Why surviving in a Gertee works for me

I'm working on a new article and video of my life in a Gertee. My Gertees are going to be included in a nice English author's book on sheds, coming out this June. That honor, and the growing searches for "are yurts warm?" are part of the big push to get my Gertee Traveler business off the ground right now. I've been sitting on these PVC units for almost a year. Other people are telling my story, and I'd be a fool to not tell my own side too.

These are some of the new pictures that will be in it. I'm doing a blow by blow account of all my daily chores, describing items I use and how I've modified my entire environment to suit my own needs. I think I really understand now why the Mongolians call it a "different universe" inside. I also got a copy of the History Channel's show on The Great Khan and of the Terror he inflicted on all of Asia, the Middle East and into Europe. There are always teepees depicted in ancient Mongolian movies. Why did I ever assume only the American Plains Indians used teepees? :)

And, you know who I think the experts are on building ancient style dwellings? The set makers in movie land! I see gertees in so many historical movies it's amazing. In the History Channel version there's a big yurt on a platform being hauled by 20 oxen! And lots of teepees....

Right now I'd like to say there are 3 things I FOR SURE would hate to get caught without a stash of if the market/dollar/world collapsed. 1. plastic garbage bags, 2. baby wipes, and 3. candles.

Home Sweet Home

Using the glitter paints I got from Rebecca for Christmas!

Covering everything with fabrics!

New dining area has polyester, wool, lace and vinyl walls

View out my front door window

Put a 10' Gertee Back Yard Traveler with an all PVC roof ring up on ebay today:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110645486158&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

RE: 2020/TACM book orders: The revisions are really almost finished. I'm so sorry I felt I had to revise the entire first chapter. I held up the whole process. Now Nordica is reorganizing it all. I should see final copy by the end of this week and promise to make only minor edits, no matter how much I want to add or change. It's very difficult to publish a current events book and revise it 5 years later... too many new developments since 2006. Again, and yes this is practically our mantra now... but I sincerely thank you all for your patience.

Spring is in the air!

First Gertee Traveler for sale on ebay now!

Took me all day, but I finally got the auction posted for the first PVC yurt available on the market.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110644723111&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

The Gertee Traveler - 4 Season PVC Yurt

This unlisted video is an experiment with product advertising (and copyright negotiations) rather than my usual straight up informational or semi entertaining productions. The music is from my favorite duo back in the 70s. I followed them from their happy hour gigs in Fairbanks to their concerts in Anchorage. They were at all the music festivals too. In 1985, when Nordica was 3 months old, JoAnn's sister, Nancy Malloy choreographed a show I was in, Old Songs and Lipstick. After being a faceless fan for many years I got to know JoAnn personally. Now I'm back to thinking about having a "freedom festival" at Camp Redington this summer... with lots of music, ACL seminars and gertee building. uh huh.

Good, bad, indifferent... your reviews and feedback of this video would be very helpful. :)

Gerteeville grows!

interior 10' pvc gertee for campers

neat way to heat and cook.. goes in the book!

Gerteeville, April 20, 2010

Put the new 10' camper's model in my backyard and started playing in it last night. Had my first outside pit fire of the season and burned everything not stuck in the ice still. We're making several changes to the model after this one, all the rest of the walls from now on will be riveted permanently. I can easily manage the zip ties, after 3 moves it's all holding fairly well, but I can already see how it will irritate people. Tim figured out the rivets so that's the way they'll be. Probably cut down on a lot of complaints. :)

I still want a frame-only package for the DIY crowd and plan to make them available too. The wholesale cost will be, for a ten foot wide, 77 sq ft with an 8 foot center with tarp covers (roof, walls, floor), $500.00. Please do not try to order one yet.. heh, and Sean A. and Darren K., you guys are already at the top of my list for promo testers, I'll be writing with details soon.

It's kind of funny having the "tent" model in my yard. When I went in my 16' home gertee after it got dark and cold last night I laughed because of the vast difference between the two models. The 16' just has a floor and more covers on the walls, it's really a tent, and it yet seems like a completly different unit.

Tim warned me last night to watch for bears when I'm back on the trails because there wasn't much food last fall and there isn't any for them now as they're waking from their naps. Like humans, some bears wake up grumpy and hungry. He burned all the carcasses from around the shop and I picked up the bones and scraps the dogs dragged into my space over the winter. Now that his dog team is gone there's not a lot to keep them from coming right into the campground. eep. Lock and load! :)

Finished a 4 page handwritten draft of a new article for the UK... now i just need to type it up and get it emailed to the editor. It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be, but I haven't written anything by hand for over a decade besides my daily journals. I threw 20 pages away before I found my voice. Kept wanting to write a satire... maybe I will next time.

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring. It's amazing how good it feels to Alaskans every year, how suprisingly good it is to watch the snow melt into the ground and dry so fast if ya blink you miss it. It's hard to be depressed about the world when there's so much promise again. I've been listening to Tim's parent's record collection and singing along with GI Blues... forgot all about those songs when I made the Local agenda 21 for blonds video, coulda sang Elvis for my Nolan! - you ever get one of those days boys, you ever get one of those days? when nothing is right, from morning to night, you ever get one of those days? daysdaysdaysdaysdaysdaysdays...

"I've got those hup two three four occupation GI Blues.... GI blues..... "

Making lemonade

Big gertee and two runaways

10 foot PVC gertee

PVC walls are tied just like the wood

My laptop crashed just after I made the last post. My entire gertee book was on it, as well as all my videos and pictures from the last 4 years. At first I was so bummed I almost cried. But then, within minutes actually, I thought (again) how much of my life has been spent on the computer since I began studying the communitarian takeover in 1999. And from that moment I decided to let it all go for now, maybe it can be recovered but even if it can't, I'm still going to write the book and make the DVD... it will just be written the old fashioned way, on paper with a pen, with all new copy, pictures and video of the new gertees I'm making now.

Besides all my spring cleaning and rearanging little gertee, I refinished the 20 inch miniature with scraps from a "Sweetheart House" Kathy gave me last year. It turned out so well I want to rebuild my full size 20 footer exactly the same way. But now I have a "real" mini gertee to show.

The best news right now is Tim made the first 10 foot PVC model gertee and it totally worked! I have ideas for 6 sizes, all adaptable to each other and 12 different styles for numerous uses. No pole is over 5 foot and it should pack up nice in a duffle bag with wheels. We're making metal roof rings too for the models that will use stoves. The whole project is taking on a new dimension and it's a good thing I don't have internet because a lot of what I'm doing requires thoughtful preparation and a slower approach. I'm also relieved to get a vacation from the people who keep finding my work and then expect me to be something that I'm not. There's a lot of suffering out there, much of it caused by communitarianism, but I cannot be the salve that heals those wounds. I just can't.

The worst news I've gotten lately was from E. Michael Jones in the latest issue of Culture Wars. His article and review of a book about Private Equity firms was the first time I've learned about how the communitarians buy up companies just to put them into debt. I may have read about Bush Sr. and Carlyle being PE in Tarpley's book, but it didn't have the impact on me that Jone's piece did. If your company has been purchased by a Private Equity firm (such as the former president's) ... be prepared to be looking for a job in 2012 when the loans come due. Beyond rude who these people really are and how little knowledge we have of their true colors.

The International Journal of Neighbourhood Renewal

clear days mean cold nights

Mt Wrangell peeking out behind gertee

revised platform bed with new shower!

We're having a gorgeous spring in Kenny Lake this year. I got a little ahead of myself when I put my sleeping bag in the wash and store pile though. After two nights of freezing and thrashing about and finally dragging myself awake to start a fire and get the house above 20 degrees, I dug my dirty, smelly down sleeping bag out of the laundry pile and slept like a baby last night. It's so lovely in my gertee now I almost forget I'm still camping in sub zero temps, until early morning comes and it always reminds me. Got another cord of wood delivered which means I can burn hot fires and make use of the new shower set-up I built in the living area. Put it right next to my bed where the coat/winter gear closet was. Pure luxury and I really don't mind having all the nice smelling soaps and lotions near my head while I sleep. With a steady water source I could take a bath every night!

Still having lots of trouble with my browsers but sometimes, like today, super slow but it works well enough to blog. facebook barely loads. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-us-feds-on-facebook,0,6183802.story

So here's the link that's the title of this post:
http://www.neighbourhoodjournal.com/index.html

"We provide training and development services for a range of organisations in the field of evaluation, appraisal, programme management, project development and strategy development. Training is provided at over 40 locations across the UK and Ireland and is also available for in house training if required. "

Somehow I'm on their email list and now I get these updates from them. So today since my browser is working so well I opened their link and poked around their site. Not much there... not much at all... just dates and times where they'll be around England and Ireland training facilitators to evaluate and manage local people. No link to Common Purpose but it's hard to imagine they're not affiliates of this. John?

Been thinking a lot about new articles I'd like to write, and one about neighborhood groups and councils keeps popping up in my brain. Everything at the ACL that deals with these local yokel groups was written in 2000 when I was a pilot test subject under their communiy policing programme. My perspective has changed a wee bit since then and I'm no longer begging them for explanations and definitions of their terms. I know what neighbourhood renewal is today. I know what strategy development is too.

I'm thinking it might be a big ol' hoot to call myself the Kenny Lake Chitina Development Association. I have been working in neighborhood economic revitalization since I got here four and a half years ago and made the deal to build Tim and Lorayne's website in exchange for a campsite with electric at Camp Redington (called R's RV Park then). I fulfilled the plans for a community website which was part of Copper River Development Association's master plan for my community. I've made local fun maps and promoted local businesses online via all my gertee projects and somewhat through the ACL. I can claim to have the best interests of the community at heart, because my record here shows I do. I am just another unelected, self proclaimed development "expert" in what my community "needs." uh huh.

And I didn't give BJ (owner of Pippen Lake Gifts) any trouble when she showed up last Sunday to do the 2010 Census like we were old best friends (we've never met). She accidentally dropped some computer labled readouts of our personally identifiable information. I helped her pick them up and saw names alonside a bar code and a bunch of other codes that I'd be interested in knowing what they were. When I asked where was my address in this new census "short version", she assured me the feds didn't need my actual address since she was making a small dot on the GIS map she was carrying that identified my exact geographical location. I agreed to answer the questions if she placed my dot in an unpopulated, inaccessible roadless area of the map. Oh no worries she said, the ONLY purpose of all that personally identifiable information was to make sure Alaska gets another US Congressman! When I told her I am a political researcher, she said she knew that. hmm. Wonder what else BJ "knows" about me.

As I plod through my chores and spring cleaning my mind drifts to articles I wish I had time to work on. I really want to write something about the Madonna-whore dialectic and the influence it's had on my entire life. I think less about research and validating my position anymore, and more about how many ways the communitarian dialectic has affected my life and the lives of everyone I've ever met. I've also started singing, stretching, dancing and walking, my way of respecting the needs of my aging body. The harsh environment has made me leaner and much, much stronger but if I don't make time to stretch and relax too I will become all hunched over and crippled. Etzioni made me hate the word "balance" because of the way he uses it to destroy freedom, but I have to get over that now. I need balance between my hard core writing and my hard core lifestyle, the need is real and it's always been real. Etzioni didn't coin the term and he doesn't own it, just as the many other words he co-opted for communitarianism and changed the meanings of. He used the word "spirit" in his book title The Spirit of Community and I've avoided using that term too. Most everyone knows how I see/use the word "community".. heh.

The gertee book is coming along, especially now that I can barely get online! heh. We've worked out the PVC yurt design and Tim went to town and bought enough pipe to make 2, 16 footers! He's thinking the PVC gertee may actually be stronger than the wood. I designed it to all fit in a max 4' long box for shipping and easy carrying, but I may need to modify the lengths because the pipe all comes in 10 foot pieces. Adding the specs to the tutorial after we build it and test it in the spring winds. Thinking of ways to cover interior plastic and how to hold the materials up. I want to make one of them my greenhouse this summer and the other into a cute little guest house. Tim thinks I should sell them. :)

Gertee: Make Yourself at Home DIY Media Package

It got real cold again, last we checked it was 27 below. The new insulation really helps though, and we're half way through the winter now and gaining daylight! Happy New Year everybody!

I haven't set it up to take paypal payments yet, but if you'd like to order one with paypal just click the paypal donation button on the right and write GERTEE in the subject/message line. I will give a flat 40% discount to homeless advocacy groups and churches. Other bulk orders get discounts as follows: 10 to 49, 25% off, 50 to 99, 35% off, 100 or more, 60% off. All bulk orderers pay their own shipping costs, TBD. Available only in English. Translations coming soon!

Shelter Systems, another affordable housing option

When we're all done camping, we'll go glamping!

http://goglamping.net/europe/voix-du-ruisseau-languedoc-roussillon/

We're working on the specs for a lightweight 14' PVC Gertee model, so tonight I went poking around the internet to see what other companies may be doing the same thing. The Shelter Systems are a different style, more "domish" than yurt, but they're under 2000 bucks and may suit people in warmer climates needing temporary shelter just fine. I've been to their site before, years ago when I was still doing lots of yurt research. I liked how much light they allow in. Kind of interesting to see them again after a few years of experience building my own and living in them full time. I had to hang dark materials all around my bed in order to sleep in the summer here with just a 4' skylight. But what a greenhouse they would make! Their 30' is only $1990. and it's 11' tall, 706 square ft, which is comparable to a small house. http://www.shelter-systems.com/large.html

Go Yurt promises they don't use any PVC... won't have to worry about competition from this company! They have a model that looks a lot like my bridal gertee did this past summer with the 360 degree windows. This is a very cute yurt: http://www.goyurt.com/models.php

We'll be setting the first pvc model up on Tim's trapline and I'll go along and take a bunch of pictures because the bears are pretty much gone by now. He says I have to get over my fear of the bears and I say, or not. I'm not afraid of them when I'm here in the campground, but the trapline and all these woods around here are a very scary place to someone like me. I really don't live in such wilderness that bears walk through my yard every day, but just a few miles away they're there. I'm going to be writing a training schedule for his new trapper's training camp, and in exchange he's indulging me with another gertee idea. He can't believe the makeshift back one is staying up with only 8 roof poles but his faith in my "gurkies" is getting stronger every year. Plus, he does want something out there for when he gets stuck in the snow and it's 50 below. If this model works for him and fits nicely on a dogsled, we may be able to start producing them, and at the very least I'll also have one to take outside on the road with me.

Here's a long list of Modernist Prefab Dwellings, some of them look very livable to me.
http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/otherfabhome.htm

Several of the ideas are very creative, here's little boxes that could easily become the home of the future for the poorest members of society. I know in Japan they're renting little bedrooms with internet for people job hunting there. If I ever have to live in a box stacked on top of a bunch of other boxes, I'd like to try living in one these:

http://microcompacthome.com/projects/?con=tree