Well, it's been quite a day. I remember more than I did yesterday, but not much. The night was painful as my mind was spinning like a toad and my legs cramped up all night, Shelby took me over to somewhere where my memories started to come back, but my brain is scrambled.

I'm able to walk without a walker and without falling, but it's tough. I couldn't remember how I paid my end of the month bills, but Shelby tracked it down to my Driggs, ID account where my first of the month Social Security check goes into.

We dropped by my little house on Lee Street, where Shelby has been staying and cleaning, and it looked wonderful. She located my checking accounts on my laptop and we determined my rent check came out of there, so I wrote this months rent check and we dropped it by my landlords place.

I underwent some memory tests today and I really don't remember much, but i's gradually starting to come back. Everyone say's I'm looking better and things are starting to appear real to me, but all I can do is take their words for it.

It was great to see Daniel at my place this afternoon, and it feels real good to be back in my bed at the main clinic. I've got a long ways to go, and some magic to make my head better, but I'm going to make it.

Shelby has been my magic worker and I owe her my life. I am so lucky and so grateful to her for everything. It's been a really long day and I'm shutting down now. I'm looking forward to another day of friendship and survival, good night everyone.

I'm struggling with this Post, not sure how to get it online. If I can it will be a major moment. Shelby is heating me up a good size Dunkin coffee, and getting a nice Ensure Protein out of the Ice Box.

I really feel terrible, but my granddaughter has been here and wonderful, while Daniel and Massey have been true frinds. Thank you to all.

I'm going to see if this thing posts.

I feel really bad and I don't know what to do. I've layed on my bed twenty out of the last twenty four hours. Daniel was a true friend and got me up to the clinic today, they've prescribed some new drugs which we picked up today, and a walker tomorrow.

Massey dropped by and prayed for me, and he and Daniel are over at his house now discussing me. Grand-daughter Shelby is coming here in a couple of days.

I've never felt this bad in my life and I'm really thinking of ending it. I don't think I will, but it's crossing my mind.

God help me...

I've decided not to throw myself into the creek. Just my luck I would survive and end up cold and wet. I made it through the night so I'll see how the day goes.

My head really hurts, and my body is vibrating. I don't know what to do. At least I can stop bitching about it...

I think maybe it's time to give up. My head is a mess, my mind is shattered and my heart is broken. We all eventually reach a point in life where the reasons to continue run out, and I may be there.

I can't make another trip back to that hospital. My quality of life is at the bottom, and I don't feel it rising. I don't have a woman by my side, nor do I expect one.

I have family and friends that love me, I know that, but there's got to be more, and I don't see it. That kind of love is great if you have your life together, worthless if you don't.

So I'm going to stagger down to the creek tomorrow and throw myself in. I want to thank everyone who cared about me, say a nice word or two at my funeral.

Goodbye! See you on the other side...

God help me, I don't know what to do. I'm so glad to be home and know where home is.

There was quite a paramedic commotion outside my house the other morning. I don't remember anything, I woke up at Maury Regional in Columbia, TN and didn't know who I was, what month it was or where I lived.

My brain is squirming like a toad, as the Doors used to say. I have to keep it together or I won't make it this time.

Please offer up a prayer for me.

Ok, this isn't good. It's 0530 and I've been up for a couple of hours. I've had a hot lemon drink, and oatmeal with a banana. I'm watching local news on my big TV, and the pressure inside my head is intense. I feel like it's going to explode.

If it does, I want my friends and family to know how grateful I am to have you in my old life. Thank you, thank you.

Daniel and Jennifer get my chairs and table, Massey can have my truck.

Please know that I value your friendship and love, and if there's another side, I'll see you all there!

I slept alright last night, it was good to be back in my bed, but I look around my little place this morning, here on a dead end street in the South, and my heart is crushed.

My life has been gone for a few days and is now coming back to me. My head is buzzing and I don't like what I see. I remember landing here a few years ago with the woman I loved, only to lose her. Now I've lost myself.

I don't know what to do. I need to figure out how to pay my bills, get to the store since I can't drive, and find meaning in life.

Yeah, my nose got a little bent too...

Maybe my lifelong friend Skoge is right? I am a drunk, I accept that it is my addiction, been one since I was twenty one. I've had a couple wonderful vacations from it, one year in Teton Valley a decade ago, and for a month a while back.

But now that I have no control over it, it raises the question? Could ending this addiction really bring me life and the love of someone, or would it be a total waste of time.

I could have been a great successful wealthy man. I had the genes and the brain cells, I knew it.

There was a time playing Babe Ruth baseball back in the mid sixties as I was turning Vietnam war ready, when our team captain enlisted. He went on to become something, I went on to become fucked up, for a while.

As the seventies and eighties evolved I became educated, and was the best badass IBM mini computer programmer in the SF Bay Area and beyond. I wrote two software versions for the largest shipping company on the west coast, among many others.

And then that darned IBM PC came along in 1981. Through the eighties I had a few companies and developed a lot of software, I was a star for a while.

Now I'm here, a pretty much shattered man after all those years. I've been flat broke twice, since. I managed to build up a stash in Idaho, but it's mostly gone now.

I've had an amazing life and I am proud of most of it. To land in a small rental in Southern Tennessee, blows my mind, and I accept it.

I just had a horrible event happen to me. Dainiel dropped by here three days ago and I had collapsed to the floor. He got my cash out of my wallet (under a hundred) and called 911. I was dressed in my robe, Daniel was great dealing with the 911 drivers.

They took me straight up to Columbia at Maury Regional. I had two Seizures and an Acute Subdural Hematoma on the way to the hospital. I don't remember that first day at all, barely the second, and finally my memory came around slightly, I could walk with difficulty, and was discharged.

Daniel was coming back from heart stint surgery in Nashville with Drew and they drove up to Columbia and got me. The hospital brought me down in a wheelchair and I climbed into Drew's vehicle.

This has been the worst physical thing to happen to me in my life. My brain was damamged and I've been struggling to know who I am and where I live. For a while I thought I lived in Kent, WA, for a while I thought I lived in Driggs, ID. Now I realize I live in Lawrenceburg, TN.

I couldn't remember this town until we arrived this afternoon. Now I'm back inside my house and things are familiar but strange. I'm so grateful to Maury Regional for helping me and discharging me from their wonderful hospital.

But man, I really thought I was going to die in there. They had faith in my ability to walk and recover, and they were getting barraged by friends and family for me to get out. Thank you Maury Regional!

Now I'm home writing this Post. I remember my place, my head is spinning and I stagger around, but damn I'm glad to be home.

I'm so happy and proud that my boy Riley and his wife Jessica have achieved their dreams. Successful careers, a great home, and two amazing beautiful daughters.

It gives me the motivation to live, so I can watch them grow up.

As my life ends, I look around and appreciate love. My son Riley and grand-daughter Shelby have floated to the top. I love them both and I know they love me.

How sad it would be to pass on without love in your life, I'm so grateful. But you know, you have to earn it!

I held Riley in my arms before his mother did. I met Shelby when she was just a little girl in Oakdale, CA. They have become my family, my loves, and I am so proud.

They're both amazing, Riley has a wonderful auto-body career and a beautiful family, Shelby is just the star in everything she does, and very lovely.

Thanks God!

I saw my alcoholigist today, a very cool lady named Dr Veronica Vodka. She said that recent tests showed that I'm two quarts low on my blood alcohol level, and recommended I up my consumption.

To facilitate this she has prescribed 1.75L of Smirnoff daily. I tried to get a script for smoke from her, but she referred me to a potoligist named Dr Walter Weed for that. I've got a 4:20 appointment on Friday.

I just had this wonderful thought. Wouldn't it be amazing to suddenly be surrounded by all of the important people across your entire life, at their current age, if they're still alive. If they've passed, please join the party from a good place in life.

I'm talking family, friends, lovers, everyone. One big meet and greet before you cross over.

I wish they were all standing here in my living room, meeting each other, talking about this thing called life, as I sit in my chair with the door wide open on a beautiful Tennessee morning. It would be so magical.

I had a cool encounter with a big ol bee today. He flew his elongated body thru my open door, looking for a place to settle, and I said no.

I got him outside, slapped him around just a bit, and fed him some catfish.

I spent my formative years, six to eleven I figure, in a very small town built on the side of a Sierra Nevada mountain. It was twenty miles West of Reno, NV, a few miles over the State line.

My sexual identity was born there, I used to climb the tallest pine trees and float with the wind at the top. We walked more than a mile every morning to Interstate 40, across two major railroad lines, just to catch our school bus to Truckee, fourteen miles a way.

And again, my grandparents played an amazing role in our life! Step dad Paul was a long haul trucker, out making the family survival money. Our grandparents lived just over the Nevada state line, in Reno.

They would come get us when they could. I have so many amazing memories of those times, barbecue beef sandwiches at the drive-in movie, driving through black town where they had no rights, having my grandmother pull me from a public swimming pool because a black kid stepped in.

I saw discrimination early in my life, and I saw it as inhuman and ugly. Now I'm the most non-discriminatory person I know.

I've had several black women in my life, my buddies who have had none, can only drool.

And some of my best male friends in life, have been black.

Daniel and I were talking about boxing today and we both agreed that Mike Tyson is going to kick that punk kid's ass.

I'm a Tyson fan, and a Muhammad Ali fan. What an epic fight that would have been. I've met Ali in person, talked to him, touched him, but not Mike. That would be a tough one to call.

I remember a Summer that changed my life. I was a teenaged pimply faced kid, growing up in Paradise, CA.

My grandfather, Jack King, was my mentor. He loved me and took me with him whenever he could. An amazing man, gold miner, entrepreneur, gambler and a sign painter.

We were somewhere in Central Northern California, checked into a motel for a week while he painted a sign locally. There was a pool, it was Summer, and I lived there with my feet in the water.

One night we watched a boxing match on the little motel TV. It was Ali and somebody, he floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee, and won.

So did I, the Sun and the chlorine cleared my face up, I had a strong male figure in my life that loved me, and all I can say now is thank you grandpa!

I just attended the New Prospect Fire Department annual fish fry fund raiser, for the forth year in a row. Sat with Daniel and wife Jen, had a great meal, plenty left over for dinner, with a slice of homemade chocolate cake.

We spotted the helicopter crew eating as we stood in line. We wondered if they drove or flew here.

They flew. I told Daniel that if his heart gives out, he was in a good place.

Here's a great shot of my sweet grand-daughter Ariella watching a deer from her house.

I was sitting in my chair, when Daniel walked in and asked me if I wanted anything from Legends Express. I initially took the lame response, no I'm fine, after only eating some strange sandwich from a joint down the road when I picked up my friend this morning.

He insisted, so I ordered a meatloaf and sides. I suppose I do need to stay alive and survive! We share this meal thing, and I value it.

Here's the result of my lazy day:

Sitting here odd man out to a chess game. It's quiet and peaceful, door wide open, rain soaked air flowing in. I can write while they play.

Victory is close for one friend, as they split from the table for a moment, to piss and refresh a drink from next door.

One friend looks the other in the eye and says checkmate, or the other says I concede, or wait, they both just agreed to a stalemate!

I have a friend named Andrew, a tech guy inspired by me as he grew up alongside my boy, recently tell me that:

I can code a handshake between two systems that otherwise would never talk to each other. Any two systems can do such with a rest api, irregardless of intellectual property's or even how its coded. I could make the department of defense talk to your blog.

He may drop by here one day and it would be great to be inspired by him!

It's been a fun morning hanging out with a couple of guys. One is a hot wheels collector and the other is an ice house repair specialist. They live together under the bridge, to keep expenses down.

I let them use my electricity and internet, to juggle car sales, and advise on ice house maintenance.

OJ has died at my age, and his life has been plastered all over my big TV all morning. Both of my friends have interesting takes on it. My only thought was his prison time and the fact that he died of prostate cancer.

The three of us are communicating in three different directions at the moment. They're both on their phones, one talking, one watching, while I'm on my computer blogging about it.

Their shopping carts with all of their possessions in them, are parked up against the house, because it's raining.

btw: I always blog honestly, but this was soaked with a bunch of facetiousness today...

I talked to this great woman on the phone this morning, for a half an hour. She was from my local clinic and was asking questions that are part of my yearly Medicare checkup.

She was diving deep, with questions like have I ever considered harming myself or others. I said I love life, and others. She asked if I was depressed, I told her to read my blog.

She asked how I slept, I told her I drink myself to sleep. There were more probing questions and I just laid myself out on the slab. and answered them all.

I've been sitting around with Daniel as he bemoans his heart condition. He could drop dead any minute, and I would miss him!

But most of all, I would miss life...

I had to know if it's my taste buds going South, or the food around here really sucks. So I went to one of my favorites today to find out.

I don't know what's better, the catfish at Legends Express, or the lady that works the front counter. I've eaten here for years and Teresa and I are now on a first name basis.

I asked how old she was and she's in her mid fifties, just like the younger people I know around me. The way this town works, she probably knows my born and raised here neighbor, Daniel...

The catfish, fried okra and potato salad were great. They were just getting going this morning so the fish was hot and fresh.

There was a grumpy biker type dude, wearing a headband at the counter when I walked in. As I was getting my order he stormed back in and said his mac and cheese was cold. Ok, Legends Brisketville, he was right, sometimes your sides are on the cool side, especially with drive-through.

Teresa, fix this!

You may think I'm joking about the Internet that I helped build, but I'm not.

I was a major player in the computer industry through the seventies and eighties. I developed business building software on IBM minis, broke new graphics grounds as the IBM PC came out, formed two companies and was at the heart of the PC revolution.

I ran early Windows beta software on my box, just down the road from Redmond. I wrote assembly language scanner device drivers for the great one, PC Paintbrush.

I could rattle on here all day, but I was there from the beginning and my contributions to this thing we call the Internet, is notable.

btw: I humbly submit that I truly was a computer genius back then, not so much now :-)

I've been honestly trying to figure out how I ended up here, alone on a deadend street in the South.

It all started when things in Idaho changed and Steph and I moved to Tennessee. We were in the friendship stage of a long loving relationship. No sex, she was living on her daughters couch, loving her grand daughters.

I fell in love with those girls! I thought I was becoming part of their family, and I really wanted to be.

Then everything fell apart, not really sure why, and one day Steph just disappeared!

I've respected her privacy and not gone looking for her, but I have so many questions. I think my confidence as a man has been shattered. Am I such a bad guy that she couldn't have just directly said goodbye?

It's quite interesting sharing your life throughout the day with the world. Each Post must encapsulate itself, stand on it's own, make a point! Yet blend into the synchronous fabric of the blog, smoothly.

I try to present all Posts positively, as if there's anybody out there that actually gives a flying fuck cares.

Sometimes I don't succeed, and fall off the edge. Hey, I've been falling off the edge since I could walk. I usually have my crazy Posts down before sunrise.

I've had the most amazing life, and been blogging about it for the last fifteen years. I've talked about everything, from the moment I was born, until now.

The truth is, it would take weeks to read, and why would anyone want to. My past life doesn't matter, hell my current life barely matters. If I was somebody famous it would be a fun dig, with a bunch of photos and video.

So why do I do this? Because I can!

I knew I had to eat something this afternoon, and I opted for one more fish sandwich.

I skipped the tomato and heated up some no bean chili next to the fish in the oven, on the flip. Mayo on the toast, coleslaw down, topped with tarter sauce, fish layed on top.

Slathered it with hot chili, the other slice pressed down good, and OMJ's Chili Fish Sandwich, is born!

The reason Steve was able to park his mobile home in that wide open flood-plain field, and get city water, city sewage, city electric and internet hooked up down there, is because he owns the property.

He bought it after the flood and it has great access to Shoal Creek. It's the spot that our tubing outfit launched folks down the creek from. The tubing owner Ricky is Steve's cousin and his general contractor.

Steve Kilburn is I believe, the largest rental property owner around here. He also runs a large used car lot here in town called Four Sons Auto.

Steve and Ricky are both good men, and I've enjoyed working for them here. The tubing business is over and I'm sure they will have a busy summer with their rentals.

I just had a thought. Thoughts are wonderful bursts of mental energy that emerge from our being and define our existence.

Every blog Post I do evolves from an initial thought. Most times it's simply the fact that something interesting happened in my life, and I just share and expand on it, but sometimes it's so much more.

On occasion I slide down into the deep dark hole of life, and thoughts suddenly become toxic. My Posts always speak the truth, so blogging while in the hole, usually causes me to send them to the trash the next morning.

But those thoughts were online for a while, often overnight, and you can't take anything back from this Internet that I helped create.

You can hide them after the fact, but every second they're up there, lengthens their life and impact.

With blogging comes responsibility. I just spent the morning going through recent Posts, removing f-bombs and reworking edgy stuff.

Obviously I'm not going back into more than five years of content, but I'm trying to find ways of speaking my mind and my truth now, with class.

I grabbed my first shower in days then drove in the rain up to the Square for breakfast. I walked in at 0700 just as they opened.

The regular waitresses are gone, it's just old Sue and the young guy now. I had a rare cup of coffee, an omelet, hash browns and a biscuit.

Either the food in this town is just bad, or there's something going on with my taste buds. Nothing tastes good to me anymore, I only finished half the omelet and just left the biscuit alone, no gravy or butter to go with it.

I honestly didn't like the taste of the meat inside the eggs. I've recently had similar experiences with that terrible Wendys fish sandwich, a Big Mac disaster, and Mexican food I could only eat a bit of before throwing it all out.

I wonder if there's a medical condition that does affect your taste buds?

I think life is absolutely wonderful and amazing. I love and cherish it with all my heart and soul.

I've landed in some tough spots over all these years, and some great ones. I've been flat ass broke and homeless, to living well and happy.

Now here I am in my little mancave in the deep south. Respecting life, confused with it, and talking about it.

I have decided to be grateful for how I've landed now, as opposed to feeling bitter or sorry.

My little place is great, it provides for me, with a rent chunk out of my S.S. that I can survive on, while my savings are almost gone.

So here's to life! I love it!

And for anyone out there that wonders, much less cares, what my eclipse event diet was:

 • Half a bowl of bite-sized shredded wheat, no fruit.

 • Made one of my fish sandwichs for lunch.

 • For dinner, cheese covered chili toast!

With a couple peanut butter cups for desert.

I was standing in my doorway this nice quiet afternoon, running a long hard wire through my pipe stem, when a black suv stopped out on the street.

It was my landlord Steve, our new neighbor with the very nice motorhome setup at the end of our street, while their new house is being built.

Steve and I go way back, he was my landlord from the beginning here. I worked for him off and on, transporting cars from Nashville down to his lot. He sold his deceased mothers car to Steph.

He said they're not really camper people, but our quiet little street wrapped around by a creek, is growing on them. We were both clear that my neighbors kids ride their little bikes up and down this road. He said he's made this fact well known.

It's been great to experience two eclipses in the last decade, one in totality. The NASA images that FOX put up today as the moon rolled across Texas, heading northeast, were stunning and emotionally moving.

I watched my neighborhood darken as it's edge rolled by. I felt it's energy overhead, and it started me sobbing.

Sometimes the universe gives us presents, and if we're open, we can catch them.

I had several great invites to eclipse parties today, but I didn't want to imply a favorite, so I stayed home and partied with myself. It's tough being the hot old computer scientist from the West, beating them off with my big stick.

The truth is, as eclipse evening winds down, I haven't spoken to anyone today, in any manner.

As I was wandering through my videos I came across one of our living room in Driggs. It reminded me that the rest of the house was just as amazing. I really blew it by leaving, but it was meant to be.

And here I am now...

I'm way down the well of life, deep into her heart, and she's not talking to me, just an occasional laugh.

Watching the first total eclipse to hit Mazatlan, Mexico, live on Fox. I've been there twice and loved it, now I'm simply being moved.

I had to go to my YouTube channel today to watch my 2017 experience in Idaho. It was surrounded by videos that showed my life there, and it was good.

Now I sit here alone as the sky starts to darken. I'm in the path again, it's cloudy so I don't need to see it, just feel it . Not like the direct path I was under back then, but I'll take it!

People around here say I don't eat, that all I do is drink, smoke and bitch about life. Here's todays meal, and I'm proud of it. Fish sandwich, sliced tomato, coleslaw, tarter sauce and mayo. On toast!

I threw out that DoorDash Mexican crap last night, and go South Carolina!

I've discovered a serious excavation that has appeared overnight at my house. A square rock thing has been dug up, using my shovel with birdshit on it, exposing a small plastic object in the ground.

I'm suspecting it's the detonator for neighborhood destruction, overlooked since the nineties when the creek actually wiped the place out.

But who knew it was there, and who exposed it last night? Maybe I should just go push it?

I've got fourteen grandkids, and I've only known five. Shelby and her brother John I met as toddlers almost thirty years ago. Chris was the first born and I haven't seen either of the guys for decades.

I've met and gotten to know two more grand-daughters, Shannon and Taylor. I'm in close contact with only one of them, my Shelby down in Florida.

So, that leaves nine grandkids I have never met. They have my genes and my history. Washington and Lincoln were our cousins. I have great strong American blood that goes back centuries, on both sides.

Even their mothers family has strong Iowan farmer history.

I'm an ex brilliant computer scientist and a very smart guy. I have a strong propensity towards intoxicants, and I have Parkinsons.

It would seem that my grandkids would have an interest in those facts, maybe they do, but I haven't met most of them, much less sat around and talked heritage.

I wrote four Posts yesterday, and deleted them all when I stumbled from my bed this morning. Usually I would tweak out the stupid shit and keep a couple, not today.

I've been blogging here for over five years and I've trashed many a Post. The ones that dive real deep and cross the line hard, kind of Post.

I've never emptied the trash on this blog. Without checking it out, maybe my hosting platform does not have an automatic housekeep function. That means there may be two worlds here!

(1) What I present to the world as my truth and reality.

(2) What I presented for a short while, then realized it was too honest, and brought it down to trash.

Ok, I just checked and the only trashed Post's left go back to the first of this year. That means that most of the torment drained out of my old troubled mind, through my fingers and lingering online for a moment, is gone.

Hmmm, the Trashed Journal of OldManJim could have been a hit!

I don't remember last night. I know my two buddies were over at some point, that's it.

All I ate yesterday was a terrible big mac and hard fries, so I poured myself into my clothes this morning and drove to breakfast.

It's a beautiful day here in Tennessee, crisp air, blue sky, and quiet. I crossed the highway and slid into the downtown square on the backroads.

When I pulled up there were three women outside the door, and I knew them! Two were the Jehovahs Witness ladies I met a week or so ago, and the other was Gail, a cool old chick with a walker.

We chatted in the warm sunshine of a very quiet town square, and it made the fact that I don't remember last night, mute.

Then I escorted Gail in and we sat together inside a totally dead place. We both had coffee and I ate some eggs.

She talked about needing to go to Walmart but the local transit services were not currently available for some reason.

My first reaction was to throw her walker in the back of my truck and drive her there. I'm an ex paratransit guy, it's what I did for decades.

But then I thought, wait... Gail's a sweet old lady but this is just a second date. Do I really want to tie my day up driving her around town?

I chose not, maybe next time. Daniels now coming over to tell me about the crazy late night we just had.

I just really realized what I have with this blog, and I'm very proud. As I dove down into the code today to eliminate a redundant video message and adjust the spacing, I love how it appears across platforms.

It looks and works great on a phone! It spreads out nicely as the screens and machines expand.

It is totally under my control. I pay for the hosting (IONOS) and the image storage (FLICKR). I take advantage of and enjoy many platforms across the internet. I embrace and love the JOOMLA blogging platform, thanks guys for building such a great thing.

I'm not at the bidding of anyone, this is my platform! I chose almost six years ago to not allow comments, I wanted this to just be a place where I could speak my mind and present my stuff to the world, without having to defend my position.

I have succeeded and I'm happy! This is most likely my last big computer project. I've had many great computer software victories over the decades, and so proud of them all.

I was born in 1946, sixteen years later I had my first drink, a beer. A year later I smoked my first joint, a skinny thing rolled with seeded Mexican weed, under the Hollywood sign.

Now it's sixty years later, and my reality is coming out strong lately. The normal restrictions that I apply to human interactions, are fading away quickly.

And I like it a lot! Life is too short and precious to have it clogged up with bullshit, insecurity, or nonsense.

A couple of times over the last few days, I hit the trifecta. Running in zero bullshit mode, confident as hell because my give a shit is broken, and all that's coming out of my mouth is the truth.

The last total Solar Eclipse visible in the U.S. happened back in August 2017. There's a very narrow path where the moon totally blocks the sun, and where I lived, Driggs, ID, was directly underneath.

I was driving the local bus then and I watched people swarm into town from all over, to experience the event. Yea there were other places along the path, but this was at the base of the Grand Tetons at a very popular tourist destination.

This video was shot a couple hours before totality:

Here's the eclipse. You can hear voices rising up from the valley, in awe and amazement, including mine.

Now, as the next one approaches this coming Monday, I'm again under the path. Not as close, I'd have to drive a ways West of Nashville to be under it completely, and I have no intention to. I've done the eclipse!

Back in the mid-sixties I was eighteen, living in the last house off Neal Rd in Paradise, CA. Yea, the place that burned up in the huge 2018 Camp Fire.

I was breaking horses with a buddy and I had a favorite mare that I took for a long ride down into the canyon one day.

Usually I would let my dog Sandy, a smart beautiful yellow lab, tag along on rides, but this day I wasn't sure of the terrain so I had my mom keep her in the house. Which she did for an hour before Sandy drove her crazy to get outside, and she let her out.

I was a couple miles down into this virgin canyon, when guess who showed up on our tail? What a great nose she had, down in country she had never been in.

My brother ended up taking her down to the Bay Area when she got older. She ran away from there and was caught on one of the big bridges, trying to get back home to Paradise, 150 miles away. She was put down shortly after.

Sandy was a great dog!

My son's wife Jessica texted me yesterday to my thoughts about going back to be with them. She said I should follow my soul.

I just got back to her with a decision, I told her I would complicate their lives, and they don't need an old man in the backyard! She replied: We'll find a place and way to get you to FL so you can soak up the beach!

My family has my back, now if I can just plot a Southern escape route!

I haven't been eating much lately and I was hungry, so I hit Legends Express at lunch time, and it was hopping.

I had the catfish, potato salad, and I asked the sweet counter lady Teresa what she would recommend as the second side, and we landed on mashed potatoes. I'm from Idaho, I like potatoes.

I just had an in-home doctors visit by a 72 year old guy named Peter. He's quite experienced, and this was the best checkup I've had in a long time.

He ran thru a battery of questions, checked my chest and back thoroughly with his scope.

We talked about a lot of things, I told him I'm an alcoholic and he didn't flinch. He walked over to my vitamin stash and looked at every one of them, then recommended a couple more. He also told me some blood tests he wants done next time I go to the clinic.

Considering I woke up this morning wondering wether I was going to live through the day, he said I should make it, and probably tomorrow also. The truth is, for all of the abuse I have poured all over me, in the process of reaching almost 77, I'm in good shape.

My record showed a Parkinson's drug called Primidone that I used to take for tremors. Somehow it's gotten dropped from my regime, and he told me get back on it, next time I hit the clinic.

We are currently under a tornado watch, and I'm doing ok.

Son, if you wanted I would quit drinking and smoking right now, move into your backyard trailer, and be popa to your babies, forever!

You have a great life happening, I'm so proud and I love you all so much.

You're auto body career, second place in that big Pacific Northwest contest, is amazing!

Just say yes, and I'm there son!

On the other hand, Shelby, my grand-daughter who you know well, wants me to land with her.

She envisions me in a small trailer on a Tampa, FL beach, where I could hang with family there, enjoy my vodka and smoke while the hot girls in bikinis stroll by!

I am so grateful that my life has landed among these choices, thank you life!

So my choice is,...

I walked out on my little porch this nice afternoon, Daniel was sitting back inside in his chair, and I let out this huge roar from my gut that rocked the neighborhood.

I gave it everything, I made it last, I let the world know that I was here.

The campers across the creek might have been concerned, for a second. I live on a short dead end street and my next door neighbor is behind me. We're all cool.

But, my landlord now lives in his new trailer at he end of my dead-end street. He and his family and friends drive by here daily.

I think today when I let out that yell, they were having a family thing going on down there.

Daniel was impressed that the cops didn't show up.

I researched my mental and physical issues today and this is what I've found.

Lewy bodies pull the alpha-synuclein protein, crucial in preventing cell death, out of the nucleus of our brain cells.

They are the bad guys, and arise in a few ailements, including Parkinsons, which affects 2% of those over age 65, and the average time from onset of Parkinson's to developing dementia is about 10 years.

Hmmm, let me see, I'm 76, I have PD, diagnosed by my neurologist a few years back, and here I am.

Lewy bodies are sucking my brains out! I love a good blowjob! but...

I never knew this until today, that Parkinson's could mess with your brain. I always assumed it was just this disease that turned you into a sad shaking person, and being in the paratransit business for thirty years, I sadly knew many.

When you finally realize that your memory is fleeting, you make it as real as you can.

I've been documenting my life here in Southern Tennessee since I landed going on six years ago. I can pick any month out of any year here and recall what I was doing then, with pictures.

Now, as dementia settles in and I experience it in real time, I'm really glad I have. Hell, I have a previous blog that covers the many years before moving here. I love to write, I'm a decades long photographer, I used to develop brilliant code and it has been a natural fit.

I'm going to keep on blogging until I can't. I suppose there will come a point someday, when I lose that ability to capture my life here on the web. I will either be physically dead, or brain dead.

It cost around $200 a year to maintain these two blogs, and they would eventually fade away when that happens. Sure, some family member could jump in and support them, but why?

I have fourteen grandkids and I've only met a few, not to mention their children. I have a daughter that I haven't seen in decades. The truth is there are only a very few people on this earth that care how my life went.

So let my blogs go, when I go!

Sis, I hope you and the family are doing well! I just wanted to let you know that I'm truly sorry how things ended there, and I take full responsibility. You bringing Steph and I to the Valley was life changing for both of us, and I love you.

Now I sit here on a dead-end street in a small southern town, Stephs gone, and I'm developing Parkinson's dementia. I assume you read my two posts this morning so I won't elaborate.

My sweet grand-daughter Shelby is offering to setup a living space for me in Tampa, FL. She's talking about a trailer on the beach, near her, to live out my last years.

I'm seriously considering it. I need to bring my possessions down and go where I'm loved. Not that I didn't feel loved by your family there, I very much did!

So, that's my life at the moment, hopefully I can wake up tomorrow and remember writing this.

Please give my love to your amazing family!

I've figured out the problem with my loss of memory, it's the Parkinson's. My tremors have been worsening a bit daily, and what struck me this morning was Parkinson’s disease (PD) dementia.

The tremors suck, but this has scared the hell out of me. I've researched it and I've got all the symptoms, and there is no cure. I'm taking meds for the PD but who knows what they're doing and I don't want to stop and find out.

PD is now affecting my ability to be independent. My mind has always been my strong point, it keeps me going, and this blog has been the glue. I may feel bad physically, but I could still figure out how to deal with it.

If I have many more attacks like this morning I don't know if I can maintain this independent life. There are still things I've forgotten overnight that I can't recall. Like where my sister lives, and do I have any upcoming commitments this week or this month. I still can't remember where my buddy lives, and I thought I was going to head out there today.

If I lose this place I'll be stuck in a rundown nursing home somewhere. The few simple pleasures I enjoy, like drinking vodka and smoking from my pipe, will be taken away.

So now things have gotten very real. Forget lost past loves, life's successes and failures, blogging, and so much more. This could be the beginning of the end.

I woke up this morning wondering who I was, where I was, or what I'm doing with life. I've spent the last few hours putting the pieces together.

I finally figured out who my neighbors are, it took a while. I remembered Steph and her family, but wasn't sure what my relationship with them was. Oh yea, I haven't seen them for years.

I know I have a guy coming here tomorrow for an in home medical checkup, cause I saw the email, but after that, I don't know what I'm doing. Do I have a job? Do I have commitments?

I have another friend here that goes un-named, but if I had to drive to his house right now, I wouldn't be able to find it.

Damn, something has happened, I'm really lost and confused...

Update: I sent this off to my grand-daughter Shelby in Tampa. She just called out of concern and I lasted about half a minute before I fell apart and had to end the call. I know I was down there recently, oh yea, Christmas, but I couldn't find her place now.

I honestly don't know where my sister lives. I also don't know how to get to my other buddies house here.

It's like all of that memory matter got wiped out overnight, and I'm just confused.