From my reply to a discussion in r/photography on Reddit.
Take less. Be a partner and a parent, and above all, be present. Less is more when traveling, especially with family.
If you’re in doubt about this, remember that artistic limitations force us to get creative. Your photography will not suffer from lack of gear. Your back will suffer from the excess.
From my reply to a discussion in r/ZenHabits on Reddit.
You will not accidentally stumble into life balance. If you feel calm and focused when you’re with your child, it’s because your actions are in alignment with your priorities. When you’re doing the million other things, however, you’re likely distracted by all the things that are not done, PLUS whatever you’re doing is a distraction from your priority, which is your child.
I recommend making those other million tasks meditative. You won’t get them all done, but when you’re doing one of them, focus on that one task. If your mind slips, nudge yourself back to focus on the task at hand. Do not allow distractions like music, phones, or social media. Just like when you meditate, be mindful of your breathing and your posture.
Let’s try an example: washing the dishes. First, keep your attention to the task on hand. Pay attention to the temperature of the water, the smell of the soap, the act of scrubbing food off the dirty plates, and so on. Breathe: deeply in, deeply out. Stand with your feet planted and your spine aligned. Do not listen to podcasts, music, or even your child while doing the dishes. Do not let your consciousness drift to the other things you have to do. Stay in the moment. Stay present.
If this is challenging at first, do it for very short sessions (1 minute or less) at the outset. You won’t be able to be meditatively mindful for every task, but that’s okay. Every little bit helps you regain that balance.
From my reply to a discussion in r/VWBus on Reddit.
So basically a reliable tin roof camper is my dream and goal. Is something like this relatively possible and is it economic? Like not absolutely shattering my savings.
Possible? Yes. Economic? No. Especially if you want reliability and modern convenience. Depending on how much of the work you’re willing to do yourself, your tools and knowledge, you can definitely keep those costs down, but then you’re spending your time and life energy instead of money. As someone who grew up with buses and has driven them through much of my adult life, I assure you that they are cool but costly.
Consider: a running van is going to cost you in the ballpark of $5-10K. I’ve never seen a bus for that price that didn’t need some amount of parts and work just to make it roadworthy and reliable, so add another $5-10K. An engine transplant will cost will cost you $2-5K minimum if you have the tools and knowledge, and typically can run much higher. Interiors and modern convenience don’t come cheap, so budget another $5K. So realistically to get what you want, you’re going to be spending in the neighborhood of $15-20K for a 50 year old vehicle. Maybe more. Probably more.
Now bargains and barn finds do exist. And a lot of it depends on your standards. If you don’t mind being seen in a van with rust, then you can skimp on the bodywork. Having space to tear down and work on the vehicle at your own pace, then you aren’t going to need to drop cash all that at once, which saves the bank account and also helps keep the wife from getting suspicious. But the bottom line is that you’re going to spend money to make it happen.
And is it what you really want? A lot of people dream of going mobile in an iconic hippie van, but aren’t as interested in learning how to adjust their carburetors or sourcing subie engine parts. Driving them is fun on the winding back roads, but is hell on a hot day in city traffic. If you want the open road and the ability to camp out of your back hatch, there are other cheaper options.
Of course, it may be an itch that you can only scratch one way. Don’t worry, you’re not alone, we’ve all been there. Find yourself a bus, roll up your sleeves, and empty your wallet. Make it your bus. In the end, you can’t take the money with you, so make the memories and live today.
From my reply to a discussion in r/travel on Reddit.
When in was 30 I suggested to my dad (who was 60 and working overseas in Moscow at the time) that we meet in the middle, in Spain. He agreed, so we spent a week and a half with barely a plan, and visited Barcelona, Sevilla, Gibraltar, and even hopped over to Morocco for a day.
I have countless memories, but what I remember most: playing chess together on the train. Getting lost together in the Jewish Quarter In Sevilla. Walking along the beach in Tarifa. Drinking sangrias and people watching on las Ramblas.
It would turn out to be a fortuitous decision to make the trip. A few years later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away too soon. I would have liked to travel other places with him. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered where.
Remember to take advantage of the time you have, while you have it.
From my reply to a discussion in r/canon on Reddit.
Get rid of the idea of a “holy trinity” of lenses. It’s a stupid marketing gimmick (I’ll probably trigger a lot of people with that statement). It makes sense for professional event photographers, who need maximal flexibility from their kit. And for a lot of amateur photographers who shoot a bit of this, that, and everything, a do-all set of relatively fast zooms seems attractive. The problem is that they’re big, heavy, and expensive. And in some ways, they offer too much choice.
Instead, build your own “trinity.” You shoot portraits, animals, and flowers. Ok, so get a kick-butt portrait lens, a decent telephoto with a bit of reach, and a macro. You’d do well with a 50mm, 100mm macro, and a 135mm, for example. It’s a smaller kit that would allow you to focus (ba-dum-dum) in on the things you love.
But what if you’re on a trip and you want to take a landscape? Use the 50. Or learn to do landscapes with the 135. Sure, you won’t get wide sweeping vistas, but that’s ok. Learning to use limited tools to capture the images you want is what will define your art and images.
Now don’t get me wrong, zooms aren’t a bad idea for a lot of people. Maybe you’re one. Maybe your 24-70 is your defining lens. If that’s the case, then accept and even embrace its limitations. You’ve got one of the best normal zooms of all time, so you don’t need a 50 at all. Instead, maybe add reach with a 70-200. Or again, compliment it with a prime like the 100mm macro L or 135mm f2 (both of which are absolutely amazing and versatile lenses).
I converted the engine in my VW Vanagon to a Ford Zetec using Bostig’s kit. Then they held a contest. Here’s my video entry about the conversion, with a bit of van philosophy and some music I played.
I am coming up on six years of Vanagon ownership in March of this year. Olly came to me by way of a dealership in Colorado. Before that he lived for a bit in the Pacific Northwest, but he began life in Texas like so many German immigrants. I take some measure of joy in the fact that I’ve brought him back “home.” Vans are rare in these parts.
I know all of this because of a CarFax report and some receipts I found in the van, but otherwise the previous owners are a mystery to me. I don’t know the names of these vanagonauts or the roads they travelled in Olly. I’d like to think that some of the longtime van owners out there passed Olly and exchanged a Vanagon wave during his 145,000 previous-to-me miles, but that’s purely fantasy.
What I do know is that Olly has been both loved and neglected. For the most part he came to me blessedly stock, although less than fully functional. I say “blessedly” not because I believe that a stock van is inherently better, but because it made learning about the ins and outs of Vanagons a lot easier in a place where there are few references other than Bentley and the list. Electrical gremlins are much easier to exorcize when the diagrams approximate reality.
That being said, there are signs-a-plenty that Olly has been captained by others. Patched metal, taped wires, jumped connections, POR-15’d spots, and stripped non-metric bolts point to both care and neglect. Most often I curse the previous owner’s bone-headedness, like when I find that BOTH the front door wiring harnesses were snipped instead of being disconnected properly just a few inches further under the dash.
It’s frustrating to stumble across such examples the PO’s handiwork while I’m in the middle of fixing something else, but lately I’ve been trying to view these scars as talismans. That the repairs were done at all is an indication that someone, somewhere along the way wanted to keep this van on the road a little longer. That those folks cared about this van, even if they lacked expertise or proper tools. Many vans are not so lucky. Mine was, and so it has to come to me.
For that I am grateful.
So I here’s to you, all you previous owners, for your stubbornness that kept the four wheels rolling even when you had no business trying. For your bravery in owning a Vanagon at all. And for your wisdom to pass the van (and the mess you made) on to someone else when the time came. I thank you.
