I don't mind being crazy

“There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.”
― Oscar Levant



If I had a lot of money I'd be charmingly eccentric. I only have enough money to be crazy. 90% of the time that works out just fine for me.

Build a dome home? Energy efficient and can withstand tremendous snow loading and high winds.

Solar electricity? Installed solar over 20 years ago, it's still going strong and paid for itself years ago. Plus it saved me a lot of grief during storms.

Waste veggie burning vehicles? My friends thought I was nuts when I bought an old Mercedes Diesel to experiment with. Burning WVO has saved me tens of thousands of dollars over the years.

Buy an old ambulance? It made a great a great little camper van and sailboat tow vehicle.

That's just a sampling. There are days I even forget what's considered unusual as it's normal to me.

All well and good, but once in a while I have interact with the “real” world -the world with lawyers, bankers, town officials, police and others of the sort.

Sometimes it's all a matter of getting the “normal” person to buy into what I'm doing. The dome home required a building permit and I was able to convince the building inspector to issue one.

Banks, on the other hand, are a lot less fun. Banks don't want to lend on non-traditional housing. By taking the profit from selling my normal house I was able to erect the shell. Once in was physically in place and didn't fall down, then banks would talk to me, allowing me to get a loan to finish the project.

The veggie van has a traditional sort of paint job -Early American Hippie. My wife and granddaughters had a blast painting it. However, that's probably why law enforcement followed me across the whole state of North Carolina.

Now I'm in the process of doing another little project that will need the blessings of officialdom. I'll let you guys know how that turns out when I'm done. Whatever happens I'll be fine. When you live the way I do you learn to have a solid plan B.

-Sixbears