Moving My Gear To Sunderland
Part one of my move up North is now over. First off I tried to hire a van only to find that I can't because, 3 years ago, I was a naughty boy and got 3 points on my license for going a little too fast. Instead I had to nag a friend in to driving from Mansfield to London, to Mansfield, to Sunderland, to Mansfield. All in two days. Surprisingly this cost less than half the price of hiring. So all were happy, apart from Shaun, who had to drive about 500 miles. Probably about a mile for each time I've fixed his PC though, so I don't have to feel too guilty.
Not sure how to feel about being able to fit the whole of my worldly possessions in the back of one van. Not a lot to show for 28 years. Everything I need though and a whole lot easier to move from place to place.
Anyway, to the point. The office is behind schedule after the plasterer didn't show on Sunday. Hence all my equipment remains boxed up and I have nowhere to work. Add to this the fact that I've had to swap my wireless broadband connection for a 56k dialup and you can imagine I'm not going to be doing a lot of blogging in the next few weeks. Well, not about anything interesting anyway.
I got an email today from my now ex-flatmate. In he says he misses the internet, having had use of the broadband connection via one of my spare laptops and the wireless card for the past year. Not half as much as I miss it though! Dialup sucks the big one!
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Hehehe, I am proud that everything fits in a Transit... with 27 ;-)
Jake, consider yourself lucky to be able to just pack your worldly possesions into a van and go.
Makes life MUCH easier.
Dialup really does suck after broadband. I was on ADSL, and wanted to change to a different provider. This meant that my existing DSL had to be disconnected, then I had to apply for DSL through the new provider, who had to send an application to the old provider(who is also the wholesaler) to confirm that DSL was compatible with my phone line. Duh! This process had me on dialup for 2 weeks. Not only that, but the only modem I had lying around was a 33600kbps. Yuck! It made me realise that broadband users are snobs - I was getting frustrated when a page didn't load in under 4 seconds!!!
Jake, that looks like about ½ a van. Not bad going. Less is more when it comes to having to carry everything up flights of stairs etc.
My biggest amounts of material possessions are shirts and music. Ideally, I would love to store all the music on-line and just listen to my virtual library through some web-equipped er... equipment, but the technology is just not quite there yet.
Unless someone knows different?
Virtual shirts are another matter.
James,
IMHO, the best way to store music, is a MP3 cd-man and a CD writer. With a CD-man case that can hold up to 20 CDs. I burned my all Mike Oldfield collection 192 kbs to two CDs. Which means hours of music. And when it is multiplied with 20. This is much more then one can listen in a month. And please do not say web-equipped equipment. Because the technology is not at that place for now.
Nice, mountain bike, Jake, you should have mentioned this hobby.
Warren, how did I know that you would pickup on that. I remember reading about your bike on your site and wondering where on earth does he ride it down south ;o)
It's not half the hobby for me that it used to be. This is the second Trek 7000 I've had. Great bike.
Now I am up north and we time on my hands I plan to get out and about on it over the summer. Easy access to the Yorkshire Dales. Rock on!!
Jake, get your hands on a folding kayak and I bet you'll take to water trekking like a fish to water!
Dig all those cool vessels at {Link} and find links to all current manufacturers at {Link} (good place to ask related questions, too). Wanna go on a trip? Take your boat along by car, on train or plane to whereever you go, just like people did over 80 years ago. Camp whereever you want, travel your neighbourhood rivers and canals, or down the Danube or Rhine, or Scandinavia or Poland, Crete or Turkey or Thailand...
I'm even sailing my 40 year old Faltboot, a classic rubber-and-canvas-over-ash-frame twoseater. Great fun on nice sized lakes in summer! And doesn't really cost an arm and a leg. Very fullfilling hands-on, off-line thing to do. And on a kayaking-tour, I can take along more equipment in my boat than I ever could with a bike.
Try it!
A.
Ah, for the days when I could fit everything I owned in a car. Now with the wife and two kids, we had to rent a 15-foot truck last time we moved...and we had to make two trips!
Nice bike though...here's mine.
Alexander. Sounds like you'd get on with Dan Cytron of DogOwned.com http://www.dogowned.com/ (a reader of this site)
Jake,
As far as I know , Telewest offer broadband in the Teeside area. I am not sure about Sunderland though. Worth a check.
Ash, I've signed up with Pipex on our BT line. Just got to wait for all the tests and wotnot. Boring.
I daren't tell Karen, but I checked availabilty of ADSL on her line before I agreed to move in ;o)
Actually, I am a whitewater paddler and Alexander is talking about sea kayaking/flatwater paddling.
Folding kayaks are cool, but very expensive compared to their plastic and/or fiberglass counterparts.
BTW, I was told that in Britain the names for the boats is different. USA - Canoe = UK -"Canadian Canoe" and USA - Kayak = UK - Canoe or Covered Canoe
Dan
You'll find that in the UK we use Kayak and Canoe just like in the USA, the only difference really is that we tend to refer to the sport as Canoeing to cover all aspects. Thats probably where the confusion is.
Here's a really fast loading 56K dialup site: {Link}
Ahhh, the good old days....
ADSL
- that was a serious pain to get. Took me three weeks on support lines of both provider and Deutsche Telekom to figger they don't know a thing. Then I contacted the manufacturer of my DSL-router (w/internal DSL modem) in Taiwan, ZyXEL, who hooked me up with their German support, and boy are those guys hot! They really know their biz - cued me in on what to quiz Telekom about and then how to tell them how set up their ports. Seems for regular DSL modems and routers /w internal DSL modems ports need to be configgered differently, and neither Telekom nor my provider knew a thing about this (instead I was asked to change cables from PC to router, set network speed on the clients in my network fromm 100 down to 10, etc. - all ridiculous stuff!). And after everything finally worked they now disconnected my line. Great fun.
Faltboot:
That stuff ain't expensive. Buy used! Britain and the US should have a small market of second-hand boats by Folbot, Feathercraft, Nautiraid, Pak Boat, Ally, Klepper, maybe Pouch.
Some models were even made better in the 60ies than later, and may be in still fully useable condition. If not, the frame can be overhauled by most anybody who can hold a sanding paper and a brush and is willing to try a little woodwork.
A good folding kayak or canoe can serve you 30 to 40 years with some maintenance (how long does your tupperware last you, Dan? Now spread the costs of approx. EUR 1.600,- for a new RZ 85 over 30 years...). And if the hull is facing EOL, build a new one or have it done for you (approx. EUR 450-700, depending on extras and where ordered), and the boat is as good as new!
I bought a decent 5,20m two-seater and a second one with bad hull but okay frame (same type as first, for spareparts) for less than EUR 350,- a couple years ago. Costed less than an iPod, I reckon. Can't sail an iPod, though, can ya? ;=}
You can still get an okay E65 (single) or RZ85 (double seater) made in GDR for EUR 400,- in great shape, maybe incl. sailing kit - both types have been built since the 60ies (w/ some revisions over the years) and are still available today from www.poucher-boote.de - one of over a dozen companies who today still or again build folding kayaks and canadian canoes (in USA, in Canada, in NZ, in France, in Germany, in Russia, in Poland, in China...). Klepper boats also last very long and are well made.
Any questions I'll be happy to answer by mail. And the links I posted above are excellent reference points, esp. the Forum at Faltboot.de, where a lot of people will reply to posts in English and can point at suitable English language ressources, too!
dogowned:
Great website, Dan! Yeah, I'm more into touring and sailing my folding kayak, but remember that not only the Atlantik was crossed TWICE in such craft, most whitewater sites were first tackled in appropriate folding boats, too! So, while I wouldn't risk my precious in such waters, others do WW I-III (German classification).
Great thing about these boats: you can store 'em disassembled under a bed. You can travel with them by train, bus, car, plane, take 'em in your hotel room... The craftsmanship of some is really something very satisfying, esp. on wooden frame-boats (I'm indifferent to the aluminium ones). And assembling always feels like some act of alchemy - taking a lot of mere sticks and rubber and turning it into a sleek, beautiful vessel.
Naming convention, Germany: Here, "Kanu" means "vessel propelled with paddles while facing forward" (as in DKV, i.e. Deutscher Kanu Verband, the German Canoeing Association where most members propel kayaks).
"Kajak" refers to Eskimo-styled Kanus with covered decks. If it really imitates the Eskimokajak-Proportiions, it's lovingly called an "Eski". My 1960ies Pionier 520Z is a Kajak (but surely no sleek Eski... ;=} ).
The North American Indian-style boat is called "Kanadier" (Canadian).
Cheers from Rhein-Main,
A.
Talking about Rhein-Main, guess who's off next Friday taking his approx. 40 years-old rubber-'n'-sticks-crate down a substantial stretch of river Rhine for a couple days? ;=}
See my model on this page {Link} - scroll up and down for more excellent fotos from original manufacturer's brochures, incl. some nice whitewater kayaks!
I'm in the process of putting together a approx. 15 foot pionier sale boat. It does not have a keel but has a paddle shaped rudder on each side of the boat that are adjustable to how far to put them in the water. It has wooden struts hooked together with metal brackets and the boat is covered with a rubberized canvas. Would like information on manufactuer, dates, names, etc. Any information you might have on this type boat would be very much appreciated.
Thanks. Dale Werner, Austin, TX
I have a pionier 450 S I bought used in germany in 1970. I had to have a new hull built and repaired acouple of ribs. Does that sound like your boat?
Jack Russell
Arizona