ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

We are now bussed! We are bussy! We are resplendant with bus-iosity! We are literally bathed in busitude!

After pondering and planning ... and then almost buying a bus ... and then deciding not to buy a bus now ... and then pondering and planning some more ... and then pondering ... and then planning ... Yes, Folks, we have finally bought a school bus!

By "we" I am not actually referring to me. I am referring to my buddy, Skooly Pete, whose life I often live vicariously through. This is not just because I have a wife and kids and a house and a mortgage and all of the other trappings of boring stability. It is also because Pete does a whole lot of really cool things (some of which may involve taking liberties, Animal House-style, with beautiful young women -- unless my wife is reading this sentence, in which case, they don't).

One of the cool things he's decided to do was spend his life living out of a school bus. At least that was his plan. And after an extended negotiation that involved lawyers, guns, lots of money and even more alcoholic beverages, Pete has agreed that -- if and when he decided to actually pursue that dream -- I can be the one to document his travels and travails in this Blog.

A bit about Pete

I met Pete in Towson, MD, in 1987 when we were both Radio Shack employees. He had just dropped out of college, and was sort of a long-haired hippy type. He was also a computer geek. Remember the movie "War Games," where a kid could hack into military computers and nearly start World War III? That was Pete.

He is the son of an engineer who had either taught him, or encouraged him, to understand scientific things. As a result, Pete learned early on how to solder, do plumbing, do woodwork, make electrical circuits and -- eventually -- design, build or fix almost anything.



If you plan to follow this blog, here's the basic storyline for our future: Pete buys school bus; Pete personally modifies and customizes his school bus; Pete will then live out of his school bus -- which has been dubbed "Furthur 2" by this Blog -- while he travels around the country doing interesting things with interesting people.

(And if anybody associated with TV or the movies is interested in buying the rights to this continuing story, have your people call my people. We can do lunch ... and then dinner. Warning: thanks to this whole Atkins weight loss thing, which requires me to eat 4 steaks per meal, so I'm not a cheap date. But I digress.)

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Some time in January, 2007.

Pete drives down to Florida from Baltimore, MD. His goal is to hang with his family (his folks and sister live on the Gulf Coast) and to begin trolling for a bus.

Miami, FL. Sunday, February 4, 2007 ("Super Bowl Sunday"). Very early in the morning.

Pete gets invited to some type of party in Miami. He goes, meets a 32-year-old female lawyer, and somehow is able to convince her to rent him a room. She lives on an acre of land near Orlando, and is REALLY into the whole customerized bus idea. As part of the deal, she agrees to let him work on the bus on her property ... if he ever actually decides to buy a bus.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007. 11:40am.

Message left on my cellphone by an enthusiastic Skooly Pete. He's found a bus candidate! And not just any bus; it's a bus that he's personally driven before! At one point about 3 years ago, Pete was going to buy a bus, went up to New York, drove one down to Florida for a Floridian friend of his (who actually buys and sells school buses), fell in love with the bus, and then decided he didn't feel comfortable enough in his financial situation to complete the deal.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007. 9:22pm.

Well, I did it! I own a great big vehicle now!"

BUS LAW 101

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DEAR BUCKY,
I never thought these letters were real, but now I know that they are. I attend a larger than average midwestern university. Yesterday, me and my buddies were sitting around our dorm room, downing beers, when there was a knock on our door. When I opened it, much to my surprise I found three naked Swedish stewardesses and the only words they knew in English were, "Hi, Studs." But my question for you is this: WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR A SCHOOL BUS TO LEGALLY BECOME A 'RECREATIONAL VEHICLE'? And, just as importantly, why do I care whether my bus is titled as a bus or as an RV?
Signed,
Lost in Toledo

DEAR TOLEDO,
Glad that you asked, because as it turns out my buddy Skooly Pete had the opportunity to ask some Government Officials that very question. Read on.
Du gama, du fria, du haga nord,
Bucky

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DATELINE: May 23, 2006.
PLACE: (MARYLAND) MOTOR VEHICLE ADMINISTRATION.

Skooly Pete was down at the MVA yesterday taking care of some general registration stuff for his pick-up truck. While he was waiting (which, basically speaking, is what folks mostly do at the MD-MVA), he found a person to talk to about re-titling a school bus as an RV. Turns out that it's particularly easy to do, at least here in Maryland. All your RV needs to do is to provide "temporary living quarters" and meet four of the following seven requirements:

- have cooking facilities
- have a self-contained toilet
- potable water supply including faucet and sink
- refrigeration or icebox
- heating and/or air conditioning
- electrical supply
- lp gas supply

[CLICK HERE TO SEE ACTUAL LEGAL REFERENCE (COMAR 11.15.03.01)]

There are, however, absolutely no details as to what these various requirements mean, and thus (for all indications) it seems to be entirely up to the registrant as to what qualifies as a "cooking facilit[y]," a "self contained toilet," etc.

Put another way, one could in good faith argue that a microwave, a 5 gallon bucket (toilet), a cooler, and a battery+invertor (i.e., electrical supply to power the microwave) would seem to be all that are necessary to qualify.

Other than that, it's just a matter of removing the seats, covering over the flashing lights, and painting something the vehicle another color other than "school bus yellow."

We posited Toledo's question to our team of Skooly attorneys (motto: "We wear suits in the shower") and this is what they told us. "Motor homes" (which is what we are talking about here) are governed by §11-134.3 of the Transportation article of the Maryland Annotated Code. This statute provides as follows: " 'Motor home' means a motor vehicle that is designed and constructed primarily to provide living quarters for recreational, camping, or travel use."

You MUST paint your retired school bus (at least, in Maryland you do) because, under §22-418(b) of the Transportation article (titled: "School vehicles; yellow color"), "Unless otherwise permitted or authorized by the Maryland Vehicle Law or by [MVA] regulation, no other vehicle designed for carrying passengers may be painted national school bus yellow or a closely approximate color [other than an actual school bus]."

As for "Why do I care whether my vehicle is titled as a bus or as an RV?", I have two answers for you. First, in many states, you need a special license to drive a bus. Not so, an RV. Second, insuring a bus could be EXTREMELY expensive; insuring an RV, even if it is registered in a big city, can be as little as $300 per year. That's why, Snowball.

Rock on!

THE CONTINUING STORY OF SKOOLY PETE & FURTHUR2

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Home? Who needs a stinkin' home?
OK, sure, Keith and Danny and Shirley Jones had one, but who the hell remembers anything about their freakin' home, huh? Admit it: when you recall the Partridge Family TV show, the first thing that comes to your mind (other than the whole Susan Dey in mini-skirt thing) was the bus. The freakin' bus.
It was cool. No. It was DAMN cool. I remember coming home from school circa 1972 and asking my parents if I could paint their 1964 Rambler wagon to look like the Partridge Family bus.
BEFORE MY PAINT JOB:

AFTER MY PAINT JOB (ARTIST'S RENDERING):

I am convinced that, had my parents responded encouragingly to my idea, I'd be a famous President or televangelist today. Instead, my parents met my suggestion with the icy stares of crushed hope. Sucked of all creativity and youthful spark, I ended up in Buffalo, New York. 'Nuf said.

But this blog is not about the bad, horrible, regretable things that I did to small animals. It is about freedom and joy. And, above all, it is about school buses.

More specifically, it is about my buddy Pete, and his soon to be acquired bus that I have dubbed Furthur2. In so naming it, I pay homage to Furthur1, the 1939 International Harvester school bus that Ken Kesey bought in 1964, painted, and then used for tooling around the country so that he could distribute acid to the Great Unwashed.

(Above, that's a picture of Furthur after it was pulled from a swamp in November, 2005.)

My general plan for the blog is this: I am going to document each significant step in Pete's school bus acquisition and bus conversion process. When he makes his bus selection, I will report here how much he paid, what he chose and why. If Pete decides to outfit the bus with a 5-gallon food grade bucket for a chamber pot, you'll learn that, too. This Blog will be ALL FURTHUR2, ALL THE TIME. As the Partridge Family once said, Come on - Get happy!

Eventually, when Pete takes Furthur2 on its Maiden Trip of Adventure, you will be able to follow along here. It'll be exactly like being on the road with Jack Kerouac, only more school-bussy.

As part of this whole communal Blog process, I also invite all of you who read this diary to post your comments, insights, experiences, pictures on skooly culture.

And if any of you wants to be put on our mailing list (mostly, to be informed when a new essay is posted), please feel free to drop me a line: Buck Buckman.

Rock on!