Back in the early seventies I was pushing my limits pretty hard and was convinced I wouldn't live past the age of thirty. As I reached that milestone in 1976 I was enjoying a bottle of fine wine in a Kansas City motel room with my Japanese wife and a hot young lady. The details of that three-way are still engraved in my memory.

Ok, I thought, there is no way I'm going to make it to the year 2000. As that New Years Eve rolled by I was walking back from a party at the local bar, good job, roof over my head, when a pretty lady I had never met came out of the darkness and kissed me hard. When I woke up the next morning I realized that setting limits was foolish.

Now here it is 21 years later and I'm still kicking. My body is in amazing shape and my mind still functions fine. Perhaps I should set a limit on 2022? Maybe I'll get laid on New Years?

Yea, I just posted about moving to Roatan, but that's just a pipe dream. I'll be down there next month, have lunch at Sandy Buns on the West End, and move on. But where?

There is nothing for me here anymore and I'm dying a slow lonely death. I really miss my boy back in Washington and I would love to see his new daughter grow up. So maybe I'll move back?

I would have to go back to work, couldn't afford it otherwise. When I left there back in the early 2000's I was a transit supervisor in good standing with Hopelink. Moved to Teton Valley where I kept on driving a bus. Moved here and drove a bus last summer. I'm in great shape, I could handle it.

Hopelink is hiring at a great rate now with sweet signup bonuses. I could rent a u-haul, put my truck on a trailer, and get the hell out of the deep south.

Right after my Caribbean Christmas cruise :-)

I'm seriously considering moving to Roatan, Honduras. Make some new friends, like these guys!

Gotta be better than hanging out alone in my little house in the deep south on Thanksgiving...

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Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature.

Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The Valley, dead to me now...

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Here I am, 0835 the day before Thanksgiving, drinking bourbon topped off with moonshine, for breakfast. I woke up with bottles scattered across my table, sure enough signs of drinking last night with my neighbor Daniel, and a bottle of clear moonshine that a cop friend of D's brought over last night but chose not to join us. Too bad, I love our police.

Daniel and I were taste testing Makers Mark to Jim Beam Black Extra Aged, and the later won, I think...

I have no idea how my day is going to play out, but I suspect a trip to the gym is not in the cards...

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Gravity pulls rain out of the sky. And snowflakes. And leaves in autumn. And tears from my eyes when I knew you really are gone. Where did you go?

I thought gravity pulled my mind into the past, stuck in memories. But now I know I can’t trust memories. Some are invented, all are edited. The whole web of who I am — what I’ve seen and done, what skills I’ve found — is nothing but fog.

Gravity pulls me to the future, bits of me falling off along the way. Each of us disappears into the mist of the possible. In our minds, time is gravity’s other side.

Michael Frame

My neighbor Daniel told me he had his eye on a hat for me at Tractor Supply, and bought the last black one they had in the store today. Early Christmas present, one I will wear proudly come the Day out on the ocean.

I finished up that new website this morning, replacing crappy text with more meaningful stuff, and all images now link to cool content, if you're interested.

Today is day fourteen, and here's the link: daysdry.com

The folks currently in control of our government seem intent on destroying the petroleum business to force us into electric vehicles. I can't afford an electric car so if I'm going to continue having the freedom to drive in this country, I better get with the plan and convert my old truck.

But where do I start?

Andy and Shelby are ordering the Drink Package for the cruise. I haven't made up my mind yet, I'm on day eleven of my sobriety kick and who knows where I'll be come mid-December! I told Shelby I could be the designated driver and she just laughed :-)

Grand-daughter Shelby and Andy have secured their spot on the Carnival Magic Christmas cruise! They've also come up with a great plan to get us to Port Canaveral, FL the day before the Dec 19 boarding.

My job is to get to Pensacola on Saturday Dec 18 before 1600. I've done that run three times now and know it well, a seven hour drive with gas stops. So, I'll get Piper set up in the morning with Molly taking over that evening, and leave early so I can hang out with them before we leave.

Their plan is for the three of us to hop a flight to Orlando that afternoon at 1840 ($130 RT), stay in a nice hotel, have dinner, and make the boat the next morning. A great plan! There was some doubt wether Andy could get his employers approval (the U.S. Navy) for the trip, but they pulled it off!

Here's my run, using my great routing program RideQue. Click the image to open the program.

I've got a new breakfast routine where I mix up a few ingredients into a paper bowl, cover with a small paper plate, and microwave for two minutes. Cleanup just involves a fork and it's delicious.

Ingredients:

 • Two cage free large eggs.

 • A bit of butter.

 • One pre-cooked Jimmy Dean pork sausage, diced.

 • A spoonful of Newman's Own Mango Salsa.

 • Southern Flavor Charbroil Seasoning.

 • Ground pepper

btw: I also got a Covid booster shot this morning at the Health Department.

I'm working on a new website called daysdry.com. It's got a ways to go to totally flesh out, but worth dropping in on now.

I've also implemented a slick technique for updating the day count easily from anywhere, like my phone, at the end of the day.

Instead of talking about it here, go there if you like...

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Considering that I don't promote my YouTube channel in the slightest, this is interesting. I haven't decided on an internet package for that cruise yet, I had one for the last one and posted daily from the ship, and I posted daily from that Belize trip this summer.

There always seems to be time when you're hunkered down in your cabin or motel to get a post out. The secret is to just put up photos and then process all of the video footage when I get home on my powerful desktop box.

Apparently people like my stuff...

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I've been stressing for days over that Emergency Room visit last week, afraid that the Cat Scan and EKG would blow my precious Medicare Advantage insurance out of the water. My fears have been put to rest.

It's a rainy day here in Southern Tennessee and I couldn't get laps in on the path, so after my workout I went up to my gym, Anytime Fitness. After a great treadmill workout I asked about their best ab machine and the girl mentioned that my Silver and Fit membership had expired. This is one of the great benefits I get from my Medicare Advantage insurance so I told her I would get it straightened out. She also showed me a sweet ab machine :-)

When I got home I called BlueCross/BlueShield and talked to Adriana, who was amazing. She called the gym and worked everything out, I'm back on board. Then she asked if their was anything else she could help me with, so I asked about that ER visit.

She found the bill which was about eight thousand dollars. Through the magic of insurance it had been adjusted down to $400 and my liability was $101.04. Considering I thought I had lost my insurance and faced a huge debt, I can live with that!

So I'm very happy, think I'll hit the gym every day now, and work on those abs...

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Walk, workout, stay sober, stay warm. See ya...

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Piper loves her new heated pad underneath her favorite blanket. The house is going to be cold in December while I'm gone so she can just hunker down while Molly drops by twice a day to take care of her. It sure beats nine days in a cage at the vet.

I have made some decisions regarding the upcoming cruise in 40 days. For one, as a function of my exercise routines and walking, I'm going to dry out, again. I'll need to be at the top of my game to keep up with the youngins.

I've also decided to not get the drink package, for a couple of reasons. It's much more expensive than my last cruise at $51 a day plus 18% gratuity on each drink. Besides, when you have the package you tend to way over drink just to justify it. I'm getting a great deal on my room, $548.86, which works out to $78.40 a day. Considering your food is included, you can't beat that!

What would be truly amazing is to do the cruise sober, nothing but water. I can still hang out at the bars with the gang as there's no rule you have to drink to sit there. Besides, Shelby mentioned to me she's looking forward to making some enduring memories from our adventures, and the cool thing is, I would remember them, and have more cash to spend on making them.

Shot a few zoom shots to fine tune my Sony rig:

My phone in cup holder.

David Crockett State Park.

Piper's new heating pad.

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I shared this shot from my August 2019 cruise at a pier down in Roatan with tour guide Shelby, and she asked me to plan the itinerary for the stop. Working on it...

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Well, the next cruise is on! I'll be getting my Covid test on Saturday Dec 18th, meeting with my new pet sitter Molly who has agreed to do twice daily Piper visits for nine days, and then driving to Pensacola.

It also looks like I may have a hot date! Shelby's friend Jill has expressed an interest in hanging out with us!

I'll spend the night at Shelby and Andy's place and then we'll all drive to Port Canaveral, FL (a 7.5 hour drive) for boarding on the Carnival Magic.

It's a seven day cruise with stops in Costa Maya, Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. Saturday (Christmas) we'll be at sea heading back to port, should be amazing! Sunday we'll drive back to Pensacola and I'll be home on Monday the 27th.

I've got six weeks to get myself in top shape (I'm pretty much there now) and then let it all go to hell with food, drink and fun. Life is short, live it!

I'm ready to take my second 7-day Caribbean cruise and I don't want to do it alone this time. I'm looking for a cute young Tennessee girl to travel with me: an old guy, in good shape, and not bad looking. The cruise lines offer couples the best deal, so here's the offer.

I would expect you to be employed with your own money. Single, with some time off in December, not a welfare momma or a drugie, and you look good in a bikini. I'll pay for the cruise, transportation, and a drink package.

Ain't lookin to get laid, just someone to share an adventure with. We would be the hit of the ship, cool old guy, pretty lady.

You up?

The cost of modern medicine is outrageous. The ER prescribed an antibiotic for me: Cephalexin 500MG capsules, 21 pills to be taken once every 8 hours for seven days. These things are big, bad, red and expensive.

The total price for the whole bottle at Walgreens was one dollar! I remember back in the day when I could have picked up something like this for fifty cents, seventy five at the most. Thank god I'm doing ok and I can afford it, but a lot of folks aren't as fortunate.

I hate taking pills but I might as well pop one of them hydrocodone things I got from the dentist with my lunchtime big red boy. Maybe it will take care of my headache...

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I fell yesterday, not sure why, just passed out. The back of my head got pretty messed up and paramedics arrived, but I declined attention. Going to the clinic this morning.

Update: Sometimes you should just fib. When I got to the clinic and mentioned passing out, they wouldn't treat me, sent me down the road to the ER where they did a Cat Scan and an EKG before telling me that I waited too long and they couldn't stitch it up.

Hopefully my insurance will cover that stuff, and at least I know my head and heart are fine. Got a tetnus shot and antibiotics. Sheesh...

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