The Fran and Dave Experiment profile picture

The Fran and Dave Experiment

I wanted to chuck it all and live off the land, but how to do that without money? Then it hit me: Wo

About Me

Things to See

    The Story So Far
    I Went To The Woods Because I Wished To Live Deliberately My Other Pages

"Let Freedom Ring - not ring a bell."
--Dave

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The organization seeks to help victims of trauma heal through self-expression.

If you are a creative individual, you can help!


,,Things to See

The Story So Far

If you don't see the blog you're looking for, just click the "Older" button. They're all there. Thank you for reading!
    FAQ - (Or should that be ALOAQ: At least once asked questions?)
    ^The Story So Far2007, May: Wet Start Bed-Wetting In Appalachia - Dave's House Warming
    ^The Story So Far2007, June: Getting Acquainted The Boy Who Cried Racoon - I Hardly Knew Ye Procrastination Stinks: My Only Friend Is A Moth Prosaic Profferers of Practicality (and Pioneering Pooches) I Am Published, Hear Me Roar - Hopefully Not Bore...
    ^The Story So Far2007, July: New Eyes One Day In A Million - Paying Off the Attention Deficit I'd Like The Medium To Go, Please - And Hold The Propaganda Arachnaphilia - Wishing for the Web West Virginia Hills - Steep Driving, Steep Mileage Doubly Potted and Feeling Cool Ultimate Party Up Shirt Creek - It Happens In the Rain Fran's side of the experiment I Look A Lot Like Narcissus - My Guiding Lights
    ^The Story So Far2007, August: Sound and Fury Debt Relief - Have I Got A Deal For You! Silver Angels - In Pursuit of Lost Loves Drifting Left and Dying - UFOs and Noises That Old Black Magic - More Noises In the Night Tree, Spare That Woodsman - The Inchworm of Fate I Came to the Woods to Live Deliberately - And All I Got Was This Lousy Flashlight
    ^The Story So Far2007, September: The Venom of Serpents Red Dawn - A Damfool Confession The Unbearable Lightness of Beans - Concerto for Oboe and Tuba Now Is the Winter of Our Tent - Advice Needed! A Series of Unfortunate Events Me, A Friend, A Sourpuss, A Cave - Is That Dueling Banjos I Hear? Is That A Hay Bale or Are You Surprised To See Me? Getting Serious - Making the Highways a Little Safer Rotten Shingle Chronicles - Some of My Favorite West Virginians My Second Flying Accident - And the Ensuing Laughter Better To Freeze In Paradise Than Comfortable in Civilization-But There Must Be A Third Choice Sittin’ By the Doc of the Back - Becoming Well Adjusted Morpheus Lost - The Hidden Dangers The Most Difficult Blog Entry I’ve Written...
    ^The Story So Far2007, October: Fire and Ice Where Is Everybody? Of PCBs and Dams Best of the Misfits - Moving On... Exit Crawling - A Chilly Reception Blog Action Day Posting... Somebody Call Springer! We’ve Finally Getting Our Due Recognition Over-winter campsite needed - do you know of one??? Annabelle’s First Blog I Need Water For My Campfire - This Is Where I Came In (Fran)Help I’m drowning Pyrotechnic Reminiscences - The Fires of My Youth and Beyond What Happened? – Down and Dirty with Multiple Digressions Rainbow at the Crossroads - Scarier than Halloween
    ^The Story So Far2007, November: Weather the Storm Dreading to Inhale - The Funny Fellow Who Found Me in the Field Rocket Noise - Celebrating a Half-Century Naked In West Virginia - Hootchie-Cootchie On Ice Some People Never Learn - Previous Experiment Ends on 13 Time to Veer - When Deer Get Near In Severe Clear (Fran)Hallelujah we did it!!!! Fran and Dave’s Open Tent Retrograde Motion - ’Tis the Season An Ear for Disaster - No License Needed for Hangar Flying Grace Under Pressure - Piloting Begins with a "P" Cringin’ in the Rain: Desire, Betrayal, Peristalsis I Want to Share - Morning Wallpaper Not In Kansas - A Followup Crash Landing Into Motel 6 - Not the End, Just a Pregnant Pause (Fran)When the tent is called up yonder, I’ll be there
    ^The Story So Far2007, December: Culture Shock Eskimos Do It, Why Can’t I? Crying Uncle - Back to Earth Not So Fast! A Change in our Change of Plans… Postcard From the Edge Happy New Year!! Y’all Come! I’ve Started Another Page...
    ^The Story So Far2008, January: Calling Barton Fink The Suspense Ends Tomorrow - Take a Look A Funny Thing Happened On the Way From the Quarry What’s Barton Fink Have That I Don’t Have? Trapped in the Aether - Coming to America Naomi Wolf’s Ten Simple Rules Getting It Together - All My Blogs In One Place
    ^The Story So Far2008, February: Waiting for Spring Ghost of America Ghost of Democracy Howard’s Ends and Means - Who’s Insanity Is It Anyway? Surveillance Society - Can I Join? Or Will They Make Me Join? Total Information Awareness - All Seeing Eye Meets World
    ^The Story So Far

,,Things to See

I Went To The Woods Because I Wished To Live Deliberately

There are two kinds of people in my world: Those who say I'm crazy, and those who envy me...

It started in February, 2007 when I got laid off from my job. I found another job in April in Charleston, WV. What I did not find was a place to live. I could live in an apartment, but I'd rather spoon out my eyeballs (and I'm not crazy for that idea). There has been little in the way of a place to live, and even less that I'd want to live in.

Necessity being the mother that it is, I started camping in the Kanawha State Forest. When my wife comes to Charleston for a few days a week, we've been staying at Motel 6. After a while, I realized that what I really wanted to do was to keep right on camping. My wife initially didn't want to go along, but she agreed to do this if we could get a bigger tent.

We figure we can save quite a bit of money. With a house, there are a lot of expenses. Now, a practical person would say you have to live in a house, otherwise, how are you going to get cleaned up to go to work. If you don't work, then you can't buy things like houses. People may need a little prodding, but usually, when they complete the argument, that's what it comes down to. It's a beautiful process to watch.

The practical person will point out that there will be hardships and they are right. I'll have to learn things, and there will be thinking and labor involved.

After my wife and I save enough money, we'll buy some land and build a yurt. You can buy them for a few thousand dollars, or build them for a few hundred. They are fairly primitive, but they are sturdy. They've been around for hundreds of years, and have to hold up under very distressing weather. Oh, they can be car-topped.

I won't argue that they have the comforts of home, but here is a way to think of it: Let's say that you had been found guilty of something and the judge gave you a choice of two sentences: You may do 30 years hard labor. It won't be too bad, really; you get to come home to a nice house on evenings and weekends. The other alternative is that you can spend a few days building a primitive shelter, then you're done paying for it. You can add on as needed if the spirit moves.

So, the way this all shakes out is that I camp in the woods and work in an office writing computer software. I have the benefits of civilization and nature. I'm the happiest I've ever been, and all appeals to practicality can't stand up to that.

My Other Pages


Dave's World
Artificial Intelligence

,,Things to See

My Interests

Pretty much everything. All my life I've carried around loose knowledge I thought I'd never use. Now much more is useful since we have to figure out more things for ourselves.

    Computers AI Graphics Information Theory
Writing Photography Aviation (love the Cub!). Wife and I plan on building light sport plane or ultralight and hang-glider Canoing Caving Rock Climbing (reserve the right to chicken out) Outdoors Music
    Music Theory Guitar
Cycling Alternative housing: We are looking into various modes of building: yurts, log homes, geodesic, or possibly some hybrid. Reading Mathematics History Dogs, the quirkier the better. I love teaching them weird tricks: rock climbing (perfectly safe indoor setup), playing piano, guitar, shoulder perching. I think dogs are the finest creatures there are. Don't get me wrong, though; some of my best friends are human Puns, the badder the gooder. In college, I did an AI project to make a computer generate puns. My "punishment": I have been dreaming in puns for over 20 years. Teaching people who are willing to learn. Learning from people who are willing to teach. Teaching myself. Being a good husband, friend, stepfather, grandfather, human.

I'd like to meet:

"If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!"

- Shel Silverstein

Music:

Strumming my guitar. I love the blues and it is what I do best, my style of playing seems to be partly Delta, partly Piedmont, and partly a cry for help.I've written a few ditties. Some novelty songs to make people giggle at the coffee house, which they did. I'm working on some more serious writing. My trouble is I don't write well when I'm awake. If I can write whatever I hear in my dreams upon waking, it's pretty good.When I'm in the woods, I'd rather make my own music, so I save the the CDs for the car or work.

Movies:

Don't see too many. I know I'm in a cultural (for some definitions of culture) backwater when I don't recognize the new Pez characters.

Television:

I overheard a TV show recently. It was yet another "who's the real daddy" talk show. I had to laugh out loud. Remember, we're supposed to be the crazy ones!

Books:

Since coming to the woods, I've read these authors: H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, H.P. Lovecraft, H.D. Thoreau.

Books I've read since coming to the woods include: Mark Twain's Roughing It, Herman Hesse's Sidhartha, Lord of the Flies, Ernest Gann's Fate is the Hunter, George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Various Foxfire books, The Tipping Point, Complexification

See AI guy for a sample of things I read before coming to the woods.

Heroes:

My wife, for listening to a crazy idea, and finding ways to make it work. She is one in a million!Explorers (excluding Columbus for taking slaves), Astronauts, Original Thinkers. There is a long list of thinkers and scientists who bothered the Catholic Church and were persecuted or killed for their trouble but there are too many to mention.Niel Armstrong, Charles Darwin, Douglas Hofstadter (I'm in his favorites but I'm not brown-nosing), Richard Feynman, Neils Bohr, Albert Einstein...

My Blog

Humpy the Dog Needs a Family

Humpy's not his real name. I just call him that because... well, that's between him and my pantleg. The old boy is amorous, all right, but he's a good dog, very submissive and obedient. We just don't...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:02:00 PST

Rockets and the Nerds Who Love Them - October Sky Festival

I was telling Fran one day about the movie The Right Stuff. She asked me who was in it. Well, I remembered a Bell X-1, Atlas rockets, Mercury space capsules, that sort of thing. Who, she wanted to kno...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:08:00 PST

Know Fear - Its Your Friend!

There seems to be a taboo against showing fear in our society  even if politicians do seek to manipulate us by its use. FDR, in his inaugural address, famously said "We have nothing to fear but fear ...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:50:00 PST

Running My Mouth and Driving South - Autumn of Fran and Dave

We went to visit my mother for the weekend a few days ago but ended up staying longer than expected because my good friend, Jeff Byrd, invited me to speak to his literature class. I'm too big a ham to...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:57:00 PST

West Virginia Meets the Ocean - Nice Folks, Good Music, Good Food

"He looks manufactured," I said dismissively when Fran pointed out the poster of one Mike Aiken. I pictured a factory buried under Nashville that cranks out country stars made to specification. M...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:31:00 PST

Twist in the Wind and Shout - Mardi Gras in Charleston, West Virginia

Here is a little shout-out to 2Blue, not only for letting me work their break at Taylor Books later this month, but for being nice folks.   And they are good musicians to boot.   I have ma...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:02:00 PST

Stinging in the Dark - If the Other Shoe Drops in the Woods...

I declare, the yellow-jackets are bad this year at our campsite. At mealtime, especially, they swarm us like a fighter squadron. We have to be careful about having food around. We've found that puttin...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:48:00 PST

Let Me Introduce You to a Local Character...

I'll start with his name: Will Sexton. It sounded familiar to me, so I looked it up. There is a musician by the same name in Austin, Texas who is well-known. I don't know if there is any relation, but...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:41:00 PST

FAQ - (Or should that be ALOAQ: At least once asked questions?)

We get a lot of comments and emails from people who are curious, and we really enjoy it. This is not to discourage people from writing - we just like to share. Trivia: "I have watched the Earth dyin...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:41:00 PST

Chagrin and Bare It - 2P or Not?

chagrin noun 1.  strong feelings of embarrassment  verb 1.  cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of; "He humiliated his colleague by criticising him in front of the boss" [syn: humilia...
Posted by The Fran and Dave Experiment on Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:54:00 PST