RV life

Finally leaving NOLA?

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Katya Posted in RV life | Leave a comment

Soon indeed! I cant believe we’ve been here SOO long. We’re basically partial year residents at this point. I had to look at past blogs to see when we arrived and it was EARLY MARCH?! And we’ve been in Louisiana since early February! So much for on the road huh? Hence my not writing much for a while. Besides an in-depth tour of New Orleans for Vegans, there wasn’t much for me to write about without this turning into a cook book and craft show.
In the last several months we’ve gained allot of stuff. The new trailer everyone knows about by this time but the new truck has yet to be talked about, and Ross has finally sold his car!! It took so long to sell and was sold under asking price but sold none the less.
As we speak Ross is setting up the trailer for generator power, something these trailers were never built to do. It’s a serious improvement on the value of the trailer to us and for resale. He has worked long and hard inventing a way to store our huge 6volt batteries safely and now hooking up our inverter to 12 volt power (really he knows way more about this, I’ll prod him for a blog about it). We’ve gone on innumerable trips to Home Depot, Radio Shack and Lowe’s looking for all the building material, wires and ventilation solutions needed for the project and still theres work to be done involving the breaker box but hopefully soon we’ll be on our way.
We also finally got our hitch, again, something Ross knows more about with all his hours of research on hitches.

Now that we have the truck to tow the trailer and the hitch to help us tow safely, we need tires for truck and trailer and a 100k mile service on the truck. We bought it literally miles before 100k, hitting it at the exact place we went to register is in Florida. The lady at the DMV said it was a first for her and hopping it didnt look like we faked the miles, I took a photo to remember its oddness but it doesn’t mean much without her amused face next to the instrument panel.

Overdue to the blog: Tour of the Trailer

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Katya Posted in RV life | Leave a comment

I took this and uploaded this to youtube right away but apparently never posted it to the blog.

its been banned in some places because I dont have rights to use the song.. so.. let me know if it doesnt work.

May in NOLA

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Katya Posted in RV life | 1 Comment

New Orleans jumped right into summer. It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that we were using a wool blanket and keeping Chena close at night. Now almost without warning it’s over 80 every day, often with 80% humidity or worse. Today is nice though, bearable and the air isn’t as thick as it has been. The billboards on the freeway reflect the weather clearly. They were up the first hot day as if the billboard hangers were just waiting around a corner. One with a picture of Louisiana and the word “hot” next to it and a bottle of Tabasco that says “hotter”; Billboards for beverages “give HEAT the COLD shoulder”, ac repair, roach infestation… We had our first taste of a that a couple days ago when a 2.5 inch roach was hanging out on the counter while I played with Susa on the floor. Susa nearly went feral trying to help us catch it. It got under our couch and ran like lightning across the floor – straight for our bedroom. I’ve never seen a bug run so fast, or anyhing really. If it made it into the bedroom the chances of finding it amung dirty clothes, shoes and a multitude or gaps worsened our chances of catching it. As soon as it entered the bedroom I was committed to sleeping on a bunk bed. I grabbed Susa with the intention of letting her do what she so badly wanted to do, murder the bastard, but the roach paused just inside the door long enough for Ross to get a sneak attack and squish the hell out of it. Roaches are probably my least favorite bug on the planet so I spent the next 2 days convinced every black spot on the wall or brush on my arm was a roach. After living in Argentina wth roaches twice as big, I knew that havig a cat would be my savior as it was there. Instead of coming home to dead birds or mice, on the 11th floor with a massive balcony, I would return from a night out with friends to dead or mostly dead giant Roaches and my cat Gata proudly sitting next to them. I hope that’s not the case in the trailer with Susa but at least we have a cat for when it is the case. It was my own fault for the roaches in Argentina really because I kept my cat box on the balcony and therefore had to leave the door open. It worked out for everyone anyway because I never once saw one alive (inside at least).

With all the time not moving so much, I’ve started making some more time for crafts. Trying not to spend every waking hour at the computer though I certainly have enough work, projects and photography to occupy me for years. I bought pewter trays for necklaces and tons of jewelry stuff, though still having trouble perfecting the drying process of the epoxy on the trays, I can use my own photos or drawings in each. I also made a hideous little felt monster of which I hope to improve on soon but I mostly don’t have time till the weekend.

Susa and Chena suffer much from the heat and my crafts. Susa is often in trouble when my craft things are out because she cant keep her paws off them and Chena is forced to lay on the floor while I use the couch. When the AC is not on they pretty much just rest and wait for it to come back on. Once in a while the AC throws a switch so we don’t push it too hard. Yesterday the power got shut off outside because of a short or excess power usage (no idea what caused that except the AC) and we had to flip a switch at the source. Hopefully the AC holds out for us, this weather is mostly too much to bear alone, especially when we’re trying to work all week.

Rent is due tomorrow and it’s looking like we’ll be paying for another month. We didn’t want to be stuck here this long but don’t have much choice without a truck. I’m not so sure the people want us here too badly anymore though. There are several long term people here but I get the feeling with the combo of us technically being “stuck” and the Brougham taking up extra space (and looking funky parked out front like a car - or even in the back covered with a tarp), they are starting to get annoyed. I’m paranoid though, especially when it comes to what other people expect of me – so maybe Ross should just talk to them.

Space Crazy!

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Ross Posted in nerding, RV life | Leave a comment

Moving into the new trailer was a big change – so much more space, so much more comfortable, and easier to work and relax. Part of our relaxation process involves us watching a lot of movies. In the RV we wouldlie on the bed with a monitor set up at the end of the bed hooked up to one of our laptops. With the upgrade in living space we decided to go for an upgrade in our movie-watching experience too.

We started off getting a new TV – a Samsung LN22C350 (we’re pretty much set on Samsung displays). Most of the RV parks we have stayed at have a cable TV hookup, and it’s nice to be able to take advantage of it. We used to use a USB TV Tuner hooked up to the laptop, but being able to watch TV on the couch with a remote control and without having to unhook the laptops and move them over to the TV every time is great.

Watching TV was nice, but we needed a setup for movies. With just the TV we were still stuck with shuffling laptops every time we wanted to sit down an watch a movie, whether it was Netflix, a DVD or a movie file. We thought about all the options – a cheap laptop, building a custom machine, using a games console. We already have a Nintendo Wii, but it’s not really set up to be a media center box – it’s not a hi-def device and it doesn’t play DVDs without a hack (even with the hack it’s pretty awkward to use).

After a lot of thought and reading of forum posts and reviews online, we decided on the Sony PS3. With the PS3 we get a hi definition device which will hook up to our TV via HDMI, a DVD/BluRay player and…a game console. It was a good choice – the PS3 is now set up to do everything we need it to do, though it did take a little more work than just plugging it into the TV.

PS3

When we want to watch a movie now, it’s as simple as turning on the TV, the PS3, then selecting the movie. If we want to watch a NetFlix streaming movie, we just put in the NetFlix CD and the NetFlix movie browser starts up and lets us select the movie we want. If we want to watch a DVD or BluRay – well, we just put in the disc. If we want to watch a movie file, we can browse our media library and select the movie.

PS3 NetFlix Browser

Enabling us to browse our media library and play files from it was a little more challenging to set up. The PS3 can play a lot of movie files from USB hard drives, but not all, and its subtitle support for our Kung Fu movies isn’t great. To fix all of this, we started by creating ourselves a fast wireless home network, buying a Netgear WNRD3300 wireless router. Now, our laptops, the PS3 and the Wii all connect to this fast wireless network. To get all these devices also connected to the Internet, I upgraded the router with the awesome DD-WRT open source firmware and set it up to use its secondary radio transmitter to bridge our local network with the RV park network. This allows us to have a fast, secure network in the trailer connected out to an external network for Internet – all without any network cables.

Browsing for a media server on the PS3

With the network set up and the PS3 able to securely communicate with our laptops over the network, I installed the PS3 Media Server on my laptop and configured it to share everything from my media library. The great thing about the PS3 Media Server is its ability to transcode any movies which are not in a format that the PS3 supports – into a format that it does support. It also performs the same magic for any of our movies which have subtitles.

For a little more nerdy fun, Katya has been playing Final Fantasy VII for the original Playstation on the PS3 and I have been playing the awesome Gargoyle’s Quest for Gameboy using the Visual Boy Advance GX Gameboy emulator running on our Homebrew hacked Wii.

Final Fantasy VII

Gargoyle's Quest

Not everything we do involves staring at screens.

Picking up the trailer, Cajun style

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Katya Posted in RV life | 1 Comment

So we spent the entire day picking up the trailer and had a pretty great time on the way. We hired a guy off Craigslist who had a 3/4 ton truck and experience, pretty much all we needed. His name was Joey and he picked us up around 10am with his brother and wife; all friendly, no room for awkwardness allowed. Almost as soon as we left, getting on the freeway a woman was blocking a lane of traffic with a flat tire, Joey insisted they stop and change her tire while his brother directed traffic, finishing in about 7 minutes. They made $20 doing it but it was clear they were generally pretty decent people. The drive was supposed to be 60 miles but we took the scenic route, cutting across from the freeway to the highway Dehnam Springs was on, winding past country homes, and taking enough turns to feel we were going in circles. We didn’t worry much though, Joey had been driving these roads since he was 12 when his dad threw him in a semi, strapped wood blocks to the pedals and told him to drive 150 miles to Lafayette to drop off a load. Stories like that and others were the theme of the ride to the trailer, between harassing his wife for driving so badly (she was texting while driving and took pain pills before they left), and picking on his brother for taking her side.

(skip this paragraph for more trailer trip adventure or read on for a Joey Story) One of the especially hilarious stories, Joey and his former wife were traveling with his uncles carnival with a truck camper combo. While driving down the freeway on the way to a new town late at night, a Camaro hit him them from behind, tipping them onto two wheels, nearly causing them to roll. Doesn’t sound very funny? Wait theres more! The corner of the trailer they hit was the corner where the bathroom is and subsequently the black water tank full of poop, pee and toilet chemicals – all which was now covering the driver and passengers of the Camaro through their smashed out windshield and crushed hood. It gets better (or worse). The Camaro didn’t stop, it sped up with every intention in the world of getting the hell out of there (though I cant imagine how they stomached that decision covered in shit). When Joey and his wife gained control of the truck (his wife driving, him pulling on the steering to untip it), they sped up after the Camaro for a swirvy 80 mile per hour chase till the Camaro finally pulled over on a country road (maybe not the best idea after you’ve hit and run a Cajun in the middle of nowhere). Joey of course responded as any Cajun would, he walked over to the car with a gun, broke the driver window with the butt of the gun and held the gun to the drivers head. “You almost killed us you mother F$%&er and you were just going to drive away!” he yelled at him, then noticing everyone covered in shit and a small glass tray covered in white powder. “How much money you got to fix my trailer?!”, the guy had about $100, his passengers another $75 – probably not enough, not to mention the trauma of almost dying. Just as he was about to explode he noticed a rather bursting bag of white powder in the console. “I’ll take that too”. Remembering that he has a gun, is this a robbery or a reasonable transaction? Imagine someone almost killed you then drive away, and you happened to have a gun under your seat… hmm, yeah will depend on more than that. Anyway, they try to refuse (presumably because its not their drugs, but know they don’t have much choice in the matter) “if we give you this you could tell the cops”. Joey laughs “why the hell would I tell the cops about your damn drugs if I haven’t called the cops on your almost killing me” – they hand it over. As the transaction was ending and the gun was being put away, police lights were seen in the distance. Joey hurried to hide the bag of drugs under a rock while the guys in the Camero grew increasingly nervous and still covered in shit. As the cops drew closer, the driver of the Camaro said to Joey as if they were old friends “I really hope they dont search me, I got a trunk of this stuff”. The cop had received a report of a hit and run from someone else on the highway. He understood already who was the victim and who was the culprit but Joey got a sufficient payment for his losses and decided to help the Camaro driver out. “No sir there was no hit and run, we just followed them till they found a place to pull off the highway”. The cop kept insisting what he was told warranted a hit and run and that he would have to search the Camaro. “Look officer” holding out a wad of cash, “they already paid me for the damages and we were just about to settle up and go our ways”. Eventually this worked and everyone went home happy, although covered in poop, without a toilet or not having made a huge bust. The world went on with carnivals, drug dealers and country cops as it always will. Joey and his wife returned later, picked up the drugs and sold them to employees of the carnival who snorted it right before your kid got on their rides.

After this story and many others we arrived at the dealership (of manufactured homes), happily and speedily finished up the paperwork and had no issues hooking up the trailer. Those came later when just out of town we got a flat. The dealership, because they build manufactured homes, had about a million nails and staples in their lot and one of them was in the front left tire. We had noticed, annoyed there was no spare and Joey pissed he hadn’t brought one, we assumed it would either hold out or we’d stop and get some ‘Fix-a-flat’; unfortunately it did not and we were forced to drive on the shoulder of the highway for while, though luckily being within a mile of a middle of nowhere tire shop.

Doug runs to help a driver

a couple or rural LA kids at their dads tire shop

Everything couldn’t go perfect so I wasn’t too annoyed, more annoyed that we were using up these peoples time. Joey’s wife Tabitha was having trouble finding a ride for her daughter from school and Doug got several calls from a girl wondering where he was. During the drive I snuck in some audio recordings, video and photos(will post if I can). Partly because they were really interesting people but also because we’re so cut off from other people most the time, I’d probably record and spy on anyone we met at this point. Joey cant read, and aside from being a really nice guy who walked us through every single thing we might need to know about trailers and towing them AND telling us some of the best stories I’ve heard in a while, he is really racist though aware that he might offend others at least. Doug reminded me of my brother, the good parts of my brother; big, funny and tattooed. He seemed fairly smart, interested in technology and much less racist. Tabitha and I had some moments of “freakin men” to share along the road while she suffered through Joey’s criticism of her driving.

As a family they make pretty good money hauling junk cars, cutting down dead trees and picking up trailers for people like me and Ross and were completely genuine people. Growing up in Montana and Idaho, around hunting, racism, trapping and strong chauvinism they actually reminded me of where I’m from… so to speak. I am/do none of those things but I guess I’ve learned some level of tolerance of peoples faults. In short, I’d hang out with these people again, just like I’d hang out with my racist, hunting, trapping, chauvinistic step father again, not because hes my step father, because aside from people’s faults, they can still be pretty awesome people. The racist thing does suck allot though… it’s really ingrained down here too. The whole city of New Orleans is crime ridden, and no sociology statistics needed, the majority of the crime, and a big reason why there is so much racism against black people down here – is because most crime happens in poor black communities or involving black youth etc., especially after Katrina. That doesn’t forgive it obviously but its a peer and family driven belief that makes things like racism last so long over generations. Generalization builds fear and so on.. anyway. Doug got our number and claimed he’d call us for a house warming party which would be awesome. They spoke of banana, mango and strawberry moonshine – clubs on the bayou that rock the swamp at night and don’t do drugs anymore so it seems they’d probably make for a pretty interesting party. It’s really hard to express how animated and alive these people were – ill try if I can get any video off my phone ever.

We got homes (haha cause we have 2 for now!) at about 5:30pm, having not eaten anything all day, drinking one Gatorade and half a soda we were fairly exhausted. Joey made backing the trailer in look easy and they were parked and out of here in under 10 minutes. Too late to work, hungry and tired, we started to unpack the RV and didn’t eat till 9 (haha we’re dumb), we ordered a pizza, hooked up the TV and … I sat here for hours writing this blog while listening to cartoons.

Night!