The Geek Crusher

Our new home

2007-10-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Geek Crusher blog has moved to our new permanent home:

http://geekcrusher.com/blog/

Be sure to visit us at our new location. Don't forget to update your bookmarks!!

Thanks everyone for all the support!!!

Floors and walls

2007-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Now that we've gotten back into working on the Crusher regularly we're making great progress. Well, Dave is making most of the progress while I'm working on keeping the websites going that are paying for the project.

Dave got most of the wiring all figured out. We're going to have 3 outlets on each side of the truck, which should be sufficient. Now we will put the roof back in place and install sheet metal on the walls - thanks to Thornton Plumbing and Heating. We're thinking laminate flooring for the floors. I tried to buy it online thinking I good get hooked up with a good deal, but turns out that shipping 80 square feet of flooring will cost $150 so we decided to look into other options. Looking on craigslist.org i noticed a lot of people tend to over-buy when doing flooring projects and we found some people selling their extras for pretty cheap. We haven't bought anything yet, but i think that's a purchase we will be making soon.

Now we're starting to plan out the layout and decorating of the mobile office. Once we get the floors/walls in place we are going to take another small trip to try out a few set-ups to see what works best.

The Crusher goes to Brighton

2007-10-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

Our first journey:

So, the mobile office isn't done yet, but since we have all the major components for powering everything, we figured we'd take it out for a little mini-trip.

Destination: Brighton, Utah

We loaded up some make-shift desks, power strips, laptops, lawn chairs, snacks and of course, a bottle of wine to celebrate our first trip. We headed up the canyon where we picked up a hitchhiker. He was a schizophrenic guy named Tom. We gave him a lift up to his cabin.

We got up to Brighton. Luckily, the resort has wireless internet so we parked right up by the lodge. At this point we realized that the metal cage we were in very effectively blocked out all wireless internet access. We rearranged the desk situation so we were closer to the window. Success. We set up shop and went to work. I've found I'm much more productive when I'm working from exciting places. We opened the back doors so we had a perfect view of the mountains. It was a little chilly, but we brought hoodies and blankets so it wasn't too bad.

This little trial run gave us a chance to see what was needed/needed to be fixed to effectively run our office. The internet thing will be an issue - especially once we get the wall up in the cab. Dave will run some sort of antenna on the roof so we can pick up a signal. Everything went pretty well. We had a productive day and it gave us the motivation needed to get back to work on the truck.

Back in action

2007-10-04T00:11:00.000-07:00

And we're back!

So now we've got all the necessary equipment for powering the mobile office. I'll have Dave go more into that later. Basically, we have 2 generators, a power inverter, 2 additional batteries and a battery charger.

Dave is working on setting up the door that separates the cab from the rest of the truck. It's a wooden wall with a sliding door. It will be well insulated to block out much of the truck's running noises.

Next on the to-do list: wiring.

Not a lot to report. . .

2007-09-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

We took a break from working on the truck to work on building up our company, getting a few projects up and running and taking on a few clients. We hope to get back on this project soon. We are ready and anxious to get on the road.

Took a couple days off

2007-06-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

We took some time off from working on the truck. I moved out of my old house and into a new place, so I took a week off to move and get settled. I used the truck to haul all of my crap. It's coming in handy aready.

We got quite a bit done before the break, just just never got around to posting anything about it. We got the floor installed as well as the walls. Gary (who is now my new roommate) isntalled support beams in the cieling. These will support the sort of "upper level" pop-out sleeping area we will be isntalling later on. Dave is working on assembling the door that will divide the cab from the back of the truck as well as getting all the wiring figured out. Here are some pictures of the progress up to this point.

Update

2007-06-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have not been the best poster here... I just work on it. So I'm going to fill you in now on what I've been working on.

As you know we started out ripping it apart. We bought it under the assumption that we were going to be able to use some of what was already there and build off from it. The more research I did, and the more I understood what I wanted the more of it we ripped out. As you can see we finally took it all out and started from ground zero.

THE RECONSTRUCTION

Ok, so the goal here is to be as light weight and as efficient as possible while saving as much space as we can. Starting with the walls, I did a ton of research and found this paint additive that is based off the technology the space shuttle uses to insulate itself so it doesn't burn up when coming back into the atmosphere. Its pretty cool, roll on insulation! After getting all that on the inside I decided that was just not going to do, mainly because of noise factor. It does well against temperature, but not much for the noise factor.

To combat this I decided to get 15/16 plywood and screw it to the walls, but then went the extra mile and layered 1/2 inch foam insulation between the walls and the wood. Now because I know we would not be unhappy going even farther on this, I put another coat of insulation paint on the inside of the wood. So now we have 1 thick layer paint, 1/2 inch foam isolation, 1 really thick layer of paint, and 15/16 plywood! I think we have a good efficient insulating factor here!!!

TECHY STUFF

Our next task here is to figure out how to power the whole office while driving. This is harder than it sounds. We have to power 3 not so energy efficient computers, duel monitors on each one, router, external hard drive, AC unit, heater, lights, Stereo, phone/ipod etc chargers, possible microwave, fridge, oven, assorted kitchen stuff, and well I could go on and on. SO... I know we had to get it right the first time so I went out and found a BRAND NEW 5000 Watt Diesel generator. I also purchased a 2500 watt 12v power inverter and 2 12v deep cycle batteries. The goal here is to have 2 different power sources to work from so we don't overload either one of them. So we will have a total of 7500 watts to work with. I think we should be good. There is a hurtle though... WIRING THIS ALL UP...

We have not done this yet but I have a good theory as to how I will do this. We have to develop 3 different circuits that go through the truck. 1 being the generator, 1 being the inverter, and one being the line we plug into when we are docked. This can become quite confusing. I also want to keep it nice and clean, so there is not all these wires hanging around and tons of plugs to keep track of what is what. I will have pics later to show what I did to combat this problem.

Wish me luck,
Dave

We got a lot done this week

2007-05-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple days since I've written, so there is a lot to catch up on. First, Dave and Gary took off the back bumper and welded on a new extended bumper which will hold the generator:

We finished painting the walls and the floor with the insulating paint:

We got the wood and insulation to line the floor and ceiling:

We got the whole floor installed:

It's hard to see in the picture, but i painted a smily face on Dave's back. Now he has a tan line from it. :)

Oh, and we couldn't have made it through the day with out a couple injuries:

Friends of the Crusher

2007-05-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, we've set up a myspace so everyone add us :)

http://www.myspace.com/geekcrusher

Paint

2007-05-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last 2 days painting the interior walls. It's sort of a grayish/whitish/yellowish color. It looks like a space ship. OK, not really, but we did mixed in this fancy insulating powder that NASA developed. We still have a coat or two to go on the walls and we're going to paint the floor as well. Since it's for insulating purposes, rather than aesthetic, the color doesn't matter at this point and most of this won't be showing anyway. After we are done painting we'll be covering the walls with plywood and thin insulation then covering the whole thing with sheet metal to give it a high-tech feel.

Week 3

2007-05-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Dave's been getting a lot of the technical aspects figured out for the truck/mobile office. I'll have to have him explain those in a little better detail since most of it is still a little over my head. We've got most everything we need as far as power is concerned: 7000 watt generator, batteries, inverter, etc, etc. Over the past few days Dave got the rest of the framing and the floor out of the truck and we started painting the walls with the insulating paint. To provide further insulation, as well as sound protection, we've also got plywood and some thin insulation. We will only lose about an inch on either side with this method, as opposed to the original framing and insulation which took almost a full 4 inches off either side.

Countdown to success

2007-05-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

According to the fortune cookie I got with my dinner last night, success is only a month away.

Happy Friday

2007-05-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

It is Friday, isn't it? I don't really keep track of the days anymore. We work everyday, so there isn't really much need to keep track.

Dave's made some progress tearing out the walls. We dropped the truck off to have it serviced so we haven't been able to get much done the last couple of days. We're also waiting for the insulating paint to come. It's supposed to be here today. Once we get the whole thing painted then we can really start to get the whole thing put back together again.

Making progress

2007-05-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Dave's been making a lot of progress getting everything taken out of the (still nameless) truck. Now that most everything is out we have a lot more space to work with. We're in the process of rounding up supplies and trying to figure out the most efficient way to set everything up. We found this insulating paint we are going to use to save space rather than using regular insulation.

I guess I'll just keep this short and just post the pictures.

Naming the beast

2007-05-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

It needs a name. It's way too cool to just refer to it as "the truck" or the "mobile office."

Nothing brilliant has come to mind yet.

A few suggestions that have been motioned so far:

Mo: Sort of an acronym for 'mobile office'. I'm usually anti-acronym, but since it is pronounced "Moe" rather than spelled out M-O, I think I could handle it.

Geek Crusher: Dave's brother suggested this one. I liked it enough to use it as the blog title. Maybe we could just call it "The Crusher" for short or something.

Archie: Short for our original business name,
Archetype Development - we are merging with another company and creating a new company with a new name, so it would sort of be a reminder of where we started.

Nothing is really sticking yet. We are looking for suggestions. What have you got, huh? Name the beast.

Demolition part one

2007-05-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

I'll let the pictures tell most of the story on this one, but basically Dave is tearing apart the beast. We (when i say "we" I really mean "Dave") are pretty much gutting it (which is sad, because it was pretty damn cool to begin with, just not exactly fitting to our needs) so we can completely remodel it. Here is how day 1 of the demolition has been going:

A little background

2007-05-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

So who are we anyway?

I'm Andrea Thornton (age 25), and Dave Wall (age 22) is my business partner. We currently live in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are both young, adventurous and spontaneous. We knew early on the office life wasn't for us. We're both crazy enough to decide to create a mobile office that will allow us to travel the country on a perma-road trip. Our friends think we are weird. My roommate even refers to it as the "giant ice cream truck." So maybe we are a little weird. At least we aren't boring. And at least we aren't wasting away the best years of our lives in a cubicle answering to a boss.

So what do we do?

It was a family vacation in Belize that first made me realize that the internet was the way to go. We were on a tour bus driving through a little village. Amongst the tin shacks and run down houses was an internet cafe. It was that moment that I realized I didn't need to sit in a stuffy cubicle to be productive. I could be at an internet cafe in a tropical village. I could be on the beach. I could be anywhere.

I started out in web design and then learned the in's and out's of e-commerce and internet marketing. Now we build internet companies ranging in everything from women's golf equipment to collectible cookie jars. And the best part is: We are portable. And the truck is just the beginning. Why stop there? How about a house boat office? Or a flying office?

How'd we come up with this crazy idea anyway?

Back in the very Early days of Archetype Development we came across a 1976 Bluebird school bus for sale on Craigslist.org for $500. We really had no practically use for this 90 passenger monstrosity, but really, who could pass up something like this? We got to work cleaning it out and prepping it for conversion into to ultimate snowboarding roadtrip mobile party bus. The problem was, it was too big to park anywhere even remotely near us so working on it became sort of a back-burner project and most of our free-time was dedicated to building up Archetype Development.

It was Dave who came up with the idea to turn it into a mobile office. It would take a lot of work and money, so we decided maybe it would be better to start on a smaller, more usable vehicle. Something newer than '76 seemed like a smart idea too. The bus sat for a year while we figured out what to do with it. It was just too big to ever be practical so we ended up selling it and put the money towards finding something better.

First things first

2007-05-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not much for writing. I never know quite how to start. I'd start at the beginning, but that was almost a year ago and I tend to get myself too concerned with the tiny details, so if I just started at the beginning this would go on way too long. I guess I'll just sum up the basic concept of who we are and what we are doing.

First of all, my name is Andrea. Dave is my business partner. We shared one common dream: freedom. Our goal was to create a situation where we could be free from the confines of a regular 9-5 office job. We wanted to be able to enjoy our young years traveling the country, snowboarding, sightseeing and adventuring without having to pinch pennies, save up vacation time, catch up on missed work or wait until retirement to enjoy our freedom. Our solution? Take work with us on our journey. We started our own company a little over a year ago - I'll get into the details of that later. Being young and unfunded (I'm 25 and Dave is 22) we didn't have a lot of money to work with. We put everything we had into building up the company and finally as of last week we had gathered enough money to make the first purchase that would make this dream of freedom a reality: an old Praxair truck.
Now this may not look like much to be excited about to you, but for us, this was the ticket to freedom. It had already been converted into a motorhome. It had shelving, a sink, fridge, etc. We scored the thing for $3095. Our ultimate plans for it involve super space-optimized work stations, bathroom, and sleeping areas, so we have a lot of work to do.

This blog is a place for us to document our progress and our adventures.

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