Day 2

Day 2 at work, and also 2nd workout at the gym.

I’ve been casting glances at the stair stepper.  I used to walk the stairs after lunch in Dallas (had a 1hr lunch there) and this looked like a useful development.   Hopped up there and guessed at the control functions.  Started quite slow in “fat burning” mode and I got impatient.  I changed to some other mode and it ramped up so hard that within a few minutes my heartrate was significantly over the target and my thighs were jelly.

I was going to try to tough it out by decreasing the speed a little to ease the heartrate down, but by then my foot placement coordination was off and I was starting to make mistakes.  I stabbed at the Stop button and demounted.  I think I will need to start out on the fat burning mode until I regain some strength.

tacos gringos

I looked for a grocery store near work;  the nearest was a Food King about 3mi away.  I grabbed a few things that were on sale:  plantain (~60c/lb), yellow onion (36c/lb), and a half-pallet of tortillas for $2.  I had some leftover chicken in the tiny fridge so I didn’t buy any meat.

Crunk up the stove on a park bench (JP Shawver park), and darkened the sliced plaintain as much as I dared in a smidge of olive oil.  Then did the same with half the onion, then reheated the chicken.   I didn’t bring the cutting board out so the sturdy plantain skin acted as both cutting board and serving plate.  Heated the tortillas through and loaded them up with this hodge-podge.  Actually pretty good.  Might try yucca instead of plantain next time.

Have enough left over for dinner tomorrow.

paperwork

I should mention that vandwelling is much more accepted around here than in DFW.  First of all, there is lots of ‘dwellers visible along IH10 because of traffic to/from the rest of the SW.

And probably second, the standard of living is much lower here;  the average income citywide is something like $16K/yr.  Folks are used to seeing other folks do what is necessary to survive.

Thirdishly, street culture thrives in ELP.  People walk around, food trucks and snack setups are everywhere.  I really like that.

But on to the paperwork:  it took a few attempts with the paperwork folk to get it really sunk in that I live in a camper.  They’d make assumptions, I’d correct them.  Then remind them.  Then point out that the things they were saying just don’t apply.  One of them told me I’d have to change my driver’s license to my new address.  I started to object and the she caught it on her own and said “oh, you don’t have an address!”   Ri-i-i-i-ight.

Anyhow, I’m typing this in the little workstation area of the camper, with a full belly, a breeze, and 30% humidity according to my hygrometer.  And that’s with the evaporative cooler running.