I started my first Blog when Steph and I landed at that beautiful log home with a hottub at the base of the Grand Tetons in Idaho, around 2010. The Mormon Salt Lake City hosting company didn't like me using the word fuck, so I said fuck them.
I ended up with IONOS, who have been hosting my blogs for a long time now. The Idaho blog was built around a WordPress platform that allowed Comments and used their default template which couldn't adapt to new cell phone technology. So I switched to one that could, ended it, and moved to Tennessee.
Here's the first BusDriverJim Post, from June 19, 2011, Vegas Trouble. The new template lost a lot of images, but at least it looks ok on a phone now.
As I started OldManJim I discovered the Joomla platform, which this blog is built around, and it's been amazing. I don't know if you've noticed, but this is a pretty bad ass blog, and I'm very proud of it.
I've been able to write custom code that integrates into it, with a bunch of cool apps I built around it. The platform provides the structure and management of everything else.
Joomla is an open-source project and has become one of the most popular content management systems in the world. A lot of people are still contributing to it, while I just enjoy using it, in my own way.
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I just talked to Riley and got the full medical scoop on Ariella. She's been suffering from high fevers lately, so the doctors recommended having her tonsils removed. Excuse me, but wtf?
So they did that, and then she started suffering from a cross-eyed condition. Her beautiful eyes are one of her best traits, it may have been a neurological issue, so they took her to the ER last night.
There was some concern that she may have been suffering from a rare condition as a result of the tonsil surgery, and they did the CT scan. Turns out she is not, thank god.
The next recommendation was to see an eye doctor, but the soonest they could get in was July. Excuse me, but wtf?
The doctor from last night put in a priority request, so hopefully she can get in much sooner.
I got a text at 0115 last night from my phone sitting on the small table next to the bed. I assumed it was someone from the place finder site I had signed up for yesterday, so I let it sit.
After a few minutes I was awake and checked it out. It was from my son Riley back in the Seattle area. He was at the hospital with his three year old, Ariella, my second favorite grandchild, who was suffering complications from a recent surgery and was undergoing a CT scan.
He and I both didn't sleep well last night, but the scan came back OK. Something is going on with her and I don't have all the details, but please send her some love.
She is absolutely the prettiest and smartest child I probably have ever known. She has to be OK!
Since Shelby now lives at Dan's house, she needs to get out of this place, with six months left on the lease.
The problem is, I'm still here, and with her gone, I really don't want to be here anymore.
We talked about it yesterday and she's proposing possibly a Tiny House in their backyard, for me to live in.
Besides being in a loving relationship with Dan and his daughter now, she's in a tough position. I know she feels responsible for me, and I really wished she didn't.
Shelby saved my life earlier this year, and I barely remember any of it. She made many sacrifices to her own life, spent her hard earned money on me, and we've lived in both Tampa and Pensacola.
So, here's the bottom line for me, from the honest core of my heart. If I'm going to stay alive, I need to move on. As much as I like and respect her new family, she doesn't need to include me in it.
She needs to live it on her own, and get out from under the position she has, and the pressure she feels, of taking care of me.
And I need to find my manhood again! As pathetic as my body is, I want to step up, one more time in life, and start the last big adventure.
If not, I will die a pathetic old man, in a Tiny House behind the pool at Dan's house. Sorry kids, but you don't need me back there.
So, what's next? I told Shelby yesterday that I was working on it, and I am. Looking now at a shared rental in Biloxi, MS, a few blocks from the beach, for $600. Waiting to here back from the guy, but the location is perfect for someone with just a bike.
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I think it's time to talk about drinking too much. We all know what that phrase means and it has a strong negative connotation in our society today.
Excessive alcohol consumption is the bane of our humanity, we do it, and despise it.
Then why the fuck did we invent this shit? I remember my first drink like it happened yesterday, riding around Paradise, CA with a couple of high school buddies and one of them handed me a beer from the front seat.
I was sixteen, in 1962. As the years rolled on I continued to drink. I also did every fucking drug on the planet, but never became addicted to any of them.
Alcohol is my addiction. It has been part of my life from that moment on, through everything and everyone in my life. I really wish that hadn't happened, but it is what it is.
So I've been drinking for the last sixty two years. There have been moments in time when I got sober for a year or more, but I don't remember them clearly.
Now I sit in my garage Cave in Pensacola, FL, still drinking after all these years. I'm not running around the neighborhood yelling at the world, or hanging out at the end of my local bar, drunk and depressed.
I'm trying to regain enough pride to be a man again, but ain't doing too well. I have lost everything but a few items, over my seventy eight years, but like I told Shelby today, I'm working on finding a reason to continue.
I'm thinking about moving on from here, again, as everything has changed.
Shelby dropped by this afternoon and we chatted in the Cave for a while. We talked about the future, and finding a way for her to get out of six more months of lease on this place, or sublet it.
We talked about life, and she and Dan are doing great, living up the road near the Naval base. She knows how I'm doing because all I do is blog about it.
Usually it's just she and Riley that see my most crazy posts before I take them down. But she told me today that people love to read my shit, so I just put the most latest trashed ones back up. Keep on reading if you're interested.
I really should stop writing about my life and then trashing the words. Fuck that! I have to admit though, I have written some Posts about my sexuality that I really should have swept from the Internet sooner. Anyway, fuck that too.
Honesty came up today in my chat with Shelby. You know what my friends, I'm the most honest person I know!
I value the truth to my core. I speak honestly to everyone I know and meet, and in this blog. I have no agenda going on, I'm just an old man who want's to be honest about who I really am, before I can't, and my life slips away, only to be forgotten.
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I saw a Neurologist recently and told him my biggest concern was the nonstop Parkinsons vibrations emanating up into my upper body from my legs. I'm already on three meds and I was very pleased when he said it was a vitamin deficiency.
So I ordered high quality, high dosage bottles of the two he recommended, online from Walgreens. They had a buy one get one free deal going on for both of them, and I started taking them. I incorporated them into my morning and evening routine more than a week ago, and looked forward to some relief.
Here's the results: the vibrations have not eased up, and are getting stronger every day.
I've transported many folks with Parkinsons, and their constant physical shaking has always saddened me. I'm afraid that these vibrations will finally bring me to that state, and it looks like there may be no cure.
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I just saw a commercial on the big flat screen here in the dark Cave. It said What gets you going in the morning? What brightens your day?
I have no idea what they were selling, but I had to laugh, then mumble softly, Nothing, and nothing...
The first thing I do in the morning is put my warms on and walk carefully down a bunch of carpeted stairs. Then I grab the Protein drink I made the night before from the fridge, my pills off the counter, and enter the Cave.
When the weather is warm, the Cave is warm, but lately it hasn't been, so I turn on my little space heater. I'm usually dehydrated and nutrition starved so the protein, meds and vitamins get my body going, once again.
Then I wake my laptop up and plug my phone and watch in, and I sit there asking myself what the fuck I'm going to do that day, and I usually have no answer.
If Shelby has notified me of an upcoming medical appointment, I get myself ready and go do it.
Other than that I just waste my life away, eating whatever junk I've brought into this empty house, watch TV, then drink and blog.
Sometimes I walk, or ride my single speed bike, to get supplies. Sometimes I just walk around the blocks because I can, and need to. Some days I never leave the house.
I no longer drive the country to enjoy sex, drugs and rock and roll. Those days are long over, now I just survive.
If you're tired of this pathetic blathering and want to bail from this blog, please go ahead and do it now!
Most of my family is dead, and the rest want nothing to do with me. Somehow my grand-daughter Shelby and my son Riley have held in there, and quite frankly are the only reason I'm still alive.
I'm not looking for any fucking sympathy here, because I don't deserve it, and I'm a fortunate old fool that I still have some left. Otherwise I would have exploded into the Other Side a while ago.
I want to stay alive now, so I can watch Trump and his heroes repair this Country, which I love and respect. I need to stay around at least 4-8 years to watch that happen, and hopefully more.
I want to come face to face with the Aliens that destroyed my older brothers life when we were kids, and ask them why.
I want to watch Shelby succeed with her dream, and build a dynasty. I want to watch Riley's daughters grow up to be amazing women, in a Country that has it together powerfully, honestly and transparently. I want to watch them all build their own dynasties.
My longest friend Sherry who I've known since 1971, when we worked together in San Leandro, CA, and lived together several times over many decades, follows this blog. She will occasionally send me long emails with suggestions on how to fix my life.
Her most recent one suggested, once again, that I attend AA, maybe meet a potential roommate, and help each other stay sober. Great advice Skoge, but I need to figure out another way.
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I've lived my long life, unafraid. As a result I've taken many chances that put it at risk, and fortunately I'm still here almost eighty years later.
I'm proud of that fact, and I feel empathy for those who are afraid to go for it. You only have one shot at this experience and if you let fear get in the way, you will lose.
So I sit here now, still unafraid, but running out of options and reasons to proceed.
We need to live our final days for ourselves, not because our demise will cause our loved one's grief.
We all die and hopefully we reconnect on the other side, but who knows, it's called life. We can't force ourselves to keep going because our death will cause pain to others.
We have to finish it on our own terms, unafraid, or end up like this.
Or this.
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