May 2010
I drove the truck into Portland today, and on a few errands.......still trying to establish the miles-per-gallon, and right now I know I'm getting at least nine. I'm guessing I'll end up in the 10-12 range somewhere. I finished stapling down the Reflectix and am moving on to the actual framing of the sub-floor.  I've decided to go with 2x8's instead of 2x6's, partly because I already had a bunch of 2x8's, and partly because it's much more room for the same amount of effort. As I noted earlier, the Reflectix is not so much an insulator as a reflector. The 8" of clearance will provide a nice area for bouncing all those warm particles back into the truck instead of losing them through the bottom. Of course this area will be used for storage, but it's nice to know I've done my best to create a heat-trapping floor. As long as I don't pack it like a sardine can, there should be enough surface area for the Reflectix to do its' thing.  The beginnings of the floor.  * * * The big news today is I finally sold the steel building I bought two years ago. I was going to transform my barn into a multi-purpose studio with an old friend over a five-to-seven-year plan, and I decided to spend $3,500 on steel so we could build a makeshift studio behind the barn to use in the meantime. Well.......that ended up as a very sad fiasco, an irreversably ruined friendship, and nothing for me to do but stand back and watch my other friends being turned against me by the lies of a very sick old man. My friend has his good moments. Rather.....had his good moments. I don't know if he has anything left to save of himself. It appears to me he watched his life become something far less than he had dreamed, and he found himself stuck with it........and no way out. It has been a sad experience overall, but my eyes are wide opened to the pursuit of my own dreams. I'll share one very important realization with you people: if you make any excuses for your failures, your shortcomings, your disadvantages.....and if those excuses include the name of another person - any person - I've got news for you. You are foolishly wrong. Let me be the one to wake you up. NEVER have another person's face in mind when you fail. You only fail when YOU give up. I had the steel on Craigslist for about two months, and sold it for $3,000 cash. That was a sweet feeling, and one of my big-ticket items I needed to sell off. It's nice. It's a real boost to my plan and makes me feel like things are really moving forward. I immediately called AAA and had my '92 Toyota 4Runner towed to the transmission shop. Gotta get that thing running and then sell it. Get that snowball rolling down the mountain. * * * Today I acquired a modest 50x140 lot in Porum, Oklahoma. In WHERE, Oklahoma??? Porum. A little place off the I-40, about eight miles from Lake Eufuala.   I went a little higher on this bid, because I had bid before and lost it at $350. For some reason it showed up again, and I checked it out again, and once again I concluded this would be IDEAL for my plans. It's about 1/6 of an acre, but more importantly, it's the last lot on a dead end road. And it's heavily wooded. That's it on the left, as the road ends in front of you. Fifty feet from the end of the road coming back this direction. Looks like a great place to pull over and hide away for a week at a time. I might also add, this lot has all utilities in and ready to rock should I ever feel the urge to drop a mobile home in and stay put somewhere. Yeah, right. A mobile home in Oklahoma. Can you say, "Hi, I'm Dorothy Gale of Kansas?" Price: $512.96. Taxes: $2 annual. (geesh.)  I once knew a man from Porum. Who bought new pants and worum.
He stooped when he laughed,
He soon felt a draft,
And knew right where he torum.
View from the bottom looking up toward the road.(author unknown) * * * I said goodbye to the 4Runner today. The cost to repair it would have been thousands, and much more than its actual value. Too bad. I thought I was going to get out of that one with a few hundred, and I ended up just signing it over to the repair shop. I bought the 4Runner back in 2001 when I first moved to Waynesboro, Virginia. Until then, I never drove anything that nice. I was from California, and had spent most of my years there on a motorcycle. I had dragged an ugly, old '76 Camaro out to Virginia - a car that used to belong to my dad. But I hate Camaros and it wasn't the sort of vehicle that connected me with Dad; just a car my little brother drove for awhile. My then-love, Donna, convinced me I needed something nicer to drive around in, and we found the '92 4Runner on Ebay one night and went for it. I guess I do have a lot of memories from that truck, but I'm just not the sort of person who has ever been particularly attached to my vehicles. A pair of '73 Challengers, Mom & Dad's '77 Gran Marquis, the pimped-out '76 Dodge van, a handful of 650 shaft-drive bikes, the 4Runner, my current '99 Explorer, and my back-up '95 Suburban. And the hippie-wagon Roll-O-Rooter truck, of course. There are plenty of memories inside all of them, but nothing that makes me tear up over a hunk of metal. They are just cars, and what went on inside that Toyota 4Runner could have gone on inside any ol' truck. It's even kinda hard imagining myself sitting in one of those old cars now - those cars that used to be so much of my daily routine, that took on my personality, and looked like me and smelled like me. Same thing if I were to see my bedroom from fifth grade. I suppose it would be like looking at a stranger's bedroom, you know? Glad to have one more item off the property and off the Assets List. Here's the 4Runner in a photo from back in Virginia.  * * * It's true I'm just an ol' Colorado Cowboy at heart. I spent my K-6 years growing up in two Denver suburbs - Northglen and Longmont. Longmont was a little community on the other side of Boulder, where Dad worked at IBM. Well, I am grown and Longmont is no longer a little community. I am still a Broncos fan, I still watch Rocky Mountain weather, and I still have dreams of waking up in the Colorado mountains. All these years have gone by, and I've only been back once for any length of time. (We were living in Austin, Texas, and I attended a national church teen event in Estes Park for a week in 1978, just before leaving for college...not much of an exploratory vacation, if you ask me) I keep saying I'm going to plan a wandering mountain trip to the state I call Home, but I haven't put it together yet. That is about to change. Today I went Big Time into my land acquisition plan - not to mention my bank account - and secured about five acres of Colorado mountain land. It's about 12-15 miles outside Hartsel, which is dead-center to Colorado.  Here showing relationships to San Isabel National Forest, Pike National Forest, Eleven Mile State Park, and Hartsel. Colorado Springs is about a two-hour drive away.  Standing on the property, looking North. The road is just past the foreground.  The big reason this parcel was so affordable is because it does not have too many "buildable" options. Note the rugged terrain and gully running through the middle. Not so good for home-building. Very good for escaping the world and setting up camp on the side of a hill. Here you are looking down the gully to the South.   Buffalo Peaks to the West.  Near the road at the NorthWest corner, looking SouthEast.  Here are some wildflowers growing around the property. I may have to do a little research about what kinds of trees I might introduce!  4.9 acres in the heart of Colorado. Annual property taxes - $120. GPS coordinates of NW corner: 38.809486, -105.731238 Sold in 2008 for $24,000. My cost: $2,600.00. Shut up. * * * With Burning Man only 3 months away, it's time I start putting a little attention on my wardrobe for the festivities and the 120-degree Nevada desert. A hooded robe is first and foremost on my mind. Let's be real here. The way to stay intact in the desert is not to strip down, it's to stay covered up. Besides, it'll look cool in a sandstorm. Hooded cloak: check.  Speaking of sandstorms, I'll need some cool goggles. I found two that I like. Cool goggles: check.   And I wanted one of those kinda-cheap straw cowboy hats. Something that will let the heat dissipate easily from my bald, sweaty head. And why not pay tribute to all my peeps from Oklahoma University while I'm at it? OU cowboy hat: check.  Burning Man wardrobe well in progress.......... June 2010 Live Now, Too Retiring...Or Beginning? Giving away the Guthrie Property |