had enough cash to just pay some one to do all this stuff I could get by as well.  However, it would be one thing to pay someone to put shocks on your van but finding some guy that can convert your rig into an rv could be a challenge and, oh my, would it cost you a pretty penny, I am sure!

     On a the personal front, I am doing fairly well. finances are challenging but not insurmountable, as per standard.  I am in an as good or better mental state than I usually am this time of year.  I am really looking forward to spring.  The idea of having the windows open at night and letting the air move through is so alluring right now.  Looks like one more week of subzero highs and we will be there!  Thanks for reading everyone!

     I had an interesting experience on Sunday.  I was wheeling into the gym parking lot when I noticed cars lineing the streets in all directions.  I was able to land a surprising good spot in light of the parking congestion all around me.  So I asked a few old ladys what the deal was as they walked by my open car window.  they told me it was a concert.  

    For a moment I cursed this concert for taking my favorite parking spots up next to the building.  Then, I considered that i had 2 hours of gym stuff to do, and a good 8 hours of time to kill before bed time.  lets go to a concert!  

     It was a free will donation fund raiser for a worthy local charity and the bads were fantastic.  The music was right up my alley, and the commentary between songs and acts was witty and entertaining.

     What a treat I had stumbled upon, but why?  If I were laying about on the old couch on that sunday afternoon, it would have been unlikely that I would have gone to this show even if I had known about it.  If I had been out and about with my (ex)girlfriend it seems unlikely we would have dropped everything and changed our plans to sample an unknown thing, just on a whim.  This event kinda made my day and even my weekend and I would have never gone if not for a good dose of boredom and an unhampered sense of adventure.  

     This is not the only positive outcome I have experienced recently from what, at face value, appears to be a negative.  My current situation's reduced beer intake and budget minded diet along with my frequent stops at the gym have me down two belt holes and feeling great!  And, my extra free time in the evenings has me playing the uke better than ever (still not good).  In short, it would appear the nature of change is hard to judge when first it strikes you.  Who knows what trials will prove to be your best and most cherished memories.  Now lets get some warm weather going here so the biking and fishing can start!

     This week a co-worker told me about a seasonal job in wisconsin.  It was a really sweet gig at an RV park doing maintenance and bartending.  Of course, the pay was crap and no benifits.  Needless to say, it was not to be, however it got me thinking about how easy it would be to relocate to anywere I pleased.  I could grab a cardboard box and gather everthing I have at my place of work and be driving into the sunset in under 10 minutes.  No packing, no preparations, just go.  

     Our lifestyle here in the USA seems to value permanence.  We always view buying as favorable to renting.  We say "putting down roots", not "locking our chains".  Yet, in the last few decades we have seen employees staying with employers for much shorter spans of time.  In stead of most putting in fifty years at that factory job, now you are a veteran if you have been there five!  Marriages, once the cornerstone of scociety, are now mere chapters in the long book of our lives.  If a marriage ends, it is on average only 8 years in.  

     So whats up with that?  We are a people who cling to a very perminent vision of the ideal life, yet, we try to live it amidst a sea of constant change.  Now certainly, we can talk all afternoon about what is causing this turbulance in our modern world, what we can do to correct it, or if it needs corrected at all.  But the fact remains, we are now under the influence of frequent change.  

     So maybe having all this permanence in our lives is a huge stressor.  We view this as security, but when faced with sudden change it could be the rock that drags us to the bottom.  While dreaming about my whimsical new career today, I remembered how frightening the notion of losing a job was when I was paying a mortguage.  It occurred to me that if I lost my job tomorrow I would be in an infinitely better position to get another one.  In stead of limiting my job hunt to a half hour from my house I could field a search pattern almost eight hours across!  And, apon securing a position I would already have moved to the location of employment when I drove there for the interview!  

     Hey, who knows what the future holds.  But, you can bet it will be served up with a extra large side of change.  I feel pretty well equipped to tackle that change behind the wheel of the indigo windigo...

     Lots of work got done this weekend.  An oil change, new brake pads in the rear, and new spring brackets.  These repairs are not very expensive but boy do they add up when you are on a tight budget.  I look forward to a month with no money spent at the parts store.  

     Today I got to tackle a job that required no additional funds.  It is my new sun shield for the front windows.  I already had the materials left over from doing the other windows so it was just maximizing the utility of the money I had already spent.  I am very pleased with the finished product, and I look forward to seeing how it effects my energy budget.  Further, it will give me the ability to park were ever I please regardless of light pollution considerations.  Even after winter has long past this sun shield will be a real benifit to the comfort and versitility of the unit.

     It has recently become clear that minnesota is not through doleing out winter to us just yet.  Who knows what terrors this winter has yet in store for us?  So far it has been very mild conditions. I think the coldest night I have weathered was about zero and breezy.  If we get a neg 20 and breezy I am unsure if my furnace would be able to stay ahead of it with the previous set up.  Now with this boost in insulation I feel confident that I can weather the storm.  

     On a related topic, I have decided to name my van "The Indigo Windigo".  Why?  well, it is blue, it does eat people,  and it can cause psychosis during the winter months!  Sleep tight everyone!

     It's been a busy weekend working on a car at my parents garage.  After two weeks in the van it was good to crash out someplace with a tv and a fridge.  I even got to play video games with my son a few times in spite of it not being my weekend.  Love you, Chris!  

     Since my furnace trouble I have had only a few infrequent flame outs.  I feel like it has something to do with the high fuel level in my tank.  It has been very warm this week so I have not been heating all that much.  The melting has really bumped up the humidity and I have been sleeping great!  It is in the 50s and sunny out this afternoon.  Pretty amazing for a week after valentine's day!  

     I got kicked out of my first parking spot yesterday.  Shame too, they had free wifi!  I may go back next week after things cool off a bit lol.  I have been staying at the hospitol a lot.  If only it was not so windy all the time it would be even better.  

     Anyway, I keep thinking about a cool name for the van.  I have refferred to it as the Kick-Astro in the past but its not very high performance.  I had considered names like the snale, turtle, or hermit crab in light of the way its home is on its back.  again, just lacking that clever twist that good names have.  I have considered many mediocre names but I just know a real winner is out there waiting for me to discover it.  

     That is were you come in!  Leave me any cool name ideas you can come up with in the comment section of this web site!  If yours is selected I will thank you sincerely, and isn't that more important than some silly prize?