Preparation 2012
Here goes: the vision of what is ahead continues to be what is worked on daily. I am in the midst of the mechanical nuts and bolts of putting God's pieces of my life together toward an ever-more-gratifying something in the distance. 2012 is and has been a year of preparation. I am preparing for what I can and leaving the rest in God's hands, but I plan to take a big trip to Alaska in my veggie bus the coming Spring 2013. It will be a two month or so adventure over some rivers and through some woods and back. The plan as it stands is to play bagpipe gigs at pubs and sell t-shirts, stickers, and whatever else I can sell along the way. I will play at pubs that serve food, where I can pick up their waste vegetable oil (WVO) as payment for playing and the money I receive will be whatever they give me plus tips and sales. This is really all there is to the travel plan so far.
As for the bus, I have it back up and running on WVO and this time it is on a switch inside the cabin on my instrument panel, as opposed to being a valve system inside the engine compartment, that besides it's faults, was also inconvenient. I have found a goldmine of a veggie mechanic named Michael Tyler here in ATL that is helping me with all that my imagination (and wallet) can afford. He is a genius when it comes to fuel systems, fun to work with, and very reasonable. My next plan is to take out the whole tank and box as it sits now and replace it with a much more streamlined system that will run better, fit more veggie, and take up less space in the bus. These plans were made after much discussion with Michael as to what the best system would be to get me safely to Alaska and back with minimal issues. More on this later as it progresses...
Other plans pertaining to the bus include installing solar panels along the rooftop, which will hook into batteries under the couch which will charge and hook into a power inverter, which will in turn power everything I need in the school bus. The secondary power will come from a diesel generator, which could be either under, behind or on top of the bus. This will also be hooked into the veggie system, so it will run relatively free. All this will give me a relatively free source of electricity, should I be without a power hookup for an extended period of time.
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Bus aside, I have been very busy with my Ron Paul Meetup Group, which I started on the early morning of April 7th, 2011. We now have 159 members and have been very active in the delegate process of getting our candidate elected the next President. For those who are adept in politics you know very well that in the Republican party it is all about gaining delegates to win the nomination. Currently Ron Paul has won 11 states, due to grassroots efforts of groups like mine all over the United States. So it is a very exciting and busy time in the Ron Paul R3VOJUTION and I am excited to see how the cards play out. The weekend after this is our State convention, where we pick 34 delegates to the National Convention, where the big voting for our next candidate takes place. The rest of our some 70 delegates in Georgia were elected at our District Conventions, of which I am in the 7th.
We have had many meetups since we began over a year ago, 49 to be exact, and we have many more scheduled for the next month. I love this group and all that it does to further the cause of liberty in a nation so starved for it... little did I know I would ever be saying that in the once great U.S. of A. Everything from our all-but-destroyed dollar to our reckless spending and corruption in government are a very far cry from the principles this Country was founded on and what made it great. We are doing all we can to change the course of history and I hope all reading will consider supporting such a plan. It is a widely known rumor that once you go Paul... you never go... back. Why? Well, I'll let you do the research on that if you haven't already. But this isn't a political blog, so I will move on...
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Many plans for my future are pending this year's election results. Part of the reason I will be taking the big trip next year is because I know I will need a break from it all. I truly don't believe our country will last much longer as a free nation if it continues on the path it is on, so we will see...
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On the homefront I have been doing a lot of projects, including:
- Concreted the dirt part of my basement, and building a retaining wall where all the dirt was taken out (see videos) Before / After
- Staining my house (in progress, see pics below)
- Carpeted the basement (pics below)
- Power outlet in carport for school bus (Danny's doing)
- Leveled and re-seeded the front and back yard
- Dug out where the bus is now located. That dirt was used to level the back yard. The front yard was leveled with dirt that came out of the basement (around 700 wheel barrows full)
- Retaining wall to hold the dirt back where the bus is located (Danny's doing - in bus video above)
- Garden built (joint effort, but Andrew built the retaining wall for it.)
- Re-floored Andrew's room (all Andrew)
- Installed a french drain system on northeast side of house
- Clearing brush and unwanted groundcover (oh nice, one of my cardinals just came by for his breakfast at my feeder)
- Painting walls in basement
- Andrew has done a ton of small projects around here, like installing an attic fan, helping finish the attic foil insulation, painting trim and such, and just a ton of other things.
- then there are a bunch of other things I've done too. Life is good!
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| at the start... |
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| acquired a mercedes along the way... |
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| Before - Basement Bedroom |
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| After - Main Basement Area |
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| After Basement Bedroom |
Other vehicle stories: The grey bimmer, also known as the Millennium Falcon, has now long surpassed the 300k mile mark and is in repair mode to go another 100k. I have been selling parts from the white bimmer and found a good mechanic along the way who is currently helping me with some major repairs. He gets to pocket the money on the side from his normal mechanic job at the local BMW dealership and I get cheap repairs. It's a win-win situation. One big thing he just did was to replace my badly worn steering rack and pinion, an $800 part and $500 - $600 in labor, with a nearly new one from my white bimmer for only $200 bucks... my kinda deal. He will soon be doing some more front end work, getting my ac back up and running (it hasn't run since year one, six years ago), fixing engine leaks, and the biggest thing will be putting in a new clutch soon. I have also recently purchased a new top from eBay, so I will be installing that myself soon. This is a full-day project for a novice like myself. I had no idea how much goes into the install until I checked it out online. Thank God for the Internet. I was able to find step-by-step instructions in minutes!
What else, I have recently purchased a yellow 1977 Mercedes 300D (as in diesel :)) for $910 bucks (see pic with house above.) I drove it home, but it has a list of things needed done on it as well. This will be tackled once I get all my bimmer stuff taken care of... My goal is to turn it into a veggie-burner and possibly pull it on my trip to Alaska... we will see about that. Much to come before that decision is made...
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On a personal note, I am doing well. Jack is dreaming well, sleeping at my side while I sit at the kitchen table with a ball at his side, coffee at my side, my back yard and birds on the feeder seen through the window on my right, with my Mercedes-Benz in full view. A DVD playing in the background, a Planxty concert. A taste of that below...
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The sun is up, it is a new day. I must be going now. I will leave you with some thoughts I have come up with on facebook over the past few months:
February 23rd: Don't focus so much on what you can't do that you don't see what you CAN do.
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March 25th: So I was playing my bagpipes for a party last night and it was mostly military people. I asked one fellow who spent all of 2010 in Afghanistan what the one biggest reason was why they don't like us. The answer: "They don't want us over there occupying there land." Hmm... sounds very different from what our media is preaching, that it is because we are rich and free, but on the other hand, a lot like a what a certain presidential candidate has been saying... RP 2012!
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April 17th: I am looking for a mate for Jack, my German Shepherd. He is about 4 1/2 years old, fit, very good with a frisbee and addicted to balls... tennis balls. He is a bit high strung and looking for a nice female German Shepherd to calm his nerves. The female must want babies, lots of babies, or Jack is simply not interested. If you are that special bitch, or you know of a compatible one, please respond back!
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April 30th: Indirect Tom Petty Quote from the Concert Josh, Danny, and I attended on April 29th, 2012
It was a beautiful day
The sun beat down
I put the peddle down... to make some time.
I'm running down a dream... but...
The waiting is the hardest part
You take it on faith... you take it to the heart
Yeah the waiting is the hardest part.
Tom Petty - ATL - 4/29/12 - forever in the memory bank
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May 6th: Those who are greedy receive less in life than those who are not... and those who are impatient take longer to get to where they are going... Success in life is a beautiful irony.
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I'll end it with this: Would you believe me if I told you that I own a house, an RV, a Mercedes, and two BMW's? You better believe it... ;)
Signing off,
~ Nathan D. Mann
posted by Nate | 2:54 PM
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