One year ago today: August 17, 2017, the land of Elvis sightings.
Five years ago today: August 17, 2013, the panels are for charging—only.
Nine years ago today: August 17, 2009, it was my last class.
Random years ago today: August 17, 2011, except, it ain’t bass-playing.
Here’s the pamCamper interior, getting the required field modifications. I found too many small items, so this blog is not being posted from St. Augustine, as planned. Getting ready is not that much different from any other camper, but I’ll go through the steps in case anything is new to you. Here, the fan is airing out the interior after a blasting with insect fogger. Line the work up right, since this step keeps you away from the unit for at least two hours. I saw no roaches, but they are there. They eat silicon, glue, bedding, and if nothing else, will use the interior as a base.
This fan is not battery powered, rather this camper has a mains power hookup, you can see the outlet in the upper right. Having a work space in the house, that’s the chalk table, means any small project can be taken into the A/C zone and a good number of these have been completed to the detriment of finishing my attic. There are still a few un-insulated spots where left open for wiring and the planks for the crawl space. And, I still have Howie’s borrowed ladder. Why haven’t I bought my own by now? Because they are $200, that’s why.
It’s a misleading photo, you know. When ready for travel, there is an immense tangle of clutter everywhere. Light’s cables, hangars, spare batteries, chargers, and anything you might need at night and don’t want to walk to the car to get. And it rains a lot at night in Florida. I’m also going to install a luxury the other campers lacked. Wall brackets to securely hold hot and cold beverages. I had those in the older models, but when you rest liquids on the floor or shelf, you have to be constantly aware not to bump them over.
Right now, the fumigation is still underway, let’s see. Another hour. Then I’ll vacuum and add the ‘drapes’, which are really just garment hooks over the window. That’s experience again, you get to block the light and sight without bothering with real curtains, and, if you leave the screen open, your shirt will stay fresher the next day. FYI, I only stop at a laundromat every third day, this is camping, not maintaining a household. I have some exterior work to do after the minimum two hours gassing, like drill some access holes for the solar panel wiring and mounting some doodads. Ultimately, I will want an exterior jockey box and a roof rack, same as before. I tend to shop for bargains down them little country roads.
Burning man art car.
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See photo, this tiny item alone will cause a day’s delay in departure. It’s tricky to see, but I’m pointing to a tiny plate with a crimp in it that rests underneath the trailer hook, shown here in the upright position. Psssst, Charla, “upright position”. It’s an easy error, that plate is installed upside down. The entire hook assembly has to be removed to flip it over, which takes time.
It is now late afternoon and the camper did not pass inspection. I found loose body panels, structural members held by glue only, and portions of the plywood skin that had been painted over wet. All is repaired, but some of the sections will require another 18 hours to fully cure. It was fun in the sun, since the first thing connected was the internal fan. You’d recognize it. Vacuuming did reveal spiders and palmetto bug carcasses now stone dead from the fogger. The roof panels are in place, but these are more for decoration, they won’t even power a light bulb any more. I’m building the shoe box now, sadly in Florida it too has to have a lock.
Here’s a few more angles on the camper, showing the re-arranged panels and the drip loop where the cables enter the interior. I’m going to remove the leveling system the other guy installed. It would not last bouncing down the highway. Besides, it is never intended to unhitch this camper when on the road. These photos show most of today’s progress. True, some wooden parts are not painted yet, but that is because some parts are still experimental. This shows the two remaining working solar panels, I have not had time to find out why the third quit on its own. These panels have never been subjected to any harmful situations.
It got dark before I could get to repairing the hitch mechanism, so no way for an early start tomorrow. Fine, since I’ve not decided where to go. After I found those several weak spots in the camper frame, I installed another $60 in hardware, mostly flat and angle corners to reinforce anything that looked like a stress point. (There’s a picture of about a third of the required hardware nearby, in the red packages.) I doubt the builder overlooked anything, it is more likely he was intending to follow up later. The unit was such a good deal, I don’t mind the finishing touches. Space is a premium, the mattress installed takes up 3/4 of the floor space and leaves barely enough room to sit up. This is important because it allows you do get completely undressed inside the compartment. On the old cPod, you had to swing the rear panels full open and get half-way out of the camper, or else be an acrobat. It is best to sleep in the nude and pull a sleeping bag on or away if the temperature varies overnight. Most often in Florida, you’ll be sleeping on the bag rather than inside it.
ADDENDUM
The camper electronics is working. Shown here is device topping off the battery at 14.3 volts on the regulator. This is the piece of equipment that is all too often not stressed to new people. You must have this regulator and they are expensive. If you look close, the small box on top of the regulator is for the interior strip lighting, which stays on all the time. There is another battery for intermittent duty, it is fixed on the outside. And a photo of the shoe box, which is also the laundry box, or it will hold two pairs, although when traveling light, you don’t usually pack that many. The box is open at the bottom, just a screen to keep the bugs out. It is sturdy enough to be used for any reasonable other purpose.
This frees up the car for haulage and I finally put the rear passenger seats back up. The back is full of band equipment, I still have not packed anything back into the shed since the last gig. Besides, I like having it handy now that I no longer need the station wagon for building materials all that much. I’ll be installing a small radio inside the camper as well, something with an mp3 player. The radio frequencies are so crowded you cannot travel on the highway and listen to a single station for 100 miles like you could in my day. Now, the effective range seems to be more like 15 miles. Then some Spanish language station starts horning in.
Twood has not responded to my calls, something is wrong, or at least not right. As each of these failures (if that’s what it is) goes through, I’m closer to my own solo act. This time, I have 60 songs I can play well enough on the bass to gig, if I find the right spot. I could not sustain a show of this nature, the material just isn’t versatile enough. And I’m not that good. But I’m not meeting other performers and I probably should be out there. The existing bands are a drag, I’m meeting the fringe cases, so now I have to change the game plan. The biggest known given is that every guitar player who is serious about forming a group goes through the same process I have.
I don’t just refer to the music and finding like-minded bandmates. I draw a distinction between joining and forming a group, most guitarists want to join for selfish reasons already discussed. I spend lots of time on the differences between what they want and my goals, but there is one factor that remains the same. It’s that most of the time you have to play with people less talented, less motivated, and a whole lot less hard-working. So I don’t wonder the guitarist often develops the attitude that he is dragging the rest of the band along for a free ride. That’s narrowly close to the guitar hero mindset, but the subtle distinction is that there has to be somebody out there that will drop the pretenses if they could just find somebody they didn’t have to babysit.
On guitar I’ll never be that good, but I’ve watched so many entertainers in the same boat start with what they can play on the six-banger, then switch to keyboards. It’s a technique I don’t care for, but then again, I never said I wouldn’t do it. Tell you what, I’ll work up a single set. Start with two guitar tunes that I can strum, then manufacture some excuse to switch to bass. And if the bass solos carry the show, I’m home free. If not, it’s back to ever worsening guitar parts. Yet, that would still meet the obligation to entertain, and at least it isn’t Karaoke. Twood, if he does not call tomorrow, has been out of the loop a critical 24 days.
And these dead ends cause me to lose my own musical direction. I compared myself to guitarists who feel they are doing the majority of the work to get the band going, it’s a ubiquitous point of view, but the distinction lies in the intention. I am willing to learn any tune that keeps the band moving ahead. Let me take a quick inventory, it’s been a while. Here we go, of the 60 songs on my “list actual” 14 of them were not there a year ago. That’s nearly 25% new material. When you show me a guitarist who can demonstrate the same, then I’ll admit there is a hint of hypocrisy on my part. But even then, I would argue that the majority of those new tunes were in response to the overall sound the band was after, not some guitarist-like attempt to bend the other musicians to my will.
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