Hi all, Life got in the way and I have not posted anything here in two weeks. I have been watching Long Way Up and I will be sharing my Pan-American Highway travel experiences and my EV ownership experience on the Off the Road Again podcast, hosted by Chris Tracy and Ross Ballot, in October. I'll post a link once it's up. Maybe this will be the beginning of my lucrative non-paying career of being a podcast guest.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Monday, September 14, 2020
Final day of Sanko rail line in Japan
This Economist article talks about how the aging and depopulation of rural Japan are causing unprofitable and underused railways to shutter for good. They gave the Sanko line in western Japan as an example. The locals seem very sweet. I don't know much about trains. Are these special in any way?
Sunday, September 13, 2020
I bought my boy a used Puky pedal car
So I've been looking for a Kettler pedal car. I found one on Craigslist, and after buying it, I realized it was a Puky. Has anyone heard of this brand? It seems pretty solid (and heavy). The boy is just barely able to reach the pedals, even with the seat cranked all the way forward.
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Wednesday, September 09, 2020
Saturday, September 05, 2020
Long Way Up
We had Long Way Round in 2004.
We had Long Way Down in 2007.
Now, we have Long Way Up, via electric motorcycles!
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
2020 Halloween costume
Last year, my son wanted to be an orange garbage truck so I made him a cardboard Kamaz truck to wear. This year, he wants to be a fire truck. I solicited some ideas on Twitter and thanks to @VW_What, I am going to make him a Rosenbauer Panther 8x8 with yellow Nepali airport livery.
The body will be made of Amazon cardboard boxes. We don't subscribe to Prime anymore so I will have to ask neighbors for them. I'm going to find four small blue flashing lights, two for the cab roof and two next to the headlights. I'm thinking about getting a black PVC pipe and making a boom out of it to fit over the boy's arm. And then some kind of squirter so he can shoot water out of the boom/arm.
I'm trying to figure out how to stencil in the red words onto the yellow body. Should I paint the cardboard yellow, and then just print the red words on a yellow background, and glue the whole thing onto the yellow cardboard?
Do you have any other ideas? This will be a fun project.