Fairfax Journey - In 2005, we bought land to build our home...

walkabout west, part 2

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Sep 222020

Day two is chilly, and I am hiding in my snug sleeping bag as dawn breaks. Finally my desire for coffee and a hot soak gets the better of me, and I emerge into the frosty air and fire up the stove. I will say all the smoke makes for pretty sunrises. Even better, my strategy of planting the intake hose underwater in the hot tub paid off, as the temperature is perfect.

Yes, I’m traveling with a digital thermometer.

Breaking camp early, I’m on to Highway 6 down the Long Valley Caldera, site of perhaps the largest volcanic eruption in North America. 7600 centuries ago, the explosion covered the continent in ash as far as the Mississippi River. I head east on 266 up through the mountains past the ancient bristlecone pine forest. Again, no traffic on a road that is occasionally only one lane. I see six cars and trucks in a hundred miles. This is starting to feel like an adventure. Finally!

Today, the desert feels suddenly familiar, as though I never left. The vast stretches along the Nevada border are relaxing and scenic, and the lack of traffic brings a secret feeling of delight and exploration. I stop to check out the ruins of a mining town called Palmetto, then reach US 95 and take it straight down through Las Vegas into Arizona, through Kingman and south to Phoenix. As expected, Arizona is hot, 98 to 104°F most of the afternoon. The X5 is eerily quiet, comfortable and cool. As I expected, the tiny town of Wickenberg is a riot of Trump signs (including one of these!), no one wears masks even though COVID is rampaging through Arizona at the moment. I amuse myself while gassing up by searching for Wickenberg on the inter tubes, and of course, I find The Patriots of Wickenberg first thing. Sigh. As I approach Phoenix, iconic saguaro cacti start appearing, and I’m entering the Sonoran desert of my childhood.

After dining out and a quiet night in a hotel, I’m heading down towards Tucson, to visit my sister at her little paradise out in the middle of the desert. When I was a kid, the only thing out here were Strategic Air Command ICBM bases, with nuclear warheads poised to rain destruction anywhere on the planet. Now decommissioned, there are houses and ranches scattered across this especially-lush and mostly-untouched landscape. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Picacho Peak, looking northwest from my sister’s home

A moody sun peering through a Palo Verde tree

This is the southernmost point of my loop around the west, and I feel happy and nostalgic when I take my leave the next day, crossing parts of central Arizona I haven’t seen since I was a young man. Local roads and US Highway 60 take me northeast, through the Globe, the Salt River valley, and Show Low, another hotbed of Trump signs. There was actually a state-sponsored sign outside of town headlined “Stop the spread of COVID”, then listing four steps you can take with no mention of wearing a mask. It did say to “Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze”. Yeah, like that will help. No wonder Arizona has one of the highest infection rates in the world right now.

Regardless, the country is beautiful, and my senses are delighted. So is my mind — I was a geophysics major in college.

Century plants and veined rock formations

Emerging into mesa country, I followed US 191 and Highway 61 into New Mexico and Zuni indian lands. 191 is one of my favorite highways, as further south it twists through spectacular canyons and the copper mining town of Morenci on the eastern side of Arizona. It used to be called US 666, until some Christian group raised a ruckus about it, and a hapless government official caved and renamed it.

Now I’m within striking range of my next destination, Santa Fe. The empty road weaves across mesas, around outcrops, through reservation land, and past spectacular cliffs and arches.

Arriving at sunset at our dear friend Shannon’s house, my day of sensory delights is capped by New Mexico’s signature riot of color in the sky. I’m saturated, feeling like my eyeballs need to re-integrate with the rest of my body. It’s completely peaceful and quiet, though I’m only a few blocks away from the central plaza in town. I could live here.

walkabout west, part 1

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Sep 202020

Sheltering in place for 6 months has been good, but it’s time for an exploration. I’m learning that this is a good and necessary part of my soul, both the comfort and security of my home with Jen, and traveling out into the world. We usually do it together…aaaand we (or certainly I) need some time apart. So I’ve concocted a trip, to visit friends and family, in a big circular loop down through the desert to Arizona and New Mexico, and then north to Idaho. I’ve set aside two weeks, and am now spending my first night sitting at a campsite all by myself, with a hot tub, at 6000 feet.

My vehicle this time is a 2013 BMW X5, newly acquired after selling my Mini Cooper and our Jeep Cherokee. The X5 is the most luxurious thing I’ve ever owned, a modern, quiet and capable piece of German engineering, 5000 pounds and 300 horsepower, with leather seats and more convenient widgets than I can comprehend. She is black with tinted windows, a somewhat Darth Vader-like vehicle with tons of room. A friend suggested the name “Obsidian”, which just works. She calls one to competence, just like the mineral, and every meaning and association with the short name “Obi” works for me. I have a trusty companion on this adventure. Jen snapped this photo just before I started today, firewood, camping gear, water, computer…and my favorite hat, jeans, comfy cotton. I will be adventuring in Trump Country, my friends, and I need an anonymous western presence. And…this is pretty essentially me, I’ve always dressed this way, old habits from my Arizona upbringing.

The best laid plans…I was going to take California Highway 4 to 120, then head east across the mountains to Benton Hot Springs. The first part and the end of the day all worked out fine, but I missed the turnoff to 120, and crossed the Sierras on Highway 4. Not a problem, it just means I’ll arrive close to sunset. This is a remarkable cross section of the state: one travels through the delta over levies and bridges, seeing boats on waterways and small institutions offering food, drinks and live bait, interspersed with almond orchards and a few small towns. Then there is a confusing series of onramps, multilane highways and off-ramps that pop you over and through Stockton, back onto twisty two-lane roads east across the valley. More orchards, rolling brown hills with cattle, then Highway 4 takes you into the Sierras. I don’t think I’ve driven it all the way through before. The road is narrow, like 1-1/2 lanes, as it goes through towering Ponderosa pine up and up, into granite reality. There was little traffic, and Doc Watson on the stereo couldn’t alleviate my awareness of quiet and sadness in the land. This year has been tough on all of us, and the loss of Ruth Bader Gisburg and the coming election create a lot of fear and anxiety in almost all of the people I know and love.

Past forest fires have left a lot of scars, and current fires fill the air with haze. I drove through 50 miles of burnt forest. Ebbets and Monitor passes are over 8000 feet high, with stunted trees transitioning to high desert. The usual vast vista was barely visible through the smoke. With no cell coverage, I was relying on the compass (in the rear view mirror, how cool is that?) to assure me I was heading east. Dropping down to US 395, I cruised south from Topaz through Bridgeport, finally reaching Lee Vining and the barely-visible Mono Lake, to rejoin Highway 120 and head east. As I drive south, the smoke gets heavier until the Sierras themselves are hard to see, and the setting sun illuminates dark drifting clouds of smoke everywhere.

I turn east on Highway 120, where the smoke and the smell of burnt forest gets heavier. Finally after cresting a ridge, the air starts to clear as it gets darker after sunset. The last dozen miles to my camp site are a relief, as I can see the landscape again, and breathe normally.

Now I’m nestled into Benton Hot Springs for the night, a new place for me. It’s beautifully quiet, with widely separated campsites mostly populated by couples. I hear a child laughing in the distance, and an infant crying for a bit, while folk talk and laugh and splash in the hot tubs a hundred yards away. Conditions are so dry I can’t use the fire pit, so I dive in to my excessive camping supplies, silently eat dinner and fix a margarita, thoughtful.

So far the trip has been a journey down and in. The air is dry and clear, and the tub is warm enough to use, but not hot. I move the sprinkler that delivers hot water so it’s under the surface, for maximum heating. Crickets provide background music, while a blood-red crescent moon descends over the mountains I can no longer see in the darkness. It feels both good and a little sad to come to extreme stillness after a half day of driving. When I was younger, these adventures always felt exciting at the beginning, with scarcely a thought of what I was leaving behind. Now, I find myself feeling both the separation from home and the pleasure of solitude. One of the benefits of getting older, I guess — we can experience several feelings at the same time. I wonder what lies ahead.

the great reset

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May 092020

There is an incredible shift happening in our culture, our relationship with the world, and each of us individually. Just on the face of it, this graph from the CDC shows that, in three months, 1 in 170 people in the USA have become infected. The infection rate is still running 25,000 new cases each day, and even starting to trend up again, while states and cities are relaxing the social distancing rules. There will be thousands of new cases each day for many months, and probably a huge second wave in the fall. We are in this for the long-haul, my friends.

This pandemic has killed more US citizens than the Vietnam war and the Korean War put together, soon more than we lost in World War I. By the end of the year, it will almost certainly be a quarter of a million. World wide, cases are still climbing rapidly.

It’s almost as though the planet is having a Bob Newhart moment, “just stop it! “ Air pollution is way down, octopus are returning to the canals of Venice… it’s as though a planetary reset is occurring, shifting governments, politics, industry, economics — the very fabric of humanity.

“American exceptionalism” is on its way out the door, dissolving faster than snow in on hot plate. Far from exhibiting global leadership, we have become the location of the biggest devastation from this virus, we have one of the highest infection rates in the world, we have shown the poorest response by encouraging businesses and states to open back up even as the mortality rate is climbing, we are the butt of international jokes, and other countries are sending us aid (thank you!) Of course, our global influence was waning before the virus hit, thanks to the idiot we elected to the presidency, but I digress.

This is a collective ego death. Whoever we thought we were as Americans was mortally wounded by 9/11, and the virus is finishing the job. We have been the biggest consumer of global resources, and now we are the biggest recipients of this pandemic. I can only hope that we emerge from this with more collective humility.

The economic reset is vast. Twitter now allows all employees to work from home. Many closed restaurants, movie theaters and other venues will never re-open. An acupuncturist friend is closing her office in San Francisco, permanently. With unemployment perhaps heading for 30% (Depression-era levels),bankruptcies on the rise, airlines and aircraft manufacturers on the brink of failure, sports seasons shut down…

Nearly all of us seem to be reexamining something fundamental about how we live and what we do. If we weren’t already working from home before COVID-19, we are now — and mostly liking it. In my tech-centric circles, we’ve been doing this for years, but now I’m hearing from friends in other careers who are seriously making changes. People who work in schools, or commute to non-profits are giving up their positions or changing their agreements to support work from home.

No one wants to expose themselves or their loved ones to the virus, so airlines, public transit, bars and restaurants, hotels, the cruise industry and international travel will take a long time to recover. No one wants to spend their day in a high-rise with a shared ventilation system, or get on a plane, or go to a movie theater.

I’ve read at least six articles about Americans moving out of cities or emigrating to other countries, because they are realizing they don’t need to live the same way after months of sheltering in place. Why live in a city where everything costs more, and you can’t go out for food or entertainment? This should be devastating to real estate in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York and other urban centers with pricey real estate.

Kids are schooling from home, forcing us to spend more time parenting and examining our family values. I have no doubt this is causing a ton of stress, both for kids with less social life, and parents working from home who have to manage their kids full time.

However.

It’s almost like when I was a kid, before cell phones and computers. Games and jigsaw puzzles and books are super popular, kids playing ball in the street, everyone experimenting with baking, arts & crafts, gardening and growing vegetables.

The space we’re creating between each other is allowing us to introspect, and make new choices. With less crowding, less commuting and more time to feel ourselves, we can sort through our obligations and expectations and concepts of who we are, and find what is most meaningful. My partner and I are having some of the deepest conversations of our relationship. I’m

These two resets, our larger society and our inner selves, are coming together for political change. Black Lives Matter. Car caravans are stopping traffic, marches have shut down the Golden Gate bridge several times, Minneapolis is disbanding their police department. Yesterday, we watched several hundred cars assemble on our street, full of signs, music and kids, for a BLM drive across Marin, and as I’m writing, there is a large rally happening down the street at the school.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we are seeing such an outpouring of political protest right now. Stuck at home and many without jobs, people are looking to find something to make this time meaningful and important. Pushing for political change is one way to do that.

And I’m anticipating an explosion of creativity, new business models, and a new relationships with government and each other that must be coming. Even as our economy and our livelihood collapses and shifts. I can only pray that we can navigate this time without either global or civil war.

fireball

Geek 1 Response »

Jan 272020

The house shook yesterday at 4:36pm. It was a single shock, rattling the windows but doing no damage. Jen and I speculated about it over a glass of wine. Earthquake? There was no record of an earthquake on the US Geological Survey earthquake tracking site. Sonic boom? That was my best guess, although it would have to be a military aircraft, and they have strict standing orders not to fly supersonic around populated areas. I remember how a supersonic fighter broke a couple of hundred windows in Tucson when I was a kid in the mid-60’s, but I digress…

Speculation was rampant on our nextdoor.com neighborhood site, as people all over Fairfax reported experiencing the same thing. Finally, one of the residents in the area nailed it — we had a big meteor, a fireball, cruise right over the middle of the bay area at 4:33pm! The picture is from the American Meteor Society tracking section, showing a dozen reports from observers that enabled them to estimate the path of the fireball. Sure wish I’d seen it!

These things start to burn up at around 50 or 70 miles up in the atmosphere, and can make it all the way to the ground on occasion (a meteorite). According to the witnesses, this fireball burned up in the air, so it was probably a baseball-sized rock. It was traveling way faster than the speed of sound, perhaps five or ten miles per second, so it created a hell of a sonic boom.

My brain cheerfully digests data like this. One witness in Tomales (not too far away) reported hearing the sonic boom 3-4 minutes after seeing the meteor. That totally makes sense — we heard it at 4:36, sound travels about 1 mile every 5 seconds, so 3-4 minutes would be 36 to 48 miles away. The flight path over southern Marin was about 9 miles away from us, so the fireball was roughly 35 to 45 miles up in the atmosphere. The math checks.

More interesting is how I feel after a nearby cosmic event. This little chunk of rock traveled around our solar system (or further, who knows?) for probably millions or billions of years, to end it’s life in a 10-second encounter with our precious atmosphere. If it had been bigger, there would be a hole somewhere near Concord now, and if it had been the size of a bus, the hole would be pretty damn big. I am reminded how precious our lives are, how ephemeral, and how easily I take myself and world events so seriously. I vow to savor my day today.

new neighbor

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Jan 062020

One of the pleasures of living on the outskirts of Fairfax is that we are in contact with wildlife, though I seldom comment on it. From the beginning when I was camping on the hillside above the house during construction, I knew this spot was going to expose us to deer, skunk, raccoon, fox, owls, hawks, vultures and dozens of kinds of birds, several kinds of snakes, and perhaps bobcat. I’ve not been disappointed, I’ve seen all of them.

NorthernPacificrattlesnakeonGlenDrive-2020-01-6-13-41.jpg — Northern pacific rattlesnake, about 32″, in front of our house

The neighborhood got a real wake-up call three weeks ago, when several folks on nextdoor.com reported seeing a mountain lion on the other side of the ridge behind our house. We probably see 50 people a day walking their dogs on the street and on the trails of our canyon, and the word spread quickly: we are in cougar country. Perhaps little Fluffy should be on a leash after all.

Also called cougars, panthers and pumas, Puma Concolor were hunted to extinction in many parts of the US. Not so in California, where they are a protected species, and their population has recovered to the point they are now sighted on the edges of towns. If you want some idea, go check out the Bay Area Puma Project website, where you can see records of many sightings in the San Francisco area.

Then a couple of days ago, our neighbor told us she saw what was probably the same mountain lion crossing our street near our houses at around 5pm. Aaack, that is close!

Finally, last night while hiking the trail across the canyon from our house around 5:30pm, we heard a weird sound, like a child crying, up the hill above the trail. At first, we were sure it was a child, and we are wondering if we should go investigate. The sound moves toward the trail ahead of us. Then it turns into a cat fight. Big cats. We can’t see anything, and choosing discretion over valor, we scramble back down the hill, away from the fracas.

We feel adrenaline for hours. The experience was unreal, especially since I had spent the first part of the hike telling Jen about the neighborhood discussion. Did I manifest this experience by putting my energy into it?

Of course, I had to search the inter-tubes for information. It didn’t take long to find this YouTube video, confirming the sound we heard. One of my friends pointed out that it might have been two cougars mating. Sure enough, more searching reveals that they generally mate in December through March…and cougar screams are associated with mating activities.

So I feel surprised and honored to experience this. And living with one or several large predators in the neighborhood, changes how I feel on some primitive level. When I’m outside, some part of me is just aware. There really isn’t any danger, as I’m sure they are well fed, and cougars generally avoid all human contact.

Still, a 6-foot, 180-pound cat is a presence to reckon with. And much more immediate and interesting than the daily soap opera of our national government.

ttitd iv

Geek, Reflection, Travel 1 Response »

Sep 192019

This was my fourth year at Burning Man, my first solo trip, and my first art build. Last year at this time, Jen an I were wiped out after nine days on the playa, and the noise and chaos at the end of the week as ten thousand party peeps arrived for the weekend. This year, I left Saturday morning, feeling replete and happy. And really dusty.

This is how we have camped the last couple of times. Actually a photo from 2018, it looked pretty much the same this year, except I was packed in on all sides by other Westys (here is what it looked like in 2015). The popup shade structure is quick and easy, and the shade netting totally helps with wind, privacy and temperature. I added more solar lights this year, so home was easy to find at 3am.

The art project was Purr Pods, by Paige Tascher, one of my campmates. I worked on it with her for 3 months. Three welded steel cats, with LED lighting, illuminated eyes and hearts, and sound transducers and touch sensors. They each had separate personalities, with sounds recorded from Paige’s cat collection. Touching them elicited purring sound and vibration, plus entertaining yowls and mews. The project was a total hit, appearing in a “ten best art pieces” article. Here are some pics of the build, the truck that took them to the playa, and finally a video.

On their way to the playa.

Saturday, just before the general admission opened. All ready for the week ahead!

Here they are at night! Check out to see how they actually look and sound!

Alas, I had to miss the final build on the playa. On my way up (via our cabin in Lassen) the water pump blew in Mz Parker. I limped the final 25 miles to the cabin, started tearing the engine down to remove and replace the water pump…

…and discovered that the water pump (right photo, black thing in the center) body extends underneath the timing belt cover (gray thing on the right). Requiring removal of the exhaust system, exhaust manifold, timing belt cover, belt and sprockets. At that point, I called a tow truck, and found a good shop down in Chico do to the surgery. So instead of arriving on Tuesday, five days early, I didn’t get there until Saturday, just before it opened.

(The three day adventure in Chico was a whole experience of it’s own — I arrived too late to rent a car, hiked most of the way across town to one of the last hotel rooms available, lived out of a small backpack for a couple of days, and finally borrowed a Westy from the shop to go back up to the cabin while they finished the work.)

Saturday I headed east early, through Chester and Susanville, took my 66-mile dirt road shortcut from Susanville to Gerlach, and arrived midday. The Purr Pods were all set up, so all I could do was set up camp, and pull out several liters of frozen margaritas for my camp mates.

Art work was fabulous this year. Here is the Shrine of Sympathetic Resonance, made of piano innards and full of sacred geometry. Absolutely beautiful, full of thoughtful feelings and soft sounds.

The Folly was another wild building full of amusing surprises. It burned at midnight on Friday, and here you can see the fire tornadoes spinning off the huge blaze.

You want to know what it’s like out there in the middle of the night? Here is short video. And more photos.

The Temple of Direction, an incredible mechanized Pegasus in Center Camp, another view of the Shrine of Sympathetic Resonance, and an interactive light tent that drew lots of visitors.

My eight days were a curious mixture of freedom and loneliness, pleasure and service, with a liberal sprinkling of tequila, music and laughter. It was my first burn without Jen, so most of my experiences were solitary. It always takes me a little time to settle into myself when traveling solo, even surrounded by friends and familiar faces. By my third day, emerging from the Westy at dawn, I realized that it felt like I’d been there for a year. Perhaps our nomadic selves are never far away; I’ve had this feeling on backpacking trips as well.

The serendipity of Burning Man is always astounding — a friend of a friend camped with me in a tent, and somehow I knew when she was driving up, walking right out to greet her, even though I had never met her before and had no idea what kind of car she had. I did a lot of energy work and massage that seemed to be just what was needed, and had many amazing and deep conversations with strangers that illuminated both of us in profound ways. That’s the magic of the playa.

I love VW Bus Camp, and our pop-up village of self-sufficient iconoclasts. Unlike many camps, we have no shared infrastructure or dues (though someone did bring a very artistic shower device for all to use!) We had the Leopard Lounge set up again this year, a place of music, tequila and foot rubs. I spent time there each day, socializing, resting, doing energy work on visitors and soaking up the spontaneity.

Here is another little video. Eric is playing Johnny Cash, Bingo handing out tequila shots, and a crew of volunteers play percussion and give foot rubs.

By Saturday, I felt complete, so I packed up camp and headed west across the desert at midday. Dusty, happy, unshaven, thoughtful and full of feeling. I will be back next year, this is too good to miss.

not the ohio buckeyes

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Jan 202019

As we settle into the deep part of winter, letting go of the excitement of the holidays, it’s sometimes hard for me to be completely present with the season. We are dug in deep in ourselves, the season of death and rebirth. A deep lunar eclipse is coming tonight, time to release the old and welcome the new.. I am saddened that the poet Mary Oliver passed away a few days ago. I find myself looking forward to spring. “When would you like to go up to Lassen and open the cabin?”

While it’s appropriate to start planning spring and summer, there are special delights in the here and now. Some of it is introspection; I’m contemplating what is truly fulfilling for me, having released my career and identity as a software architect. I’m finding fulfillment in small pieces, by being as present and as receptive as I can, following small impulses and delights to see what fruit they bear…

A couple of days ago, Jen and I hiked a local trail loop that took us through a nearby neighborhood, where we found dozens of chestnut-looking objects scattered on the side of the road. Many of them were cracking open, with an emerging shoot reaching down toward the earth. Looking up the hill, it appeared then came from a large tree with a short trunk, and being the nerds we are, we both want to figure out what we were looking at. Jen found the answer first. These are nuts from a California Buckeye, Aesculus californica. We’ve both seen them on the ground before, and the trees are especially notable in the spring when they show beautiful large cones of white flowers.

Somewhere in my dim brain, I imagine these growing around my house and across the street, where 40-year-old Monterey pines are dying one by one and leaving lots of space for something new. I let the impulse flower into a project, and yesterday morning, I hop on my trail bike for the first time in a year, and take off to go pick some buckeye chestnuts I can plant.

The first thing I discover is that I’m really out of shape. Biking is not the same as Hiking! Huffing and puffing up the canyon at the end of our street, I take the trail loop that will return me to the neighborhood where we saw all the nuts on the ground. After perhaps ten minutes, I’m seriously winded, and stop up on the hillside across the canyon from our house to catch my breath. Nice muddy day, cool and cloudy, I’m enjoying myself, looking across at our house from a rare vantage point even as I wonder if I’m having a cardiac event. Turning to look up hill, I see many dozens of buckeye nuts on the ground not ten feet away, fallen from a huge 30-foot-wide tree.

Being a mental type, I have to think about my discovery for a second and compare my original target to this new bounty, but It doesn’t take long to jettison Plan A and take advantage of my windfall. The serendipity of it is amusing, especially because I momentarily consider continuing my ride to the original site where we first saw the sprouting nuts. How did I just happen to stop here, at the only buckeye tree on this trail? I hop off my bike, pick up a dozen nuts, and take the shorter path home.

Now I’ve planted them all around my house and across the street, and feel quite pleased with myself. I will need to protect the sprouts from deer, so fruition will take ongoing effort. However fulfillment is in the moment, not in the completion of a 20-year growing project. Mid-winter has its pleasures. Mary Oliver said it well,

Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

a lesson in lighting

House Building 2 Responses »

Dec 072018

One of the joys of home ownership is an ever-present task list. When we finished building our home ten years ago, I made a list of 50-odd things that required completion, most of which still await my attention. Some items have been added and resolved, like the failed foundation sump pump I spent two days replacing last month, or the tree that came down in September. However this is the happy story of knocking an old item off my list.

During construction, we purchased two large pieces of silk-and-wood-stamped artwork from our dear talented friend, Tomoko Murakami. Tomoko taught me how to make silk art more than 15 years ago, and you can see the pieces on her website, Yusaifu #7, Blue and Red. These 70”x80” translucent panels were perfect for the large walls of the house, so we designed light boxes into our central stairwell landings, sized exactly for them.

…Except that we were so out of money, we couldn’t finish the lighting and mounting. So I carefully hung them in front of the boxes, where they looked interesting — but not exactly stunning — without back light. I don’t think a single guest has commented on them over the years, which perhaps tells you just how important proper lighting is for visual artwork.

Meanwhile, lighting technology has progressed in good ways. Back then, it would have required maybe six hundred watts of Lutron-dimmable fluorescent lights, and the $3000 was just not in our budget. Now we can buy strips of warm efficient LED lights with electronic dimmable power supplies…and 300 watts of lighting at a cost of $700 is sufficient for the whole project.

So I did it. The house is transformed, the dimly-lit stairs are now bathed in gorgeous color, and the core of the house has a luminescence that carries throughout, into all the rooms and out onto the street at night. Tomoko, I bow to your creativity, and Nancy, I bow to your vision. I feel replete.

Although it’s not yet done. Now I must fabricate the frames that will finish off the pieces. One more item back on the list.

24 volt transformer and LED strips behind the art panels

westy guts, part III

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Oct 172018

I’ve saved the best for last. The final task in this project is to replace the heater fan. This is not for the faint-of-heart, as the fan is deep inside a sealed heater box, bolted to the front of the body, buried under wiring, hot water hoses, and the dashboard. I started the process more than two weeks ago, by removing the instrument panel, the steering wheel and glove compartment, unbolting the steering column, then disconnecting all the various switches, the radio, lighter, heater controls and lighting controls in the dash. Six screws and four bolts later, with by a lot of tugging and cursing, I have the dash panel up and out.

This is scary work. I’ve never done it, I don’t know what headaches I will find, I hope I don’t break anything, and I hope I can get it all back together without paying someone $$$ to fix something I messed up. I’m driven by the fact that I can take the time to do a good thorough job. I can clean things, replace worn bits that would otherwise never see the light of day. I’m also driven by cost: it would probably cost me over a thousand dollars to have a mechanic replace the heater fan.

I’ve worked on the mysterious guts of cars before. I know some tricks, I have a lot of tools, and I have all the time I need. So in I go. For example, I label the wires and control cables as they are disconnected, so I have a hope of getting them back in the right place. This is methodical work, one cannot hurry, for the penalty of error will almost certainly be painfully expensive. So I took a couple of days to extract the heater box, working for an hour or two at a time, then taking a break and contemplating the next steps. It all went well. Voila, the heater box is out (photo below), drooling radiator fluid on the driveway.

I’m going to explain the next week of work, not so much to torture you, but to remind myself of the journey. After all, the climb to the top of Mount Everest is more interesting if you include the weeks of planning, preparation, travel and trekking in order to get to the base camp! Also, the information may be of use to other intrepid Westfalia owners; probably all old Westys will eventually require this job.

Now that I’m this deep into the innards of Mz. P, a place I never want to venture again, I’m fixing everything I can. The fan has arrived, ready for transplant. I have a new heater core coming, along with a wiper motor and new control cables. I’m cleaning everything I can reach — you can see how much playa dust is all over the black heater box — and the inside of the dash is a tangled mess of decades of wiring bodges. Upon pulling the box, I had my first unpleasant surprise: under a layer of ancient duct tape, is a big melted hole on the cover. Apparently some time perhaps 20 years ago, a prior owner burned something in the ash tray positioned right over the top of the box, destroying the ash tray, melted the top of the box and making a hole right through. I cannot imagine how they did this without causing a major fire!

My first task is to separate the two halves with a putty knife and sharp blade, clean the box, and fabricate a patch for the hole out of steel plate (a standard electrical junction box cover) and JB Weld epoxy. This takes all morning. The afternoon is spent installing the new fan and heater core into the heater box, with foam tape sealing the parts into place. All the sealing foam on the control vents in the box are crumbling from old age, so another few hours are spent scraping off old foam, and replacing it with new foam tape. This heater has always leaked hot air — unpleasant on a summer day in the central valley — so hopefully the rebuilt box will work better. I got custom whizbang $3.95 clips from the VW dealer to hold the heater box back together. I’m now well past the halfway point on the project.

There is another day of detail work. The new wiper motor arrives, so I spent a few hours disassembling the wiper mechanism, greasing all pivots, and replacing the motor. I also cleaned up some of the wiring for the radio, re-routing speaker wires in an attempt to get rid of the persistent buzzing sound in the rear speakers. When I temporarily plugged the radio in, the noise was gone! Thank god, that was an annoying problem. And I replaced the panel lights for the heater controls, lighter, and rear heater fan. I’m hoping we will be able to see the controls at night now.

Oh, speaking of lighting, I also ordered LED headlight bulbs, LED tail light bulbs, turn signals and backup lights, and new smoke-colored lenses to replace the cracked rear lights. After three hours of work they are all installed, and the rear of the van looks a bit more modern. Also, the LED headlights are hella bright!

Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly, as they say, and my methodological approach pays off. The heater box bolts back in place without a hitch, hoses reconnect easily (I used a watering can to pre-fill the heater core so I wouldn’t have to burp air out of the cooling system), and control cables reattached with only a little cursing. I had to spend some time adjusting them into the right positions, so that the control levers worked properly. Next time (hopefully never happening) I will mark the cable locations to make it easier 🙂

A long strap looped over the top of the cab helps me suspend the dashboard and move it gradually into place. As I proceed, I make sure all heater vent hoses and electrical switches are connected, fished the radio wiring out through the hole in the dash where the radio goes, and pulling instrument cluster wiring up through the appropriate holes. The heater control panel screws right into place. Lowering the dash with the strap, I am able to reinstall it by myself without pinching anything.

The reassembly takes all day, but by sunset, I have it all buttoned up, with the steering column bolted back into place and the steering wheel aligned and bolted properly (I remembered to mark THAT one before removing it, fortunately!)

The heater works! The dash lights work! Today, I am driving down to Santa Barbara for a little adventure of my own, and — other than one vent that needs the hose reattached — I’ve had no problems at all. In fact, it all looks like nothing happened.

But I know better. I have confronted my fear, spent more than two weeks inside mysterious, seldom-seen parts of Mz. P, and fixed everything. Plus I have a deep, deep sense of satisfaction, knowing her more intimately, reminding myself that I have patience, skill and experience, and saving a bucket of money.

This is actually a lot more fun than my career ever was.

westy guts, part II

Geek Comments Off

Oct 022018

The Westy resurrection includes fixing a fuel problem. At highway speeds and full throttle (occasionally, she gets going fast enough to pass someone!) the engine will hesitate like there is fuel starvation. Our fuel pressure gauge confirms a big pressure drop, so when we got home, I did my research. It turns out that the original design of the system (fixed the year AFTER our girl was built) was flawed. I can just replace the fuel filter until it happens again, but the real fix is to swap in parts for a later model year. There is another problem too — when we fill the tank full, some fuel drips out of an inaccessible vent hose, so the rubber hoses have degraded. You see, vehicles in 1985 were not built for gasoline that contains ethanol, and modern gas corrodes the original hoses. Knowing she has the original tank, almost certainly rusty, and a fuel level sender that has, let us say, a lot of character, I’m replacing the whole thing with new parts that avoid both of these problems permanently.

It’s always a moral and ethical dilemma for a mechanic: is the quick fix good enough, or do I take the time and money to really resolve the problem? Sometimes I go one way, sometimes the other. I know I have to drop the tank to fix the vent hoses, I want the fuel system to be utterly reliable, and I don’t want to change the fuel filter every few months because it gets clogged with rust from the tank. And I don’t want to have to ever work on this part of her again — one has to drain the tank before removing it, and there is no way to do this job without smelling like gasoline for a day.

I’ve become the nexus for parts packages from all over the country (see Part I: heater fan, tail light parts, LED bulbs), and the first to arrive are the fuel system parts. A shiny new gas tank, fuel sender, vent hoses, gaskets, fuel filter and clamps to put it all together. So I don my mechanic’s one-piece pullover, rubber gloves, and wade into the fray. The partially-disassembled dash can wait.

After about two hours, the front of my modern house is looking quite out of place for Fairfax. The front of Mz. Parker is up on ramps. Tools and parts, a pan of gasoline and rags and a jack are strewn about, and the first half of the transplant is complete. I am grimy, looking and smelling like The Dud from the game Mystery Date, if you are old enough to remember that. The filthy rusty tank with rotting hoses is lying in my driveway.

Installation of the shiny new bits was not too bad, perhaps 2 hours start to finish. There was one moment when I’m lying on my back under the new fuel tank, supporting it with my knees and chest, as I reached as far as I could over the top of the tank to plug the overflow balance hose into grommets on either side. The hose has to go OVER a bunch of stuff in the middle of the chassis, running down through the indent in the top of the tank. It took all my strength, ten minutes of wrestling and a healthy array of curses in multiple languages to get the little fucker plugged in. As I read long ago in an ancient E. E. Smith Lensman sci-fi novel, “I could eat a handful of iron filings and puke a better design than that!” .

There is a place where channeled fury and sheer determination makes all the difference between success and failure. I was about ready to give up on the hose installation at one point. However, one more all-out attempt, reaching into the 2-inch space with snarling sound effects and bruised knuckles leveraging off the grimy underside of the body, and the connector popped into place. Once I had the tank bolted up, I finished the plumbing with a series of short hose pieces connecting the tank, fuel pump, fuel filter, fuel pressure sensor andima line going to the engine. I cleaned and replaced the filler tube, plugged in and clamped the (five!) vent hoses, dumped in a bit of gas, and she fired right up with nary a leak. My First Major Accomplishment on this adventure is done.

The new fuel tank gleams in the bottom of the photo, and new fuel line links the pump, filter and fuel pressure sensor.

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