Consolidating Blogs

I'm consolidating my blogs. Mobile Broadcast News will still exist on it's own but my personal blogs/vlogs are merging HERE.

You should change your bookmarks.

If you are Subscribed to Whassup G you will soon notice that the links go to the new site. You will remain subscribed only to the Whassup G rss feed. If you would like to subscribe to more (or different) content. start HERE

the slow boat to New Orleans

I left Austin Sunday evening with the bus running perfectly on diesel, an improved coolant wrap on the veggie filter and a broken rib (i think).

I'm going to run on diesel until I get the veggie tank cleaned out and the oil refiltered. I think I've been using poorly filtered oil to often to save time and that may have contributed to the injectors gluing themselves shut.

Friday night MK, Rene & Jim and I went out scamming free beer from the multitude of free parties at the South By SouthWest festival. 12 hours later on the bicycle ride home. MK's chain got tangled in the glow stick now wrapped around her wheel and it broke her derailer. While trying to give her a push from behind so that she could keep rolling down the road... I decided to tackle the concrete. Initially I was very worried about my shoulder which now appears to be fine. My ribs however have gotten more painful each day and today I was gifted a few Vicadins. yeah!

I decided to take a short side trip to hang out with a guy that I owe a lot of sleepful nights to. Marcus was my first DVD club subscriber and kicked in a fair chunk of change to fix my injectors. WHY? Well for 1) he and his significant other are currently on their first RV working road trip because they've been inspired by my travels; and for 2) they think what I'm doing is important... So, I thought I should meet these people. '~)

The Bus is Being Held for Ransom

The bus was found to be harboring 3 completely useless fuel injectors and 1 that still worked. This was likely due to using poorly filtered oil and allowing it settle in the tank for a month while we were in Slab City. I'll be draining and refiltering the oil left in the tank before using it.

It's fixed up and ready to go as soon as I Pay Da Man 2,100. Online Donations and Pledges are at 1,500. I should be back on the road Tuesday or Wednesday depending on when the money clears and when I get paid again.

Courage

I finally got the courage to take the bus in to the shop. I'm sitting here in the parking lot waiting for them to look at it... maybe not until tomorrow. The guy that worked on before has moved to another location. They're going to give me their best "out of the box" thinker.

Journey to Safety

We made it back to Austin yesterday. The bus has issues. NO power. We had the problem since Slab City, so much trouble shooting was done along the way. Still No power and extremely slow acceleration. 0 - 55 in about 10 minutes. Every incline we had to climb dropped our speed down, sometimes down to 25-35 in an 80mph zone.

I'm going to take it in for an oil change on Monday and ask them about it.

Exit Slab City

We had our first Screening Night our last night in Slab City. We showed a selection of videos from the RNC, DNC, the Vermin Supreme campaign and other selections of interest to the 15 Slabbers who loved having info from the outside world. More Photos Here and here's a video from "The Range" the main venue in the Slabs.

MBN Movie Night on the Slabs

Still in Slab City. Setting up a movie screening night on Friday. If you're in the neighborhood come on by the bus and watch some of our latest videos on the big screen. Bring an AMFM radio and a chair if you want to sit. We'll have a fire afterward too.

Pasadena Do Dah 2009

Here we are in the parade.

Emergency Stopping Only

Yesterday we learned something about the bus. ... there's a fuel shut off safety mechanism that turns off the gas peddle. We found this out during the part of rush hour on the Ventura freeway just before the traffic slows down... ie 57 miles an hour in a sea of 70mph speeders and 5 lanes of traffic.

I was able to pull off the road and ran down a check list of things that could be wrong.. It was some what traumatic but eventually I was able to analyze it and found the shut off thingy that I had no idea existed just before the highway service truck was about to force a tow on us. .. yeah!

formerly LIVE Sunset from Malibu

The bus is on vacation. Thought we'd share today's sunset with you.

Desert Hot Springs New Year

We camped in the Desert Hot Springs Spa's parking lot for the new years celebration but after soaking in the tubs all day... fell asleep and woke up to fireworks... assumed it was midnight and went back to sleep. woo ho.

We're in the greater LA metro area from now until Jan 20th.