Working – Riveted

Fog and Forest

Laura Domela — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 21:09:40 +0000

I know, we’ve been quiet. We’ve been home in Portland working ourselves silly! (This is the view this morning from my home office.) First we were snowed in for a solid week (!!) and then during that week we’d started some new projects that we didn’t want to lose momentum on…so we kind of kept ourselves snowed in and working for another week! All day, every day, even weekends. The life of the self-employed is not always humpbacks and bald eagles, you know?

We’re gearing up to head north again this week. We’ll bring Airship down to Seattle for the Seattle Boat Show. I don’t remember if I announced this or not, but we’ll be giving a couple of short seminars at the boat show this year. I posted about it on Slowboat. Click here for topics, times, dates, and locations!

We’ll be at Bell Harbor Marina (downtown Seattle) for the week and then doing a little cruising around Puget Sound, finishing up in Poulsbo for the Winter Rendezvous on February 10th and 11th. Should be a fun couple of weeks!

Additionally, we’ve finished up the main backbone of our “Mastering the Inside Passage” video series for Slowboat. If you’ve thought about taking a boat up the Inside Passage to Alaska but felt like it was beyond your expertise, fear not! Remember, we bought Airship in September of 2014, our first boat ever, and did our first trip up the Inside Passage that very next May. We’ve broken it down into sections based on geography, so even if you just want to get from Olympia to the San Juans, there’s an episode just for you. Anyway, check it out if you’re interested, and let us know what you think!

I got a new camera last month and I’ve been loving it! It’s a Fuji X-T2, with interchangeable lenses (so far I have the 35mm, 56mm, 18-135mm, and the 100-400mm…will soon be adding the 10-24mm). I’ll be selling my Nikon D7100 and 18-300mm lens, and then probably my D700 and all its prime lenses. I use the D700 primarily in the studio, so I’ll likely wait on that one until I know for sure that the Fuji will do what I want in the studio. I may even sell my Fuji X100s and its telephoto lens and accessories, so if any of this is of interest to you, shoot me a note.

Meanwhile, guess what? It’s tulip time!! Looking forward to a little stroll through Pike Place Market to pick some up for the boat!

What I Do When I’m Home

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:42:32 +0000

One of the things I can't take with me when we're traveling is my Portland photography studio, so when we're back home for a few weeks this usually means scheduling photo shoots. I do have a compact, portable setup for doing location work, but nothing beats my nice big studio space for ease of use.

Just for something different, I thought I'd share a few photos from a couple of recent studio shoots!

This is my incredibly talented friend Storm Large (yes, that's her real name). She is an amazing singer, and you can learn more about her here and listen to her here (scroll down and watch/listen to her version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" … it's SO GOOD!) I've been shooting her publicity photos for over ten years now, but we still manage to come up with new things in the studio each time.

(Storm's hair by Tuesday Teal.)

There are several more shots of Storm on my web portfolio here if you want to see more.

These next few are of Lily and Maya. They're both super-talented young ladies and we did an all-out editorial model photo shoot last month…for fun mainly, but also to add some different looks to their portfolios.

Hair by Tuesday Teal. Makeup by Lydia Anderson

Anyway, just thought I'd share a little of my professional home life with you guys. We'll be heading back to the boat this weekend, so more on that front in the very near future!

A Few Days in the Bay Area

Laura Domela — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 02:19:49 +0000

We left Anacortes on Friday morning (after returning from The Willows Inn on Lummi, and after stopping to look at a couple more boats) and drove back to Portland. We didn't get in until about 10:30pm on Friday night, and as Kevin brought in the last of our stuff from the truck, said "Please tell me you already brought my laptop bag into the house."

[crickets]

Well shit. Guess where Kevin's laptop was? Waiting patiently in the pilothouse of Airship, back in Anacortes, four and a half hours away. We had a flight to San Francisco on Sunday morning, a birthday party for a good friend in SF on Sunday night, and then starting Monday mid-day in San Jose: meetings meetings meetings for two days. The presentation we'd been working on was on Kevin's laptop and we couldn't make do without it. So, guess what we did on Saturday? About nine hours of driving to go get that laptop (and give Airship another little pat on the bow). It was super windy and pouring rain for most of the drive, to boot! (See, it's not all rainbows and unicorns around here.)

We made it fine to SF and had a great view from our room at Hotel Nikko (above). The birthday party for our friend Tad was a wonderful evening with an incredible group of people. I've known Tad Savinar since I graduated from art school when, based on a recommendation from one of my professors, I became Tad's studio assistant for a few years. Tad is many things…among them, a visual artist. Now days we are friends, and I help him realize his work using some of my skills…photography, Photoshop, some printing. He's inspiring to work with, but more importantly he is one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. Everyone at the party last night had something amazing to say about their friendship with Tad, and it was a beautiful thing to experience. The party was in the Salesian room of Original Joe's in North Beach. What a great venue! Upholstered walls and cool old signage…dinner was delicious, and the service was impeccable, but really it was all about the people.

There were a few people at the party with late November/December birthdays, and Tad made sure to recognize each one of them by giving out beautiful flower leis. This was Kevin's:

We gave Tad (and his wife, Kate) a portrait session in the studio. I said they could choose the style of their choice, but that I had some suggestions, and that dressing up was a must. (This will be a fun one!!)

(Side note: Tad and Kate are the couple who got married in Florence, Italy in May of 2014, and were the reason we went to Italy in the first place last year.)

This morning we drove into San Jose for a couple of meetings and presentations, and then I Yelp'd us a cool place to grab some dinner afterwards. On a previous trip I found a little place called Kenny's Cafe that had a delicious bibimbap (among many other things), but Kenny's closes at 3pm. We had a little bit of a jones for bibimbap, and I found a new place not too far from where we were called Mixed Roll & Bop, a new Korean Asian fusion spot with (from the reviews) the BEST bibimbap, as well as good spicy chicken wings, and sushi. We tried the stone pot bibimbap with spicy pork, some spicy chicken wings, and a spicy tuna roll (yeah, spicy seemed to be the theme, I know). It was all great, but the bibimbap!!! It was THE BEST! (Preparing it in the stone pot gives the rice some crunchy goodness on the bottom.)

This is their funky little sign out front:

Highly recommended. It's very small, and the environment is definitely on the "fast food" side, but the food was delicious and we'll definitely go back!

Tomorrow is another day of meetings and then we'll fly back to Portland tomorrow night.

It’s Not About Luck

Laura Domela — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:51:14 +0000

"Wow, you guys are SO! LUCKY!"

This is one of the more frequent things we hear in response to the lifestyle we live and share on this blog. Although we understand where this sentiment comes from, the fact of the matter is that it's not luck at all. We didn't win the lottery. Neither of us has a trust fund. No rich relatives died and left us gazillions of dollars or anything. Here's what we did: we committed to a goal, and then we worked really hard toward that goal, and we didn't allow ourselves to be distracted by things that were not supportive of this goal. That's it, and you can do it too!

We feel very fortunate to be able to live and travel the way we do but "luck" has very little to do with it. "Luck" paints a picture of ease…velvet sofas and mint juleps on the veranda after sleeping until noon, while golden opportunities fall gently into your robed lap. But when it comes to luck, I'm sure we have just as much bad luck as we have good luck.

The lifestyle we've crafted for ourselves is very deliberate. We have worked hard and sacrificed a lot to make it happen. We have gone through difficult and challenging times, and have persevered because we really wanted to have a life like the one we live today. Years ago, we visualized it, we planned it, we worked hard to achieve it, and we adapted as we went along. Plans didn't always go as expected and there were many obstacles we had to overcome along the way. We kept our dream in focus. If you have a dream, and you make choices that support that dream (instead of listening to people who tell you that your dream is too…"dreamy"), your dream really can become your reality.

We've wanted to address this for a long time, and we think it's important, because if you attribute our lifestyle to "luck" — it might give you an excuse not to pursue the life that you want for yourself. You can't control your luck, but you can control the choices you make as you craft your life. Here's some background on how we got where we are today:

Controlling Your Life (or at least making a big effort to steer)

Back in 2001 and 2002 we were happily going along working at our fairly normal jobs and living our fairly normal lives. We camped and backpacked on the weekends or when we had vacation time. I was working as an artist. I had gallery representation, but the life of a painter is not exactly a booming money-making endeavor. Kevin was working for a large electronics design company where he'd been successful for 15 years. In 2003, Kevin got laid off from his job. There we were with a little bit of savings, two teenage daughters about to start college, and no health insurance. The internet bubble had just burst, and our investments had tanked. We had enough money and credit card slack to live for a few months before…well…you get the picture.

The high-tech job market in Portland was terrible. Most of the local tech companies were laying off rather than hiring. Kevin's expertise was fairly specialized, and finding a new job in his industry would have most likely required us to move to a different state. Things looked pretty grim.

However, we had always wanted to start our own business. We visualized a company that didn't have an office, where everyone worked from home, and where people set their own schedules and worked happily together toward common goals. In this vision, we sat outside our tent day after day watching happy little bunnies frolic in the grass while faraway internet servers worked day and night – earning us enough to pay campground fees. (Definitely in the "dream" stage, I'd say.)

We bought two laptops and a couple of domain names, signed up for some $10/month internet hosting, and filled out the paperwork to start a sub-S corporation. The company we started was an online publication geared toward electronics engineers. I started learning web design so I could create and maintain our website, and Kevin started writing articles about electronics technology. We began by sending out an email newsletter every week to our growing list of subscribers. We soon had a publication and an audience, but no income. Kevin hopped on a plane and flew to Silicon Valley to meet with marketers from various companies he had worked with in the past – in hopes of finding someone to buy advertising on our new website. That turned out to be a very slow process.

Each month our savings would decline, and we cringed as watched ourselves careening toward financial failure. Finally, we got a breakthrough – our first advertiser – for a whopping $1,500. That wasn't enough to save our sinking ship, but it gave us hope. Gradually, we sold more and more. We brought a sales person on board part time – working for commissions – and doubled our efforts to grow the publication. We cautiously started to discuss what we'd do "If we could somehow manage to get this business to cover our living expenses."

We were now in business for ourselves, which meant basically no more paid vacation time, and most weekends were filled with work alongside whatever else we wanted to do for fun. Some of you, I'm sure, know what it takes to own and run your own business, and it's no piece of cake. We could still travel and camp and backpack, but it took a lot more planning and sacrifice. It also took energy, and during those first stressful months, we had very little left.

Ever-so-slowly the income increased until we had stopped burning savings and weren't running up credit card balances anymore. We were encouraged, and were able to reduce our stress levels a bit – unfortunately without reducing our work hours. Now, we needed to do something to keep our sanity.

We decided to take a one-month road trip in our car with our camping and backpacking gear. We figured we could publish articles and run our business from the road, and we did this two different ways: (1) from our tent using a Treo smartphone tethered to a laptop for internet (by candle lantern at night sometimes), and when we couldn't get any internet service that way (2) we'd hit a coffee shop or check into a motel/hotel with Wi-Fi so we could publish our weekly article and send newsletters. Romantic, huh? (It kinda was, actually.)

During that road trip we went through San Francisco, and during a side trip to SF MOMA (the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), we saw the Christopher Deam 16' Airstream Bambi as part of an exhibition. We thought "Hm. We could work from THAT!" and our Airstreaming dream began.

We researched and researched (for about a year) and eventually decided on and purchased a 2005 22' International Airstream trailer. We loved it. It had a double bed, a dinette, a wet bath, a great kitchen, and a little desk in the back (perfect for work, we thought). We had the little bit of solar that came with it, plus some that we added afterwards, but it was nowhere near the ship of technology that our Airstream (and now our Nordic Tug) is today.

We used the Airstream on weekends and for shorter trips, and during the five years we had this 22' Airstream (June 2005 to April 2010) we spent 156 nights in it. That's about 30 nights per year. We wanted more. Fortunately, our business was growing.

In 2010 we took the 22' trailer in for a few repairs, and while we were waiting, we went across the street to "just look at the new ones" (hint: Don't do this!) We never got our old trailer back. We traded it in for a 2010 27'FB International. Five more feet!!! They pulled the new Airstream up alongside the old Airstream cop-style, we unloaded everything from the 22' into the 27', and off we went.

At that point, it sounds like things could go on cruise control, right? We had a growing business, a cool trailer, and a solid plan…but no. Toward the beginning of this decade we went through several major crises all at once. We realized that there was a real chance that the whole thing we'd worked so hard for might crumble. Things looked very bleak. We had several very stressful months of sleepless nights. Finally, when we couldn't take the stress anymore, we did what we do…we took a road trip. On that road trip, we made our contingency plan. If the business tanked and we had no more money, we would just sell everything but the Airstream and the truck and go full time on the road, living a frugal, nomadic life while exploring the country. We know a lot of VERY happy people who were already doing this by choice. It wouldn't be bad at all.

Once we'd come to grips with our "worst case" and knew we would make it fun, we redoubled our efforts. We worked twice as hard at keeping our company alive and our small team happy and healthy. We came up with new ideas for making our company succeed, and improved on the old ones. With everybody pitching in and with the new plans in place, one win at a time, the business came back, stronger than it had ever been.

Where We Are Today

Our company now has ten people. Everyone works from home (or wherever they are) and has the flexibility and freedom to set their own work hours, manage their own responsibilities, and share in the rewards. (It turns out it's hard to find people with the self-discipline to work this way.)

We are constantly refining and redefining how we want to live. It takes much trial and error, and constant attention, compromise, and sacrifice to successfully run our company and travel the way we want to. We've been building our business for 11 years now, and each year we're able to travel more. As of this week we've spent over 700 nights on the road in our 2010 Airstream and 100 nights on the water in our new Nordic Tug. This lifestyle is not for everyone, but we love it and it works well for us. We feel lucky. But we know that it's not about luck at all. It's about setting your sights on what you want, defining a plan to move ever closer to your dream, and then doing it (not just talking about it or wishing for it or waiting for retirement for it).

That's it. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable, and you can do it too.

One More Thing

Recently, a colleague of Kevin's was giving him a hard time about our lifestyle. He implied that by being out "gallivanting around the country all the time," we weren't being serious or mature about our lives and our careers.

"Y'know…" Kevin said, "…my father died when he was three years older than I am right now. It's really important to me to live a healthy, low stress life, and maybe that will help me live longer than my dad did, but whether it does or not I refuse to spend my life waiting around and planning for some future fulfillment that might or might not happen." (Go Kevin!)

We want to explore and experience the world NOW. We want to continue growing an ethical business that empowers and enables other people to follow their dreams as well.

We want to do things, not just think about doing them. And we hope to inspire you to do the same.

Filet-O-Fish® and Portrait Photography

Laura Domela — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 03:17:38 +0000

Yesterday on our way to pick up some groceries in Port Townsend, we walked past a McDonald’s. In the window was a large poster advertising the Filet-O-Fish® sandwich, two bucks on Fridays. Admittedly, I’m not the target demographic for McDonald's (at all), but I was mesmerized by this photograph.

I said to Kevin “Could that food look ANY more processed!? The plastic bun, the machine-cut square of fish, the crayon-orange cheese, the marshmallow tartar sauce with perfectly placed pickle bits….”

“You know It took a photographer, a huge team of food stylists and art directors (and likely an enormous budget) to make that Filet-O-Fish® photo happen.”

As an advertisement, this felt like a total fail. I couldn’t imagine a Filet-O-Fish® looking any less appetizing than it did on this poster in the window of its maker. I assumed that the photography/money/art/food styling team would have instead aimed for creating an image depicting…well, something more appealing, organic, delicious, and less processed, plastic, precise.

On the other hand, as an editorial photo (or art!), this photograph of the Filet-O-Fish® sandwich was PERFECT. The factory-fabricated Filet-O-Fish® in this photo looks exactly like what it is. The photographer had somehow managed to even amplify the synthetic reality of the Filet-O-Fish®. You can almost picture the factory workers in white bunny suits extruding perfectly square fish filets from gleaming stainless steel industrial machinery.

It’s like when I take a portrait of a cool character with an interesting vibe and I’m able to show a heap of his personality in my zillionth of a second shutter click and subsequent print. This Filet-O-Fish® photograph oozes its processed personality perfectly.

I decided if I were the photographer, I’d be super proud of getting it “just right.”

As a professional portrait photographer, my philosophy centers on connecting with my subjects by creating a comfortable, casual environment where they feel open and at ease. I want to listen to their stories and study their mannerisms. I’d rather focus in on capturing a person’s unique characteristics than take a “pretty” or “flattering” photo that has no personality.

A few years ago I was hired to create a portrait of the (now defrocked) pastor/leader of the Mars Hill Church for the cover of a magazine. We were invited by his PR guy to attend (and photograph) his hour-long sermon before photographing him in the “green room” of his Bellevue, Washington megachurch. The original plan had been to set up in the green room during his first sermon, and then meet for his portrait quickly between his two sermons (my preference, since I was not so keen on the whole megachurch thing), so this was a bit of a departure.

His sermon began (picture spotlights and giant TV screens and a rock band opening act) and we found him to be a very engaging and charismatic speaker, but he preached values that I find highly offensive (misogyny, bigotry, and intolerance), and hearing him encourage this way of thinking so eloquently and persuasively to a stadium full of mostly young people was very disturbing.

After the sermon we set up in his green room and I felt pretty nervous as we waited for him to arrive. I find it so important to connect with the subjects I photograph, but I felt less than enthusiastic about trying to connect with this one. Turns out he was not a “connect with you” kind of guy anyway, at least not for the 15 minutes I spent with him. He was detached, dismissive, and not engaged at all (perhaps because I was a woman). There were about 20 people in the smallish room (including his whole family) and it was far too crowded and lively for me to do much but try to get the best “surface” shot of him as fast as I could (and by "surface" I mean "good photograph of this guy, but without having the normal photographer/subject rapport that I usually can cultivate during a shoot").

Back in the studio as I was editing down the work, there was one photo that stood out to me. It might not have been the most flattering portrait of him, but it felt by far the most honest. It accurately represented how he “felt” to me in person. He had a bit of a smirk. He was making was eye contact, but there didn’t seem to be any real connection with the viewer. His expression felt kinda like a shrug. This shot was definitely my favorite and felt the most genuine to me, so I submitted it to the magazine’s art director along with the other shots I thought were probably more flattering.

Guess which photo the magazine put on the cover? The Filet-O-Fish®!

Kingston to Pleasant Harbor

Laura Domela — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 23:38:34 +0000

We left Bell Harbor/Seattle this morning just after 8am. It was such a beautiful day (again) that we wanted to spend most of it on the water if possible.

Passing a couple tankers anchored in Puget Sound:

We stopped in Kingston to grab some breakfast/lunch.

The Port of Kingston is a very well-maintained, attractive marina with guest moorage free for 2 hours (and cute picnic areas right there on the dock):

We walked up to a little spot called J'aime Les Crêpes and ordered two different savory crêpes: (1) "Chicken" — grilled chicken, provolone cheese, spinich, toasted almonds, with artichioke pesto, and (2) "Special" — black forest ham, swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms, spinach, green onions and dijon mustard.

These hit the spot! We walked around a bit and then hopped back on Airship, fueled up, pumped out, and continued on our way.

Our initial plan was to head north toward Port Townsend, through the Port Townsend canal, and stop in Port Hadlock for the night, but as we passed Point No Point and were approaching Foulweather Bluff, we thought it would be a shame to miss (this time) Hood Canal, so we rerouted on the fly and headed toward Pleasant Harbor.

You just can't beat a (mostly) clear day view of the Olympic mountain range:

The sun was at the perfect angle to completely blind us as we tried to enter Pleasant Harbor:

We made it though, and headed over to the Pleasant Harbor State Park dock (just inside the harbor on the right):

Home Port Marina is just next door:

We took the chairs up to the top deck and had a cocktail while watching the pastel sky turn to navy. Kevin took these two shots:

And here's one I shot just before we came inside:

Dinner tonight is going to be an easy grilled chicken and zucchini.

Here's our track from today:

Total nautical miles: 51.31
Total time: 7 hours 47 minutes (30 minutes stopped)

I was at the helm most of the day, and Kevin worked (I did most of my "today" work last night and early this morning). On our cruise today, Kevin wrote a 1500-word article, had a couple of phone briefings, worked with our sales and operations team via chat, and answered a plethora of email. Not bad for moving office, is it?

Today’s Office View

Laura Domela — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 15:00:28 +0000

Jarrell Cove, Harstine Island, WA

Working on the Water (Day Job)

Laura Domela — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:52:30 +0000

Sometimes when I'm driving the boat and Kevin's working on his laptop next to me in the pilot house, this is what he's working on:

Most of his articles are written for professional engineers and fall toward the more tech/nerdy side, but this one will be accessible by many, so I thought I'd share it.

Moovbox – Our New Favorite Mobile Internet Solution

Kevin Morris — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:27:52 +0000

We depend completely on being connected when we are on the road and on the water. Because we run a virtual company which is an internet business, we can (and do) enjoy traveling extensively – even while working full time. While our blog posts focus on the adventure side of our travels, what you don’t see are the long days sitting at our laptops, running a complex company remotely from the road. Without reliable, high-performance internet, there would be no adventures. Our blog posts would be “Woke up at home this morning, made coffee, went for a hike, worked all day in the office, had dinner, watched TV, went to bed.” That’s not what we want to do (or write) and we’re pretty sure it’s not what you want to read, either.

For years, we’ve struggled with the technology to keep us connected and working while we travel in the Airstream. We’ve tried just about every option available, and we’ve had friends and traveling companions who have tried just as many. We have learned a lot from their experience, as well as from our own. Since I’m an electronic engineer, a journalist and an analyst covering electronics technology, I figure I’m more qualified than the average Joe to locate the best way for us to stay online during our adventures. However, it’s been an ongoing challenge – even for me.

We have tried everything from the obvious to the exotic – (and we have written about our experiences before)… Campground (and marina) WiFi is notoriously unreliable and slow, and it is a rare occasion indeed when we get a stable, fast connection that will allow us to work productively using the WiFi at a campground, RV park, or marina. Of course, we have tried USB modems, and portable 3G/4G/LTE devices such as Mi-Fi. Those are by far the simplest, most affordable, and easiest-to-use solutions. Their limitations are coverage (particularly inside an RV or boat), speed, and data plan limits.

We have also tried portable satellite internet… No. Just no. (See Option 3 – Satellite Internet, in this post.)

When outfitting our new Nordic Tug “Airship” – we wanted something that would be flexible, trouble-free, fast, and reliable. We wanted something that would give us far greater range of coverage than we could get with consumer-grade devices. Since this is our business, we wanted a business-class solution. That’s what led us to Moovbox. We bought ours from SinglePoint Communications (the same company we bought our WiFi-in-Motion setup from several years ago).

So far, we have been extremely pleased.

Moovbox is a commercial-grade mobile router. It is designed for applications like providing public WiFi on mass-transit – busses, trains, etc. It uses cellular data modems – similar to the one inside your smartphone – to connect to the internet. It then creates a private, secure Wi-Fi network for you using that connection. Picture an industrial-strength MiFi powerful enough to be used by a bus-load of people all at once. It is ruggedly built and is made to withstand the rigors of the road – vibration, temperature, etc. It is also scalable – the M340 model we got can handle up to four modems with two SIM cards each – for a total of eight SIM cards. Obviously we don’t need that many, but we did want at least two modems – one for Verizon and one for AT&T, so we’d have coverage wherever either of those networks reached.

With multiple modems, Moovbox can automatically switch between them – or it can “load share” where it distributes your internet traffic between the two connections when both are live. This can effectively double your bandwidth if more than one person/process is using your internet connection at the same time. Speaking of bandwidth, the Moovbox modems are fast – MUCH faster than what we’ve seen with consumer-grade devices. We get better LTE speed with a single modem in Moovbox than we’ve ever seen with our conventional devices. Check this out:

To get long-range reception, you need an external high-gain antenna. Check. Moovbox comes with a matched external antenna (with built-in GPS) that can handle two separate LTE/4G/3G modems. We had ours mounted on top of Airship’s electronics mast where it would have the best, unobstructed line-of-sight view to cell towers.

We mounted the Moovbox unit itself inside the electronics bay in the top of the pilothouse (behind the boaty instruments). Moovbox is made to be hidden away and forgotten. There are no controls on the outside, and it will be a rare day when you need to think about or look at the status LEDs on the front.

There is a web-based interface used for initial configuration – setting up your WiFi network name, your password, and so forth. It’s all pretty simple and straightforward, and the technical and product support from SinglePoint Communications is top notch. Singlepoint installs the modems and SIM cards in the unit at the factory, and sends the whole thing out ready to install. You mount the antenna, hook up the antenna wires and 12V power, configure your network name, password, and preferences, and you’re done.

It just works.

When we go in and out of coverage for Verizon and AT&T, it magically and seamlessly maintains the connection with whichever is available. The range is FAR longer than we get with our phones or our old USB datacards on our laptops. So far, in the first month, we have been all over the farthest reaches of the San Juan Islands – to the booniest of the boonies like the rock-walled Active Bay on Patos Island in the uppity-tip-top corner of the US – almost surrounded by connection-cash-sucking Canada and miles from any US towns or infrastructure, and we had good, solid connections the whole time.

SinglePoint also can provide a nice, one-source data plan they call “SinglePlan.” (See a theme here?) You can bring your own data plan as well, but we opted for theirs because it lets us get one, auto-pay bill that spans both our Verizon and AT&T SIM cards. The pricing is comparable to what we were getting with our previous plans directly from Verizon and AT&T. We haven’t gotten our first bill yet, so we’ll let you know how the rest of that process goes as we get more experience.

Regarding our decision to use BOTH Verizon and AT&T – traveling all over the US, we’ve carried THREE data cards in the Airstream for use with the homebrew Franken-system we installed there (third-party external antennas, multiple antenna boosters, Cradlepoint 3G/4G/LTE router, and three carrier-supplied USB modems.) What we’ve found in many years on the road covering most of the remote areas of the US is:

Verizon has the best coverage by far – many places where there’s no AT&T.
AT&T has coverage many places where Verizon does not.
When Verizon and AT&T BOTH have coverage, AT&T is usually faster.
Sprint has coverage almost nowhere except in cities where Verizon and AT&T also have great signal.
T-mobile is weak but still better than Sprint.

That led us to the notion that to get the best possible coverage/speed combination possible, we wanted both Verizon and AT&T service.

In the Airstream, making that happen is a nightmare gordian knot of antennas, cables, modems, boosters, router – all jumbled up together in the upper cabinet in the rear of the trailer. Each time we arrive at a destination, I’m juggling cables to find out which modem works where we are, checking signal strengths and connection speeds, and fiddling around until we finally get what seems like the best connection for the location. When we move, the whole process starts over again. It takes from five minutes to thirty minutes each time we settle down in a remote area for me to get an internet connection I’m happy with.

With Moovbox, we just have internet. No fiddling or futzing or juggling cables. It’s fast, easy, stable, and omnipresent.

The next step is to get Moovbox set up for Wi-Fi as WAN. That means when we’re at a marina (or in the case of the Airstream it would be an RV park), we’d like to use the Wi-Fi there (if available) as the internet connection for Moovbox. Then, all our devices can stay connected to our secure Moovbox Wi-Fi network, but we can use the marina/campground Wi-Fi as the internet connection from there so we don’t use up the data on our plan. We’ll report on that step once we have it working.

Moovbox also has the capability to automatically switch to a Canada SIM card (if you have one installed with an activated plan) so that you can seamlessly travel to and from Canada without breaking the bank. So far, we don’t have a Canada data plan because we don’t spend enough time there to rate an entire dedicated account and monthly bill. But, it’s nice to know we could easily add that down the road.

How much does it all cost?

Well, if you consider it a business expense, it’s really pretty affordable. For the system, you’ll pay probably about what you’d pay for a decent laptop. That means it’s likely to be a four-digit number. The base-level system with only a single modem (we’d recommend Verizon in that case) costs only about half of the price of the super-expandable 4-modem, 8-SIM-card-capable unit that we bought. We like the idea of the future-proofing that it provides. If a new better technology comes out, they can just drop in a new modem. If we decide we want to start providing pay-Wi-Fi for the whole marina or campground wherever we go, it can support that as well.

Given our experience so far, I’m pretty sure we’ll be getting one of these for the Airstream also.

Work Work Work

Laura Domela — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 20:23:45 +0000

Work work work work coffee work work working more work a tiny break then more work. Morning hike, back to work, work work, shower, food, work work work work work work more coffee then more work.

Hey look, a deer is eating my plants!

Back to work work work then dinner then some work and oh just a bit more work and then what do you know it's bed time?

So, we're home for a bit and this is what it's like. Not too exciting to write about, huh? (But hey, we have slammin' fast internet at home, so there's that!)