...continued from "Going Boondocking" in the intro section

[gizmotron]

Now that the blackwater tank is set I have insolated the floor framing and cut out the plywood and set it on the right side.

If you are a carpenter, or even a lowly framer, then you know to measure once and cut once. You were hired to be a pro. If you get caught measuring twice you will be gone, fired, that very day. Seeing 12 reruns of Bob Villa doesn't hack it. This Old House is about seeing customers inflicted by Bob as dear-in-the-headlights when they see how much TV celebrity costs in reality.

So not wishing to screw up I snapped a red chalk line as a reference line on the floor framing to take measurements from. I used it on my picture of the floor plywood to be cut. I also placed it on the actual plywood before I marked it all out. A nice two dimensional reference gets you one axis of the cutout plan. The fixed plywood at the back of the van gave me the other axis. Here are the pictures of getting the right side of the floor done.

 

[gizmotron]

Got the floor all insolated with 1 1/2" solid foam and finished installing the CDX plywood yesterday.

Came up with a great stealth gimmick last night. I'm going to put something like "Mark's Remote Wood Butchering Services" Licensed since 1979. So when I'm not traveling down to Quartzite in winter or along the cool coast in summer I can explain why I have a fixed bathroom in my work van to my insurance carrier. It's all about not asking a customer to use their bathroom on remote jobs.

I figured out a real easy way to fir out the walls of the Ford E-350 Super Duty passenger van's walls. There are terrible uneven spots along the walls. My pictures will show what I did to even things out. It's all in setting it up right before adding insolation & wall coverings. I'm going with plain old 5/8" CDX plywood for that industrial work van look. But the cutting and fitting of the fancy cuts will speak for themselves.

I might take a few odd jobs too. Nothing like a perfect cover story. So I will be taking a few power tools down to Quartzite in 2023.

Here are the last floor pictures:

 

[gizmotron]

For those not yet interested in making $50 to $100 per day, staying in casino parking lots for free, or thinking that it's too much risk, I'm making a pitch to see if later at some point some of you might want your hand held this or next winter somewhere around Quartzite, Az. People clearly want to earn money while on the road. I'm doing this to help the people that will help themselves. I'm also doing it this way to create a large enough groundswell of experts that the casinos and the mathematics world will have to come to grips with a new truth about statistics and odds. Instead of it just being me out there, it could be a small army of Boondockers and Nomads. Did I mention this? It will all be for free.

Something I shared recently:

"You should see how I start a new student off. I ask them to flip a coin 100 times and then to make a graph that will fit on one page, hand drawn, as if they made $5 on every heads and lost $5 on every tails. They get to see the natural phases of ups and downs as the coins are flipped, one at a time. I start right off the bat showing them streaks. They don't learn anything else but up and down trends, patterns, and streaks. They don't need a computer. They don't need strategy. They just need to learn that it always goes up and down, smoothly or even rhythmically at times." After all that I show them how to use this knowledge like stock traders that do this to make money on stock trading.

All I did was try to take a person to where I want them to arrive at, right off the start. This kills magical thinking. This does away with superstitions. This teaches confidence. This teaches the awareness of coincidence. This makes a person a reader of gambling sessions rather than a fool of mathematical expectation."

=========================

"Two years ago in July I set out to explain Reading Randomness to everyone for free. An OK, mediocre, Baccarat player in Great Britain suggested that I could teach openly and that it would have no effect on the gambling world like when Ed Thorp, a professor at MIT, wrote 'Beat The Dealer' back in 1961. That was telling the world how to beat Blackjack by counting cards.  The casinos went crazy after that was published. Yes, counting cards works, but it's hard. Not everyone can do it. In fact the casinos make ten times as much now on amateurs that are not skilled enough or experienced enough to execute the plan worth a hoot. So I did publish the thread.

It's now two years later and only a handful of players have set out to master the skill. But they did in fact master it in about a month. They all demonstrated reaching a better than mathematically expected result and went away in silence. Who knows who is using it to this day? I personally trained one person one on one for 60 days straight. He did so much better than math suggests that he should that it was startling.  These people that perfected the needed skills have outdone Ed Thorp's counting cards odds by a large and substantial value. It's only a matter of time before this all goes viral.

You should see how the thread started. I faced a huge backlash from other gamblers at first. But I persevered and kept teaching anyway. Then people started to try it out. I guided them briefly as this time it was an experiment to see if they could teach themselves, given all the direction and tools to aid them. One person gave up and went back to precognition. All the others succeeded and left their examples and results on the thread for everyone to read.

I know that you don't need money. You don't need an extra $100 a day. But I thought you might get a kick out of reading the little minor skirmish I put up with in trying to share my advice to strangers.

If you want to see the images you need to log into the forum. They don't share email addresses and never have. The thread is loaded with tons of pictured examples and video links to YouTube that I created for the thread.

Here: https://www.gamblingforums.com/threads/reading-randomness.14733/

One day this will all be known as the place where I explained it all. Meanwhile I will be travelling out to the coast on one and two week casino junkets. I can stay in the van at casinos on the Oregon and Washington coast in the cool summer. This will start after next winter. My goal is to just earn from $50 to $100 per day. My Reading Randomness thread explains how I intend to do that. I only need $400 worth of playing bankroll, that's three times $126. I use $5 bets for the small bets and $18 to $20 for the big bets. I have never not been able to win three net wins in the past 25 years. It just takes willpower, strategy,  and self control. You should know that these traits are not easy for everyone. People will try this and screw up. But someday enough people will master this and it will affect casinos. You might want to read the thread if for no other reason than curiosity and entertainment. "

 

[gizmotron]

I went back to that Reading Randomness thread and noticed that there is very little substance in the first 7 pages. People there stuck with it because many had been waiting for years for me to tell all. But anyone here reading this stuff might think that it never teaches anything. This was more than two years ago at a wild discussion forum of pro gamblers and claimers. It looks like it gets going at page 8 but there are still important points made scarcely in those first 7 pages.

 

[gizmotron]

So when you get to page 12 you will find my first YouTube video using my practice software. There is no way I'm going into the YouTube business. You will see why. I made several videos to go along with illustrations and charting examples in order to explain the skill and method.



If there is no interest in this then I will go back to my van build.

 

[gizmotron]

I discuss Reading Randomness in hopes of one day helping thousands of people that gamble to the point of ruin. It is my belief that if you can teach a degenerate addicted gambler how to win then you will in fact have cured him. This is supported by a statement that went out in the DSM 4.5 supplement that stated that "self cure" is also possible in some cases.

By definition a problem gambler ( addicted gambler ) is anyone that uses money needed for other purposes and uses it to gamble. If a person gets trained to succeed and win more than they lose then they will have disposable money not needed for other things. They will be cured if they use skills and methods previously unknown to them.

So I discuss my ideas with well known gambling experts that tend to favor well known axioms and beliefs.

Frank Kneeland said:

"If I say something is random, I am saying it is impossible to predict beyond probabilistic reasoning."

I responded:

"Let's take that further then. Probabilistic Reasoning can never tell you when a win streak will start, how long it will last, and when it will end with any measurable degree of certainty.

It has always been my point to accept this as true and to search for something else other than probabilistic reasoning to gain the upper hand.

So I researched and codified a construct regarding the characteristics of random sequences. This alone was still not enough. I had to put it all behind a sense of blinders in order to filter out extraneous and worthless information. The construct on its own is nearly worthless. It just gives you a guess without any supporting value toward a knowledge of a confirmation of awareness. So it is dependent on timing as well as the quality of effectiveness combined to form a kind of coincidental change variable. At that point the useless becomes a real tangible tool. Yet most people can never see this. It is my belief that someday there will be mathematical formulas and algorithms that not only use this but also confirm it.

At that point I will then be a happy mathZombie."

 

[gizmotron]

My plan is to take people that need a little extra income on the road as Nomads and teach them how to make that money. What will make that work is developing knowledge of their own human nature. People will go batsh*t crazy with greed. They will start to plan a better life for themselves. They will kill off the golden goose that feeds them. And most important of all they will no longer quit while they are ahead. It will be to their own ruin too. This is for people that can control their greed. The lifestyle of the nomads is to be set free from the expectations impressed upon us / them at earlier stages of life. Becoming an effective and deliberate gambler is a skill and an act of self control with practicality. If you travel in a van then your overhead will be extremely low. You can improve your life substantially on $50 to $100 per visit. You get to park for free in most cases. You don't need to depend on others to buy your stuff in order to supplement your income. There are willing casinos all over America that want you to try.

So I will try to help people if they will let me. If people just turn a blind eye to all this that is no skin off of my back. I have a reason and agenda for helping others. It's like world class Yosemite rock climbing. You can't tell someone what it is like. You have to show them. It's the ultimate escape to freedom. But it must be earned the hard way. Reading Randomness is the same thing. It can wipe you out if you don't prepare properly. Some people will try to cheat the mastering of the skills. That's human nature also. It can't be avoided. They might even become "Spandex Boys" on a quest to save the world. I've been dealing with them for decades. They are wrong and have always been wrong. My agenda is to prove that before I pass on.

I'm impressed with those that have walked away from the mortgages, auto loans, and things that tend to entrap people and make them slaves of money.

Last but not least on this subject. Many people believe that the Bible says that "money is the root of all evil." It never says that. It says "that the love of money is the root of many evils." There is a profound difference.

 

[gizmotron]

Back to the van build.

I got the fir out done on the driver side. It's ready for insolation and a few small parts around the window.

 

[gizmotron]

OK, got almost all of my plywood to finish with. This is what it looks like starting the insolation before covering the sides.

 

[gizmotron]

Here's a very good read / watch on RV living, including van life full timers. It includes stuff on selecting an RV and actually going out and doing it.

[video=youtube]

 

[gizmotron]

Just for the heck of it I have done an evaluation and cost breakdown of what I ended up building, even though I have not assembled the parts yet. I ended up taking the advice of others here and assembled a modular solar powered system. I started out wanting a very popular solar generator in a box. But like they suggested, "what happens when a component inside the box breaks down?" I would have to ship off the entire thing for fixes and wait for it to come back. And it costs almost twice as much too. So I got a better system for around half the price.

So I have about $2,100 in my 4  x (100 watt) tilt / flat  mounted, 2,000 watt inverter,  monster 2500 watt - 200 amp hour Lipo4i 200 BMS battery. I can monitor the system with a phone app. The inverter has a wall mounted remote shut off switch.

I have about $700 in lumber and insolation, Covid-19 prices.

There's about $500 in the bathroom tanks, toilette, and shower pan and tank cleanout valves.

I have a 12 volt DC water pump. I will put an on/off switch near the bathroom for that too.

I don't have the Maxxfan or the two zone 12 volt fridge yet.  Yep, I took people's advice here on that fridge too. It's way better to go 12 volt DC.

I've left room for wall planking and flooring in the living room in the cost. The bathroom is all done in FRP, floor to ceiling.

That comes later as I get money to do the OOOh WOW! carpentry. So I've built this to get interior wall covering later. It's all done in 5/8" CDX plywood. The ceiling is in 1/4" plywood. T&G planking will go over that because the roofing ribs are already perpendicular to the new planks.

So I added this all up. With a little room to spare the buildout comes to right around $5000.

I have no idea how I will cover the walls in the living room in the end. I have always liked lacquered stained knotty planks like 1940's cabin style. But to add a touch of class I would put hammered copper molding on top of all that for trim. So the bathroom is all in sterile white FRP and the living room cabin is in, well whatever I want, I'm a craftsman.

I'm designing a solid wall pop up for the bathroom all done in the style and hardware of Anvil / Viking  flight cases. The inside will be FRP with flush mounted butterfly latches. The outside will be aluminum diamond plate with aluminum trim. Canvas walls in pop tops is so not awesome.

I have about $3,000 labor in acquiring the van. With $5,000 for the basics of a well equipped van, with all my labor for free, and maybe $2,000 more for a fridge and decadent wall extravagance I'm right around $10,000 when all is said & done.

I compare this "form follows function" design to the crud that they are selling these days for more than $100,000. And that is being generous.

I have a full sleeping, 9" tall, memory foam bed, more solar power than I will ever use, A full function bath shower and sink, a perfect location to play with my "Table Top" studio, sitting on my bed / couch and a 2ft by 4ft table in front of me at sit down height to run all the music equipment. A pair of 2,000 watt FRFR stereo speakers on towers so I can blast the neighbors a mile away. A full stand up shower in an otherwise 54" tall passenger van. I will get a two zone fridge so I can keep frozen things too.

To me this is a nice class B motorhome designed around the fact that it is not a full standup rig. I would never get this built. The entire back end is a mechanical room and full function tailgate kitchen. Outdoor kitchens are a must have in todays monster sized fifth wheels and motorhomes.

 

[gizmotron]

Getting a little more done. This is the primary framing. It's 5/8" CDX plywood over anchored firing strips.

 

[gizmotron]

This might seem slow to a lot of builders. I've spent all summer building a barn. When I do work on the van I get around two to three hours work in at a time and that is all.

But I can now see that I will be closing in on the back wall soon. That's the tailgate kitchen and mechanical room. One of my favorite things about camping is outdoor cooking.  I had all kinds of stoves for cooking grills for grilling, and griddles for flat top cooking.  I became a fan of what the Ninja Foodi 6.5qt pressure cooker can do all by itself. I won't use a microwave. Don't need it. I use a flat top griddle to make street tacos that have been marinated for 2 to 4 days. I can broil a steak in the Ninja Foodi at 500 degrees or griddle at 650 degrees on the Blackstone 22" table top griddle with it's two zone griddle space.

I'm going to suspend a table between the two opened back doors. I'm thinking of a stainless steel top. I will make a custom shaped canopy out of 22oz Vinyl Coated Polyester and grommets. It will drape over the two open doors, hooked to the vans rain gutter, and act as a rain proof canopy for the cooking area. It will protect the entire back end when it is open, and reduce wind. I saw teardrop trailer campers doing this in the pacific northwest.

Anyway most of my cooking is centered around the Blackstone 22" griddle. The plan is to follow the sun. The Ninja is a bonus feature. I can make wonderful pork carnitas with it. Then I can reheat them on the Blackstone with a bunch of perfect tortillas. The outdoor back deck is perfect for food prep and clean up. I have a spray nozzle for washing up back there too.

All these big rigs have TV's in their outdoor kitchens on all the big RVs. I don't think so. I'm debating bringing a TV at all. I traveled with DishTV for decades. It's a pain to set it up. That's the one thing I'm considering living without. I already have it on shut down for 9 months. I have the internet and I have local broadcast HD if I want TV. So far, after two months, I don't miss satellite DishTV.

 

[gizmotron]

Got the basic under framing done on one side in the back. This is how I deal with the uneven walls in a Ford Econoline. I fir it out and insolate it until I get a flat lower and upper surface.

The 5/8" CDX plywood is not the finished wall. It is just the framing that holds the finished material in place later when I install it.

 

[gizmotron]

Her it is, life goes on.

I just got my 70th birthday dinner. It was wonderful. and thanks.

 

[gizmotron]

OK, got the insolation done on the back section of the passenger side.

 

[gizmotron]

Got the walls up.

 

[gizmotron]

As promised I put all the things in place before the walls go up so that you can see how I fit all the tanks, toilette, and shower pan in the bathroom section.

Just about to set the back wall and the front bathroom wall.

I'm looking around for a 12 volt DC 100 to 200 watt heater for my mechanical room in the back. Anyone have any ideas. I know they make heating pads for water tanks that run around 65 watts. I need to protect the water tank and the lifepo4 battery. Two of those would run around 130 watts and they both have their own thermostats that cut in at 40f degrees and shut down at 68f degrees.

 

[Cammalu]

Looks like you are using some really thick plywood. That’s going to add a bunch of weight and won’t add insulation value really. Is there a reason for it? Even luan would be ok for the walls.

 

[gizmotron]

Yes, there is a good reason.  I wanted to solve many things and make the job easier, stronger, and quieter. I took about 300lbs of crap out of the van, all the passenger seats, seat mountings, and the rear air conditioner & heater.

I had noticed what Bob said in one of his videos about how the Ford Econoline vans have uneven side walls for mounting runners on the inside of the walls. It's a mess. So I decided to use three primary hard points to mount my plywood to. That would allow strong plywood to bridge over all that unevenness. 

The top rail is bolted in place using the bolts for the passenger's seat belts. They are bomb proof. The middle rail is machine screwed to the wall with varying width firing points where they are attached. This follows the slightly bowed contour of the side of the van. The bottom rail has straight enough mounting points for machine screws to mount to the interior sheetmetal.  

Over the side windows in back  the I have two layers of 1 1/2" Foamular XPS. In the hollow spaces around the wheels in back I have rock wool sound deadening insolation all stuffed in. It was left over from the passenger trim when I tore it all out.
Except for the windows area there is 1 1/2" Foamular XPS for insolation before all the 5/8" CDX goes on.

Regarding weight. This Super Duty XL van has an almost two ton useful load.  I have about 500lbs of structural plywood that bridges over the uneven walls. I'm glad there is the extra weight. The rear end of the van bounces all over the place without it. The extra 200lbs from an empty passenger van is OK with me.

I don't carry a lot of junk. My mechanical area and kitchen in the tail will max out at around 400lbs, including batteries. My solar system without batteries weighs around 100lbs. My food storage, fridge, clothing, and music equipment will come to no more than 300lbs.

So by-the-numbers I'm hauling around 1,000lbs over an empty passenger van's weight that is rated to carry around 2,800 worth of human flesh. I have bomb proof interior walls that have lots of insolation and sound resistance. 

Later I will either go with paint on the living room walls and ceiling or beautiful wall covering that will mount right to the solid plywood walls. I've got at least a ton before I come close to gross vehicle weight. I don't plan on towing anything either. Full water tanks come to around 300lbs. The half ton added makes the van smoothen out on bumps. I'm not going to hall a bunch of unnecessary junk. There's a colossal kitchen work station in the rear. I like to make good tasting meals and to cook outdoors.

Hope that comes close to answering your question.