Monday, May 5, 2014

An Update 2014

It's amazing to me how time flies. A lot of things have happened since my last post in 2012.

I have been living in the cargo trailer since July 8th 2010 and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I am now and have been for the past 3.5 years, the proud owner of my own home [on wheels] that is paid for and is mine. I do not pay any mortgage payments and the upkeep is practically zero. The best part is that If I choose to move from where I live now, my home goes with me. No more packing stuff in boxes, getting a lift gate box truck, taking a day or three loading all of the stuff into the box truck and then into the new place, only to pay some new landlord $550 to $850 a month to have my spot somewhere in southern California.. NO!

Today I live inexpensively in my cargo trailer and have money to spare working part-time if I so choose. Freedom from stuff is the new motto and I have been having one hell of a good time ridding myself of the stuff piece by piece. I have found that my happiness is directly contingent upon how much freedom I have to do what I want to do. I am no longer a slave to a job I hate with hours I hate and people who I'd rather not spend time with. Although I really do LOVE teaching fiber optics and hope to go back to work soon!

At present, I am still in college. I will graduate sometime later this year with two associates degrees in Graphic Arts. I joke with my friends about being in my 4th year of a 2 year degree because I have found so much fun in going to community college that sometimes I wish I could do this forever. I love learning new things and I really enjoy interacting with people of all ages.

I took ceramics as an elective a few semesters ago and learned how to make vases and things on the pottery wheel. I spent the first 3 of 16 weeks ruining things that I tried to make on the wheel but in my 4th week I was able to finally get something to stay upright and it eventually became a vase after its time in the kiln. I went on to create around 30 items from cups to plates and vases to bowls over the following 12 weeks. Ceramics was a lot of fun and I met some really engaging people too.

The cargo trailer project is close to over as far as the inexpensive projects go. The only things left are the off grid solar system and inverter, the on demand hot water system, the emergency exit and an air conditioning system that I may not bother with doing.

What I love about my no-windows cargo trailer is that I have a whole sound studio and three monitor computer setup with two additional laptops and surround sound completely built to my specifications by me as efficiently as possible all inside what looks like a large utility trailer on the side of my friends home. Is that cool or what?

What else? hmm

That new hose for the heater was never used because my friend Pete said that he thought that my propane system should be on a safer piped system. Pete said that If I bought the hardware, he would install the system. I specified the spots where I wanted shutoff valves and gas nipples [if that's what they are called?] and showed the layout to Pete. I towed the cargo trailer over to Pete's friend Bart's house and Pete went ahead and installed the whole system in two days including the platform that I bought that houses the automatic changeover valve for my two propane tanks on the extended trailer tongue. The whole installation came out really well and I now have a valve near where my floor heater goes, one for attaching a BBQ near the door, one for my existing super large single gas burner and one for the upcoming on-demand hot water system [that is yet to be installed].

And that's it for now, on this beautiful May 5th at 2:53am. Off I go to study for a math test I'm taking tonight, wish me luck! :)