Ok, Now that I am settled back in an apartment this month, I have my VAN living story to tell. I read a post last year involving a prop bet and and living in a van. We were talking about it during a live session and after i said i could do it, my live poker buddy challenged me to live in a van for 3 months, so naturally, we negotiated a price, and we agreed he would pay me 9K if i could do it.
Conditions:
1. I must sleep in the van 6 days per week
2. If I were caught lying and sleeping somewhere else, the bet is over and I would be penalized 9K. If i quit, I also have to pay him 9K.
3. 9K from each of us was to be held in escrow by our mutual friend, one that has NO favoritism.
4. All of our friends would be aware of the bet to provide proof of the bet being honored
I accepted. I did this for many reasons:
1. 9K
2. I love a challenge
3. I love adventure
4. I am Canadian and we do stupid things (mostly b/c of our beer)
So the first thing I had to do was look for a van. I goggled a lot of info on used vans and decided to buy a 2002 Chevrolet Venture. These vans, the 2002+ model give about 30mpg, have removable seats and decent reliability record. I found a listing on trader.ca for a 2002 with 150km for $2200. I bargained it down to $1900. I then spent $500 on plugs, wires, fluids, brake job, spare tire, and a engine compression test. Now that I had my van, I needed to insure it. I contacted my broker and got it insured for $900 for 1 year. I can cancel anytime. As for my other car, I agreed to leave it at my friends parents cottage 60 minutes north so i could park it somewhere. After I had my van registered, another $100, I proceeded to give notice to my landlord. My building was in somewhat demand so i was allowed to leave a month early and get back my last month deposit. He was pretty cool about it. I bought him a bottle of Crown and thanked him again. I then found a local storage company so I could move all my belongings into temporarily. So with 2 weeks to go, i packed up all my things, and moved it all into storage. I decided to tell only my friends and not family of this prop bet, for obvious reasons. I wanted my friends to see I was honoring the bet, and of course to prove i could do it.
So with everything in storage I had to mod the van before i began the adventure. The problems I thought I would surely encounter were:
-Where to ****e
-Where to sleep (as its illegal to live in a motor vehicle in ontario) without having cops harass me
-How to eat and prepare meals
-Where to shower
-Where to bang booty calls
-How this would affect poker play
-Power, how to use my laptop, charge my phone
-For ****ing, i realized i couldn't always find a public restroom, so i bought a camping potty, their $50-$100 and are basically small plastic toilets. I filled them with scented kitty litter, i would just scoop up the crap, put it in a plastic bag and throw it out the next morning, or if it was really bad, i would just toss it out for the racoons to snack on. Used water bottles were for peeing.
-Showering, well I decided to get a gym member ship again. In Canada we have Goodlife fitness, which allows me to work out / shower in any of their gyms in Canada, and they have hundreds, if i had decided to go on a road trip and need to shower, etc... plus in addition to showering everyday, i would be exercising again and getting back into shape, +EV with the laddies
-For sleep, i took out the back seats and bought an air mattress and a warm mummy sleeping bag. This allows me to sprawl out and not have any back problems. Great thing about vans vs cars for living.
-I slept at many different locations. I learned if you park in one spot all the time, its suspicious, I had the cops called on me once cause I slept in a visitor parking lot for 2 weeks straight at the beginning. I told the officer i was visiting a friend. Thank god i actually had a friend who lived in that building b/c he looked it up. I then decided to sleep at a different apartment complex each nite, i also slept in the underground parking at the casino, and slept on various streets far off of where parking enforcement would look. The van blended perfectly with the surroundings. Sleeping was at times uncomphy because I had to wake up the middle of the night and turn on van and blast the heat b/c Canada gets really cold, but you would be surprised to learn your body adapts quickly to the cold and even thou most nights were 0 degrees C, it was pretty warm in my van. Once a week I did sleep over at a random friends, so it was a nice change once in a while. I learned the key to sleeping in cold weather was to not wear much. If you start sweating, and the cold air gets in, its a recipe for a cold, or even ammonia
-Food, well after a week of eating Tim Hortons and fast food, i got sick of it. So I went to Walmart and bought a some Tupperware, canned foods, a pot, a compact microwave, icebox, and thermos. Every other day I would buy ice and put it in the icebox and keep my milk and fruit cold. I also bought cases of water, and went to the health store and bought protein powder, vitamin supps, and a shaker bottle. I tried to eat out once a day max, and make 3-4 small makeshift meals per day. I also ate at the casino 3-4 times a week with my comp to help pay for meal and when i visited friends, i would snack there. So it was not as bad as I expected it to be. I also had to buy a more powerful inverter, b/c even though the microwave was very small and low power it took a lot of watts. So i bought 1000W inverter and only used the M wave with the engine running to take power from the alternator
-As for my poker playing, it actually INCREASED my winning rate. I spent a lot of sessions where instead of trying to play a long session b/c i hated driving 1.5 hours each way from Toronto to Niagara Falls, I would play and 2-3hr session, then go back to the underground parking in the casino, sleep, and then go back recharged, and would do these short sessions with a fresh rest a few times a day and not push bad hands b/c i felt the need to take home a win b/c i was tired.
Some things I never really thought about:
-power consumption, I did buy an inverter but i drained the van battery from using it too much to charge cell and laptop and microwave. So i bought two heavy duty batteries in addition to the new inverter, and connected them together. There was a wicked guide i found online on how to do this. This gave me plenty of power.
-Laptop is VERY crucial. I was SO Lonely. Being confined in a small space, i began to feel disconnected after a few weeks. The laptop keeps you entertained. Also I found it very difficult to find a steady internet connection, so i bought a wireless broadband stick from rogers, i believe at and t has one in the US, and it allowed me to connect to the net anywhere without having to use wireless for $50 a month. Going back on MSN helped. I reconnected with old friends and chatted a lot.
-TV, tv i thought id miss the most but i didn't at all. I just downloaded my fav shows and watched them when i was bored
So an average day looked like this:
Monday
9am: wake up, make breakfast, protein shake, head to gym
9:30am: work out, shower, shave, ****e
11:00am: head to casino
noon: Call casino, reserve spot on list
12:30pm: arrive at casino, check in
1:00pm: Hit the tables
4:00pm: Leave table, go to van, rest, watch downloaded tv shows, jerkoff
7:00pm: Go eat dinner, either prepare in van or use comp if qualify or find floor will authorize (some know your a regular and will help you out if your friendly and nice)
8:00pm: Play tables
12:00am: Leave, go sleep or drive back to TO
2:00am: Crash in van in TO
This was 70% of my days. Other days I would visit friends, stop by their workplace for lunch, go on mini road trips to neighboring towns and sight see, go to library and read, sometimes nap, visit family, go to movie theaters, go to booty call girl's house, etc...
The only negative things about this were
1. No place to bang girls
2. I met some really cool girls, but restrained from taking it further b/c i didn't want them to know i was living in a van obviously and had no place
3. Got a bad cold after the first week, but body adapted and i was better after some sups and heat
4. Sense of security, at times i had a few people peek in the van in the morning b/c the windows were not completely tinted so they saw the mattress, food, potty, so i had to buy some black sheets and cut them, and glue/velcrow the back windows and sides when i went to sleep in public areas
I was not to concerned with break ins, as it was a soccer mom van and this is Canada
5. Health, a few days i got sick b/c of too much fast food, so it was really important to take supps, protein powder, i even bought some wheat germ, and other health stuff
So as the bet was into the 2nd month, 3 weeks in, my friend began to finally believe i was going to make it and offered me a buyout of 6K. I decided to not accept because I already spent 3000 on the van, insurance, materials, etc... and when i re sold the van prob may not get anything close to 2k, so i wanted it all, plus i was starting to get used to it and know i could make it another 5 weeks. So when the big day came, he sure enough paid up. I still have the van. I may just keep it, because as strange as this sounds, its like a part of my life.
Positives of this experience:
-You CAN live without what we consider necessities, ie. electronics, tv, etc..
-I have lost 12 lbs, and gained 5lbs of muscle and actually feel a lot more healthy due to going to the gym 5x per week
-I visited a lot of people and caught up with a lot of friends and it was great to be connected again with them after spending years slowing distancing myself b/c of poker playing so much
-my profits increased 10-15% due to being more fresh and alert during sessions b/c i could sleep in the van 2 minutes away for a break
-I made 9K!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you guys want more specific stories, i will post
