My neighbor is a heating and air conditioning guy and he brought over some tools he just paid over $600 for. One set bends pipes, the other expands the ends. I have software tools that do similar things, and for the most part don't cost me a cent.

Well I finally got around to digging out my old Logitech video cam and microphone, and setting up Zoom. I'm now connected and can work from home, if the opportunity shows up. Here's a shot from my office desktop with a Golden Gate Bridge background. If you have Zoom installed, hit me up!

The early eighties following the release of the original IBM PC were like the wild west, and I was right in the heart of it. I had a couple products being marketed by a startup out of San Rafael with two business partners, buddies of mine, who pushed them.

The biggest computer show in the world was called Comdex and it blew apart Vegas every year. Huge amazing parties, millions of dollars thrown around and deals were being made that shaped the future. Me and my boys were down there every year, they worked the angles, and I played the role of software guru.

My office was a table in the corner of a strip club west of the convention center. When people wanted to meet the guru they were brought to the club, plied with drinks and tits, and deals were made.

Amazing things sprang from those Comdex adventures and continued to the end of the decade.

In 1979 I started working on the second version of the shipping software I had created earlier for Interocean Steamship Corporation based in San Francisco. The company had become the envy of the industry from the RPG software I created to run on their IBM System 3 computer, doing business in both Seattle and Long Beach via modem. IBM introduced RPG 3 along with a new processor and they wanted a conversion.

I billed them $65 an hour for a year and a half and created a brand new system. It was beautiful, amazing, and did everything they wanted. When I was done they hired a lady to take over as data processing manager, and I moved on. About a month later I got a call from her, and she was crying.

Turns out, she was doing some kind of backup at the IBM Data Center in the City, screwed up, and lost all of the code! I mean everything, they were down and non-operational. We're talking a major shipping company on the tenth floor of the California building employing hundreds of people!

Fortunately, I had printed out all the code (we didn't have external storage back then) and it was sitting at my place in the form of a stack of computer paper a foot high. I was training two lovely ladies at the time to do what I did and the three of us walked in to Interocean carrying that stack of paper just before Christmas.

We told them they had to bring in every specialist they could, over the Christmas holidays, to enter this code back into the system by hand. A formidable project indeed!

And then we left. We never billed them for our time, hell, this was one bunch of despondent people thinking the end was near. A few months later I dropped by and they were up and running and doing great! There was one little stunning blond that I had hit on there, to no avail, and she came up and planted a kiss on me. Nuff said...

Dancing alone in my little cold place to youtube, neighbor gone so I can crank it up, singing out loud so hard it hurts, moving my body so smooth like somebody would want to. Outside, people are wallowing in the birth of christ dressed up in a little santa suit, Steph has a new grandson I won't see, my code writing is back to it's old brilliant self, and I'm ok...

Well, here we are, again, and I have no comment about christmas anymore... I hadn't written any code for months and now I find myself wrapped up in a new project. I've also made a discovery, it's called MySQLi.

Over the many years I became very proficient in database software MySQL running under PHP. A few years ago it upgraded to an object oriented form called PDO, and I mastered that too. Now I find that the whole game has changed again to an improved version of MySQL, thus the i at the end, and I just figured it out, and I like it.

The MyRide Tennessee system I'm working with, and the position I applied for locally, appears to be a manual system. Maybe they have some online spreadsheets going on that match seniors who need a ride, to volunteer drivers willing to take them, but that would require someone to sit by the phone, take the requests, match them to a driver, and OMG...

The whole thing screams out for automation and that requires a database of drivers, clients and ride requests. Well, I just implemented a database of drivers, and software to allow signup, into my MyRide Lawrence app. If you would like to try it out and give me some feedback (as a fucking christmas present :-), I've got a link for you. Just signup as if you were a local driver and let me know how it works.

Here's the link: ( myridelawrence.com?m=links ). Click on Driver Login under Links, click the Register Now link at the bottom, and I'll check the database occasionally to see if anyone has done it. It's just test software and you can't break anything... Thanks.

I had been transporting folks in wheelchairs around south Seattle for years when ATC Vancom took our company over in 1996. A year later I won their first Employee of The Year award and we went on to be the largest paratransit company on the west coast, acquiring all the competition.

I remember one day a couple months later in front of the Kent, WA bowling alley. I had the twins on board, two strapping handsome young non-verbal guys in their early twenties, both paralyzed from the neck down when their mom contracted Toxoplasmosis from a litter box. The only thing they could do is move their head, eat and drink, and express their feelings to the world with facial expressions. That particular day I was blasting music out on the buses radio as I unloaded them and we were having a great time, they loved music, and then my boss walked around the corner.

I thought I was going to get grief about the loud music but as soon as I got the boys inside and turned it down he offered me a promotion to supervisor. I accepted, went on to be the lead, wrote the companies first supervisor manual and trained eight more. Another career at Hopelink Transportation followed that, another ten years driving the bus in Teton Valley, and now I sit here with 25 years experience in the business. This is on top of a 20 year career as a computer scientist.

I mention all this because I might end up adding to the story here in Tennessee and I wonder if I'll ever really retire.

It amazes me how many businesses rely on FaceBook to provide a web presence to the world. It's even worse when they create a domain name presence that cries out for securing that name, but they don't because they don't know how or what to do with it once they get it.

I have a job in the hopper here with a local rideshare for seniors program. They need someone to take it by the reins and make it come alive. I am hugely qualified to do it with decades of experience in the paratransit world, barring health issues that might get in the way.

I was looking at their Facebook page yesterday and saw that they were calling themselves MyRide Lawrence which is a subsidiary of the MyRide, TN program, based here in Lawrence County. Their email was myridelawrence at gmail.com which showed a definite commitment to a domain name.

But, they hadn't secured the name! OMG... So I did. Then I took that great template I used for Rileys auto body business and created a website on it. It looks damn sexy on my phone, just like an app, but it's pure php, html, css, mysqli and javascript.

And, I don't have that job, what the hell am I thinking? Do I send them the link and say Merry Christmas? It's still a work in progress as I need to build signup forms for it, but if you would like to take it for a spin, because you're special and follow my blog, here you go:

myridelawrence.com

Feedback appreciated...

My friend Steph dropped by last week.

It's cold here in southern Tennessee, sort of, like about 25 or so, but I came here from the Idaho mountains where it got down to 40 below often, so it's all relative.

I'm hunkered down in my little bedroom office space with my computer, smaller TV, and my bed with cat sleeping on it. The only heater in the house is sitting on the floor warming the space up nicely, screw the local utility company who wanted a hundred bucks deposit to turn on the gas.

Christmas day is a week away and I can't wait. Until then I will hang low, watch the Titans on Sunday, try to eat healthy and not drink too much. On christmas eve I will be right here with the heater on, cat on bed, looking forward to New Years.

And stuff will continue to fall from my hands, I drop everything, it's comical. If this is the only downside from whatever ails me, fine, I'll live with it.

I have a job resume sitting on a local Lawrenceburg city desk that I'm totally qualified for and probably could land. It's a noble job setting up rides for seniors that I applied for recently. I'm really torn, do I want to go back to work, am I up for it, would my physical issues get in the way? Wow, I don't know, merry christmas and a fucking happy new year.

btw: Sometimes the f-word is the only word that works...

It seems like a good time to list the things I'm grateful for:

•  I'm alive, I ain't broke, I'm supporting myself and I ain't in no fucking nursing home.

•  I have a cheap place to live on a quiet street with all the electronics a man needs in this modern world. I also have the expertise from decades of experience to make them all work together.

•  I have a cat that loves me, that I cherish in return, and we warm each others backs in bed at night.

•  I have an old truck that takes me where I need to go, to places I shouldn't go but what the hell, and always lets me stretch my legs out in the back when I'm done driving.

•  I have a few people in my life that care about me, for which I am eternally grateful.

I like to eat healthy and I love goat cheese and honey. Fortunately both are available around here in their most natural state. The Amish make amazing cheese and I have a great source, and I've just found a place (Nature's Nuggets) that sells local totally raw honey straight from a bulk container into a jar.

Both, are delicious!

I've been mapping out my next road trip. U.S. Route 43 is born just up the road from me in Columbia, TN, rolls through Summertown where Steph lives, my little dead-end street here in Lawrenceburg connects directly to it, and about 400 miles later it drops down into Cajun country at Mobile, AL.

There are faster routes to Mobile but 43 takes you through the country, most of which I've never seen despite three trips to Pensacola, FL which is just down the road.

Hell, if it was a bit warmer I would leave today but it ain't, I have no cat sitter, and I just need to wait...

Here's the Google Map if you want to dive deep.

I tried, damn it I tried, but bloging is in my blood. I feel compelled to share my life with the world even though the world don't give a shit. It fulfills something within me, and my life is so bleak now I need to fill it with something. So, hello again.

Several things have gone down lately, I wrote a letter to my ex-doctor:

I went through the drive-up line of our local utility company and spoke to a couple of people on a computer screen, asking them to not charge me a hundred bucks deposit to hook my gas up because I'm fucking freezing in this little house and my payment history over the last two and a half years has been impeccable, and they said go to hell. It aint the money, it's the principle. Once you pay a deposit it's their money to invest and draw interest on for the next three years and you can't touch it. No gas for me this winter.

Christmas is coming on fast and I aint stroking it, it can come on it's own. I spend my days at David Crockett State Park because it's bleak and beautiful and I don't have to think about anything. I sit there surrounded by leafless trees drinking from a tin cup because I can since I just downgraded my commercial drivers license to a class D.

So, there you go...

Since I'm on this truth kick lately, I might as well just share a phone call I got from my neighbor Daniel. We were hanging out here at my place last night having cocktails and quite frankly I don't remember him leaving but my watch said I fell asleep a little after eleven. Daniel was concerned about me and asked how I felt after falling last night. WTF?

He said I was coming back from the bathroom, rounded the corner into my living room, and proceeded to drop like a rock and hit the floor hard. I have no memory of that whatsoever. I forgot to ask him how long I was out but the important take-away here is that it happened.

I know Parkinsons is kicking my ass lately and I finally have that appointment with the Neurologist this Friday, but man, this has me shook bad. Has it happened before and I don't know about it? Could it happen while I'm behind the wheel of my truck? What the fuck...

This is a story about me, never told. When I was about seven I lived on the side of a mountain down the road from Truckee, CA. One day my older brother came to me and said that the father figure we called Paul was not our dad. Turns out the guy that showed up one day and let me drive his car while sitting on his lap, that my mother called her cousin, was our dad.

Paul and my mom had a deal, we never find out that he's our step dad and he would raise us as his own. Ooops, after that, life was very tough. There was no dad there, just severe discipline for my brother and I while our half sister sailed on through.

As a result I grew up with no concept of integrity, honor, and what it meant to be a man. After high school I hitch-hiked around the country while Vietnam simmered and eventually joined the Navy. Why, I have no idea, maybe because I probably would have been drafted, but who knows...

Boot camp in San Diego was weird. Turns out I was the smartest guy in the class, scoring the highest GCT they had seen in a while. I was also in great shape, high school track star and all that. So the day a buddy of mine and I decided to go AWOL and find some fun in town, had them concerned.

They put me in a disciplinary segment of boot camp and tried to break me, but couldn't. One day I was called before a bunch of men in uniforms with brass all over their chest and they told me I was going to be discharged honorably. They said that they realized that the military was not for me, but didn't want to ruin my life, which they thought had great potential. Wow...

I went on (after a brief stop in the Haight Ashbury) to school and an amazing run as a visionary technologist, and finally ended up here all these decades later.

The reason I bring this story up is because I have had two Navy career guys in my life lately, one I'm about to spend Christmas with, and I wanted them to know who I am. If I had been given the gift of honor and integrity from the father figure in my life, I might have gone on to great things in the Navy, instead, it is what it is... Steph, please forward this to Jimmy.

Flickr hosts my photos and they have a contest going on called Worst Photo of 2020. So I submitted this shot, along with this description:

While on a 7-day cruise in the summer of 2019 a hurricane hit Miami and we were extended to 11 days at no charge. We ended up in Roatan Honduras where a cabbie talked me into a cruise of the island. I took this shot out the passenger side window of the cab, along with some great face shots of the resident.

Here's the resident:

Three take-aways here: Makes my place look like a mansion, the guy really looks at peace with his situation, and they rejected the photo because it was shot in 2019.

Not only am I ungrateful for my own position in life, I can't even follow the rules... :-)

Expressing myself to the world with a blog is something I've been doing for the last ten years. Many times it got deep into my soul but I kept the post up thinking someday I would revisit it and learn something about me. What a bunch of bullshit, all I did was expose my deepest self to the world for anybody to exploit if they wanted to. That never happened, so what the fuck?

Talking deeply about your life to the world takes a certain kind of balls, that I bet most of you don't have {metaphorically speaking girls). For me it's been amazing, I can include a passion for photography, technical expertise accumulated over fifty years and a god given ability to write words, into a post.

Sometimes I dive too deep, back off and send the post{s} to blog trash hell, and it hurts to do so. Right now I'm hurting in a bunch of different directions so I suppose I should just stop right now and let this year slide into an end...

Update: My very few freinds expressed concern about this post. This was not some sort of cry for help, that ain't my bag, just expressing the truth, and looking forward to New Years.

I'm finally getting in to see a neurologist next Friday so I composed a document for him:

So here's the deal Doc. Last summer I was at the top of my game, driving tubers down to Shoal Creek and back in an old school bus four days a week and working out the other three. My body was lean and mean, drinking was down to a couple in the evening, and the tremors were in the back of my mind. Not bad for a 74 year old man.

Then I hit the road, picked up a bunch of pot in Colorado, and partied for a couple of weeks out West. When I got home I slid into a "lubricated mode", first hit at 0800 and first drink at 1100. The tremors became stronger so I just fought them off harder. Ran out of pot so I drove to Illinois and bought more.

Now I'm sitting here clean for more than a month and contemplating a local management job setting up rides for seniors, which I am totally qualified to do. The problem is, I feel like shit. I've dropped ten pounds cutting out all the munchie crap but I'm out of shape, and the tremors are back bad.

And now I'm depressed. What the fuck! I just posted a blog post with a shotgun in my mouth for christs sake, and I'm totally anti-suicide. Anyway, this pretty much sums me up at the moment...

On the medical side, the tremors are all internal. I first noticed them lying in bed in a quiet cabin up in the Grand Tetons of Idaho about 15 years ago. It was just a little vibration from within and I thought "what the hell". Over the years they continued to grow stronger and now they dominate my existence. I find myself dropping things a lot, securing my watch band is a nightmare, and if I was a vibrator I could make a women happy, but I ain't.

Parkinson's is in my genetics on my dad's side, multiple uncles had it and my older brother has it flat out bad with major visible tremors last I saw him.

One final note, I ain't a pill guy, don't do any, period. How the hell can we fix this?

Back in the late seventies I was down in Carmel Valley, CA writing IBM Sys 3 software for the company that marketed the original Flasher (Uncle Sherman) Doll, made famous by Johnny Carson, and yea, the doll had a dick.

I met Dawn there who become a major lady in my life, and I also met Beryl there who become one of my best friends. She went on from there to work for Digital Research in Pacific Grove and in case you're wondering where these places are, think Monterey, CA, beautiful seaside area, nuff said.

Digital Research marketed CPM, an operating system for pre-PC systems, created by Gary Kildall. The story is famous about Gary being out of town when IBM came around wanting him to build an OS for their new machine, and when his wife wouldn't sign an NDA they got pissed and flew to Seattle to sign with Bill and Paul, who created DOS, and the rest is history.

I used to hang and party with the Digital Research crowd right at that time and if things had gone different, who knows. I went on to be a major IBM PC software developer, and had a wild ride, but...

These photos are over fourty years old, btw. On July 8, 1994, Gary fell at a Monterey biker bar, hit his head, and died. He could have been Bill Gates.

A kid named Dillan.

My friend Betty.