after many weeks, Hapy speaks

I uncovered and moved Hapy out of the driveway yesterday. This was a tiny, yet monumental event. It represents the first time he's been legally parked on the street in over 3 years. To me legal means: registered, tagged and capable of movement under its own power.

This also represents the beginning of the end of my days living in Lake Oswego. Its been 8.5 years, and a new chapter opens on Tuesday - tomorrow - for I get the keys to my new residence then. I am not as melancholy as I expected to be today. Maybe it will hit me on Saturday after I move the items we've negotiated. Maybe it will hit when I next pick up the boys and I don't actually enter the old house. I don't know how or when, but I'm pretty certain the grieving process hasn't concluded yet.

Once I do get re-located, though, there is a rather sizable list of things I need to deal with. Of course, there are the usual just-moved-in things, like getting paper products, cleaning stuff, fill-in furniture, etc. More importantly, though, is the establishment of a new life rhythm. The material matters will resolve themselves; its the spiritual groove that will be more interesting. And then there's the bus work. I think I will find that putting effort onto the bus could act as a 'security blanket', of sorts, helping me bridge from my former life to me new one. I guess its a good thing I have so much left to do :) I'll detail below the stuff I'll be focusing on for the short term. Camping season doesn't really get fully going around here until Independence Day, so I have more time than my East Coast friends do.

Bus Fix-It Punch List:
- clutch cable adjustment. may require new bowden tube or adding spacers.
- OBDII plug at driver seat. should just require a single wire. necessary for coolant temp monitoring during test flights
- engine harness replacement. borrowed harness doesn't have oil pressure sensor wired in. Not good for regular driving.
---- could start test flights at this point ----
- interior cleanup. strip interior (behind front seats), deep clean, re-insulate / noise baffling
- pop top replacement. remove westy top, install Riviera top w/bed, etc.
- secondary battery re-install. with the new engine, the old set-up doesn't work. This step will include re-routing lots of secondary systems (radio, interior lights, eg) to the secondary battery.
- finish water supply install. exterior shore-water inlet was never added.
- propane system install. the stove is there, but none of the propane (tank, lines) is. This will include integrating the "extend-a-stay" system.

That looks like a lot. That's cuz it is. I probably won't get it all done, but I'll do it in that order, with some of the lower priority items fitting into the bare-interior period. Thanks for following along, and I'll post once I'm moved in with pictures of moving day :)

pictures:
top - C at the edge of the Willamette River looking for cool rocks
bottom - me at the set break at Dark Star Orchestra a couple of weeks ago at the Crystal. Yes, that's a crying splittie t-shirt.

Hey Strangers

I apologize for not posting anything in the last couple of months. After that last post, describing a pretty radical life change event, I kinda left you hanging. Honestly, not much has really happened since then... at least it doesn't seem like it. I'll run down some highlights, though.

New Digs
I have a lease on a place near where I work in Beaverton that I found on rent.com. I tried the usual CL, but it wasn't as effective as I would have expected. I take possession in the middle of April, so I'll be couch-surfing for a few more weeks. I was unexpectedly able to land a townhouse with a 2-car garage, so I'll be able to complete the bus work in a dry location. When I consider that my commute will shrink from 30-45 minutes each way to 5 minutes (by car or 10 by foot), I will gain almost an hour. The key will be not wasting that time at work :)
I have lots of unfinished projects on the bus that I could get after with that time. I intend to return to my regular postings here to keep me honest about that. The townhouse has the usual apartment complex amenities, and the boys liked that - swimming pools... movie stars... The fact that a 7-11 and a Subway are very close met with their approval as well. Its funny what boys find most important. They were unmoved by how far it is from their mom's place (30 minutes), for example. Funny.

Office Move
As if there weren't enough changes already, by employer is moving a handful of departments from over-crowded conditions into a couple of new buildings. My department is one of them, so the end of March will be consumed with that move too. To paraphrase an old Jerry Seinfeld bit "when you're moving your whole world becomes all about boxes". Yeah, I totally hear that. Boxing the office, and boxing my at-home possessions have an eerie parallel.

Allergies Again
My St. Patrick's Day joke has arrived a few days early this year. I don't think I made a big deal about this in previous years, but every March, around the start of March Madness, my allergies kick in without warning. I think of it as the St. Patrick's leprechaun cursing me. I get dizzy so I can't maintain vertical and sleep like 20 hours a day while I remember again that its allergies and take lots of anti-histamine. This year is no different, and after spending a long Saturday at the house packing up the last of my bus parts, CD's, some books, etc, I spent Sunday couch-ridden. Like previous years, it will take a few days of Benadryl at night and Zyrtec in the morning to chase this nastiness away. Now that I have a clear pattern, though, I hope next year, I'll remember better and start taking my Zyrtec on the first of March.
If you're suffering now, trees are blooming, so you probably have tree pollen allergies. The trees of interest are cherry and apple, for fruit trees, but there are many non-fruit trees producing pollen right now: maple, red cedar, sycamore, oak, elm, walnut, birch, hickory, ash, poplar, and cypress. Of course, if you live in the Pacific NorthWest, you have mold and moss at this time of year too, so you could have an allergy there.

That's all I have for now. I haven't touched the bus except to load stuff into him for moving. I'll be car-hauling him behind the truck rather than driving him. I haven't taken enough test flights to be sure I won't have a cooling issue. One more thing for Spring-

Grounded

It was ging to be a small posting tonight. Like usual, it didn't turn out that way. The tail lights work now, and my distance grows.

Tail Lighting
Well, I haven't really been able to get to the bus in the past week, but I did correct the ground issue in the right tail light yesterday. These old buses are funny sometimes. I removed the ground wire from its post on the rear pillar adjacent to the rear hatch door, wiped the post with my fingers and pushed the wire back on the post. Bing! The directionals work again. Funny. Otherwise, I have cleaned up and swept out the area where the bus used to live next to the garage, and I've re-covered the bus to keep the damp out. Next weekend, if I get to work at all, will include swapping engine harnesses (I think I found the bad wire).


Life Bottoms
I've mentioed my separation from my project bus, and this has been an unusual perspective on everything that is going on. I'm temporarily living in SE PDX (Brooklyn neighborhood for my fellow Puddletown dwellers) while my 2 boys remain in Lake Oswego with their mother. As part of an agreement with their mother, I took clothing and am crashing at my folks' place. Humbling would be the best word for it. My eventual residence is uncertain, but it won't be in that house again. The highlights of my week now, as before this change, are centered on my time with the two of them.

This blog was dedicated to the bus, not my relationship with my boys, so I haven't really articulated their importance here. They know they are first with me, though, and they know I would prefer to be with them rather than anything. Since my last post, I made the change in where I lay my head to sleep, though my heart remains with the boys. Oddly enough, while writing this, T forwarded me this chain text (neuvo chain letters), which seems right on point:

if one day u feel like crying... call me.
i don't promise that i will make u laugh but i can cry with u.
if one day u want to run away - don't be afraid to call me.
i don't promise to ask you to stop.... but i can run with u.
if one day u don't want to listen to anyone.... call me.
i promise to be there for u but also promise to remain quiet.
but one day if u call.... and there is no answer.... come fast to see me.
maybe i need u.

I saw the boys 3 times this past week and during the day on Saturday. The weekday visits were a blending of all-business (putting them to bed), school activities (C art night) and fun (Blazer game). I tried to express that most weeks would not be that way, but they won't really get that until they see it. Saturday morning we took the lacrosse sticks and the dog down to Mary S. Young park for some "its not raining!" fun. For a couple of hours, everything felt normal-ish, chasing the dog around the off-leash area and then throwing the ball in a circle. Returning back to the house, and their mother working in her office, brought things back into perspective. I won't see them again until Wednesday, which will be the longest I've ever gone without them. I've found distracting myself with my gym membership somewhat effective, but not terribly satisfying. I expect I'll be trying that tomorrow and Tuesday.

My entries will change to reflect this situation more, and improvements on my bus less. Still, I will document any changes in his condition or improvements in postings, but with my limited access, I doubt much will happen. Instead, I'll be very focused on bridging this situation to whatever the new arrangement will be. There's lots of back-story and what not, and I'll get to that as I do.