Sean and Louise and their travels in Odyssey

I want to direct those of you who aspire to a more mobile lifestyle to the blog of Sean Welsh and Louise Horner, who have been full-timing it in their Neoplan Spaceliner bus for the last several years.





You can read all about them at http://ourodyssey.us/



Sean and Louise worked the hurricane relief circuit in New Oleans and wound up doing some flood relief work up on the East Coast soon thereafter. Following that they meandered down into the Copper Canyon region of Mexico where their bus was first loaded onto a railroad car and then later loaded onto a ferry for the ride over to Baja. Currently they are in the Pacific Northwest having some work done.


They are motorcyclists (Odyssey has been reconfigured to carry two motorcycles internally) and enjoy spending their leisure time hangin' on Mexican beaches, so right there they are fine people as far as I am concerned.

A word about their bus - Odyssey is a very rare Neoplan Spaceliner. Neoplan is a German manufacturer that once had an assembly plant in Colorado. Most of the Neoplan production in the USA was for more conventional buses but the Spaceliner is a high powered over-the-road bus meant to be a deluxe first-class bus for German service. It's not quite a double-decker so think more in terms of the Spaceliner as being more of a deck and 3/4's. Typical layouts of the Spaceliners had the driver and a stewardess in a compartment in the low front of the bus and the passengers were upstairs. In Sean's converted Spaceliner the front window glass offers an unobstructed view because the driver's compartment is sealed off and directly below the living space.

The Spaceliner is a bus that has intrigued me for years. When the time came to start planning our transition to full-time RV'ing we looked at a couple of them but just felt that, as beautiful as they are they are simply too exotic and too high maintenenace for our purposes. Beautiful buses however, and it's wonderful to see Sean and Louise step up to the plate and accept the challenge. They have done well reconditioning and maintaining Odyssey.

Enjoy Sean and Louise's blog. They certainly keep themselves busy and are living what would seem to be the ideal lifestyle for folks with a wandering soul.

This and that - thoughts on charities

This is the doormat outside our RV. You can tell that sick minds are at work here.

Jollymon writes "What is your charitable foundation?"

Send those cards and letters to the Old Pirates Retirement Home folks, care of ... And mark the comment line with "rum fund".

No, seriously ... please don't. I am reminded that the recently deceased Louis Wolfson, a major financial patron here in Jacksonville, went to the klink after he sold unregistered securities. Securities which he had dutifully reported to the Feds in the first place. And that his "charitable contributions" in the 60's lead to the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas.

As we all know, no good deed goes unpunished.

I have this vision of seeing my name in the local newspaper. And not in a good way.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I actually have looked into a couple of charitable things that we could do to help out, but so far nothing has quite meshed.

Back about a decade ago Yours Truly was pretty active with the Red Cross as a Disaster Volunteer. Now don't get me wrong - I think that overall the Red Cross does a pretty fair job - but I just didn't feel like the Red Cross was dramatic enough for my tastes, let's put it that-a-way.

The Lovely Ms. Deborah has been active in local church food kitchens for the last few years. They feed the down and out, and the group that she has been working with has a small group home for folks who are recovering from various addictions.

Part of our reasoning behind getting the Bluebird Wanderlodge is that the big old steel bus is just that - a big old solid bus with a relatively huge generator and equally huge holding tanks for drinking water and non-drinking stuff, if'n you get my drift. We are trying to get geared up to go somewhere if needed.

I think that it's fair to say that the events in New Orleans of a few years ago were a wake up call for many of us. That natural disaster was more than a mere inconvenience or a mere couple of days without power. That was a life-threatening debacle of massive proportions that has become a national shame. And just as FEMA was woefully unprepared, those of us who would have liked to have volunteered were not really prepared either.

So that was part of the thought behind reconditioning the old Wanderlodge, rather than buying that fancy Winnebago that we looked at once upon a time. The one with the slideouts, and the fancy interior, and the beautiful exterior, and the ... oh never mind. That one. You get the picture.

Moving forward, one of my personal inspirations when it comes to the local charitable scene is Bill Wharton, a/k/a The Sauceboss. If you are a Jimmy Buffett fan then you have likely heard of Bill. He's Jimmy's inspiration for the Buffett's tune "I Will Play For Gumbo."



Bill's an excellent blues musician and part of his schtick is that he prepares a pot of gumbo for the crowd at his shows as he peddles hot sauce. Good food, hot sauce, and blues - that's a tough act to follow.

Bill also founded a Tallahassee-based charity called Planet Gumbo - http://planetgumbo.org/ - that feeds the less fortunate. But they don't just feed 'em the same old gruel - no Sirree! Planet Gumbo prepares good food and Bill performs for free at homeless shelters around the nation, bringing a little hope and joy.

There is just something about Bill's approach that appeals to me. Back in my Red Cross days we would regularly pick up a load of 150-300 Hardee's cheeseburgers and drag them out to sites where we had to feed folks. And nothing quite says "we're in a world of hurt" like a cold Hardee's burger.

Anywho, Deb and I have kicked around organizing a group to prepare food during disasters. What we have had in mind was possibly getting together with some of the local biker groups and preparing food for their events. That way we could develop a group of folks who were skilled at preparing food for a group, out in the open, with portable equipment, and the monies that would be raised would go into a fund to pay for food and travel expenses the next time that a major disaster (and disasters Down Here always mean hurricanes) struck.

That's the theory at any rate.

For the biker functions we had looked at getting some sort of portable bar-b-que equipment. Everyone loves a good bar-b-que. But that plan breaks down somewhat when you start to look at the logisitcs of moving all of that stuff into a disaster site. The volume of folks that you can serve is severely limited, largely because the best bar-b-ques take hours and hours to cook properly. And the really large bar-b-que trailers that are adequate to the task aren't exactly cheap, let me tell ya Brother.

Then you get into issues with not having refrigeration at a disaster location, and having your meats trucked in. Pretty soon you wind up looking at a pretty fair sized logistical operation when you factor in moving our bus for living space for volunteers, using a second truck to move a bar-b-que trailer, and then a third truck might be needed to move and/or store refrigerated meats.

Simplicity is one of the charms of Bill Wharton's gumbo. Gumbo is healthy, warm, and tasty. It's also relatively simple to make in quantity. And the ingredients are cheap.

Not to say that The Ingredients, which is the name of Bill's band, are cheap or anything. That's beside the point.

We used our current and rather modest cookin' equipment last year when Bill Wharton was in town and put on a gumbo cookin' contest. We have also used the same equipment for the last few years to grill burgers and so forth at the International Speedway in Daytona Beach during some of the motorcycle races. Those gigs raised money for the motorcycle club and those monies by and large were contributed to charities.

No matter how you slice it, cooking decent food for 60 to 100 folks can be a lot of work. And I have to commend Ms. Deborah for organizing those events and cookin' the chow.

For most of last year and into the foreseeable next several months the disaster relief cookin' project is going to be on the back burner as we concentrate on careers, writing, and some maintenance projects. But if there is anyone out there who wants to talk, seriously, about doing a disaster relief-oriented project to prepare tasty food then I'd be interersted in talkin'. And you know where you can find me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--PirateJohn--

http://pyratejohn.blogspot.com/ (the *NEW* blog)

http://www.piratejohn.com/ (my website)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HumourList/ (the infamous joke list)

Enjoy!

Sunday's bonus joke

OK, so I've been a bit slack this week. Hopefully this will help make up for my slackness (is that a word?).

And if you are engaged in a weekend project right about now, you can surely relate.

Tools and their proper uses...

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your soda pop across the room, splattering it against that freshly-stained heirloom piece you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Yeou sheeeet...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters. The most often tool used by all women.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16" socket you've been searching for the last 45 minutes.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires. E-Z OUT BOLT AND

STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool, ten times harder than any known drill bit, that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.

RADIAL ARM SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to scare neophytes into choosing another line of work.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. Women excel at using this tool.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts which were last over tightened 30 years ago by someone at Ford, and instantly rounds off their heads. Also used to quickly snap off lug nuts.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent to the object we are trying to hit. Women primarily use it to make gaping holes in walls when hanging pictures.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

DAMMMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMMMMIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--PirateJohn--
http://pyratejohn.blogspot.com/ (the *NEW* blog)
http://www.piratejohn.com/ (my website)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HumourList/ (the infamous joke list)

Enjoy!