3 minute End of Day Update 13 January 2015
Posted by YarrVee on Jan 14 2015
When a 45 minute job turns into 4 hours. :(
When a 45 minute job turns into 4 hours. :(
It’s dark. It’s early. But it’s going to be a good (if busy) day.
As always, the best place to follow my journey is at the website: http://www.YarrVee.com YouTube just gets videos, while the website gets the Videos, plus Instagram (CAT PICTURES), Twitter, Foursquare checkins, and Blog Posts!
–==2015 Cost of RV Life==–
13 Free nights
0 Paid nights
13 Total nights
2015 Total Spent: $488.61
2015 Average Daily Cost: $37.59/day
2014 Average Daily Cost: $43.49/day
–==CONTACT==–
http://www.YarrVee.com
Tweets by YarrVee
https://plus.google.com/+Yarrvee
https://www.facebook.com/YarrVee
http://amzn.com/w/3KYCQFHECT0OR
–==WE LOVE SNAIL MAIL!==–
YarrVee.com
411 Walnut Street #9806
Green Cove Springs, FL 32043-3443
–==2015 Itinerary==–
“January 10, 2015 – Amarillo, TX
January 11-12, 2015 – DFW, TX
January 13-14, 2015 – Houston, TX
January 15-16, 2015 – New Orleans, LA
January 17-18, 2015 – Pensacola, FL
January 19-?, 2015 – Jacksonville, FL”
…
March 13-22, 2015 – Austin, TX
SXSW – http://sxsw.com/
…
April 19-24, 2015 – Las Vegas, NV
ServiceNow Knowledge15 – http://knowledge.servicenow.com/
…
September 4-7. 2015 – Atlanta, GA
Dragoncon – http://www.dragoncon.org/
It’s dark. It’s early. But it’s going to be a good (if busy) day.
http://yarrvee.com/goodies-for-the-yarrvee/
Some goodies for the coach just arrived. They’re still cold to the touch from being in the unheated UPS truck.
EDIT 1: I don’t know why it showed up sideways. I’m a huge believer in Friends Don’t Let Friends Shoot Portrait Video. _sigh_…
EDIT 2: The NanoStation M2 is working, and it’s amazing.
EDIT 3: I was able to rotate the video in the YouTube Editor! I had no idea it could do that now!
As always, the best place to follow my journey is at the website: http://www.YarrVee.com YouTube just gets videos, while the website gets the Videos, plus Instagram (CAT PICTURES), Twitter, Foursquare checkins, and Blog Posts!
–==2015 Cost of RV Life==–
12 Free nights
0 Paid nights
12 Total nights
2015 Total Spent: $392.21
2015 Average Daily Cost: $32.68/day
2014 Average Daily Cost: $43.49/day
–==CONTACT==–
http://www.YarrVee.com
Tweets by YarrVee
https://plus.google.com/+Yarrvee
https://www.facebook.com/YarrVee
http://amzn.com/w/3KYCQFHECT0OR
–==WE LOVE SNAIL MAIL!==–
YarrVee.com
411 Walnut Street #9806
Green Cove Springs, FL 32043-3443
–==2015 Itinerary==–
January 10, 2015 – Amarillo, TX
January 11-12, 2015 – DFW, TX
January 13-14, 2015 – Houston, TX
January 15-16, 2015 – New Orleans, LA
January 17-18, 2015 – Pensacola, FL
January 19-?, 2015 – Jacksonville, FL”
…
March 13-22, 2015 – Austin, TX
SXSW – http://sxsw.com/
…
April 19-24, 2015 – Las Vegas, NV
ServiceNow Knowledge15 – http://knowledge.servicenow.com/
…
September 4-7. 2015 – Atlanta, GA
Dragoncon – http://www.dragoncon.org/
Some goodies for the coach just arrived. They’re still cold to the touch from being in the unheated UPS truck.
Two GoPro Hero 4 batteries and a USB dual charger.
An extendable GoPro monopod.
a Ubiquiti NanoStation M2 high-gain 11db WiFi…I’m not really sure what to call it!
It’s not an “antenna”, “booster”, or “range extender”, since I’m not connecting it to an existing piece of WiFi gear to improve reception…but it does act like a very powerful directional antenna.
It’s also not a router like the one your Internet Service Provider sent you, since I’m not plugging it into a fixed connection someplace…
It’s really a professional/commercial grade piece of gear (without a professional/commercial grade price!) that doesn’t have anything similar in the residential market that I’m aware of. The case is made of UV resistant weatherproof plastic, and comes with mounts and heavy duty zipties suitable for attaching it to a pole about 1.5″ in diameter.
I will tell you that I followed the instructional video that David Bott from Outside Our Bubble posted a month or so ago, and I was up and running in about 15 minutes.
My Galaxy S5 phone could identify 18 Access Points nearby. Only a couple of them were open (Thanks, xfinitywifi provided by Comcast!), and the phone wouldn’t stay connected to any of them (Thanks, xfinitywifi provided by Comcast!).
My ASUS Laptop could identify 19 Access Points. The same two were open, and the laptop wouldn’t stay connected to any of them.
54 Access Points found, 35 of them with visible SSIDs (required to connect), and *9* xfinitywifi hotspots. I’m currently connected at the fastest rate and it’s clear to me that Comcast is capping my speed at about 2-2.5 Mbps, so as to not impact the experience their long-term customer has.
Looking at Ubiquiti’s PDF on what to expect for distance, the M2 (when, say, talking to another M2 for simplicity’s sake) could reasonably expect to connect across about 2.5 km (1.55 miles) where there is good, unobstructed line of sight and low electronic interference. I’m pretty sure that “across the parking lot to that “Googled” Starbucks over there” isn’t going to be a huge connectivity issue for me on the road.
Anyone who routinely connects to public or campground WiFi spots from their RV, trailer, or van needs one of these. I cannot recommend the NanoStation M2 highly enough. It is a stellar piece of equipment.
Since you can connect other devices to it. I think the best use of the NanoStation is as a gateway for creating your own personal network inside and around your RV. I’ve currently got my laptop connected to it with a network cable right now, but I could just as easily move that connection from the laptop to a standalone wireless router which would create a wired connection between the router and the NanoStation.
I could then configure the standalone Netgear/Cisco/whatever router to create a local private in-coach WiFi network that my laptop, game console, tablet, and phone would connect to…just like everyone who has Comcast or CenturyLink or Charter or whatever in their home. The big difference would be that the connection to the internet wouldn’t be a high-speed internet connection at the wall, it would be the connection to the public/campground WiFi, which is in turn connected to the internet.
Considering the price point is $80, and the easy availability of David’s video on YouTube (and OutsideOurBubble.com) to walk you smoothly through setting up this piece of commercial network hardware, you just can’t go wrong!
I’m also already dreaming about mounting this alongside the YarrVee banner at the top of a 12 foot, 16 foot, or 22 foot Flagpole Buddy pole…
-Jon
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen a few fellow Fulltime RV Bloggers including Eric and Brittany, Tim and Amanda, and Leigh and Brian post summaries of their travels in 2014. I thought I would follow suit – not so much because anything interesting happened in 2014 (I’m just getting started), but rather as a retrospective for the future. A guide to where I started the journey.
Number of States: 1
Number of Overnight Stops: 3
Where I Stayed: 1 private campground, 1 parking lot, 1 RV/Mobile Home park
Free vs. Paid: 2/3 locations were paid.
Total: $1,112
Monthly Average: $556.00
Nightly Average: $18.65
The YarrVee was purchased at CampingWorld of Golden. The purchase process was very, very smooth. The after-purchase support…not so much. Once that fiasco was resolved, we did enjoy our short stay the Garden of the Gods RV Park as well as the 2014 Emma Crawford Memorial Coffin Races. I forgot to take any pictures. …sigh…
We left the RV in a parking lot adjacent to our apartment, or parked on the street through most of October.
On the 1st of November, the YarrVee got the first of many monthly homes. The Skylark Mobile Home and RV Park in Lafayette, Colorado.
The YarrVee’s new home – before the snow and the record breaking cold…
November saw a record breaking cold snap around Veteran’s Day. On Sunday the 9th it was 74 degrees. We knew that the cold was coming, so we went to Home Depot and bought a 1500 watt oil-filled electric heater, a utility light and a 100 watt bulb for the water bay, and heat tape + insulation for the water lines.
On Monday, the high temperature was 65, and the low was 14.
On Tuesday, the high was 17, and the low was 6.
On Wednesday, the high was 6, and the low was -7.
On Thursday, the high was 10, and the low was -11.
On Friday, the high was 30, and the low was 0.
The cold weather didn’t really break until early the next week. The interior of the coach did stay above freezing during this whole period, if only by a few degrees, and I haven’t (yet) seen any evidence of damage, though I think the 110 side of the water heater may have burned out. I’ll have to check it further in 2015.
In late November, I had a job interview…
December 3rd was my last day at Denver International Airport, where I had worked for over half my adult life. December 8th was my first day working a gig as a contract ServiceNow developer for a company in Niwot. At this point, I think it’s the move with the biggest successful risk/reward I’ve ever made.
December 22nd, I got a call from CampingWorld that the seat parts they’d ordered from THOR had finally come in. When the coach went back to CampingWorld for a couple of weeks in December, two things happened – my month old Galaxy Tab4 was stolen out of the nightstand drawer (“Not responsible for valuables left in your coach”) after I forgot to retrieve it when the coach was dropped off Christmas Eve – and while they had it, they broke the power steering pump.
And that wrapped up 2014…
Here’s to a more adventurous 2015! (I hope it’s the good kind of adventure!)
