[Nuke]

alaska has some wierd liquor laws. in az i could go to walmart and get my whiskey and cola on the same aisle. here in petersburg i cant even get booze and non-booze from the same building. some of the bigger towns, like juneau, have the liquor stores in the same building, but separated from each other so you have to check out twice. not sure how many states are like that (maybe az is the oddball).

i figure the way around the dui is to give the keys to the bartender (maybe have them unlock your van for you), go to your van, and sleep it off. id have a hard time seeing how a dui would hold up in court if you didnt have access to your car keys when they caught you in your van completely plastered. since youre parked right there, you can pick up your keys later the next day. remember what the d stands for, so if you give the cops no indication that your planning to drive, like sitting in the drivers seat or fumbling with your keys, then they probably wouldn't bother with you. they might ask you a few questions and look around abit, and if they dont find your keys on you they probably would just let you off with a warning.

[Kusanagi]

Do you worry about getting a DUI if you have a few beers and sleep in your van?  Not sure about the laws out there but every state around here considered having your keys in your possession and being in your vehicle a DUI offense. 

The DUI laws out here depend on the cop. Basically, they can charge you with DUI if they suspect intent to drive. If you're passed out in the drivers seat with the keys in the ignition, the cop can determine that you intended to drive. If your keys are in your pocket and you're in the backseat however, it's difficult to prove and unless the cop is being a jackass should have no problem with you sleeping it off. I've never had the issue relating to a DUI specifically but given the bed is in the back and I would have the keys on the desk by it, it would be very hard to argue that I was going anywhere.

i'd say the chances of a cop checking to see if a parked van has someone in it who may have been drinking are pretty low.

They are higher than you think. I get "investigated" by the cops once or twice a month, either because I parked somewhere new or because they just want to check it out. Never gotten fined or arrested. Most police see that I live in the vehicle, and since it's set up so nicely, determine that I'm not causing trouble and just trying to blend in. I try to be stealthy. More than one has asked for a tour when I open the doors and crawl out.

I looked into it, and besides the legality issues (I don't have any qualms using an unsecured connection but actively cracking one is a bit more than that) aircrack doesn't support the card in my laptop or my external USB one

I don't see any legality issues as long as you don't crack someone else's security. Putting your wireless card into monitor mode is definitely not a legal issue. On the other hand, sucky it doesn't support your wireless cards; it's a fun and handy piece of software.

FUBAR-BDHR is quite correct by the way about the getting a dui from simply leaving the bar and getting in your car and not go anywhere to get a dui. Happens all the time here in alaska, it's a little ****ed. Least to say, don't drive to bars, and keep your drinking on the down low in your van i guess.

Well what else is there to do in Alaska?  

[Nuke]

Well what else is there to do in Alaska? 

hunting, fishing, boating, snowboarding, lots of places to fly rc aircraft, screwing native women, the list goes on and on.

[Mongoose]

alaska has some wierd liquor laws. in az i could go to walmart and get my whiskey and cola on the same aisle. here in petersburg i cant even get booze and non-booze from the same building. some of the bigger towns, like juneau, have the liquor stores in the same building, but separated from each other so you have to check out twice. not sure how many states are like that (maybe az is the oddball).

In Pennsylvania, for whatever reason, private retailers can't even sell hard liquor; you have to go to a state-run "wine and spirits shop" to get your fill.  The state is attempting some experimental wine-selling locations in supermarkets, though, and I think individual wineries can sell their own products on-site.

[S-99]

Well what else is there to do in Alaska?  

With a 7 month winter, it can get dark, cold, and boring real fast. So i carry on my normal summer activities on into winter. Bike riding, potato guns, walking for miles on end, blowing stuff up, going to the bar, etc. Winter depression hits for a lot of people because of the constant dark during winter. So i try not to change my habits much from summer aside from wearing a warm hat, hoodie, and gloves. Then go home to a nice brightly lit room. It keeps me sane for the winter. The majority of winter is spent outside doing a lot of weird activities with my friends.

As far as my drinking rules that i practice and try to get other people to practice. Plebians claim to not understand them (they just have a hard time pointing themselves in the direction of thought B after reason A). Then again, that was the stupid girl that liked me that drove to the bar, drank 8 beers, and drove home after she claimed i was trying to control her when i told her it's not a good idea to drive drunk (now expressing for worrying about someones well being equals control...so does stating the obvious)

Don't drink far from home, don't drive to bars, drink responsibly, don't do any drugs while drinking, don't drink too much. And my own rule for me being, don't hook up at bars Tired of picking up alcoholics, women with kids, or people with problems (you don't date someone to manage and help fix their problems, that's called rehab). Going to the bar is now just to hang out and make friends with people i don't know and have fun.

[Nuke]

down here in the southeast, our winters aren't as severe, and i wish we would get more snow than rain, but we dont. you just dont want to go outside as much. i dont change my wardrobe much, i just wear a heavy leather jacket, which is somewhat waterproof, on top of what i usually wear in the summer. my sister's family usually heads to juneau to work for the winter, so theres not a whole lot i do here. i kind of live off the government so i dont work at all. i just put more time into projects during the winter, and watch more tv. when they get back in the spring its back to romping around the woods with guns and explosives, or on the boat with fishing poles and crab pots (and sometimes vise versa).

[Kusanagi]

Heat waves suck.

[Kusanagi]

I learned today that deep cycle batteries only last for about 18 months under continuous use. Oy.

[Nuke]

my sister and the rest of the inlaws, who live in the bush, use 2 forklift batteries on an inverter for nighttime power, and go with a diesel generator during the day. its a pretty badass setup. of course all the hardware is way too big for a van.

i wonder how well a lithium polymer array would work. i got an 11.1v battery (same ones you use on hobby grade rc vehicles) you can draw 15 (20 theoretically) amps from, and you can get higher voltage and higher discharge batteries. about 10 of those in parallel might be able to run your inverter. of course the complexity of charging lithium polymer batteries might make the whole setup difficult to use. each battery is 3 3.7v cells in series, which have to be balanced to the same charge level. might be better to isolate the cells into parallel banks of 10 running 3 of those in series. might also have to boost the voltage from 11.1 to 12 if your inverter is anal about its input voltage. might be better to go with 4 cell batteries (14.8v) and use a switched mode voltage regulator to drop it to 12. this means you could draw slightly more current than the battery rating, since the batteries are being switched on and off there is a cool down period between the hot state, still have a fan bank keep the batteries cold when the inverter is on.

[headdie]

tbh mate I think you deserve a HLP Legend badge or something for not only surviving in the van but seemingly doing quite well out of it

[S-99]

This is fun now. Discussing ways to go off of the grid. Me and my room mate toss the idea around all the time for thought process and plausibility.

The first idea was to have a bunch of car batteries you charge by peddling a bike. Then that turned into getting a dog to run on a big wheel to do the same thing. Obviously not plausible.

The best thing we came up with for going off of the grid for power was utilizing a diesel or gasoline powered generator. A good way to get that is right in an automobile. You're battery gets charged all the time when you drive. We made  a little plan to hook up  the volkswagon that gets 30mpg to the house. Need to recharge the batteries, leave the car in neutral and have it automatically start when power is too low (silenoid switch i guess), and have the car rev the gas peddle until adequate charge is built back up (some mechanization required for that).

Up here in alaska, you're paying for petroleum to give you electricity through the grid (horrible, but i want power). Paying for gas in your car with a high mpg should cost about the same if not be cheaper. But, in the end, it would be a lot cheaper since you can just turn off the power when you go to bed. Lastly, the vehicle being the generator doesn't need to be insured since you don't drive it anywhere.

This situation i describe is only good if you have a house and you don't use that much power anyway, along with being electricity efficient also. 3 light bulbs light up the place just fine, a laptop and 2 desktop computers. And that's how i have the $33 a month electric bill. There's ways to make this place more efficient too on electricity and heat too that are going to happen next.

[Liberator]

I think S-99 that you will find that the grid is annoying as hell yes, but also far more efficient than a single high MPG car hooked to a gennie.

[Nuke]

This is fun now. Discussing ways to go off of the grid. Me and my room mate toss the idea around all the time for thought process and plausibility.

The first idea was to have a bunch of car batteries you charge by peddling a bike. Then that turned into getting a dog to run on a big wheel to do the same thing. Obviously not plausible.

The best thing we came up with for going off of the grid for power was utilizing a diesel or gasoline powered generator. A good way to get that is right in an automobile. You're battery gets charged all the time when you drive. We made  a little plan to hook up  the volkswagon that gets 30mpg to the house. Need to recharge the batteries, leave the car in neutral and have it automatically start when power is too low (silenoid switch i guess), and have the car rev the gas peddle until adequate charge is built back up (some mechanization required for that).

Up here in alaska, you're paying for petroleum to give you electricity through the grid (horrible, but i want power). Paying for gas in your car with a high mpg should cost about the same if not be cheaper. But, in the end, it would be a lot cheaper since you can just turn off the power when you go to bed. Lastly, the vehicle being the generator doesn't need to be insured since you don't drive it anywhere.

This situation i describe is only good if you have a house and you don't use that much power anyway, along with being electricity efficient also. 3 light bulbs light up the place just fine, a laptop and 2 desktop computers. And that's how i have the $33 a month electric bill. There's ways to make this place more efficient too on electricity and heat too that are going to happen next.

you're power plants use petroleum? that far up north makes sense, but down here in the south east, i think we get our power through hydroelectric. i know anchorage does too. back when i lived in juneau and we had that avalanche, the whole town was on diesel power, and the electric bills went up 300%. and we had electric heat back then, so our bill was like $150 for a month or two. it was not fun.

i think a good diesel generator and a battery bank is an ok way to go. for lights id use led arrays instead of cf. one disadvantage of led lighting is there is no diffusion when using leds directly. i figure you could use curved mirrors and frosted glass to help diffuse the light and make it more useful. you can get leds of psychotic brightness, but if you exceed the power levels of cf then you might as well just use cf. if you live near a stream with somewhat of a slope or a natural reservoir you could probably do hydroelectric power. siphon off water from upstream to fill a tank downstream, which goes through a turbine and back out to the stream. this method could run 24 hours a day, and keep batteries charged during all but heavy use. id keep a small generator around in case you needed more power though.

[Klaustrophobia]

one of the design teams my year here designed a nearly completely passive 6 MW nuclear reactor for small alaskan towns that can just be dropped in the ground and supply heat.  doesn't do electricity unfortunately, but i imagine heating is the majority of the utility costs anyway.  if memory serves the break even time is 10 years, and the actual reactor lifetime is 20.

and nuke, the majority of power in the southeast comes from coal plants.  we're at about 20-30% nuclear, 50-60% coal, and the rest is a smattering of hydro and other stuff.

[redsniper]

He meant southeast Alaska, mang.

[Kusanagi]

my sister and the rest of the inlaws, who live in the bush, use 2 forklift batteries on an inverter for nighttime power, and go with a diesel generator during the day. its a pretty badass setup. of course all the hardware is way too big for a van.

i wonder how well a lithium polymer array would work. i got an 11.1v battery (same ones you use on hobby grade rc vehicles) you can draw 15 (20 theoretically) amps from, and you can get higher voltage and higher discharge batteries. about 10 of those in parallel might be able to run your inverter. of course the complexity of charging lithium polymer batteries might make the whole setup difficult to use. each battery is 3 3.7v cells in series, which have to be balanced to the same charge level. might be better to isolate the cells into parallel banks of 10 running 3 of those in series. might also have to boost the voltage from 11.1 to 12 if your inverter is anal about its input voltage. might be better to go with 4 cell batteries (14.8v) and use a switched mode voltage regulator to drop it to 12. this means you could draw slightly more current than the battery rating, since the batteries are being switched on and off there is a cool down period between the hot state, still have a fan bank keep the batteries cold when the inverter is on.

I did a lot of research into the electrical system before deciding on what I wanted. Most off grid applications will either wire 12 volt batteries together in series, or 6 volt batteries in parallel. I decided to go with two big group-29 12 volt wet cell batteries with 125 amp hours of storage each for a total of 250. For comparison, most commercial RVs have less than 100, but compliment that with a generator or a gigantic land yacht that never leaves a concrete pad. Not me! I had read and heard that these batteries would last a few years, but I'm now finding out that the batteries don't last that long under continuous use. Considering that almost nobody full-times in their RV, it's rather obvious in retrospect.

At any rate, I have a huge battery isolator I purchased for $15 that connects those batteries to my starting one so the batteries charge while I'm driving (and I can power the fridge to keep drinks cold  )

I don't have space or need for a generator, with the solar panels on the roof. I still try to be sparing with my power however, as I use a lot of it.

Riding a bike to turn an alternator and charge batteries isn't practical for anything but bare bones off the grid applications. I can drive for an hour or so and it will only charge enough to run the laptop for several at the most.

[Kosh]

He meant southeast Alaska, mang.

When did he go back to Alaska?

[Nuke]

like a year and a half ago.

[Kosh]

Why?

[Dark RevenantX]

Do you drive around other areas than just San Diego County?  You could drive to 49 states in one trip (the fiftieth you'd have to get out of the van).