testsummersab

Friday, June 7, 2013

Must... post... more... template... sucks...

Wow - I haven't written in almost a month. Not cool.  I guess I've just been really busy at work. Well, that and a few other things, actually. First . . . well, my awesome plan of staying in the Walmart parking lot wasn't such a hit. I suppose it draws a decent amount of suspicion when the police see the same vehicle in a parking lot every night (even though it's just another car among many). I drove up about a month ago to find an officer sitting with his lights off in the main parking lot, and thank goodness it caught my eye. As I drove past the entrance to the rear lot, the officer turned on his headlights and started to slowly move. Yeah - I haven't been back there since, and I've been bouncing around from location to location like hotels and other parking lots that have outlets in the rear (you'd be surprised how many lamp posts have outlets on them).

I also got fed up with the layout and template of my site, and I initially thought that I should work on that before continuing to write. However, I decided that content was more important, and I'll work on the template and layout later. If anyone reading wants to help me with some HTML5, I wouldn't mind :)

Lastly, it's getting to be summer time, and I knew I had to do something about the heat. At first, I had what I thought to be the really cool idea of encasing a window air conditioner, installing ducting, and putting it in my trunk. Window units are cheaper, and I managed to get one for free. Well, my casing and wiring looked great, but then I did some research online (which I should have done first, I figure), and it turns out that doing this with a window unit simply won't work because of how the intake and exhaust are configured. So, that was several hours wasted, and I'm currently hunting for one of those portable air conditioners so I don't burn up this next month.

That's why I haven't written, I suppose. Not great reasons, and I wasn't busy enough that I shouldn't have written anything. So, I'm going to try to commit to a routine or a schedule, but I'm not sure what, yet.

Well, this has been a fairly useless note, I suppose. I'll get some actual material up here soon.

5:58 PM Posted by Unknown 0

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air conditioner, Car, lessons learned, Parking Lot

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Where I Lay My Head is Home (Even Though it's a Parking Lot)

Figuring out where to sleep was really quite the challenge. I knew that my storage unit was out. I know someone who manages some units locally, and they had to kick someone out for living in his unit (turns out, it's illegal). At first, I thought I'd find an inconspicuous area in my office to crash at with a sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and a pillow. (Criticize me all you want for "squatting," but think about it: they pay good money to keep the place heated and cooled 24/7/365, so whether I'm there or not, nothing changes. It's not like I stored things there or moved my belongings in permanently). I thought I struck gold when I landed on the "Mother's Room" since there isn't anyone in my office who currently uses it - there was a mini-fridge, a sink, and even some cabinet space. Yeah, that worked out really well until corporate security found me, and my manager engaged in several concerned conversations with me to make sure that I had a place to stay and wasn't just crashing because I was at work late. So, nix the idea of the office - FAR too many people to run into who would ask questions that I don't need.

After that mess, I decided that my car was likely the best spot out of the options that I didn't really have. I'll go into more detail about my car in another post (I had to modify a lot of things), but it wasn't easy. First, where should I park? I thought by mistake that I should park out of the way. Yeah, that was a bad assumption. From my point of view, this made sense since no one would notice me, right? Well, that's exactly what police are supposed to look for: things that look inconspicuous but are rather suspicious. No matter how hard I tried, every spot I stayed at would eventually lead to someone holding a flashlight and knocking on my window in the middle of the night.

Since fall was on the horizon, I really needed access to an outlet in order to keep my car heated. My next thought was to map out all of the hotels and the like that had easily-accessible outdoor outlets. This proved to be fairly simple, and the trick is to look around air conditioning units. After driving around one evening after work, I had a good half-dozen places that I could stay at. I figured that it would be best to rotate amongst the different locations in order to not draw suspicion.

This plan worked fairly well, and I never drew any unnecessary attention or got asked questions. However, I finally landed on a better solution: truck stops. No one asks any questions. Ever. Even though I'm the green thumb amongst a bunch of semis, no one bats an eye. The place I landed on isn't even a truck stop, actually. It turns out that a lot of Walmart, Lowe's, and other retail stores have power outlets in the rear of their parking lot for truckers to use. Since this is far less sketchy and has the added benefit of being right next to a store, it was a win.

So, there you have it - I sleep in my car in the parking lot of a Walmart. Problem solved!

7:50 PM Posted by Unknown 0

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About, Car, Parking Lot, Sleep, Storage