Author: Sam

Categories
Airstream Accessories Daily Life Solar & Power

Wandering Wifi

During our first 6 month round of travel, I managed to keep connected with just a loose Verizon Hotspot, with service through Millinicom. When I say ‘loose’ I literally mean the hotspot was usually sitting on the table. I also had a Wilson SleekV 4G cradle booster, and a tiny magnetic antenna that I could mount in the window. I only pulled out and used the booster when I had a low signal.

After meeting Kyle and seeing his sweet setup, I decided it was time for an upgrade. Now that it is all installed, it’s time for a report.

Gear List

  • Pantech hotspot
  • Wilson Sleek-V booster cradle
  • PepWave SoHo (with DC power adapter)
  • 2 Roof mounted antennas
  • DC power distribution

Outside Antennas

IMG_20140610_113947I wanted to mount the antennas on the roof, both to avoid the futz factor of an internal antenna, and to help the signal escape this faraday cage I call home. Kyle had his antennas mounted to his solar panels, but I didn’t have those yet, so I improvised. Using a piece of 1/4 by 2.5 in aluminum bar from the hardware store, I cut a horizontal piece and two ‘feet’ The feet were attached to the roof with outdoor adhesive tape, and the horizontal bar attached to the two feet and the vertical bar supporting the TV antenna. The new antennas were then screwed to this horizontal bar. Bolts with threadlocker were used on all connections. Using adhesive tape and the existing support for the TV antenna allowed a secure connection without drilling a mounting hole in the Airstream.

Cable Run

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Running the antenna cables took some thought. I ended up running them along the roof and down the vent above the fridge. To access the small area behind the fridge, I (with the help of my Father-in-law) removed the fridge. Removing the fridge mostly involves a hunt for the screws and bolts holding it in place. After those were removed, it slid right out. We set it on some cardboard on the Airstream floor while we worked inside it’s enclosure.

We were able to remove a thin wooden panel, cut a small hole in the mesh covering the fridge vent, and run the cable down the wall and out the existing hole behind the TV.  The antenna cables are 10 feet long, giving me just enough room to make it work.

Then, of course, we put the fridge back into place and reconnected it to the AC, DC, and propane. And it still worked! We ended up using some foil tape on hand to seal the back panel to the side walls, so you might want that handy if you attempt this stunt yourself.
Gimme The Power!

We now had some additional power requirements behind the TV. I found a DC splitter that also had USB ports in place, and this worked well. We have a 12V connector for the PepWave, and USB power connections for the booster cradle, and our two cellphones which sit in brackets to charge while we sleep.

The Pantech hotspot connects to the PepWave via USB, which provides both power and a network connection.

Industrial Strength Velcro

With everything hooked up and working, it was time to secure it to the wall. I used industrial strength velcro for this job, and it has worked very well. The velcro allows for things to be moved or adjusted, and has held securely while towing.

Amazingly, all this gear fits in the space behind the TV, making it nearly invisible unless you look for it.

Wandering Wifi - How We Get Internet While Traveling

And that, folks, is the wall of awesome.

Categories
Daily Life

One Year Ago, We Drove Away From Our House

One year ago we officially drove away from our house on the way to our house swap in Virginia. We celebrated with a beautiful evening hike up at Angel Lake in Nevada.

It is difficult to place a single anniversary on our travels, as we grew into our adventures in stages. Over the course of the next few months, we’ll have a small handful of ‘one year’ anniversaries.

But this one is likely our biggest. One year ago, we drove away from our house in Lehi, Utah in a minivan packed to the gills. We spent the next 18 days driving across the country, camping and staying with friends, on our way to Virginia for a house swap.

Those 18 days changed us in ways we didn’t quite yet realize at the time. Our adventures led us to find and buy our Airstream, and begin this grand adventure. But there are other posts about that.

Today, we celebrate the courage to drive away to something unknown. How did we celebrate? With an evening hike through wildflowers to see a waterfall.

Categories
Finances & Money

Baby Steps to Going Mobile: Start Working at Home

Baby Steps To Going Mobile - Start Working From Home

A friend asked me how I ended up with work flexible enough to allow for my travel. It was a good question, and one I’ve had before. Sounds like a great topic for a blog post!

I’m self-employed, working long term contracts paid hourly, and manage my own insurance and retirement, and I travel full time. The real tip here is to not make all those changes at exactly the same time. Prior to traveling full time, I was all those things minus the full time traveler. If you plan to travel (and are not made of money), then first find your way into flexible work. Many jobs allow working from home at least part of the time. Take the opportunity when you have it, and learn if remote work is for you.

A surprising number of full-time traveling (and full-time working) folks are technical in nature. I’ve not conducted a study, but among the circle of traveling folks we follow, most are in a technical field of some sort. If you can, find your way into such a field. You usually only need your phone, a laptop, and an internet connection to keep your work going (Technomadia recently wrote a great post about generating a mobile income HERE).

How do you land a job with so much flexibility? Be Awesome.

Now, I’m not AMAZING, but I do good work. I’ve been lucky to work with people that value contributions over warming a seat, and they have been willing to make me happy to keep me engaged there. One of my current clients would prefer that I was not traveling. My schedule randomness does cause some inconvenience for them. I’m not sure exactly how valuable I am, but since they haven’t fired me yet, I’m good enough to keep on despite my travel.

Being awesome shows up in two areas. The first area of awesome is good communication skills. You need to clearly understand others, and you need to communicate in ways that are effective to others. I find it valuable to learn to balance your communication methods. Email is great for things where clarity and a conversation history is useful. Text messages can help coordinate schedules and last minute changes. Phone calls and video chats are great when there are lots of things to discuss, or ideas need to be bantered about. Be sensitive to what type of communication is needed and when.

The second area of awesome is your work itself. You need to make it worth your client’s (employer’s) efforts to work with you. Your work needs to be excellent. There will be times when you will need to use your schedule flexibility to benefit your client. Putting in a few VERY LONG days at the right time can help a great deal. Changing your travel plans to be present for a meeting, or to make a customer visit can also be valuable.

The Short version: Prepare for a mobile life by finding a flexible job, working from home, communicating well, and doing great work.

Categories
Musings of Sam

The Tenacity of the Bristlecone Pine

The Tenaciy of a Bristlecone Pine Treet

Bristlecone pine trees are among the oldest living species of tree. The hardships in their life can be seen in their twisted forms and stunted growth, having survived droughts, fires, winds, heavy snowbanks, bitter cold, and searing heat. Even when a part of the tree suffers breakage or rot, the tree will continue to grow as long as there is some bit of surviving tissue.

We’ve spent the last few days at Great Basin National Park, situated on the Utah Nevada border just east of Ely, Nevada. We’ve been able to witness some ancient bristlecone pine trees, and have gained a new appreciation for their majesty. We also saw a Bristlecone Pines in Bryce Canyon and in Cedar Break, two of our recent stops although their majesty didn’t quite register there as it has here.  Here at Great Basin National Park, we walked a small interpretive trail on our hike to the glacier. The trail winds through a small grove of these beautiful trees, and we learned much from the informative signs along the trail.

Of the many traits of these trees, the one I think of most often is Tenacity. These trees are tenacious, overcoming challenges year after year to fulfill the full measure of their creation. The results of their work can be seen in the beautiful forms they create as they grow.

Bristlecone Pines are not tall trees, but cannot be viewed as weak. The twisted wood of their trunks and branches can only be viewed as muscular, strong, and stalwart.

If I were a tree, would I have that much tenacity? Would I be able to hold on through think and thin? What of my life now? Am I diligent in striving to reach the full measure of MY creation? I believe that God has a plan for our lives, and that our efforts to follow that plan are rewarded with peace and happiness, both in this life and in the eternities.

I hope that someday, I can look back at my life and see something as majestic as a Bristlecone Pine.

Categories
Bedroom Remodel

Queen to Twins Remodel-Part III

In Part 1 of this post, we removed most of the queen, , and cut the bottoms and the tops of the beds to fit the space we needed.

Part 2 involved Sam working with his dad to build the bed frames, trimmed them with beautiful dark wenge, cut and hinged the top pieces for each bed, and relocated the heater vent.

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After finishing the trim and installing and hinging the tops to all 3 beds, there was just a “little” work left to be done.

Installed Gas Springs:

Our queen bed was held in the up position with some gas springs to make the area underneath more accessible. We knew we wanted these for the new beds, and I ended up ordering these from Amazon after some measuring (and guessing!) about which ones I needed. The important measurements include the open length, the closed length, and the pounds of force when open. The ‘weakest’ springs I could commonly find (24lbs) were plenty for my needs, and I just did some approximation for the length. During installation, I carefully measured my mounting points to make sure the springs would allow the beds to lower properly. I had to order the brackets (the silver things) separately, which allowed me to buy the type of bracket I wanted.

Queen to Twin Part III_08

 

Bookshelves:

My design for the beds left rounded quarter circle space at the corner of the beds where the nightstands used to be. I wanted to cover that space with some bookshelves for the kids. The bookshelves will cover small storage spaces as well.

Cutting curved boards to cover the space can be tricky. First, I cut a scrap board that was too small for the space. Then, I used a compass to scribe a line on the scrap a constant distance from the curved edge of the wall.

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I then use the same compass, set to the same distance, to scribe a line offset onto the final board. I cut on that scribed line.

IMG_20140507_172518The fit was still (intentionally) a bit large, and I used a pencil against the side of the Airstream to cut down the fit. Notice that hole in the aluminum? It’s a screw hole from the old nightstand. More on that in a minute.

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Finishing Up the Trim:

When I removed the queen, I left the back side of the box under the bed. This allowd me to leave all the electrical wiring in place under the bed. the trouble was, the plywood was faced with white melamine, which was a bit ugly to see at the end of our now longer hallway. We solved the problem with two plywood panels taken from the no-longer used nightstands. It required two pieces, aligned with unglued wood biscuits and screwed through the back of the white faced melamine plywood. In the picture below, you can see both the white melamine, and the joint between the two re-used panels. From the front, it is very difficult to see the joint between the two.

Queen to Twin Remodel Part III_11

To save some weight, I used a jigsaw to remove the now-unneeded weight of the original plywood panels.

Queen to Twin Remodel Part III_12

The finishing touch of the whole process is the Wenge trim we used on the bottom edges and vertical supports of the bed frames. Below on the left, you can see the trim against the re-used plywood. If you look VERY close, you can see that we made a mistake on the notch cut for the trim, and cut a special piece to fit in it’s place. We hid the edge of the patch with some wax-based nail hole filler, and it’s nearly impossible to see, even when I point it out. The bottom and front trim of these beds puts a finishing touch on the projct well worth the price of the Wenge hardwood we purchased and milled for the purpose.

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Fixing Rivet Holes:

Remember those rivit holes from the old nightstands? I thought about many options to fix those holes, and finally realized there was a very simple solution. I purchased some pop rivits and a rivit gun, and simply placed a rivit in the hole. On the interior of the Airstream, there are commonly rivits in places you wouldn’t expect as part of it’s hand-made construction, and it’s the perfect camoflauge. It’s worth noting that not all rivet guns are made equal. The one picture below has a swiveling head, making it much easier to place rivets on inside curves.

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Custom Cushion:

We wanted to to make all the beds as close to “normal” as possible to prevent needing custom sheets, so we ended up with a gap between the edge of Cara’s bed and the front of the Airstream. We figured hers would be the most used as a daybed, so we called up a local custom upholstery company to come out, measure, and create a cushion for the end. Shown below is the gap we needed to fill, with the custom bookshelves on both sides.

Queen to Twin Remodel Part III_09

To see the cushion in place, tune in next time for the BIG REVEAL!