Don't Be Alarmed

I think my van and I just had an argument.

I just got finished playing basketball and headed out to the van so I could transition to Walmart for the night. As I approached the van, I clicked the keyless entry button to unlock it.

Nothing.

So I try again. Still nothing.

No big deal. It's a 1992 GMC Vandura. Asking it not to break down is like asking Mike Tyson not to get a tattoo on his face or asking David Spade not to impregnate playmates. No matter what you do, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Resigned to the idea that the keyless entry stopped working, I grabbed the key to open the driver's side door the old fashion way. Only the second I unlocked it, the alarm went off.

I've already discussed my disdain for car alarms on this blog, but what I neglected to mention is that certain car alarms are particularly annoying. My van's alarm indisputably fits into this category. If there were a school for car alarms, my van's alarm would be the alarm that sits alone at lunch because all of the other alarms think he's too annoying, loud, and long-winded.

I've never known this about the alarm before, because everytime it goes off, I merely click the keyless entry to turn it off. This time, with the keyless entry not working, I searched fruitlessly for some way, any way, to turn it off. Nothing worked.

So for over three minutes I sat in dismay as my van made annoying sound after annoying sound. The creativity behind its obnoxiousness was astounding. About two minutes in, I started to fear it was one of those novelty alarms and would start yelling "Step the F away from the car. I repeat, back the F away from the car."

Mercifully, the alarm eventually stopped, and the keyless entry soon started working again too. Hopefully, it stays that way. When you sleep in your van, it's important to be inconspicuous, and there's nothing more conspicuous than an autograph-laden van that won't shut up.

So You're Going to Freeze to Death...

As I huddled in my van, staring out at an ice storm, wondering if I was going to make it through the night, I made myself a promise:

"If you live to see the morning," I told myself in a melodramatic tone that would make the cheesiest soap opera star jealous, "Swear to me that you'll write a blog to the millions of children you inspired to travel around the country in vans. If you survive, you must share your wisdom on how you lived to see another day. Do it for the children goddamnit!"

Okay, so none of that except for the ice storm is true; that doesn't change the fact that there doesn't exist a definitive guide to surviving impossibly cold weather while living in a van. You know, unless there does. I was going to fact-check, but then I realized that fact-checking is hard, so I'm just going to assume that such a guide doesn't exist.

And so, I bring you "So You're Going to Freeze to Death: The Do's and Don'ts of Winter Van Safety." My only regret is that I couldn't make it into an instructional video complete with cheesy 1980's graphics and awkward yet inspirational background music.


When living in your van in the heart of winter:

DO use as many blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags as you can find. And I do mean "as you can find." Anyone who's going to look down at you for grabbing a comforter out of the dumpster behind Bed, Bath, and Beyond was probably already going to make fun of you for living in your van anyway.

DON'T use a Snuggie. Especially if you're a grown man. It's just embarrassing for everyone involved.

DO get rid of normal dating policies, like "no fat chicks." Other people provide warmth during long cold nights, and more pounds equals more warmth. It's simple physics.

DON'T call up your ex. It's cold enough already.

DON'T make too many misogynistic jokes in your blog. Otherwise, the only warmth you'll be getting is from girls that don't know what misogynistic means.

DO wear socks when you go to sleep. If you forget, you'll wake up with toes that are whiter than an Osmond family reunion.

DON'T wear flip-flops. Flip-flops plus black ice equals unintentional pratfalls. I unfortunately know this from first hand experience.

DO turn the engine on to warm up the car. Turn the radio on the soul station and warm yourself to the soothing, dulcet tones of Marvin Gaye.

DON'T leave the engine on overnight. The only thing worse than a dead battery is a dead driver from carbon monoxide poisoning. (Note to self: carbon monoxide poisoning is a dead end source for punchlines.)

DO use your best judgment. If you think you're going to actually freeze to death, find a local shelter or 24 hour Walmart.

DON'T walk half a mile in the freezing cold to buy gloves, only to find that the mall has closed because of the bad weather, only to return to a Starbucks that is also closing down early. Although the anger resulting from this will likely warm you up temporarily. There's a reason they call a mad person "heated." Have you ever seen The Incredible Hulk wearing a parka? I rest my case.


And finally,

DO check the weather forecast before driving to a new location that might have bad weather. Enjoy it, Weather Channel; this is the last recommendation you'll probably get from someone born after 1942.

DON'T drive to Dallas during an ice storm. You know, unless you're into that sort of thing.

Rutherford B. Hayes Didn't Have the Same Ring to It

After a world-wide vote that rivaled the voting turnout of American Idol (you have no proof that it didn't), a winner has emerged for the name of my 1992 GMC Vandura/ apartment.

It was a very close race and "Hydranoid" and "Pam Vanderson" put up strong efforts. Thank you very much for your suggestions, Matthew and Dan. However, just edging those out was the winner, and new name for the projectmeaning.com van...

Martin "Van" Buren.

There are several reasons why I am excited about this name. So many, in fact, that I will present the top 11 reasons (take that, Letterman!) why Martin "Van" Buren is an excellent name for my lovely home:





1. Martin Van Buren, though a forgettable president, had an amazing hairstyle. It feels good to be able to honor that.

2. It's a much better choice than his successor, William Henry Harrison, because Harrison died thirty days after taking office. That would be asking for a breakdown, no matter how much I wanted to use the slogan, "Tippecanoe and GMC too."


3. It's easy to shorten it to Martin, which honors Martin Sheen (a televison president), Martin Short, and the tragically forgotten hit sitcom featuring Martin Lawrence and the brilliant Sheneneh...come to think of it...she looked a lot like Lawrence.


4. Sticking with the television theme...Seinfeld once mentioned a gang called the Van Buren Boys, a rough tough street gang that was named after Martin Van Buren and "just as mean as he was." So it gives me, you know, street cred.


5. If "Martin" gets old as a moniker, I can refer to the van as "MVB," which sounds very important.


6. The "Van" part is meant to be used as a pun. Get it? Very clever, if I do say so myself.


7. According to Wikipedia (which is of course 100% accurate), Van Buren's presidency was "largely characterized by the economic hardship of his time, the Panic of 1837." So yeah, that makes the name politically and socially relevant for our current times.


8. The name was originally suggested by my friend Derek, who is currently in medical school. The man's about to be a doctor. If people are going to entrust him with their health, it should be pretty safe to entrust him with not screwing up my van's name.


9. If the name doesn't work out, I can blame it all on Derek. Here's hoping that judges take a liberal interpretation of the term "malpractice."



10. Van Buren is a busy street in downtown Phoenix. It is best known as a popular hangout for prostitutes. Just thought you should know.

11. When the van breaks down (which will likely happen at least twenty times in the upcoming year), I can loudly exclaim, "Damn you, Martin 'Van' Buren!"

The REALLY Bachelor Pad...Thanks Mike

My van just passed 100,000 miles on the odometer, and the first digit never rolled over from a zero to a one. That means, to my dismay, she likely has over 200,000 miles on her now. After all, if my van were a human, she would now be old enough to drive herself.

In honor of this, it's time for phase two of everybody's favorite promotional game, "Name that van!"

Since the last time we played, I've had numerous suggestions for names for the Project Meaning van. I've decided to list my five favorites here and let everyone vote on their preference. After all, I am all about spreading Democracy.

Here are the five finalists:

+ Martin Van Buren (suggested by Derek in Tucson, AZ) I like this one because it incorporates a bad pun, makes me seem educated, and reminds me of Van Buren Street, the road in my hometown of Phoenix that is notorious for its plethora of prostitutes.

+ Barking Beast (suggested by Jaime in Bend, OR) This is in reference to Arthurian lore and the legend of the questing beast. The beast was known for the great barking sound it emits from its belly. The beast has a mixed bag of body parts from a serpent, lion, leopard, and hart, which according to wikipedia is a fancy name for a deer.

+ Charles "Corky" Thatcher: The Van (suggested by Steve in Phoenix, AZ) I just thought this one was funny. And who doesn't love a good episode of "Life Goes On?"

+ Hydranoid (suggested by Matthew in Renton, WA) Hydranoid is a character from Mathew's favorite cartoon. I don't know anything about said cartoon, but I think the name has a classy, futuristic vibe to it. Plus, it's one of about three suggestions I got that didn't involve a pun.

+ Pam Vanderson (suggested by Dan in Phoenix, AZ) Because my van has quite a bit of mileage on her, yet remains stunning. Plus, I like boobs.

Thank you for everyone who contributed. I've been asked to keep Sexbeerviolence, a personal suggestion, in the running, so feel free to vote for that as the name as well. Let me know your favorite, and I'll do my best to stay true to the Democratic process.

Though I may involve the electoral college.

Eddie Van Halen

My 1992 GMC Vandura is acting up again. As I type this, it is in a Bellingham auto shop getting serviced with a new muffler, a transmission fluid change, and a quadruple bypass. Of course, none of this directly addresses the original reason I brought it into the shop, which is its random inability to start when I turn the ignition.

Yes, my vandominium is old, unreliable, and I suspect slightly sinister. And part of me likes it that way. What's the fun of traveling when you know you're safe and secure and there's absolutely no chance of your vehicle/house careening off a cliff because the brakes finally decided to give out?

The truth is, my van is my transportation, my shelter, and (thanks to my nomadic reality and complete and utter lack of personality) my closest companion on this journey. It is the Kit to my Hasselhoff, the Herbie to my Lohan, the Wilson the Volleyball to my Hanks.

It is a key character in the projectmeaning.com story. Which is why it is an unforgivable shame that I haven't named it yet.

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to be a poor judge of taste when it comes to naming things. I still shudder when I recall that I desperately wanted to name my second dog, a Tibetan Spaniel/Toy Poodle mix, "Little Lady."

As if its not hard enough being a young boy with a small lap dog, I was going to compound the problem by giving it the most effeminate name imaginable. Paris Hilton wouldn't name a dog that, and I'm pretty sure she's a chihuahua purse suffocation away from being lap dog enemy number one.

(I still have a lapdog, this time in the form of a Shih Tzu, but he is considerably more manly than most Mastiffs when you factor in his rugged state of mind, and I have made sure to protect his masculinity by naming him Sexbeerviolence, or "Wicket" for short.)

The point is, I'm worse at naming things than your average Zappa.

So I'm leaving this one to you, my millions and millions of readers (numbers are estimates) to help me name my beautiful vanpartment. Feel free to send any and all suggestions to Logan@projectmeaning.com. With any luck, this could be the greatest promotion since they decided to add a new M&M color.

Please be advised that the following suggestions will be given no consideration:

+ Little Lady.

+ Anything having to do with the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, or Los Angeles Lakers.

+ Stupid Logan's Stupid Van. (This includes all similar insults or curse words designed to demean me as a human being. I'm looking at you, Mom.)


On a separate note, I will be heading to Canada tomorrow, so my cell phone service and internet may not be readily available for the coming week. I will try to continue to update this blog daily, but I can't promise anything, so I apologize in advance for any days missed.

It's not because I didn't want to blog, it's because I couldn't resist riding that moose after my 27th Labatt Blue.

The Piddle Shuffle

Remember the pee pee dance?

You know, the pee pee dance. I'm not sure if this is the universal name (others may have called it the potty trot, the piss twist, or the urine jig) for when children shuffle back and forth nervously, but it certainly is a universal sign all children instinctively give to alert their parents of the need to find a toilet immediately.

This is something we all grow out of as soon as we are old enough to master the art of using the toilet effectively. Unfortunately, many towns across America close their stores early, and with them close my access to bathrooms.

When I find myself parked outside of a Walmart that is not open 24 hours, I often wake up doing the pee pee dance.

This is really my only complaint about living in a van.

I have gotten really comfortable with the day to day aspects of living in my vehicle. Almost too comfortable. The following are signs that I might be going insane and must return to a normal existence as soon as possible:

+ I now enjoy eating in my van. When ordering out at the beginning of this project, I always ate meals in the dining room of whatever restaurant I ordered from. As nice as Taco Bell's decor is, I now find myself more often than not ordering food to go and then eating in my van. I am almost certain this is weird.

+ I look forward to evening television in my living room. Many nights, I set up my laptop on my wash bucket (which doubles as my finest coffee table and entertainment center), plug in to my power inverter, and use the Slingbox I got for my birthday to watch television. These technological advancements have caused me to become surprisingly domestic.

+ The makeshift bed at the back of my van has become so familiar that I consider it to be "my bed." When visiting relatives, I sleep in some really nice guest rooms with luxurious mattresses, but almost never sleep as well as I do in my van. I get a good night's sleep every night, despite the fact that I generally am sleeping under the fluorescent glow of store signs with all sorts of noises penetrating the van's thin walls.

+ I'm sure my lifestyle presents a certain level of danger, especially considering not every place I stop is a good neighborhood, but I always sleep with the doors unlocked.

This is certainly stupid behavior, but I don't see myself correcting the problem anytime soon. It's a stubborn old man thing, like not going to the doctor when I'm sick or injured. Of course, that's also because I don't have health insurance, which, come to think of it, is another compelling argument for locking my doors at night.

When it comes down to it, I like not locking my doors at night, even if it may not be the safest choice.

Too many of us are scared to live because we are so busy living scared.

(Another decisive philosophical stance from yours truly, the man who started today's blog commenting on the pee pee dance. You're welcome. Be sure to check in tomorrow for a blog where I transition from the proper use of a whoopee cushion to a scathing analysis on America's financial crisis.)

I Live in a Van Down by the Walmart!

I now know what a hot pocket feels like.

Every morning I wake up feeling like I was just microwaved. That's one of the problems with living in a van...in the desert...during the summer.

I can't currently open my windows because the Walmart I am staying at (more on that in future posts) is about twenty feet from McCarran International Airport, and it turns out planes are relatively loud. There's a reason that those relaxing sounds CDs meant to make you fall asleep tend to include "running water" and "gentle breezes" more than "jet engines" and "landing gear."

I would go to a different Walmart, but this one is centrally located and in a relatively good neighborhood, a tough combination to find in Vegas. Plus, it comes with security, in the form of a small car with a flashing orange siren driven by various residents of the nearby retirement community. (I've had a couple conversations with Doug, an affable security guard who informs me most of his coworkers actually do "remember the Alamo.") These guards circle the parking lot over and over again for hours on end, spraying the surrounding area with a charming neon glow that I now describe as "homey."

Still, it definitely beats the Pilot Travel Center I parked at for my first week on the road. It was busy 24 hours a day and had a sign lighting structure eerily reminiscent of Times Square. It also offered showers for a low low price of ten dollars which, judging by the look of the showers, did not cover the cleaning expenses. I chose instead to opt for a coin-operated water machine and a good old-fashioned bucket.

There are some good things about living in the van, which include (but are not limited to):

1. During the day, I am forced to leave my doors open to take advantage of the breeze (and by this I mean 115 degree gusts of hot air), and it results in meeting a lot of interesting individuals. I find these interactions generally involve some sort of financial transaction. Sometimes the person I talk to feels inspired by my search for meaning (and by this I mean "sorry for me") and generously slips me some money for gas. Other times, I find myself giving others money, mainly because they ask and I'm not particularly adept at saying no. Actually, one guy saw me working on my laptop in the van and, despite my insistence that I am one step removed from "computer illiterate," I am currently awaiting a call from his mother so that I can provide her with computer support.

2. Being microwaved is good for my tan. I occasionally get sunburned (to the point of blisters once), but I'm pretty sure a "healthy glow" is in my near future. To borrow a line from my favorite Ithaca business establishment, that's "Tanfastic!"

3. The van keeps giving me inspirations for new games. My current favorite is a drinking game called "How many times can you hit your head?" Here's how to play:

Step One: Grow to be 6 feet 4 inches tall.

Step Two: Live in a van.

Step Three: Discover new and inventive ways to hit your head.

Every time you hit your head, drink. If you hit your head on the same part of the van twice in one day, drink double. If you hit your head hard enough to cause "blunt force trauma," drink until the pain goes away.