Vince off the Grid

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:11 pm

So we know Vince is planning to leave the Jewel of the Mid South soon for a few acres in BFE.

Will you have broadband, there?

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:10 pm

At this point. we're not sure of the limits to broadband there. I suspect we're too far out for your standard DSL and cable options. I've been looking at wireless options, but those all have data caps. So I'm pretty sure streaming video will be out.

I think initially my updates will be coming via free Wi-Fi at McDonalds once a week or so for a couple of weeks anyway.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:21 pm

Man that's gonna suck.

A lot of the more remote or frugal peeps out my way do wireless, with an antenna on their roof that has line-of-sight to the top of the local grain elevator.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:25 pm

No wimax?

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:40 pm

It will be an adjustment initially. We'll have plenty to do initially and we have a decent sized library of DVDs for slow times until we get figured out what we're going to do.

I have two chicken coops to build right off the bat (one regular large one and a chicken tractor) and one bee hive to assemble for next spring. Plus a garden area to fence in attached to the large chicken coop's run. There's a lot to clean up around there and debris to burn that was left over from the house burning down and dude just took his little tractor and drug crap into the tree line. So I'll be dragging it back into a pile in the grass and burning it.

Then it'll probably be hunting and trapping season, so we'll be doing that in the fall. I'm hoping we stay busy enough not to be impacted too heavily by it short term. At least until we figure out what we're going to be doing for TV and Internet.

Alas, no grain elevators within line of sight from me.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:45 pm

Malcolm wrote:No wimax?

Honestly haven't ever dealt with Wimax. Will look into it.

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 5:53 pm

Whoa... permanently? At first I just thought it was a vacation thing...

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 6:02 pm

Vince wrote:
Malcolm wrote:No wimax?
Honestly haven't ever dealt with Wimax. Will look into it.

Haven't tried it myself. Haven't needed to. Don't know if there's one in your area, but those networks are generally for those who want relatively comparable broadband performance over wireless.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 6:17 pm

TheCatt wrote:Whoa... permanently? At first I just thought it was a vacation thing...

Yeah. Not sure what I'll be doing for a living there. Maybe break/fix work. Maybe something out of the IT industry entirely. Maybe installing satellite TV services. Just feel it's time to get out of the city. I'm lucky that I don't have kids to put through college, so if we just squeak by, then that's okay too.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 6:25 pm

Malcolm wrote:Haven't tried it myself. Haven't needed to. Don't know if there's one in your area, but those networks are generally for those who want relatively comparable broadband performance over wireless.

Seeing some forum chatter about a kywimax from about 3 years ago. They weren't wowing them at that point. Complaining that it was only about twice the speed of dial up and down more than it was up.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Vince wrote:
Malcolm wrote:Haven't tried it myself. Haven't needed to. Don't know if there's one in your area, but those networks are generally for those who want relatively comparable broadband performance over wireless.
Seeing some forum chatter about a kywimax from about 3 years ago. They weren't wowing them at that point. Complaining that it was only about twice the speed of dial up and down more than it was up.

Since telecommunications companies eliminate competition more than they do engineering problems anymore, that may still be true.

Wimax 2 claims:

Also, low mobility users can aggregate multiple channels to get a download throughput of up to 1 Gbit/s

Nerd speak.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 6:48 pm

There will be a few things that I will have to have settled before we figure out what we'll be using. A functional physical address to start with. Then a job for myself so we'll have an idea of disposable income. The wife works for a hospital here that has a hospital that'll be about 30 minutes from where we're moving. They don't want to lose her, so we're about 95% sure they're going to be able to get her set up with her currently responsibilities at that facility which will be good.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:12 pm

Food/shelter are optional. Internet is not.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 1:05 pm

As we continue to prepare the house for selling and our moving, I had a couple of thoughts on the process.

First off, it sucks. I've been in this house for about 19 years. Lots of memories both good and bad. Through a few jobs and all of my marriages. I've heard that moving is the third most stressful thing we deal with after family deaths and losing your job.

I've noticed quite a few dreams about my first ex-wife and dreams about working still at Cleo (from 11 some-odd years ago). Just strange brain stuff.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 11:24 pm

Wait... is there a thread I missed about Vince going Kaczynski?
Too drunk to search.

I've had DSL in my area for less than 2 years. I lived off dial-up and trips to town for bigger downloads.
I was impossible to call my house because I was on dial-up pretty much 24/7.

Post by **Troy** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 12:53 am

Yeah, i'd be interested to how you came to the decision to go all "into the wild"

Post by **Vince** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 5:34 pm

My wife and I have found that oddly enough we like doing the outdoors stuff. We'd talked about retiring up near my dad's property. And it had also been my SHTF plan for many years. We've talked here about what an EMP event would look like for the country, etc.

The more I watched the world economic news, the more I started to think the shit might not so much "hit" the fan as slowly dribble into it until everything's covered in it. So when does one leave the city? That has been a standard stanza in my prayers. "Let me know when it's time to go."

You wait too long and you're sitting on property you can't sell. But I really didn't want to pull the trigger too soon either. Also even if I get out of the city just in the nick of time, we're out in the country trying to figure out how to do a lot of stuff when learning how is much more essential. I'd rather have a year or two to figure it out while we can all still go to WalMart if the learning curve is steeper than expected.

So last fall some stuff happens at work and in those conditions I knew I'd have to find another job. The thought of even looking for another job here just turned my gut in knots. Something was very wrong with that. The thought of trying to find a job in KY crossed my mind and even knowing the job market is slim and making as much money as I do today isn't likely and I might even have to find something far outside my career field... even taking all that into consideration I had a calm come over me. It just feels like it's time.

So in two or three years I'll either be in a really good place compared to most the rest of folks, or I'll be proven an idiot.

So that's the big story. Plus a couple of years ago we were heading back to Memphis from a long weekend out at my dad's. I think we'd been semi-hunting (read: piddling out in the woods with firearms and the Rhino) and as we approached Memphis traffic again watching the idiots on the highway trying to text as they drove I turned to my wife and said. "Humans weren't meant to live like this."

I realize there will be idiots in the rural areas as well, but the concentration will be less.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:31 pm

What part of KY?

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:12 am

Western KY near the TN border. Mostly farm country.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:44 am

I'll be staying in the Land Between the Lakes area later this week.
Western KY is the only part of the state to have water moccasins.