Alex Conner

My Thoughts on Mastodon

This blog isn't monetized, so I'll cut to the chase. No, I don't think Mastodon has a chance in hell of replacing the mainstream social networks. The average person doesn't care enough to put the minor amount of effort in it takes to adopt the tech, and if the major

IndyHackers Planet End of Life

Following Heroku's unceremonious announcement of the end of free services effective September 28th, I have updated the readme for the IndyHackers Planet repository announcing the end of the service to coincide. If you were still relying on the aggregated RSS feed, now is a suitable time to grab the OPML

The State of Email

I run my own mail server. I'll pause while you recover from that news. So, why do I do that? Well, I'm a little extra, and I need to. More than that, I run my own spam filtering. As part of this whole setup, I've ended up becoming a lot

2022 Thor Tellaro L 30-Day Review

First off, some text for the search engines. The Tellaro also goes by the name Sequence, which has different cabinetry colors. This difference is because LazyDays sells the Tellaro and CampingWorld sells the Sequence. It's silly, and also I found both of them at both brands in my searching. Of

Why I bought an RV

In 2021, I finished the conversion of a Dodge Grand Caravan into a lightweight campervan which I used to visit all 32 of Indiana's state parks and lakes. The original goal was to try out the concept and see how much I would or could use it and what improvements

Squeezing the Pump

With fuel prices rising, and that trend likely to continue, I wanted to share my notes about how to get the best price at the pump. I've spent, well, entirely too much time researching and tracking this over the last 18 months so now you can benefit from that. Number

Review: USB-C Laptop Charger

Have you ever found yourself thinking "I'd love to charge my laptop/tablet/other high power USB-C PD device in the car efficiently and without using a bulky inverter?" Well, that's exactly the problem the PWR+ solves. In my testing it's extremely efficient (64 watts from the battery to charge

Charlestown and Falls of the Ohio

This trip I took my dog with me, and I have to say. Charlestown is an excellent park with some very good moderately techincal trails. Normally, I'd like to cover a little more distance but doggo really seems pretty tired so we'll call it good. I did take the opportunity

An Approachable Guide to Being a Better Consumer

Many of us have been conditioned over the years to buy the best, or the cheapest, or the thing that's never let me down before. Today, I'd like to talk about buying the "goodest" instead. 2020 was a rough year, and it demonstrated the outright greed and corruption in every

World Autism Awareness Day

First off, thanks for clicking through to read this. I know you're getting inundated with stuff about this topic, and I appreciate you taking time to read an #actuallyautistic perspective on what this day means. First off, because I think it's the most important thing. If you give money this

An Introduction

I sort of already started on this project, before I really fully nailed down the goals and expectations. But that seems to be the way things go with me these days, so I'm alright with it 🙂. This year, in September, I'll turn 33. Before then, I want to visit and

Electrical 2.0

Ok, I have a good idea of what I want in a final electrical solution. It needs to be reliable, flexible extensible and it needs to have enough capacity that I don't have to worry about how I use it (within reason). Immediately, I knew I was going to go

Electrical Solutions?

Ok, so the simple setup I started with fell flat [https://codatory.com/electrical-upgrades/]. I'm a natural-born problem solver, and this is a problem I'm fully qulified to solve! So, what did we learn? 1. We need much more capacity 2. We need faster charging, with more options 3. Solar

Electrical Challenges

Back in Starting Electrical [https://codatory.com/starting-electrical/], I wrote about a simple solution to getting some power deployed in my van. This was excellent, as it gave me the ability to practically measure how I really used power with some test trips. What I discovered was what I needed

Beware of False Prophets

Fortunately, this park is the real deal. This is a great park for taking the kids and/or bikes. My hike was unfortunately scuttled a bit by weather and flooding, but it was still an enjoyable visit and a park worth visiting. The park was well maintained and the trails

Mounds of Fun and Summit Lake

Finally, a break in the weather again! I chose Summit Lake because it was advertised as having hard-packed trails and we'd just had a super rainy spell, and it was a perfect fit for the day. Trail 3 at Summit Lake is a nice gentle trail along the lakeshore with

Fort Harrison

I've hiked this park before, so when I was nearby to knock out a certification exam I had a lunch picnic and dealt with some emails before driving back home... I'm counting it for now, but I reserve the right to come back again!

Turkey Run and Raccoon Lake

Turkey Run [https://www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/2964.htm] is a pretty famous park, so when an opportunity to go hike it early in the season when it wasn't going to be too busy came by I had to jump. I was lucky enough to be joined by my

Shakamak

Shakamak [https://www.in.gov/dnr/state-parks/parks-lakes/shakamak-state-park/] offers some great trails and some pretty great looking family cabins. While I visited, I hiked trails 2 and 3. This park includes some great amenities, and is very well kept. Highly recommended! Shakamak Trail #2 - Alex Conner’s 2.

Cagles Mill Lake

Cataract Falls and Lieber SRA make up the Cagles Mill Lake [https://www.in.gov/dnr/state-parks/parks-lakes/cagles-mill-lake-lieber-and-cataract-falls-sra/] property. This is a pretty gorgeous place to visit though fairly short on trails. Excellent picnicking and family activities though. I hiked the nature trail at Cataract Falls with my mom,

WAN On the Run

Disclaimer: You probably shouldn’t do it this way. This way of getting Internet on the road is complicated, expensive, and genuinely overkill even for my needs. For more information on what reasonable solutions look like, I recommend (and am a member of) the Mobile Internet Resource Center [https://www.

Bedtime

You can’t sleep in it if it doesn’t have a bed… In a minivan conversion, you really can’t do anything until you decide on the bed situation. The bed is the dominant use of space. It seems like most folks build something custom, and that’s fine

Starting Electrical

I’m not sure what size electrical system I need. Back of the napkin, and with my personality, I feel like 200W of solar, a DC-to-DC Charger, and 400Ah of usable battery banks would suit me well but… That also is an extremely expensive solution that I haven’t demonstrated

About the Build

I wanted, for both me and you, to sit down and write out what the goals in the first build out were. I talked briefly in Buying the Van [https://codatory.com/buying-the-van/] about how the idea is to be a starter van to find out what I need and

Buying the Van

The first step in any van build adventure is picking and buying a van. I’ve been waffling for over a year on what the best van to use would be, and I decided on buying a ‘starter van’ if you will. So, what did I buy? I snagged a