Seems I’m not the only van dweller who spends their days at this library as I’ve been noticing another van with some tell tale signs. Tons of papers and junk on the dash, a sun screen in the front window, dark tinted windows, shades drawn and there’s likely a drape behind the front seats as there’s no seeing in. Plus, it always has a killer parking spot as if the van was there from the moment the library opened and it’s always there. Sure it could be an employee, but in a town of 100,000 people I can’t be the only person living in their car.

These recent days it’s been necessary to find day time air conditioning as the weather outside is oven like. The library of course has the benefit of free electricity to charge with and free internet. And apparently at least one other person who lives in their vehicle is in a similar boat, er, van and capitalizing on the resource.

One aspect of fun I’ve been having while sitting at my table is trying to figure out who’s homeless and who’s not. It’s a “nice” town so there aren’t obvious signs to catch like weeks past due on showers and unnaturally large backpacks. I have a couple guesses but they are just that–pure speculation. I suspect though that today my disheveled appearance was apt to give me away, not to mention the dazed look I must have had as my blood sugar was low and I was beat from my night as an insomniac.

So perhaps my mysterious brethren will make themselves know. I wonder how that’d play off. Is there a secret handshake? It would seem reckless to say, “Hey, I live in my van too, you have the other darkened conversion van, right?” No. I don’t think I’d risk such a disclosure and I don’t think the other person would either. A wrong guess would easily lead to an awkward situation in the upper middle class town we’re both bumming around in currently.

The short answer is yes. Sadly. Visit Canada and Mexico wisely folks. I can understand and appreciate the need for border security but for a person who lives in my vehicle I keep my entire life on my computer and I don’t want just anyone poking their nose in there.

I’m really curious what would happen if I was asked and refused to give the myriad of passwords used to protect and encrypt various parts of my system? How long would the work at it if I conveniently forgot the passwords and how long would I rot in jail for refusing to have various federal agents reading though my personal journal or other information that’d not elicit even a momentary glance if held in paper format on my front seat.

Erik Badger and Amy Tam Badger have a van that I could scarcely dream of. It’s glorious! They decided to take a couple years to travel the country in a van and selected pretty much the one of my dreams: a Sportsmobile.

They have a section showing what they’re living in and if you’re curious what the rich people get when they live in their vehicle this is a perfect example. Four wheel drive, solar, all sorts of options and toys.

As much as I loved the little drive I took today while driving I’d sure pass it along to someone else and gladly jump behind the steering wheel of this magical ride.

I really feel for the folks on the West Coast as the heat sound positively punishing out there–housed, homeless or van dweller. Here in the midwest it’s only in the low to mid 90s today. This isn’t even bad compared to the 100s out west yet I’m planning my days around the heat and humidity. I can’t sleep much past about 8am or so as the sun gets the van too hot. And I can’t get to sleep until about 1-2am as the residual heat of the day has been retained in the thermal mass of the van. So I’m getting about six hours a night, which is okay–just not ideal.

Lately I’ve been finding air conditioned buildings to spend my time in midday and late afternoon as living in a van during the day in the summer is out of the question. I’m quite glad that I look like just another local doing a little research and soaking up some free internet as I’d hate to loose this resource. Power, internet, water fountains and nice cool air conditioning. There’s no homeless look about me, at least I don’t think so. The library has been a bigger and bigger help to me as the battery on my laptop is getting near useless for anything but quickly checking email and a little internet usage unless I have a somewhere to plug into. It’s holding maybe 25% of the power it originally did and is mighty inconvenient.

So I’d love to get on the internet more at night. Or even just be able to write. But that’ll have to wait until later as I’ll need to find a new battery somewhere. Until then I’ll just be happy reading or journaling. I’d much rather be productive but that’s a tall order in a town where everything is closed at 9pm outside of grocery stores and gas stations.

Which makes me think of an article I read about the West coast heat wave. One person interviewed was describing her means of sleeping. She lays on an air mattress in her living room where there’s the greatest air flow and falls asleep with frozen wash cloths on her head and feet. As they warm and she wakes she replaces then with fresh ones from the freezer and hopes the supply last until morning.

This was presented as a worst case scenario in the article and it struck me as I was reading it. I’d love to have air flow! A breeze, anything! And a freezer? How luxurious! I’m just glad I’m not parked out West or I’d be getting eaten alive by bugs as I’d be forced to sleep outside in a park somewhere.

The funny thing to me is that I’ve been thinking how much nicer life would be on the West coast as it’s generally much more mild than the Midwest where I am. Is this fate telling me to be happy where I am?

I got an email earlier asking if I was okay as I haven’t posted recently. And yes, I’m doing fine. As noted earlier I doing a baby sitting gig so my van dwelling related news is fairly limited. The term for the baby sitting even expanded as the genetic father of the kids decided he wouldn’t watch them this week as promised so I’ll be playing nanny until this coming weekend.

Part of what I’ve been working on is doing a couple minor fix-ups on the van, working on straightening out my paypal and banking situation so that I can start selling on ebay and I’ve been cooking and enjoying meals from a real kitchen. The kids by the way love garlic cheese mashed potatoes and it’s become a staple. I’ve checked into a couple jobs without success and I’ve been reading up on some computer technologies that will look good as buzzwords on my resume and give myself handy skills for my own endeavors.

I’ve also been taking the notes I’ve made since starting to research the process of living in a vehicle. At some point I’d like to have them cleaned up and posted on this site. It’s something that I thought I’d already have taken care of by now, but once I got into them I realized that they were very much written for my reference and not generally purposed. Looking at the mish-mash of ideas I really wish I had used a note taking application to keep them sorted rather than use a bunch of text files. They were originally kept to be my notes for my eyes, but once I got really into I felt I could share the distillation of the hundreds and hundreds of sites and sources that I read from.

This is a long read but quite worth while for a glimpse at what living in a vehicle is like. William Alford lives in Virginia near DC and has lived extensively in cars and a trailer.

This week I’ve got an odd little gig for myself. I’m baby sitting for a couple kids, well one namely. The three kids are all old enough that they should be able to care for themselves for a week but one is irresponsible, one has behavioral issues and the other one works full-time and isn’t around enough to police the other two.

It’s a pretty cake situation as I only need to oversee things, to be an authority presence to keep the problem child out of trouble. This basically entails being here as the kids know me and we have mutual respect for each other so the issues are few. The pay isn’t much but I have a place to sleep, a bathroom and kitchen and all the food I care to eat. Plus, I’ll get a couple of dollars too. I’ve done this before, many years ago, and they well know that I’m a very strict disciplinarian for the few things I actually care about enforcing.

Want to watch a movie with swearing that Mom and Dad would freakout over? Fine, watch it. But, you have to hear my lecture on how constant swearing is fool’s means of communication when sprinkled too liberally. That no word is inherently evil or off limits but when half of your sentence is pulled from the same five word pool of swears their meaning dilutes, the effect is nil and you stop actually communicating with any real meaning. Now, let’s watch Pulp Fiction and then talk about Quentin Tarantino’s narrative structure and character development when it’s over.

An object lesson in cops

Last night two of the kids were out in the neighborhood and found a young stray dog with no collar or tags. Thankfully they realized on their own that they weren’t adopting it.

Me: So what do you think we should do?

Eldest: Well, we should probably find the owner.

Me: That could be tough since the dog might have walked for miles.

Eldest: …yeah [proceeds to say it’s an unfamiliar dog, rambles about the neighborhood and is obviously processing through what to do]

Me: The dog looks really healthy and clean, is very friendly and probably has his people looking for him right now as it probably just got loose a while ago. He’s not drinking the water so he hasn’t developed thirst yet either.

Eldest: We could call an animal catcher…

Me: Exactly the right idea! What we should do is call the police non-emergency phone number as it’s what the owners probably did too. It’d be easier than finding some sort of animal control that’s probably not open now anyways. They can then hook the dog back up with the owner as we could spend days combing the neighborhood looking without success for people the police already have spoken to.

I decided to let the eldest child make the phone call handle everything and she did wonderfully. Police were called and came in about twenty minutes. She told them the story, helped get the dog into the squad car as this was one dog who hadn’t learned the magic of the words “car ride” yet.

Having just posted about dubious police tactics I thought this was the universe screaming out for me to teach them how to handle the police. So when it was all over we talked about being respectful, not causing suspicion and protecting our rights. I broke down all the interactions and how things like not inviting them into the home to talk was the right thing to do as the police don’t need to see inside–a good thing too since largely forgotten illegal fireworks were in plain sight on the kitchen counter. With the one that was old enough to drive we talked about what to do when pulled over too.

The Great All Cop Weekends

The parents know me so they’ll not be surprise that thus far I’ve:

• Played music for the kids including NWA’s F@$k The Police and discussed the cultural significance of perceptual changes over time. We talked about the general impact of watershed moments in pop culture and how yesterday’s harbinger of the demise of Western culture is tomorrow’s Muzak. This brought on by hearing Bill Haley’s (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock which is now considered quaint.
• Discussed how to legally and politely keep the police in their place, what their rights are and how to protect them.
• Made the police the first stop for problem resolution with the stray.

Please check out these guides to your constitutionally provided rights. The cops, feds and DHS are not your friends and are not looking out for your best interest when they just want to ask “a couple questions.” The are looking for a crime and will gladly use carefully crafted question and pressure to get you to yield your rights  so you can make your own noose to slip your own neck into.

Flex Your Rights produced a video detailing what to do and not to do when stopped by officers and Busted is currently available on google videos. The ACLU also has a convenient pocket card along with other downloads to help you keep secure your constitutionally provided rights. NORML has a great plain language summary of your rights too though I wouldn’t be caught dead reading their Freedom Card in front of a cop. Last thing I’d want to flash before a cops eyes is the logo of a marijuana legalization organization. But if anyone needs to know this information it’s the pot heads who are always carrying.

The video is also supplied as a torrent by Flex Your Rights if you’d like a higher resolution version without actually purchasing it. Info on what a BitTorrent is here.

Small space living has always appealed to me. I don’t “get” super mansion homes and the upkeep they require with large spaces that don’t function well. Small and smartly designed can feel and function in a big way, have lower costs of time and money and be fully rewarding to live in.

Andy Thompson of Sustain Design Studio has built just such a home and is a van dweller too!

With a miniHome like this and a few forrested acres I could be quite happy for a long, long time.

I just read the blog of an online friend of mine, someone that I know well electronically but have never met despite our living two blocks from each other when I had an address. Her career path was strikingly similar to mine in many ways and I’ve used her as a gauge for what should be going on with me.

She’s been marginally employed the last couple years too and has worked all of a couple days in the last four or so months. Previously to that she was working about two months on and two or three months off at some so called “permanent” positions that never seemed to last. And it wasn’t her fault either as before being let go she’d be complaining of having nothing to do at work and having to pretend to be busy for days or weeks at a stretch.

Fortunately for her she has unemployment insurance and a husband who invests in real estate so they don’t really need her income anyways, but she actually likes what she does for a living and wants to contribute to a more comfortable lifestyle for her household. As such she comment that yet another day of job searching has yielded no phone calls or emails–which has been the case for several months now for her.
We’ve both been subjected to the whims of a poor economy, a shifting and disintegrating job market and global outsourcing. But she fortunately has her husband to fall back on. For myself and many others though there is no such safety net. But still, it’s been comforting to know that she’s okay and I’m not purely at fault for being so financially impaired.