I was pumping oil a few nights ago when a guy called Ben and his dog Walter stopped to check us out. The next day, Ben showed up at the bus with his girlfriend Lexi. They’re thinking of buying a school bus, stepping up their bio diesel operation and traveling out to some land in Oregon owned by Ken Kesey’s Granddaughter. The light was fading and we were preparing to leave town, but we took a walk to their house a few blocks away and shot some dark, shaky videos.

Ben and Lexi from transit antenna on Vimeo.

Later that night, after we ate and got our stuff all tied down in the bus, we hit Jack Dempsey’s (who were super cool) for some really clean oil, then followed Ben and Lexi in their Benz, making a few more stops on our way out of town. We left the city of New Orleans around 2am. Changing filters on a bridge overlooking a city in the middle of the night never felt so good.

Happy New Year from TRANSIT ANTENNA!

All this week I have been working with math concepts with Mateo following up from a detailed story I was telling him about the Land of Numeria (which I will later describe in better detail). For the purpose of today’s post and a quick snippet into education on the road, here are some images of our morning ventures and number games.

We played number twister, we jumped like little New Orleans Bayou frogs from high to low numbers and back up again and rounded it all off with little addition and subtraction problems.

Here’s to the beauty and ingenuity of Homschooling and empowering one’s self with the resources to foster and nourish our own children’s thirst!

On our way out of New York state (where we spent the summer with a busted radiator) we passed through Brooklyn and helped Green Bus Tour set up a waste vegetable oil acquisition and filtration system for their flagship bus. Green Bus Tour is “a growing participatory community, out to inspire a culture of conscious living through creative collaboration and by promoting a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.” In short an expanding group of huggy-feely spiritual seekers out to change the world in a prescriptive fashion by ferrying folks to events around the North East USA from their base of operations, a wellness center in Brooklyn. In between morning stretches, meditating and making flagons of chai tea and tofu scramble for a harvest festival fundraiser, Charlie Gonzalez, who alongside associate JP seemed to be in charge of spear heading Green Bus Tour activities, helped me get situated. I spent the first day designing a few different systems, buying parts and testing and rewiring their equipment. The second day, which went by super fast, was spent installing everything.

The system finally consisted of a 55gal raw acquisition tank, a 1/3 HP water pump and a 5 micron bag filter which fed directly into their main clean tank (installed by Ray a few months earlier). As they only had one pump at their disposal I had to split the ports to serve all acquisition and transfer functions. Using the pump they can now suck through a 5/8 fuel hose into a 55gal drum, then suck from that drum and push via a pressure relief valve through their filter. Its a basic system, their filter will probably clog more than if they had a range of sediment filters, but it works. I also put a drain hole in the bottom of the raw tank for ease of flushing.

Me, JP and Charlie Gonzalez.

It was a genuine pleasure and a privilege to do this job. In the short time I have been ‘working’ as a Transit Antenna crew member I feel like that I have gained so much useful knowledge. One year ago I had an entirely different skill set, one that was predominantly geared towards making money. One year on and all that has changed. By learning these basic systems I am able to make not only to make positive changes in my own life, but help others to do the same. Joining Transit Antenna, overcoming previously insurmountable obstacles and often working for little other than a cause has taught me much about civic responsibility, and ultimately enriched my own experience of living.