Its been a rough few weeks from a financial standpoint.  I have been living paycheck to paycheck as long as I can remember and this paycheck is no exception.  Already this week I had invested a decent amount of cash in van maintenance.  I threw fourty at firestone to chip away at my recent brake job and I spent sixty to have some shocks put on the front end.  I absolutely have to give a shout out to Loyds repair in Owatonna for cutting me an insane deal on that shock install.  it was a real bear and in spite of having to tourch off every bolt he removed, he stuck with his quote.  what a guy!

    During that fun trip up the lift, I was able to see that my rear leaf spring shackle brackets were REALLY getting bad.  They are cracked over half way through!  And the wire to my 02 sensor has been broke for lord only knows how long.  The brackets cannot wait any longer, so I ordered new ones to the tune of $27 a side.  The sensor has been broke this long with few ill effects so it will just have to wait till next month.  This afternoon i filled my LP tank and my fuel tank and it left me with $20 to make it ten days.  Ouch!  

     And then my furnace died....

     At first I could only get the pilot to hold and then I could not even get that to stay on!  It had been functioning so well, how could this be?  Did it have something to do with filling my tank this afternoon?   

     It was below freezing and pretty windy out.  It would be a pretty unpleasant place tonight without heat!  Were could i go?  What was I going to do?  The fears and doubts began to build.  If could not even manage to keep this most modest of dwellings alive then truly I am a failure!  A wave of "what ifs" washed over me and I started to sink into dispair.

     It had to be the regulator!  So i called Mark, my very favorite junk man.  He said he had some stuff he could dig through.  When I arrived he had one!  It was, however, differently configured then the one I was running.  I took it to the shop and started tearing parts off my van.  It was clear I would need to get some stuff from lowes.  they closed at 9:00 and it was 8:10.  I found the parts I would need to get this regulator to work.  A reducer bushing, a street elbow, and some gas rated teflon tape.  it was only $12!  

     Back to the shop I flew.  I put it all together and the pilot lit up.  The burner ignited but only on one side so I decided to pull the burner and have a look.  Sure enough, the burner was rusted pretty badly on the far end.  It would need to be replaced....but not today.  I wrapped it in foil tape about 20 times and crossed my fingers.  It lit up and burned pretty well once I got it back in the furnace.  

     Tomorrow it may all fall apart, but tonight I have some place warm to sleep.  Good night, and happy valentines day!

I saw a great article on stuff this morning (link above). It had me thinking more about the legacy of our possessions. why do we feel the need to build massive empires of items?

I feel like this tradition is a relic from an era long past. Imagine, if you will, when the average human only lived to about fourty to fifty years of age. Their offspring would still be in their, home building, early twenties. A perfect time to inherit a fully furnished home! remember, in those days you had better be getting those kids out before you are thirty or you would not live to see them grown.

Fast forward to today, and you will find a much different model. Now, the adult childeren are fully established in homes, set up the way they wanted them to be, by the time their parents die. A few momentos is all they desire to take on from their perents vast trove. And the adult grandkids don't have the resources or the desire to support a household such as the one vacated by their grandperents. Just as massive 5-6 bedroom houses have fallen out of favor with these youth, so too will the cumbersome furnishings that filled them.

Furthermore, household items were increadibly expensive and lasted forever. A cast iron skillet cost a weeks pay and lasted 120 years. Todays equivelent aluminum teflon coated skillet costs an hour's pay and lasts six months. This further reduces the dependence apon hand-me-down household items. A young couple can blast through IKEA and Target and furnish a home for a few swipes of the easily abtained credit card. And when its time to move across the nation just throw it all in a dumpster!

Yessir, its going to be a different world for this new generation. Emphasizing experiences over possessions, and persuing relationships rather than chaseing the almighty dollar. I look forward to living in it with them!

     The night before last I was parked out at the hospital.  I really like their parking lot, it has no light poles on the northmost edge so I can park with my nose facing that way and get very little light.  however, it is out in the open plains and boy can you feel that wind blow.  If there was a reason why Matt Foley parked his van "down by the river", it was wind blockage.  Out here in the open fields of southern Minnesota the wind blows every day.  If I am sitting in an open place and the winds are high my little furnace has to run almost constantly.  This results in my battery running down before I am through the night.  not a good situation.  

     A friend offered me a place to plug in last night and I decided to give my electric heater a try.  This location was well protected from winds, so I figured it would work great.  It did fairly well but I was surprised that it was not able to keep it as warm in there as the gas furnace could.  I certainly could have ran them both but I was hoping to get my battery fully charged up after it was so deeply discharged the night before.  I did sleep very well though.  I think the constant fan noise of the electric heater was the cause but also breathing that cooler air may have helped as well.  when I got behind the wheel this morning, I was pleased to see my aux battery was fully charged after sitting on my dinky 1 amp battery charger all night.

      I am still waiting for the charge controller to show up for my solar panel.  Once that arrives it should be much easier to keep my battery fully charged through the week when I am not driving a lot.  It is hard to even consider things like refridgerators when keeping power flowing to basic life support is challenging.  

     Another thing to consider is insulation.  I have lined my windows with 2 layers of Reflectix.  it is kinda like bubble wrap with aluminum foil stuck to both sides.  It seems to work pretty well but a large portion of my glass is still uncovered.  I had planned to make a custom fit windshield screen out of reflectix to put up but it is still on my to do list.  I am sure that would help a great deal but I wont be back to Iowa to work on it for weeks.  by that time I may not need it.  

     Anyway, I will sure be happy when i can drop my tank and put on a bike rack!  Then I will have all sorts of interesting summer van problems to tackle.  Can't wait!

     I need to take a minute to give credit to my most important life support system!  My old duo-therm RV furnace.  

     When I first was planning this project I considered many styles of LP heaters and furnaces.  The ventless ones were just not an option dealing with gasses on that level in a confined space just seemed too risky.  Other vented styles took up a lot of space, and my van is small even by van standards.  the required electricity of an rv furnace was just going to have to happen considering my spatial challenges.  and, having the secondary electrical system ended up being a real blessing for other reasons.

     The second hurdle to the rv furnace was the cost.  You are talking at least $400 for one one of these units new, and aquireing a used one is hard because the ice fishermen pay top dollar for these things at the scrap yard.  I was lucky enough to find this gem for $25 and I ended up putting another $100 or so in it.  its firebox is very think walled compared to these newer punched steel units and its amp draw is extremely low.  A mere 1.6 amps!  I have been running it for a month now and I have only used 5/8 of my 35 gallon tank so far.  and that is in the middle of winter!  Its pilot light sorta establishes a baseline heat output on nice sunny days and the burner rarely has to run.

     Yessir, I would be in a pickle without my little furnace.  if i were to buy a new van I would absolutely get a new electric ignition unit to go in it, but this one got me what I needed and it did it for a price I could handle.  Hell, with a production run ending in the early 80s, it is even era appropriate to this classic chevy van!  not too shabby!

     I am at my parents farm in Iowa this weekend.  I come here to spend my time with my 10 year old son Christopher every other weekend.  Yesterday I removed all my things from my ex-girlfriend's house.  I am thankful to have this taken care of so Jessica can move on with her life.

     This morning I was thinking about Owatonna Minnesota.  It is the place I have come to call my home.  But, this morning it was hard to think about it in that way.  With my things in the shed and my van in the driveway, I had not a single possesion in Minnesota.  I felt profoundly uninvested in that place.  I had never given a lot of thought to the phraze "putting down roots", but I think i had just been uprooted. 

     Furthermore, Iowa has very little to offer me now.  I may know its places and roads well, even many of its people, but its hard to imagine a life here again.  A lot would have to change for me to call Iowa home once more.  

     I had always figured it was the relationships and not the real estate that made a place feel like home.  It is likely a little bit of both.  I am sure it is just a matter of time until I get used to my new life and my roots find new things to establish themselves in.  Until then though, i really do feel homeless.