I’ll not have much access to the internet for a couple weeks, maybe a bit more. So no worries friends, all is well.

To keep spam and such off the site I’ve set all comments to full moderation. So I’ll get them, but they’ll not appear for a bit. They are still much appreciated of course. I just don’t want the site to fill up with spam for drugs, investments, fake watches and perfumes and the like.

At the drive in of course!

And if you drive this please park in back…

What kind of van do you have?
–Ship

It’s a twenty year old Chevy van with about a gazillion miles on it. It was a conversion van but due its age the interior got ripped out and remade into a converted conversion van. Time plus poor original materials and installation quality took its toll. I was originally just going to remove the seats, replace the carpet and take some space wasting arm rests off the wall that enclosed probably 20 square feet of dead space. But as typical with renovations I ended up completely gutting the interior and rebuilding it all. Each problem that I pulled out and tossed in the trash just revealed another problem. Before I new it the only thing back there was the headliner.

Thankfully I had a bunch of donated leftovers from various people’s home renovation projects so my cash outlay was low. I now have a cabinet and desk like thing behind the drivers seat with a full bed in the back with lots of storage space underneath. And, since I pulled so much out I got to insulate the interior too.

It’s comfortable enough but it’s really in desperate need of some mechanical repairs. Most importantly right now is the brakes. But the engine needs some routine heavy maintenance and the alignment is really, really bad.

If I had to do it over again I’d probably go with a mini van. The extra space is nice but the improved fuel economy might just be better. I think if I got my current van properly tuned up I’d squeeze out a couple more miles per gallon but no matter what a mini van would just be more efficient.

Matthew Simmons, chairman of the Houston based energy investment bank Simmons and Co. International, talked recently with Bloomberg’s Rhonda Schaffler about the need to address energy use, his view that global supply has peaked and the likelihood oil prices could reach as much as $300 a barrel.

To have someone like this, with his credentials, appear on Bloomberg saying what he does is really quite amazing. Peak oil as a theory is coming of age and moving out of the tin foil hat arena.

Schaffler was quite humorous at one point, sounding as if she wasn’t prepared well enough for the interview. She seemed overly shocked to hear the $300 a barrel price tag, amazed that it’s already happening elsewhere and that certainly there must be something to do. As if magic will make more oil appear underground. No, sorry Rhonda, we need to cut oil use and prepare for further declines in the oil fields.

As a van dweller, who makes my vehicle my home, I do wonder what the economy of car living will be in the nearish future. When I currently get nine miles per gallon in city driving planning trips will mean a whole new thing when I tally the miles at a couple dollar per turn of the odometer.

youtube video here

The nights here are not so dangerously cold but I made some commitments that will tie me to couch surfing for another week or so. It’s a good thing over all but I do miss my van.

I like sleeping in my bed with my pillows and linens. I like reading with my LED flashlight. I like being in the small space where I feel all cozied and cocooned. I like the changing vista and the quiet. Sure there can be traffic noises but unlike an apartment I don’t have plumbing noises or people walking above me.

A couple things I miss about living in a home

The bathroom: Showers on your agenda, running water and a toilet. In a van you can use kitty litter bucket toilets and a big bowl for washing in. Living life like it’s 1850 really isn’t all so bad.

The oven: In a van it is rather difficult to make a frozen pizza or a properly made baked potato–the kind with crispy skin. A toaster oven could work and would allow for cheese toast but I’m not hooked to shore power enough to warrant carrying one. Though this wouldn’t work well for potatoes and pizza but fresh cheese toast on tap may make me not mind that so much. The refrigerator is nice too but I really don’t miss it when I van dwell. I’m quite happy with foods that are shelf stable.

Standing up: my van is not a high-top so being in a home allows for that pleasing upright stance so fitting of a descendent of homo erectus. But then in a van everything you have is so near that you don’t have far to walk. Mostly you can just lean or stretch to grab what you need.

As a brief recap: In 2004 three teen boys befriended Rex Baum, a homeless man, at his camp in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and drank beer with him. Before long they were brutally attacking him and ended up killing him. They were caught and sentenced, aided by their bragging about the act around town.

This action was blamed on video games.

I’m hardly a big supporter of video games and I’ll not be an apologists here for them but I do feel scapegoats are a lovely thing to have rather than face the cold reality. Kids made choices and the choice in question was to kill. The Playstation wasn’t there to prompt them.

At penny-arcade.com the step mother of one of the boys allegedly wrote in to respond to a posting there two days previously. The original post is here, as the third item on the page, and the step mother’s response is contained within the second item on this page. Apparently the boy was not just a monster in the making–he was already well past the evil stage.

On the upside: attacks against homeless people may be officially declared a hate crime in California. Currently this is only the case in Maine.