First four-legged breakin attempt

I've been staying out in the rural coastal areas lately, whenever I get a chance. I love it. Quiet, fresh air, peaceful, beautiful.

Last night, however, I had my first break-in attempt by a four-legged creature. And, this will come as no surprise, at 4am.

I was in a dead sleep, and awoke for no particular reason, probably from hearingsome kind of unspecified noise. Then I heard a distinctive "thunk" that sounded like someone or something bumping into my floor vent, really hard, and a tiny screeching scream. And finally a double thump of an animal jumping down from somewhere and landing somewhere else. And then: silence.

My guess: a mouse was trying to get into my van through the floor vent, and was stopped abruptly by a cat who had been stalking it as it was scratching around trying to find its way in. Either the cat or the mouse must have banged into the vent, hard.

I have a window screen on that floor vent, otherwise the mouse or whatever would most surely have gotten in-- the vent louvres are big enough for a small mouse to fit through.

Having been a pet owner, I instinctively shouted "NO!" when I heard all this. Luckily no humans heard me or gave it much thought ("What, is someone walking their dog in the middle of the night?"). I got up and inspected the screen for damage, and didn't see any. Then looked at the clock: 3:58AM. Wow.

One of the things I love about more rural/suburban areas is how quiet and peaceful they are, and no hassles from two-legged folks (cops or robbers). But one of the biggest hassles of some of these areas is the four-legged creatures; most of time it is the local dogs take violent exception to my being here. The past few nights I've parked and had two or three separate neighborhood dogs at the same time start get very pissed off at me for being there. *sigh* Sometimes I just wait for them to get over it, other times I have to move.

The life of a vandweller is never boring.

The Wall of Voodoo

I'm very happy to report that I have finally put in the wall in the back of the truck! I left about 2 feet in the back as a storage area for my bicycle, tools, ladder, and some bulky/heavy gear I use for work and need to haul in and out of the roll-up door. I'm going to put shelves back there too.

I'm no longer tripping over or wrestling with sheets of insulation or breathing toxic insulation dust, and it's noticeably quieter. Should be cooler on hot days too, and warmer in winter.

The design was courtesy of a local fellow vandweller. I framed it out of 2x2's, sheetrocked the inside part of it, and put plywood on the other side for hanging tools and mounting shelves and such. There's a "movable" section which was works kind of like a trackless sliding door, but the sheetrock is so heavy that I'll probably just leave it in place most of the time. The movable part is cut with a 30-degree angle cut, so it fits in nicely, and slides out when I need to get back there. There's a long peice of 2x2 angle iron at the top, drilled into the box and the non-movable part of the wall, which provides a slot for the movable part to fit into.

I'll take pictures at some point and post them.

It took me a couple days to do, all together, maybe 18-20 hours of work. But I've never framed a wall before, never worked with angle iron or sheetrock, never even built much out of wood either, so it was a huge learning experience for me. I'm very grateful for the advice I got. Major project complete!

And maybe it wasn't a ghost after all!

A few months ago, I thought I had heard and seen dangers when there weren't any.

But maybe I did, and maybe there was.

Some days ago, at around dusk, I went by that suburban shopping center again. I shop there often, and it's a common stop for me. And as I pulled up, a half-dozen cop cars were there, across the street, in the parking lot, everywhere. And a couple gangsta-looking thugs were sitting out on the curb in front of the houses across the street from this parking lot, handcuffs on. The whole building was on the lawn and hanging out of their windows, looking at what was going down.

Whatever it was, I didn't want to know. Instead of camping there, I went to the store, did my errands quickly, took off in a hurry. And wondered if, that night when I woke up in such terror, maybe there was some actual danger after all.

I went by there again today to run some errands, parked in my usual spot, and the little Toyota next to me had on its windshield a ticket! Never seen one of those there before. Apparently they are now busting people for parking overnight there. The ticket said "FINAL WARNING" on it, so they might even tow the guy, which would really suck.

Never, ever, ever again will I stay there overnight. It has become a hostile environment. And maybe my instincts were very right the first time around.

Taking care of the simple things

The label on my box says to re-torque the U-bolts every six months. Since the big drama with the U-bolts back in September, I'm pretty sure I've checked them at least once. But it's been a while, so I checked them again today. Guess what? About a third of them were loose, some significantly. Good thing I did that.

Been wrestling with some strange tire pressure issues. The van is pulling to the right, and I had a slow leak in the passenger front tire, which would explain the pulling, but the leak seems to have gone away. Perhaps that wheel is just flaky in some other way-- maybe out of round? I'll take it back to my alignment/tire guy and find out what he has to say about it this week.

I'm also fed up with dealing with ice, and am looking for deals on a 12v refrigerator. Might could have found one, will see. It's an expense, but the convenience factor will be worthwhile, I hope.

I've got the wanderer's itch now

I've spent the last three weeks on the road. Got completely out of the city, and stayed there. First time I've done that since I've been vandwelling.

I love it. It was fantastic. I spent weeks on the ocean, up the rivers, in the mountains, in the redwood forests, and it was great.

I've got the travelling itch now. I've got the van and there's really no reason for me to stay in one place, let alone in a grungy, dangerous city.

I want to go find some land out in rural coastal California and go live there forever. I do NOT want to go back to the city again. I don't feel safe there anymore. I don't feel healthy there anymore.

After travelling back, I hung around in Marin for a few days, which was also wonderful. Then to the East Bay for a few days, seeing friends I haven't seen since last year, and then spent an afternoon being a dad again. Now I'm down the coast, wandering and hiking around the beautiful natural areas here. I have to go back to the suburbs again, and then I think I'm quite done with the city from here on, if I can get away with it.

It'll be hard to make the rural thing work, but I can much more easily swing the suburban thing.

Oil change, part deux

My second oil change today went a lot better than the first one, 9 months ago. Still a bit of drama, but not too bad. I already had everything I needed, and a plan, and the entire process took almost exactly 45 minutes from beginning to end.

Only bummer is that once again I overfilled the crankcase. Not too much, just a little. I'd partially-filled it, ran the engine a while, then checked the level before topping up, but the oil was so clean and clear that I couldn't really see how full it was. I noticed a lack of power, probably from the crankshaft sloshing around in oil instead of powering the vehicle. So after driving on it a while, I pulled the drain plug and drained out maybe a quart or two extra. Out of 4 gallons, not too bad.

The secret next time will be to run the engine for a LONGER time after partially-filling it, and before checking the dipstick-- long enough that the oil gets dirty and black and I can clearly see the level.

I found Rotella CJ-4 oil at Kragen this time too, really easy, and relatively cheap-- no special out-of-the-way trips to locate the stuff.

Seeing/hearing ghosts

Lately I've been avoiding the urban areas I used to park in, and feeling a lot safer, healthier, and more secure in the suburbs. I don't feel safe downtown anymore, among people living on the street and lots of fellow vandwelleers. I feel bad about it, but I much prefer the suburban areas of San Francisco, or the suburbs of San Mateo County surrounding it... or of course the beaches or out in the woods when I can there!

The other night I parked in a very safe suburban shopping mall parking lot. It was a windy night. At almost exactly 4:00AM (what is it with 4AM?) I was awakened by loud rap music booming, my van being shaken, and the sound of my van door being opened! I made my most intimidating-sounding angry shout. I heard nothing.

I looked out my peep-holes. I saw-- or thought I saw-- a vehicle parked sideways, aiming directly towards my vehicle. WTF? And nobody else around. I felt very, very scared and alone. I was in a panic for about a half hour, trying to decide what was going on and what to do. A car thief would have left as soon as I shouted. Who was parked there? Why were they parked that strange way? What did they want? What if they were armed? What if they tried to break in again?

After a while, I decided I'd climb out and start my vehicle, and drive somewhere else. As I got out of the box and into the cab, I noticed that everything I thought was wrong. There was no vehicle pointing at mine; there was a limo parked right next to mine, and the streetlights shining on it made it look like headlights aiming at me. I was not alone; there were dozens of cars parked all around. There were also people coming to work at one of the stores already, and a security guard on duty!

So what happened? I was perfectly safe. I got back the van and went back to sleep.

There were several problems. First, the peepholes make everything look really far away. It's a fisheye lens. There were cars parked all over me, and people a very short distance away. Secondly, my van was shaking because it was windy, or because someone parked too close to me and banged their door into me. Third, the sounds I heard was probably whomever owned that limo, parking it after getting off a night of work (it's prom season, after all). Fourthly, I'm a little skittish from being in the city for a while, or a little soft from being in the suburbs and out in the country.

I was seeing ghosts. No break-in attempt. No gang-bangers. No danger. Just the echoes of it, a delayed reaction.