OK….so what do you do if you’ve chosen to live in an area of the country where rent is 2600 dollars for a one bedroom apartment….and you’re feeling the financial pinch of trying to meet your housing needs affordably?
You rent 1/2 an acre and develop a shipping container commune.
That’s what you do.
Easy.
You buy a shipping container for 2300 dollars and convert it into a place to live.
You buy a couple of extra containers and convert them to rent out to other people to cover your lot rental…..and you’re self-contained and, pretty soon, living rent free as a shipping container landlord.
Sounds like a plan to me.
All the crazy stuff that people do…if it pans out, the idea is commonplace in a couple of years….commonplace and accepted…not turning any heads anymore.
I like a house and a porch and a good view and the sound of a rooster crowing somewhere.
That’s nice for me.
But, if I had to live in the city, it’s good to see that there are alternatives to what people see as possible places to live.
I guess that you can live anywhere you want if you’re willing to live where no one else wants to live.
I love it when someone is able….through skill and hard work and imagination and TIME (it’s a slow way to build….you can’t just crank up the compressor and get out the nail guns and build a neighborhood of “tiny boxes” when you build like this) to build a home with such ART behind it.
Of course, I can see the beauty behind working in a way that allows you to FINISH a house quickly.
I understand how nice OSB board and laminate flooring and house wrap and vinyl clad windows and even…..vinyl siding….can be when you need to build quickly and you don’t have a lot of money (or time) to get too creative with.
There are materials that make sense if you just want to finish something and move in.
There are materials that don’t have much to do with “ART” and creative houses like this.
There are “fast tools” that let you do a bunch of familiar work quickly.
All of these materials are good…they just aren’t really “creative”.
I love air tools now that I have some. Air tools are great.
A hammer is great….but it’s fun to pop a million nails into something “lickety-split” with a nail gun
It just is a different sort of mindset that I can get into if I can do something fast….with these “fast tools”.
This guy is doing something different than that, though.
He built in a way that demanded consideration of materials and methods. It’s a slow way to build….but the end result is pretty beautiful.
To top it all off….flowers and sheep!
Talk about “staging”.
I do wonder how it would be to build a home like this in a place where inspectors were coming around throughout the building process to shoot down anything that didn’t look familiar to them?
Maybe we shoot for a “lowest common denominator” because people, in general, don’t have a lot of imagination….and the people who would be drawn to these “inspector” type of positions might have the least imagination of all?
Maybe that’s not fair to say?
I don’t really know.
It’s kind of silly to ponder how hard something might be if you expect to butt heads with….buttheads….before anything even happens.
This is a beautiful home….and a good-looking life.
Anything is possible if you don’t expect it to be impossible before you even get started.
Here’s the first videos about this fellow’s cottage…..
I mentioned that I bought a used Sirius radio early in the year….and sprung for a years subscription….so I listen to a lot of different programming.
This old Todd Rundgren song came on a couple of weeks ago….and while I was enjoying it again….I remembered a scene in a movie that I enjoyed….and I was off on another tangent.
Where’s the linearity? Where’s the focus? Where will my head take me next?
Anyway…..here’s the song…..
“we gotta get you a woman” Todd Rundgren
That’s a great early Rundgren song.
The movie that it reminded me of is a film called “The Ringer” that Johnny Knoxville was in.
I’ve shown it to people and have forgotten that it had a few “nasty” parts before I said, “You have to watch this movie with me!!” and then couldn’t back up while the movie was playing…..I just had to ride the rough patches out while my captive audience wondered about my judgement.
I wonder if most of the movies that I really respond to are mostly ones that make people question my judgement? I hope not….
Luckily, the general tone of the movie is sweet enough that I could get away with it.
I don’t think anyone that I showed it to enjoyed it as much as I did, though.
Here’s the trailer….I think it gives a pretty good idea of the plot of the movie…
This was a sweet movie. You’d have to watch it to understand why I think that….
I did a “review” of a movie called “Norbit” a while back….and “The Ringer” falls into that category for me.
It’s a movie that I encourage people to watch….that I thought was really funny and strange and good….that most folks don’t seem to enjoy as much as I did.
I thought “The Ringer” was really funny….and good-hearted.
Here’s a video of Lloyd Kahn showing some pages from his new book, Tiny Homes on the Move , to Deek Diedricksen at a convention that they were both at a little ways back in Charlotte, NC.
I love all this stuff….the tiny homes….movable tiny homes….renegade houses…..re-purposing structures to use as houses….all the “thinking outside the box” to turn a “box” into a house.
You can still live very inexpensively in this country if you can figure out a place to park your house.
Lloyd’s next book is going to be called “Small Homes”….houses that are a little bit bigger….a little more traditional….but still comparatively small.
We lived in a little neighborhood in San Jose, CA….Frolic Way….back when this show first came on….45 years ago today.
We heard that there was going to be a new show for kids….and I remember a bunch of us gathering around somebody’s television and watching the first episode of Sesame Street.
It’s “old news” now….but at the time, there wasn’t anything on TV like this….the puppets….the animation….it was all different.
I remember us laughing our tails off when they started counting….5…5….5…5….
It was bizarre and funny to a bunch of nine-year-olds to see something like this.
The first clip is from the very first “real” show to air….
The second clip is a preview that showed before the show started broadcasting….I think that this is the show that we watched…..this introductory show….way back when.
The thermostat on the minivan wasn’t working right.
The car wasn’t warming up anymore….or “warming up”, but taking a long time to do it.
That wouldn’t do to have a bunch of babies riding around in a cold car, now, would it?
It’s starting to get cold….we need some HEAT!!
So, I bought a thermostat and a gasket….took a look at what I needed to do….and got out the tools.
Dodge was kind to me when they engineered the car.
They put the thermostat housing right on the front/side of the engine (the engine sits sideways like all the front wheel drives….the housing is easy to get to…..right in “front”.)
Everything went well taking it apart.
Nothing was rusted or seized….the bolts came out without any grunting or swearing.
Nothing broke off in the block.
That’s good when it goes like that.
Sure enough, the thermostat was broken and stuck open.
It was also fused to the housing….but after some twisting with a pair of needle nose pliers, I got the old one out.
I cleaned up the housing and put the new one in, got the gasket into position, put my two bolts through the housing and gasket, and got ready to bolt it back to the block, and then…..
One of the bolts fell out of the housing.
Dang….that’s inconvenient.
So, I looked in the gravel for the bolt….and it wasn’t there.
I got my big light and looked in the gravel for the bolt I needed to finish the job….and I couldn’t see it.
I took my big light and looked all around the engine compartment….and didn’t see it.
But, if I looked way, way down….down in the darkness of the engine bay….down between what I think might be a compressor for the air conditioner or something….no, it’s not that….it’s something else over by the transmission…..something sandwiched up tight underneath the exhaust manifold….something unreachable even by a strong beam of light….that was when I realized why I couldn’t see or feel it.
My bolt….the bolt I need…..the bolt that was keeping me from finishing my wife’s motorvation ability….was DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!! It was down in there somewhere.
I GOT TO USE MY “F WORD”!!!!
OUT IN THE DRIVEWAY, NOT FAR ENOUGH OUT IN SPACE WHERE NO ONE COULD HEAR ME SCREAM, WAVING A TROUBLE LIGHT OVER EVERY INCH OF THAT ENGINE THAT I HOPED I COULD ILLUMINATE AND DISCOVER SOMETHING THAT I KNEW WAS UNDISCOVERABLE, I EXERCISED MY VOCABULARY….AND IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT, ALL I COULD RELEASE FROM MY VOCAL CORDS WAS A HEARTY AND HEARTFELT “F WORD”….OVER AND OVER AND…..OVER.
I am ashamed….and still bolt-less at this point.
The necessary bolt is gone away….and I’m in a dark gravel driveway….screaming out my soft, impotent rage.
Anyway….after a frantic trip back in to town, I was able to buy a bolt that was shorter but worked….and I got the car back together….and nothing leaked or exploded when I started it back up.
Who do they think that they’re helping with this “daylight savings time”, anyway?
Anybody in their right mind is doing all the good stuff at night.
Why am I laying on my back in our gravel driveway when it’s pitch black?
Something’s not right in that picture.
Let the farmers turn the lights on in their combines.
Leave me some light in the evening.
Maybe I could find a bolt or two if the sun was still up.
Jenny read my blog post yesterday….the mushy one with the mushy song….and said, “That was one of the most maudlin songs ever written.”
Well…..yeah.
I knew it was maudlin.
But, dang…it was effective. She heard that song…..and SHE LOVED ME!!!
Or, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe it was the other way around.
Maybe….she loved me first….and told me she liked the song because she loved me.
I get the feeling that when she cared about me that she let me believe that I had some kind of “game”.
I think that she let me believe that I was a pretty competent fellow.
I wonder how many women do that for their men?
Anyway….it’s not something that I can figure out this morning before I’ve had all of my coffee.
That song that I put on my blog yesterday is pretty maudlin.
That’s why this morning I felt like I better bring it back down to earth with a good John Prine song.
Everything in this song doesn’t apply to Jenny…or to me.
It’s just a song that I couldn’t have played on the radio….even if I’d had it back then….
“in spite of ourselves” John Prine and Iris Dement
Now HOW’S THAT FOR A SONG!!
That’s one I could have used to woo her, for sure.
“Woo”….that’s an interesting and gentle way to describe relationships.
I could “woo” my wife!
There’s a plan.
I started out the morning kind of funny, actually.
This has nothing to do with “wooing”….it’s just something funny that happened.
I put my hands down on the keyboard…..and I guess that I was drinking some coffee or something….no….I need two hands to type….I don’t know what I was doing….but, I must have put them down wrong or something and when I looked up, all my typing looked like this….
I thought that I was doing right….but there was a shift somewhere that threw the whole shebang off just a little….and I couldn’t even read what I’d written when I was done.
I wouldn’t have even known that something was wrong if I didn’t have a computer screen to look at.
I would have known anything at all.
I think that the thing that really would have messed me up would be the thought that I knew what I was doing….so how could anything be wrong?
Funny.
I remember a driving lesson with my Dad.
He said, “The light is changing color up there.”
I knew it all….”Yeah, I see it.” I was as cool as I could be with my sister and our dog in the car, while I was learning to drive our old Fairlane station wagon.
Pretty soon, my Dad yelled, “STOP!!” so I slammed on the brakes and fishtailed for what seemed like a hundred yards between the cars that were already stopped on either side of me.
(It scared those “careful drivers” to see me slide past, tires smoking and squealing, wide-eyed…)
When we stopped, Dad caught his breath and asked, “Didn’t you see the light? The light I told you about?!”
Yeah….
It turned out that I was looking at the next light up ahead….the wrong light….not the one that said, “STOP NOW!!!”.
I was looking at the one that said, “Slow down….you’ve got this, new driver!!! GOOD JOB!!!”
What the heck was everybody so excited about, anyway?! We survived, didn’t we?
My daughter emailed me yesterday and told me that I’d been writing this blog for 2 years.
That’s a long time.
So….in honor of that unbroken string of morning writing, this blog will be my last.
I’m KIDDING!!!
I bet your heart just about stopped dead on the tracks.
I’d be scared, too.
It’s been two years of trying to get up before everyone else in the house gets up, making a french press of coffee, and staring at the screen of my computer….trying to figure out what to write about “this morning”.
I think that the only thing that I’ve figured out is that writing, like talking too much, is pretty easy.
It’s easy if you just sit and type….like lacing up your running shoes and getting out the door, once you’re going, it’s not so hard.
Of course, I realized, too, that if I’m “just typing” no one wants to read anything I wrote.
The must be some “just typing” radar that most people have….so they don’t seem to read those posts.
I also realized that if I can include a video of a cat who fell in love with a squirrel….and piggyback in on the wings of something “really cute”….that bunches of people might glance at what I wrote….just so they can see a cat snuggling a squirrel.
That’s a cheap shot to piggyback like that.
My most popular post has a picture of this dog in it:
Who would have thought that all those people would want to see a picture of a giant black dog?
That’s my most popular post.
Of all the things that I’ve written, the most popular is the one with a huge black dog picture.
The single most popular post is the one with the dog.
It has legs.
Lots of people….in lots of countries…have looked at that dog.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done some “piggybacking”, though.
Sometimes, it takes something really eloquent to help get your point across.
The second time I met my wife, before we even started “courting”, I was working at a radio station up in Asheville.
I could BROADCAST MY LOVE.
Actually, that probably wasn’t really kosher….so I had to be sneaky about it.
I couldn’t just BROADCAST MY LOVE….I had to be covert.
I played the heck out of this song…..
“lady” Jonathan Edwards
I thought it was a pretty slick way to send a subliminal message.
Nobody could see through a message like “and Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadeeeeeeeeeee…..I love you.”
Subtle.
A blog anniversary is pretty small potatoes compared to a wedding anniversary.
I have one of those coming up sometime in December, I think.
(That’s not a funny joke….I remember the exact day in December….I don’t forget….like a love elephant….)
But, it’s not until December that I get to celebrate the important one….so I’ll ride this blog thing at least as long as it takes me to finish a pot of coffee.
Here’s to many more years of typing and many more pots of coffee.
Here’s to more years.
(The song, “Lady”, is from an album called Rockin’ Chair that Jonathan Edwards released in 1976. My friend Garrett turned me on to the song….and I found the only copy of the album that I’ve ever seen while we were thrift shopping on his only visit to my parent’s old house in Georgia. Years later, I could share that song with Jenny. Synchronicity. Perfect.)
My daughter took the picture through the window of the minivan….at 70 miles an hour on some Western road. Again….perfect.
A lot of my heroes are old dudes who rock it in the woods.
It will be time to start obsessing over old “Matlock” episodes soon.
I’m conscious of getting older.
This is a video of a community up in Canada that’s off-grid and looks creative….and pretty attractive.
Apparently, it’s the size of Manhattan….but has 400 residents.
I looked up real estate in the area, and they must know what they have there, because small houses were pretty expensive.
Bare land was pretty expensive.
Darn Canadians.
They must know what they have up there.
I guess that when people post a bunch of YouTube videos the “secret is out”.
Maybe I need to post a bunch of videos of where we live….inflate the real estate….sell out….move somewhere even cooler?
Who am I kidding? There’s nowhere cooler than where I live.
It’s way cool.
But Idaho!! Colorado!! All those other places I obsess over!! Those places are pretty cool, too.
Check out this dude…this older fellow in the video. Eight-two years old….quit his job when they wouldn’t give him the summer off….does his laundry in the bathtub (while he’s taking a bath)….makes his own plum wine.
