Nov 03 2012

Notes from the Airstream universe

Just like the real universe, the Airstream universe continues to expand indefinitely. Little reminders of this cross my desk from time to time, and I forget to mention them here, so today I’m going to mention a few of the recent and most interesting developments.

Item: Airstream now for sale in Australia, if you’ve got the bucks. The Canberra Times reports that Airstreams are now being officially imported, compliant with Australian regulations. We’ve featured at least one Australian Airstream makeover in Airstream Life magazine, a restaurant trailer that sells gourmet hamburgers, but there really hasn’t been a lot of action in that country. Australia and New Zealand have been mostly motorhome territory. I know a few folks who have done some great tours in rented Class C motorhomes, and we’ve talked about doing it ourselves, but I’ve been waiting for Airstreams to become available. Maybe now we can start talking about putting together a caravan?

Or maybe not. Prices for the new Aussie ‘streams are running $115k-135k (Australian dollars). That’s a hunk of money, right up there with the cost of European-spec Airstreams. It may be quite a long time before an affordable used unit can be found.

Item: A new Airstream book has come out. We never get tired of Airstream-related books, do we? John Brunkowski and Michael Closen, who previously wrote a book about RV Toys, have written another great photo-rich book entitled “Airstream Memories.” It’s a collection of Airstream art and memorabilia, with an emphasis on postcards, that runs 127 pages long. It’s really fun to flip through it.

Full disclosure: I wrote the Foreword to the book, but I didn’t get to review the art until it was published. When I got my copy this week, I was surprised to see some Airstream Life covers and photo spreads in there.

Item: Another Airstream book seeks funding. Rebecca Chastenet and Carlos Briscenos jointly run an Airstream-based restaurant in Santa Fe NM. We featured that trailer with photos of Rebecca in the Spring 2012 issue of Airstream Life. Rebecca has since become a contributor to the magazine, writing for our new “Airstream food” section that you will see beginning with the Winter 2012 issue.

Rebecca and Carlos have an idea for a book about Airstream “pop-up” businesses. There are probably hundreds of them, all over the world. We’ve covered dozens in the magazine over the past few years. They’re all interesting, creative, and run by fascinating entrepreneurs.

They’re seeking funding to cover the costs of a tour to visit as many of these Airstream businesses as they can, which will then become material for the book. You can read their full proposal on Kickstarter, and chip in if you think the cause is worthy. I’m hoping this one takes off. Rebecca is a solid writer and I’m sure the result will be wonderful.

Item: Child starts blog. OK, this isn’t big news, and it’s not Airstream-related but I happen to know one of the two children who write this blog. “Sylvia Phenora” is the nom de plume of someone close to me. For a 12-year-old, she’s a pretty handy writer. She’s also producing Pokemon stories on a regular basis. I’m waiting for her first novel to come out. Hopefully it will be a best-seller so I can retire early and do more Airstreaming!

Item: We’re going to pitch in to help! The “superstorm” Sandy has really walloped the northeast coast. Brett & I decided that we are going to donate $10 for every campsite registration we get between today and Dec 31, 2012, to the American Red Cross to help with relief efforts. So if you were thinking about going to Alumafiesta or Alumapalooza next year, sign up soon and $10 of your site fee will go to help others. Thanks.

Sep 26 2012

Classification: kittens for sale

A friend called Eleanor the other day and noted that the blog was quiet. When that happens, she said, either Rich is working on projects he can’t talk about (yet) or there’s not much happening. Turns out that it’s a little bit of both lately.

Home life has been quiet … so quiet in fact that our major form of entertainment has been the foster kittens. They have kept us entertained day and night, even at times when we’d prefer they were sleeping. They arrived here underweight and left today, three weeks later, each nearly a pound heavier and in peak form to be adopted.

It’s a shame to let them go back to the Humane Society when they are so darned adorable, but they need homes. We’ve done what we can to bring out their natural irresistible cuteness, and make them completely comfortable with people and typical household life. As I told them at today’s graduation ceremony, “Boys, the rest is up to you.” They seemed prepared for the task. We’ll get a new kitten or two shortly, and begin the process anew.

Meanwhile I have fulfilled my pledge to do something about the spare tire issue. This turned out to be fairly easy. I ordered a fifth tire from Discount Tire to match the four new Bridgestones that are on the car, and they mounted it up last week. The only catch was that the tires for the Mercedes are a lot bigger than the ones for the Airstream, so it wouldn’t fit in the spare carrier on the Airstream without some modification. The Merc tire is about two inches wider and 2-3 inches larger in diameter.

So the first step was to do some careful measuring to confirm that the larger tire would fit in the Airstream’s belly recess. It seemed like there was plenty of room in there, almost as if Airstream had foreseen this situation.

The spare carrier comes off easily, with just two bolts toward the rear holding it in place. A 3/4″ socket and a short extension on a ratchet wrench are all you need. Well, that plus a little elbow grease. Once it was off, I loaded it up along with both the Airstream and Mercedes wheels, and took the whole pile to my favorite welding shop.

The modification was fairly simple. The two bolt attachments needed to be extended by about two inches so that the entire carrier would hang lower. This would allow the bigger spare to fit and yet still be pressed tightly up against the belly of the Airstream so it wouldn’t move.

I also asked the welding shop to figure a way that I could go back to carrying the smaller Airstream spare if I wanted to. You can see their solution above. They simply bolted on a pair of height extensions, welded on new outboard “arms” to accommodate the larger diameter, and fabricated a new latch with two holes.

If I wanted to go back to the Airstream spare, it would be just a matter of unbolting the two extensions, and using the lower hole on the latch for the locking pin. The tension of the tire pressed up against the belly of the trailer will keep the tire from shifting much.

The new spare was a tighter fit than I had expected. While there was plenty of room in the recess, I had failed to consider the process of getting the tire under the Airstream. The struts of the Hensley partially block the path, and there’s not quite enough clearance to slide the tire atop the carrier and beneath the battery box. To get it in, I have to wind the Hensley strut jacks up into towing position (not a problem since that’s where they’d be anyway), and I have to use the trailer’s power hitch to lift the nose about 2-3 inches. It’s also a much heavier wheel to deal with, so pulling this thing out on a rainy day by the side of a muddy highway will not be much fun.

Once it’s in place, there’s plenty of ground clearance. The tire still hangs above the height of the hitch weight transfer bars.

This amounts to a very expensive spare tire. I bought the Mercedes 20″ rim from a guy in California for $300 (new ones cost about $900!), the tire was about $250, and the fabrication work ended up at $125, for a grand total of $675. But it will get used, because we need to do a five-wheel tire rotation every 10,000 miles (to keep all five tires evenly worn), so I’ll get my value out of the tire at least.

And it’s nice to know we have it. Now if we have a tire failure on the tow vehicle, we can still drive. If we have a tire failure on the Airstream, we can tow on three wheels or unhitch to go get a replacement Airstream tire. We have better options. If we ever decide to go to Alaska or Newfoundland, we can still throw the (smaller) Airstream spare into the back of the car for added insurance.

OK, enough about that. I hope to not need to write about tires again for quite a long time. I want to talk about another project, the new Airstream Life Classifieds section.

Places to list your Airstream for sale are everywhere on the Internet. I used to maintain a list of them that ran to about thirty different sites, all free. But once in a while I get a call from someone who has a special, rare, or high-value trailer, and they want to see that ad in print, in Airstream Life. We’ve never been able to accommodate this, but I’ve finally set up a site where you can post your ad online and have it appear in the next issue of the magazine.

So it’s in a trial mode right now. (I’m sorry, that’s not cool enough for the Internet. I’d better say it’s “in beta” instead.) You can try it out right now at classified.airstreamlife.com. Online-only ads are free, and print ads cost $75. But here’s the sweetener: since this is the first run, you can actually get a print ad for free. When you fill out the ad form, at the bottom of the page will be an option box that says “Ad Package”. Choose the “Print ad in Airstream Life magazine” option and just below that, enter the coupon code FREE_ASL_AD and your ad will appear in the Winter 2012 issue for free!

Now, I do have to put in a few limitations. Only one free ad per customer, and all ads must be submitted no later than October 5 to receive this deal. If I don’t get enough ads to launch the section, this offer will be void (but your ad will still run online for free).

I’m interested in your feedback. If you’ve tried it out and have some comments that might help improve it, let me know with a comment on this blog post. If it works and people find it valuable, I’ll make it a formal part of the magazine going forward. It’s up to the community. Personally, I think that even in an era of Internet everywhere, there’s a certain credibility that you can only get from print, so I’m hoping that we get some interesting Airstreams in this section.

Feb 28 2012

Modernism Week 2012 Vintage Trailer Show

Have I finally bitten off more than I can chew? I think so. The blog hasn’t been updated as frequently as it should be, emails are going unacknowledged for days or even weeks, and I’ve been shelving good & interesting projects simply because I don’t have time anymore. It’s an abundance of riches in a sense —too much work to do when other folks are still looking for some, and (briefly) too many friends overflowing the driveway into the street—but drowning is still a bad thing even if it’s in a vat of hot chocolate with marshmallows.

So I’m making some tough decisions. Brett and I went off to Palm Springs on Thursday with the decision that we would regretfully resign our volunteer positions as “Event Captains” once the weekend was over. We’ve enjoyed organizing the Vintage Trailer Show for the past two years, but it’s time to hand the reins over to someone else, and we are lucky that a friend in the vintage trailer community has already expressed tentative interest in managing the show for 2013.

The actual Vintage Trailer Show this weekend was fantastic. The final count of visitors was 1,935, which is a record for this event. I was asked a few times why an owner would want to display in this show (and pay for the privilege) rather than just going to a vintage trailer rally elsewhere. I think the volume of visitors explains why. Nowhere else will you see such a huge volume of people who are avidly interested in your trailer, and if that’s useful or important to you, Palm Springs is indisputably the place to be.

The photo above shows Randy and Jeannet Grubb in their one-of-a-kind “Decoliner,” which was one of the stars of the show. It has a full upper deck from which you can drive the rig. It’s for sale, and it would make an awesome promotion vehicle for those who can afford it.

My photos really don’t do justice to the event, and most of them were taken for very specific future uses, so if you want to get a better look, check out Alison Turner’s blog. That’s a picture of Alison coming down the steps of the Decoliner. It was great to see Alison, as well as Dan & Marlene of Malimish, blog readers Kristiano and Christy, Bert Gildart (see his pictures from the event here), and about 1,930 other people.

All in all, it was a fine road trip. We met a lot of great people, enjoyed some superb weather, and had a fantastic 800 mile speed run across the southwestern desert, which always makes me happy. We really couldn’t have hoped for a better weekend.

Next year, since we won’t be organizers, we’ll just attend the show like everyone else and that will be even nicer. I’ll be able to bring a “date” along (guess who) and actually enjoy Palm Springs like a tourist.

Being back home now, it’s time to plunge into the remaining list of tasks. I’m already behind the curve on the Summer 2012 issue at a time when I should have it mostly wrapped up and be planning out Fall 2012. That’s enough to make me nervous but then atop it I have lots of work to do on Alumafandango, Alumapalooza, and a third event that we hope to launch in 2013.

Speaking of Alumafandango (our Denver event), you might have gotten an email today that says if you register for it on Wednesday February 29, you can get a free Alumafandango t-shirt. Just enter the code “LEAPDAY” when you choose your shirt size. This code will only work on February 29.

I’ll post more soon about plans for all of the events. We’ve got quite a few interesting things in the works, and I want to tell you about them as soon as things start to jell. But for now, I’ve got to get back to the job …

Dec 16 2011

Attacking the giant blog beast

I’ve been talking about this for far too long. It’s a monstrous, scary, bewildering job. I’m talking about turning the three years of the Tour of America blog into a book.

Time and again I’ve said I wanted to encapsulate that epic into something portable and readable, but every time I looked at the task it was so intimidating that I found something else to do instead. Once I actually wrote about 80 pages, and then abandoned it as a terrible effort. At another point I published a series of three essays on the blog in the hopes that going “public” would embarrass me into completing the job.

But nothing has worked. It has been three years since we stopped full-timing, and probably five or six abortive attempts at re-writing the story, and it continues to be a sort of literary Don Quixote-windmill that thwarts me.

I am taking another run at it now. This time I’ve approached it by downloading the entire contents of the blog to use as notes.

This has already turned out to be tricky. See, I was rather prolific in writing about our travels, to put it mildly. This is normally a good practice for a writer, because the blog entries and 10,000+ photos comprise all the information I need to augment my memory. But I wrote six days a week, averaging about 900 words per blog entry. Multiply that by three years and the result is smothering: over 800,000 words in total. That’s the rough equivalent of a 1,600 page book. It’s almost double the length of The Count of Monte Cristo. At least Dumas had the excuse that his story spanned decades.

Don’t get me wrong—I think our story was mostly interesting, but the sheer size of it is impractical. Not only is it too much information to sort through, to keep it unabridged I’d have to publish it as a three or four volume set —at least— and that’s without any pictures. The cost of publishing would be prohibitive. And it would be boring. So it has to be trimmed down, and therein lies my first challenge.

Just getting the data down from the web was a hassle. WordPress doesn’t have a handy plug-in (that I could find, anyway) to export blog posts to a Word processing format. I finally used a web service that converted the entire blog into a PDF, including the photos. The resulting PDF took about half an hour to generate and massed 155 megabytes. I converted that to text and imported it to my word processor, and now I’m cleaning up the result (removing extraneous detail and spam comments, etc.) So far I’m 600 pages into the document. It will take a couple of weeks to complete the first pass, if all goes well.

This is just the beginning. Then I have to start writing, with a copy of the cleaned-up blog at my side. It doesn’t work to merely publish the blog entries chronologically as a book. In that context it just seems strange and disconnected. So the actual book will have to be mostly new material—a re-telling of the blog story, in past tense.

Still, I think that I would like to retain it as a moderately long travel story. There’s no plot to our travel story, no climax at the end, no whodunnit. It’s just a series of lessons and experiences, the way life is. So instead of trying to trim to 200 pages, which would be a comfortable length for publishing, I will probably let it run quite a lot longer. I want to include lots of color photos, too.

For these reasons, the book will probably never be printed on paper. I expect it to be something you can only read on a Kindle, iPad, or similar device, where there’s no financial repercussions from being long-winded. But I hope—if I ever get this beastie under control—lots of people will read it and be inspired to do things that change their lives for the better, too.

Dec 13 2011

’tis the season to get things going!

So for the past week I’ve been tap-tap-tapping at the keyboard and relentlessly thinking about the future. This is the winter and in the winter it always seems that I have too little to physically do but too much to think about. There are so many interesting plans to execute. “What’s next?” is the question on my mind when I wake up, because for me, ’tis the season to get things done in preparation for an even more interesting 2012.

It has always been this way for me during the winter. In the past it was easy to get bogged down in the minutiae and the winter doldrums, but since 2003 when we began Airstreaming I have not had that issue. Wally Byam was right when he outlined the Four Freedoms that result from Airstream ownership, one of which was “the freedom to relax and lose oneself mentally.” For me, the Airstream is a vital tool to regaining perspective that might otherwise be lost in the press of work and ideas. Every year since 2004 we’ve spent a week or more around New Year’s Eve to get lost somewhere sunny, and not think about the things that need to get done back in the office. I’m looking forward to that trip.

That’s a few weeks away still. In the meantime I’m energized by the prospect of all the interesting possibilities that life presents. My challenge is to push things and people along the path so that every idea can get closer to fruition. It’s a rather delicate process. I can’t just pick up the phone and yell at people to get their jobs done. There are always obstacles to every project, and there’s never enough money. So I spend a lot of time figuring out clever ways to circumvent barriers and financial limits (with the help of a few trusted advisers and partners), and then gently applying pressure in the right spot. This is actually fun. I do get a kick out of seeing ideas become reality, even if they’re not my ideas—and they often aren’t.

Of course, it’s important not to lose sight of the crown jewel that makes all the other projects possible: Airstream Life magazine. I still spend most of my time working on it. The magazine’s Spring 2012 edition is about 80% through the editorial process at this point, and going to layout as of today. We are going to have articles on the 1958 model year Airstreams (continuing the series by Fred Coldwell), a Buyer’s Guide on 30-foot slide-outs, a very interesting Airstream with a Victorian interior, a personal perspective on Chaco National Monument by Bert Gildart, the Shooting Star Drive-In (Airstream park), an Airstream barber shop, a soap opera star’s customized Airstream in Hawaii, another article in Andy Thomson’s towing series, and more. This issue will be in the mail in February. By the way, it’s going to have a really cool cover illustration.

While I was sick in Tampa last week, I had a lot of time to talk to Brett about our plans for Alumapalooza 2012. The event is coming together very nicely. We would have a much easier time if we simply replicated the event each year, but we like to change it up. That way it’s never predictable, so people who come two years in a row won’t be bored. And, we like to look for efficiencies that make the event better.

I already talked about the three grills we had built. We tested them at Brett’s place last week and they did spectacularly well, so you can expect hot grills for at least two hours a night during Alumapalooza. Bring lots of stuff to cook! We also have completely revised the seminars and entertainment so that more than half the program will be all new for 2012. For example, we’re working on a new event we’re calling “The Backup Derby.” I’ll leave the details to your imagination for now…

But in my opinion the best idea we’ve had is a new format for “the process formerly known as registration.” Last year people were waiting in a line to confirm their registrations on site, and it was kind of a drag in the hot sun. This year, we figured that since you’ve already registered online for the event, there’s no reason to make you wait in line when you get to Alumapalooza.

So when you’re there in 2012, either before or after you’ve parked (your choice), all you have to do is approach any orange-shirted staff member anywhere and tell them who you are. Most of the staff will be able to check you in, on the spot, using a wireless mobile device. The process will take about 30 seconds and you’ll be handed a plastic token for every paid member of your group. Ta-da! You’re checked in and ready to start having fun.

At your convenience, you can swing by the Vendor Tent or visit the daily 4 pm Wally Byam Happy Hour under the Main Tent and exchange your plastic token for your personal badge, which will get you into all the seminars, qualify you for door prizes, get you dinner on Saturday, etc. The primary registrant in each group will also get a goody bag full of coupons and freebies. No lines, no waiting, no hassle.

I love this sort of stuff. We didn’t have to make this change, and it will cost us some bucks for the added technology, but it’s going to make life easier for everyone and allow our attendees to get right to the job of having fun. I know when I get to a campground after a long day of driving, the last thing I want to do is wait in line at the front desk and go through some overly-complicated registration process. Getting geeky with our technology to eliminate that tedium is very satisfying.

OK, let’s talk about another project: This week I am pleased to announce the Airstream Life has published another book, “The Collected Adventures of Tin Hut.” It presently is available only in ebook format (Amazon Kindle right now, Apple iTunes bookstore for iPad & iPhone in a few days). The book is a complete set of every Tin Hut episode ever published in Airstream Life—a total of 22 episodes, complete with the original illustrations by Brad Cornelius. It’s pretty damn funny. The price is just $9.95. We’re working on a softcover print edition to follow next year, which will probably be more expensive because of the cost of color printing.

I have four other book projects waiting in line right now. They’re all going to be great (I say with as much modesty as I can muster) but each one has a set of barriers holding it back. With luck, I’ll be able to announce two of them next year. Even when I’m not writing the books, it’s a huge job just to get each one out the door. I love doing them despite the hassles. By the way, speaking as a print publisher, I think ebooks are the way to go. I can offer more titles at lower prices, especially books that would never see print because their audiences are too niche. Some titles must be in print for logistical reasons, but I’ll always offer an ebook edition at the same time.

Another announcement: the free Airstream Life Online Edition is now compatible with Apple iPad. I get emails almost monthly from people wondering when they’ll be able to read it on their iPad. Now you can. iPad users, try it here. The underlying software is still in beta, so it’s not quite perfect but we’ve been promised that the platform will get better in the next few months.

Events: There’s more in the pipeline that I can’t talk about yet, but trust me, it’s good stuff. Hopefully we will be able to announce a second major Alumapalooza-type event, out west, for next summer. We’re just waiting for confirmation that the venue is available, and then we’ll open up registration. And we are already at work on a third event for February 2013. Each event will have its own name and be completely different, so rather than Alumapalooza 1, 2, and 3 clones, they will be more like a set: collect ’em all. This is really fun work. I just wish we could make it all happen faster.

One last announcement. I’m once again working with Brett to curate the Modernism Week 2012 show in Palm Springs. The show will be February 25-26. For information on times and tickets, visit Modernism Week’s website. We have space for just 20 exceptional vintage trailers at the show, and already half the spaces are taken by some unbelievable restored and customized rigs, including Randy Grubb’s one-of-a-kind Decoliner. It’s going to be an awesome show.

Modernism Week is a different kind of display opportunity from vintage rallies. When you go to a rally you are showing off your trailer to other trailer enthusiasts. That’s nice, but you’re sort of preaching to the choir. At Mod Week, nearly 1,000 people who aren’t yet vintage trailer owners come from Los Angeles and southern CA specifically to see what’s cool. They don’t know trailers, but they know what they like and they love good design. That’s why lots of smart trailer customizers and vendors of trailer-related products are bringing their best rigs to Palm Springs for this show. Airstream will probably be there to show their new Sterling concept trailer too, and we are hoping Chris C Deam will put in an appearance at the same time.

To encourage the best of the best, we have put together a special owners-only program which includes a private reception before the show, tickets to an evening event/party at the new Saguaro Hotel, and a chance to win one of three coveted Airstream Life “Wally awards.” If you’ve got a sweet vintage trailer of any make (not just Airstream) and want to be considered for the show, just ping us at info (at) alumapalooza.com for the application form.

This is only about half of what’s on my plate. You can see why my head is swirling right now. There’s so much fun stuff out there to work on! I’ll keep pounding away at the keys and working the phone this winter so the Airstream and vintage-trailer lovers can have a great 2012—and I will too.