In August of 2018, Steph and I arrived here in Lawrenceburg, TN. I got my sweet little place and she moved in with her daughters family, as Grandma.
It took about a month for me to set up the house, get all of the services going, especially a great direct wired internet connection from a telephone pole.
I had the two great chairs and round table, from Idaho, my bed, my computers, dishes and basic stuff. After establishing everything, I headed to WalMart and bought a great TV for my office along with a huge 65 for the living room. I added my great sound bar to the big setup, and my space rocks.
Then, with the house ready, mainframe hooked up on my desk, Piper and I looking down on Shoal Creek, it was time to code!
My blogging platform back in Idaho for BusDriVerJim, was WordPress. That blog is finished and totally accessible. I was ready to start a new blog on a new platform.
And then I discovered Joomla. It's a developers platform and I developed what I think is a great personal blog for me, as a traveler and photographer. And I had a great time developing a bunch of internal stuff.
The first post to my newly created blog was on Sep 14, 2018, called Landed.
Why do I drink and smoke, when I really love being clean, sober and in great shape?
Why don't I do as I say? I blabber all over this blog about getting out on the road, yet both of those above lifestyles require localization. I'm still committed to Summer in Pensacola though, and I will be, how I will be!
Why have my duck friends split into two warring factions, while losing excitement daily about my quack cocaine?
Why am I still making the trip to the Park? I've only missed a few days, and there have been some days where I was completely stood up, by both groups.
Why do I continue to wonder if I will ever have a partner in my life again? I really should accept the reality that I'm way past that point.
Why don't I just post this?
Got my new keyboard hooked up! It took several hours to pull the laptop apart, rip the old keyboard out and hard wire the new one in. Then I had to write a new driver to map the keys!
Ok, just kidding, I plugged the USB cable in and they both worked fine together :-)
I went to the hardware store and bought some Silicone Glue then mounted my new Something Good message on my truck canopy rear window. The original glue was no good, and I had a heck of a time spreading it around, but it's ok.
All my neighbors are gone and I have this dead end street to myself today!
Typing words on my phone to send to my blog. Laptop keyboard down. My greetings to the world!
Watching world famous highways on YouTube with D, we knew it was going to end with Hwy One down the Pacific Coast.
I have traveled that road many times, between driving exotic sports cars, to hitchhiking with a backpack.
I remember life events that occurred on that road, and they will die with me.
I was telling Daniel that I wish I had a road partner, someone to take care of logistics, while I created the adventure!
Had that with Brian last summer, haven't heard from him since...
I texted my few friends and family last night that I had spilled my drink on my tablet.I mis-spoke, it was my laptop. Surprisingly, it still works, but a third of the keys got fried and their typing out garbage.
So, I bought a USB keyboard from Amazon and it will be here tomorrow. I'm writing this post from my desktop and I researched my next step, which involves using the Device Manager in Windows 11 to Uninstall the keyboard and then use Device Installation Settings to remove it permanently.
I wish I could say the dog bumped my arm, I wish I could say the cat jumped up on the table and hit my cup. But I cannot. I'm really lucky to still have a working laptop, and if I spill anything on the new keyboard, hell it's only $16.
Gee, what stupid thing will I do next?
I only have a few domains left, and they all have active code on them. One site that I've maintained is called Jimazon and it processes the Flickr Photo site.
Flickr has been around for a long time and it's where I store my Photo Sets, for a charge of about $60 a year. Jimazon is also capable of showing Trending and Recent photos across the huge Flickr database.
I just got an email from Flickr telling all of it's developers that as of April their API (Application Program Interface) now requires a “User-Agent” header. Yea, Huh?, that's what I said.
So I went to ChatGPT and asked the wise entity in the sky how to do it. It showed me nicely, with a code example, then I loaded up the twelve Jimazon PHP functions that access the Flickr API, and added two lines of code to each one. The $user_agent variable is simply "Jimazon", followed by the name of the function.
For example: $user_agent = "Jimazon/getphotos";.
Then I dropped down to the Curl code that grabs the data off the Flickr servers and added a USERAGENT option which looks like this:
function curl_get($URL) {
$tout = 5000;
$c = curl_init();
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_URL, $URL);
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,$tout);
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $user_agent);
$contents = curl_exec($c);
curl_close($c);
if ($contents) return $contents;
else return FALSE;
}
I'm going to make the code changes now, assuming that the addition of a USERAGENT will not break Flickrs API before they implement the requirement, and work just fine after they do.
I really hope Flickr had a good reason to do this, because looking at their developers board, many folks are confused and pissed. I'm putting this post on that board and I'm hoping the Flickr engineers will tell me if this is right, or wrong...
Update: It's a good thing I have no life (although I did my laundry this morning). Flickr faced too much outrage over this addition and they have changed their mind, no USERAGENT required :-) Oh well, it was fun to challenge my brain and succeed.
I fixed my app, per their requirements, in a couple of hours. Not everyone was capable of doing that, apperently.
I am not a rain guy, or a snow guy, or a fog guy. I thrive on clear and eighty five. It has been raining all day.
My plans for laundry at the Wishy Washy were washed out. I got up at 0530 and then slept another hour at 0800. It's really hard being me, these days.
I'm either toggling my big screen between Fox and Local, or scrolling through TikTok on my big tablet. I consume content, it's what I do, it's who I have become. It's funny that I don't do both at the same time.
My possessions are meager, compared to some, but I'm very grateful for what I have. My stash has gone South since moving here, but I ain't broke, and I'm alright.
It's great to be Alive in America. As I was paying for my ice at the nearby tobacco store, I noticed the price of cigarettes at nearly $7 a pack. I told my store buddy that when I was sixteen, they were $.25 cents a pack.
A girl got me started smoking and I'm mad at you to this day Linda Galagher. I quit the day I turned 50, saved my life and allowed me to be here writing this.
I did the same thing with booze when I turned 70 in Idaho, lasted a whole year, dropped down to 150 and was in great shape. Did the same thing here for a whole month, got back to 150.
Now I'm probably in the worst shape I've ever been in. Weighing in over 180 and the tremors are constant wether I take my meds or not.
But every day is a gift! I treasure them, I embrace them! Ain't no self pity going on in this house!
And my main goal is to remember them...
Still here. I'm thinking tomorrow, hit the Wishy Washy, pay some bills and pick up some Farmer Katy recommended Magnesium for my leg cramps, called Calm.
Load up and head out Thursday morning. The weather is warming up, rain today and tomorrow, then a few decent days as I head East. Three layovers: Chattanooga TN, Asheville, NC and Greenview, SC.
If my grand-daughter Shannon was still in Atlanta I'd swing on through, but she's moved back West.
Everybody needs a plan of some sort, and that's mine, unless I change it, but it's feeling pretty solid.
One time in Kent, WA I was homeless and living in a tent, in the middle of a wooded area that became a Target Store a year later. During the day I scrounged for coins in the Safeway parking lot.
The apartment complex I used to live in was across the street, and my good buddy Rodger would come over in the mornings. Big strapping black guy, always brought me a cup of coffee from his kitchen pot, then he would get me stoned from his homegrown bud. He rebuilt shipping pallets out of a downtown storage locker, for a living. With a wife and young boy.
Not everyone has the privelege to experience bottoming out. I sure did, then and there. Only a couple friends, Colleen and my boy Riley living nearby. One evening Riley brought out a small portable TV and we watched StarTrek inside the tent.
My mom was still alive down in California and asked my sister Lorelle to help me out, which she did to the tune of $250. Things started happening, I got my old car going, and I was determined to put my computer brilliance back to work.
Then I jumped off the carport in front of Rileys apartment, into the sand filled playground, wearing sandals. I crushed my left ankle and was rushed to the hospital where they put eight screws into it.
I had no money to handle the hospital bills, so they put me on welfare. Suddenly I'm getting a small income, I'm staying alive, found a little multi-story dive to live in.
Once I was able to walk without crutches, I landed a job at a downtown Kent hotel as a bellboy/dishwasher for minimum wage. I called the welfare department and said thank you very much, goodby!
I did that bellboy routine for several years. I was in Rileys life as much as I could, we didn't miss a beat.
Finally I landed an apartment right across from his high school. I shared his formative years there, with his mom down the road.
I eventually became a Para-Transit driver and one day Riley stared me in the eye and said: If you don't accept that offer to become Supervisor, I'll kick your ass. He was actually probably able to do it, so I said yes.
I went on to have a successful management career with ATC VanCom and Hopelink. I guess what I'm saying here, you can be at the very bottom of your life, and still rebound!
And having a wonderful son in my life, changed everything. Mine was the first place he and his buddies would hit after school. They figured out how to drink my vodka, and then water it down.
I was involved in his life completely, and then one day he drove the Uhaul with all of Stephs and my stuff to Idaho with us. He went on to a degree from WyoTeck, and his career.
Riley is now a husband, a proud father and an amazing auto body guy in a two man shop!
So, that's just a little stuff from my past, thanks for reading...
The old man Jim is driving his old truck Jill East, through the South, just to be alive and moving!
He is sleeping in Jill's truck bed as often as possible. His shotgun is onboard, along with all necessary electronics, and condiments.
He just treated her to some fresh oil, with exam. Created 35 years ago, she is road ready and anxious to go, with new tires screaming Ride Me!
And he really hopes that he starts back writing in the first person.
Update: I reread this post and realized it sounds like I'm actually on the road. I'm not, planning to, just not doing it yet.
If I can get a week of nice weather, between here and the East Coast, I'm thinking road trip. I have nothing going on, nothing! Pay next months rent up front and pay the rest of my bills from my laptop.
It will be a merge of a solid weather forcast, my icebox at a minimum state, and the Wishy Washy.
See what's going on in Chattanooga, TN, then mosey over to Asheville, NC and then down to Greenview, SC.
Been wanting to eat at the James Beard Award winning Chai Pani in Asheville, and Greenview just made a big top ten cities list.
I've hit all three places over two road trips in the last four and a half years but I must have been drunk because I don't remember them clearly. I think I need to erase the old memories, and put some fresh ones in.
And since I have this wonderful blog you can follow right along, unless I hit the strip club. I'll leave that out, save it for the Paid Subscription version of OldManJim.com...
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