Wifi Antenna is up, barring a lightning strike!

Though missing from the blog for a while, I have yet to achieve my off the grid, hermetic existence.I have moved into the concrete windowless box that I store things in, have hooked up a toilet, and from the sink a rudimentary shower ( a cold water only kitchen sink sprayer) though my biggest achievement thus far is my construction of two wifi finding antennas. The first is a combination of an  abandoned Dish network dish, with the horn replaced with an old tv top aerial rabbit ears and ring, soldered together by way of an old Ethernet cable, and from there soldered to the wifi antenna card in my desktop.  the second I found in a junk store, is an aluminum Christmas tree type deal, that I mounted to a spare bit of angle iron, and there to an aluminum pole, connected with a length of fire control 18ga wire to the same wifi lead as the parabolic antenna.
By virtue of typing this, it works, I have found free, guest wifi floating about,  and can post here to tell you about it. it is dicey, and intermittent so fine tuning is in order, but for now, IT IS ALIVE! pictures to follow.. hee hee, I am very pleased with myself at the moment.

A painting I did ...I think every blogpost should have a picture, even if it doesn't relate at all to the post. so this week, i was informed that in WA ( Western Australia), they are paying huge amounts of money for truck drivers and the like to support the mining industry. so, yeah, I am now looking at OZ as a place to go. A country the size of the US with a population around that of just NYC... appealing.  Not so appealing would be my concerns of the environmental right-ness of the operations, indigenous peoples rights, impacts and issues.. stuff like that.

These are a couple of Masonic Wardens columns I created ages ago. I came across the picture and thought, might as well use them as anything else. I have been offline for a few days, mostly because i couldn'r remember how to get into this blog from my phone. Still studying earth bag house technology, by no closer to having land to build it on. On to the next task!

where are all the abandoned structures?

Obviously as I move forward with the next phase of life, or the last phase if my heart pops like a frog on a hotplate before I get done, I do wonder, other that Detroit, a place that nobody really should ever want to live, where are the abandoned industrial structures, the train depots on lines long forgotten, the mine bunkhouses, the barns.. finding one of those on land barely wanted would be a hell of a lot easier than the starting fresh  approach. but I don't think that in this age of over-population we really have a surplus of land, other than Detroit. I am spending part of the day I am searching around the internet on Earth Bag house construction as well as composting toilets and wi-fi antennas. The other bit I am spending with my daughter before I never get to see her again. .. ugh. gut wrenching thoughts.
So, back to buildings, if any of the 23 of you who peeked at this have any leads on dis-used property, drop me a line, leave me a note. Thanks.
D

Collection point, the workshop.

As I move forward with this concept of divesting myself of all connections to the world as we know it now.. one of rampant stupidity, corporate person-hood,politics so divisive that I do not believe that the great social experiment that is the USA will survive or continue. This is not a political statement regarding any one party. At all. Honestly. This is an indictment of each and every money driven person that has entered the most lucrative of professions, politics. I am not a "prepper", nor a separatist, a revolutionary, and insurgent or any other label.   I am just a guy whgo has worked for over three decades, started businesses, plodded along, bought a house, had a family.. in short, all the stuff we are told we are supposed to do. I now have a divorce that was based, in all honesty on 20 years of differences, exacerbated by the last few being devoid of work and money. No credit, nor will I ever again, no money, no prospects, and by all means no hope that America isn't circling the drain, musch the way Rome did as Nero fiddled. I could just give up, or I could take the time before the coming storm to build up automotive based personal wind powered generators. I can study before the internet is shut down to such bits through CISPA or ACTA or whatever bullshit bill our employees in DC are trying to ram through and stop people from doing just this; re-learning the skills lost after the great depression for self sufficiency.
So, I have a 1/2 dozen alternators, axles with bearings that will be great transmissions for the sails to operate the alternators. Next will be to start snagging car batteries for storage, and collecting inverters. ( I have 3 so far.)  all scrounging, not outlay of cash yet.
Next , to start studying the building method of dirt sack, dirt bag, or whatever the hell it is called when you stuff dirt into a tube and make a wall with it. 

This is me, on one of the greatest weekends I have ever had. I had the opportunity to be one of the lucky people who worked on the repaint of Ken Kesey's famous Bus Furthur. I met wonderful people, saw the single most important vehicle in the formation of society in the last 50 years.. ( if we went back further, I would have to go with a model T, for all that Ford represented with assembly lines, blah blah)
The point is, as wonderful as that weekend was, and, but for a few blips of positivity in the years following, every thing else is basically in the crapper. I am 48, father of two -( one that will talk to me, one that is a teenager who really doesn't care if I am around ever again), I carry an extra 25lbs on me, I recently blew out an eardrum while sleeping, and as such now haven't any hearing in one ear, I wrestle with crushing chest pains every single day, I haven't been held in over three years even though my divorce was only just finalized in November, and I am about to have to move into a concrete, no windowed workshop to live .
  I was a contractor and woodworker, historic preservationist, did some arch design, and now I fix VW's since the crash... and it was a crash folks, lets get that straight.
                                              Now let me tell you why this is a fun Blog.
    I am going to document the abilities and methods of someone with nothing more than a high school diploma, absolutely no credit at all, and not a dime to my name, and create a place for myself.
Every story of late with the protagonist cashing in, and moving into a dirt mound house, starts with a 401K and a mastercard. Generators, paid help, delivery trucks... it's rubbish. Most of us are one unforeseen problem away from being on the streets. That I have internet access right now is lucky, and it will become problematic for me to keep this going, but we will ride it til it stops, as the culmination of all this is that I will never be heard from again.
For now, I am on line here and there, I do still have a phone for a couple of weeks, and I have begun the search for the cheapest land in Oregon that isn't a leftover toxic waste dump site.. or meth lab. My criteria thus far, is 2 acres, though more is awesome, and not total desert. Obviously, treed, with a pond or a brook would be spiffy, but I am not an idiot, (at least not in this arena) as to get my hopes up.
I have a 1977 VW Bus, which in this venture is going to be handy.. both as a pull in at night into the shop bedroom as to still be able to work in the shop when it isn't inside, and as the habitation module for the future property.
This, my friends... and I call you that as you are by virtue of reading this, as much my friends as anyone else in my life, is the start. a Walden for the swan song of America. A guide to chucking all the rubbish that the regular world expects you to care about and finding your peace. and possibly a future entry about how my VW, Melmo, will still work after and EMP burst, and yours wont..  but we'll see.
D