Tips from the Truck is a new series I’m starting now, where I talk about the various little things you can do to make truck life easier.

I briefly mentioned in this post that eating out all the time can quickly cut into your truck savings. Why would you be eating out all the time, you ask? Because you can never, under any circumstances, keep food in your truck. Even non-perishables, you don’t want to keep any vaguely organic, edible substances within like a 100-foot radius of your abode. You might be saying to yourself, “Brandon, doesn’t that seem a little excessive? What if I get hungry at night and want a Clif Bar or something?” To which I say, Too Bad™.

I’m a very judgmental person, I have been for as long as I can remember. It’s certainly not a trait that I’m proud of, it’s just always been easier for me to dismiss people based on superficial observations than to actually try to understand anything about them. If neither software engineering nor driving buses work out for me, I can readily imagine myself becoming a dunk tank clown, because I’m quick to recognize “flaws” with a cursory glance. I’m sure a proper psychiatric evaluation would conclude that it stems from some deep-seated insecurity that I’ve yet to acknowledge, but that’s entirely beside the point.

So I’ve been at work almost a month now, and living in the truck for just as long. I’ve definitely established a comfortable routine, and I’m a lean, mean, code-producing machine on my team, so everything is going good. This means I can focus my non-work hours to the real goal: the big trip.

When I interned in Silicon Valley last summer, I realized a few very important and related things:

Unfortunately, I’m not talking about some more RV/Hippie Van/Truck neighbors.

No matter how well you plan out things, life always has a way of throwing little things at you to make sure you’re still paying attention. For the past week, life has been throwing the sound of jackhammers in my direction. It makes perfect sense that construction crews would work at night, when normal human beings aren’t at work and getting in their way, but I certainly was not expecting the parking lot I call home to be subjected to such perils. Like, they’re actually tearing up 10’ by 10’ sections at a time, something to do with pipes or electricity or whatnot. I’m a computer systems engineer, not a mechanical engineer, I have no idea how any of this stuff works. It makes me think back to when I was considering getting soundproofing installed by that Happy Vans company in San Jose. It’s still not really an issue, the truck actually does a surprisingly good job of blocking it out, and I haven’t had any trouble falling asleep. Still, just goes to show you that there will always be something, whether it’s crows, radioactive waste, or jackhammers.

Something I noticed when I first bought this truck was that it had a special permit in it. A special permit issued by the “Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration”, authorizing it to carry…something? I’m not actually sure what this truck was used for prior to my purchase, some sort of commercial activity, and I know for a fact that it started it’s life as a simple Budget truck. Call it stubbornness or naivety, but I’m not particularly interested in finding out what it actually was carrying. I’ve lived here a month with no adverse effects, and I’ve even noted my improved sleeping abilities. Who knows, maybe my ability to sleep is from toxic fumes knocking me out every night, or maybe one morning I’ll wake up and all my hair has fallen out and I’ll have developed some new, baffling form of respiratory cancer. That would be an interesting one to explain to a doctor. Best case scenario, the truck was carrying radioactive waste and my exposure is slowly giving me super powers. Worst case scenario, the truck was carrying radioactive waste and my exposure is slowly turning me into a character from The Hills Have Eyes.