Tomorrow is April Fools day, again, and Google is canceling it's normal bullshit nonsense due to the Virus. The day has always had a secret meaning to me as it was Linda's birthday. She was my girlfriend just as my hormones were beginning to rage and I made the mistake of squeezing her little buds while we were kissing. That was a joke as she dumped me immediately and I was traumatized for years.

So, no April Fools joke for me this year, and happy birthday Linda, wherever you are...

Five letter domains are pretty rare these days, most have been grabbed up by corporate robots, but I now own one which maintains the OMJ brand I've been building up. It's an empty shell with no direction or purpose. A layer upon which I can build.

Since my plans to travel after the fifteen day Trump order was up have been shattered into the ground by, everything, I might as well face reality and just hunker down and do what I do best, write code.

http://omjim.com/ is now my blank canvas. I'll probably spring the extra bucks shortly to make it secure (https), and then go to work. As I love to say, stay tuned...

Kimberly Marsh, a nurse at Westchester Medical Center outside New York City, said "We all think we’re screwed, I know without any doubt that I’m going to lose colleagues. There’s just no way around it."

Tip: Click above to open the map, click on any county name for more...

The new Covid-19 by County layer is ready for viewing. It uses the same display structure as the one by State but has a completely different source (usafacts.org). Drag the map around to an area of interest and zoom in. If a County has any cases, the info will be displayed, otherwise not. Zooming in exposes new counties.

Here's the Link. I focused it initially around Washington State, because. When you drag and zoom the map a permalink url is automatic, so just save the link.

I can't determine if I'm depressed and drinking more because my Parkinsons is getting worse or my Parkinsons is getting worse because I'm depressed and drinking more. For being such a smart guy, I sure am a dumb ass. I can't even get any respect around the house as Piper has taken over my chair (again!) and I'm sitting here on a portable folding chair with an arm rest cup holder. Meanwhile, working on a U.S. County based Covid-19 map, stay tuned...

Some CEO's of major companies obviously had prior notice to a possible pandemic and resigned from their positions and liquidated their holdings in their own companies at a time of record profits and a bright outlook for the economy. Here's a partial list:

• Alphabet - Larry Page   • Bed, Bath & Beyond - Steven Temares   • Best Buy - Hubert Joly   • Boeing - Dennis Muilenburg   • Colgate-Palmolive - Ian Cook   • Disney - Bob Iger   • eBay - Devin Wenig   • Gap - Art Peck   • Harley-Davidson - Matt Levatich   • Hewlet Packard - Dion Weisler   • Hulu - Randy Freer   • IBM - Ginni Rometty   • Kraft Heinz - Bernardo Hees   • LinkedIn - Jeff Weiner   • Mastercard - Ajay Banga   • McDonald’s - Steve Easterbrook   • MetLife - Steven Kandarian   • New York Post - Jesse Angelo   • Nike - Mark Parker   • PG&E - Geisha Williams   • Salesforce - Keith Block   • T-Mobile - John Legere   • Under Armour - Kevin Plank   • United Airlines - Oscar Munoz   • Warner Bros. - Kevin Tsujihara   • Wells Fargo - Tim Sloan  

All of these corporate assholes bailed just before the world found out about Covid-19.

I have developed a new layer for my OmjRoute application. It's pretty damned complicated and cool if I do say so. I wrote it to distract me from the collapse of our world around us and my subsequent depression.

I created an SQL query against Data-World's COVID-19 daily extraction which represents the current state of the virus as of 9:00am EST every day. I massaged it into a JSON entity which feeds my map application on demand. It contains the number of occurrences and deaths for each State, which are overlayed on the map.

Here's the Link.

Update: They changed the data up on me, back on track now...

Todays data:

This is why our government is destroying it's own economy in an attempt to stop it...

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the minds of men to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

or to take arms against a sea of oppresion and by opposing, end them.

Steph had the AWD disabled light come on in her 03' Rendezvous. I told her to inspect connectors C305 and C305B at the body pass through for corrosion and if they look good suspect the differential clutch pump actuator check valve. It's under the vehicle in the area behind the driver's seat and is known for getting water on it and causing issues. She said WTF?

What's wrong with women these days, can't handle a simple fix?

The digital TV world we live in interviews a lot of people. The interviewer introduces a person and then asks for their opinion about a subject. I pay attention to the very first word out of a persons mouth for some reason and I find it fascinating actually. In most cases we've never heard this person speak and it's their opportunity to grab our attention and make their point. It's their thirty seconds of fame you might say.

The most common word these days? The conjunctive adverb so. Sometimes they will add a comma and you get a drawn out so..... which allows them to make sure the next words out of their mouth make sense. Sometimes no comma and they drop right down into the subject. Either way, it's fascinating and I urge you to pay attention to this. It is the word of our times.

California in lockdown. Where do all the homeless go when told to stay home?

No toilet paper, I knew I should have bought that bidet stock. Oh, wait...

What happens when the folks that maintain your Internet and TV can't make it to work? The bit-rate sucked on my Spectrum TV service last night.

Meanwhile, dozens of military vehicles have been carrying virus victims across Italy – with morgues too full to hold corpses.

I drove to Huntsville, Alabama today and discovered a horrific scene. All the people there just carried dead bodies around to be buried. At every corner they dug deep pits and those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pits. In the morning they took dirt and shovelled it over them, and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of dirt, just like making lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese. There were some pits that were barely covered and dogs dragged the bodies out and ate them.

It was just like the bubonic plague of 1346 where 60% of the people in Europe died. Thank god I live in Tennessee.

I just threw one of my pretentious, better then thou, bullshit positions out the window this morning. I used to love to say I haven't taken a pill of any kind for many years because it's been true and it somehow made me feel superior to all of the other sad pill-popping fools in the world.

The top of my poor bald head was throbbing when I woke up this morning. I was recovering from the Basal Cell removal surgery a couple of months back, that still hurts like hell, when I went in yesterday and had a Squamous Cell removed. So, I found those three heavy duty pain pills that I've been holding on to for years, and took one. I could have taken two or I could have just knocked myself on my ass and taken all three, but I just took one.

How do I feel? It worked, the pain is still there, but dulled to a manageable throb. Hopefully the destruction of one of my prized moral positions does not lead to the demise of others.

Something is in the air, and it smells like martial law. My dermatologist wasn't too concerned as he sewed up my head again after slicing off the last bit of cancer today. I guess he's too busy to notice the writing on the TV networks wall.

I'm sitting here in my little house at the end of a dead-end street in a small southern Tennessee town and I feel the vibration rippling across the country. I'm sensitive to vibrations in things and people, a physic ability I don't talk about much, but now I feel it on a bigger scale. The States are freaking out and I think dramatic notices are close to being announced. Riley just clued me into a rumor about Washington State but I'd already felt the vibe. Be ready folks.

I'm stocked up, guns loaded, truck is ready as I just canceled a road trip, and I still have power and internet, so I'm sending this post out. Hopefully it won't be my last for a while.

Man, I picked a hell of a time to plan a road trip :-) My truck is packed, primed and ready to roll. Steph agreed to set up residence in my little house to watch my cat, and I have plenty of TP and supplies here. Then I wake up, turn on the TV and hear that states are going to be putting up roadblocks at their state lines to take temperatures before allowing people to enter. What a logistical nightmare that's going to be.

To top it off all the talking heads on TV are saying if your over 65, keep your ass home. In other words, guys like me trying to drive across the country are going to be perceived as the enemy. Damn it all to hell.

Actually, to really top it off, my cat Piper gave me a shiner this morning. We have a cuddle position on my bed where she likes to plop her big old belly down on my hand. It's very endearing, until the arthritis in her back acts up and she jumps straight up in the air and one of her claws caught me in the eye. It's good that my eyes were closed or I might have lost one. As it is I have a puncture wound in my lower lid and the area is starting to turn black.

Afternoon update: Sorry governors, but I need to drive. You can chastise and harass me for doing so but I'm one of the most legal people I know. I'm a U.S. citizen with roots in this country going back to it's founding. I have no warrants, I've passed an FBI fingerprint background check, I had my ID run through the entry gate at Camp Pendleton, and I have a commercial drivers license and a passport. If the only thing you can get me on is driving while over seventy during a pandemic with a black eye from my cat, then have it.

Evening update: After dwelling on this a lot I have decided to get off my high horse, settle down, and stay put. The world doesn't need an old man running around in an old truck looking like a zombie with his blackened eye possibly spreading shit from one state to the next. If we all make it to summer, I'll travel then. Over and out...

The battle of Shiloh was fought on April 6, 1862 seventy miles from where I live now with 23,746 casualties. I woke up this morning still glad to be here. I'm not afraid to die and I will not hunker down and hide, nor will I fight my fellow man over a roll of asswipe.

Alright, here's the deal, the stupid world is shutting down around me. As I prepare to launch a road trip in my little truck the bars in Nashville are being forced to close after going through major tornados. Are you kidding me?

Well here it is Friday the 13th, I see the writing on the wall, and it is profane. Big events are shutting down everywhere, people aren't traveling and the economy is crashing. What everyone seems to be missing is what happens when the people that work in the grocery stores, the Walmarts, the Amazon fulfillment centers say screw this and stay home? What happens when truck drivers stop driving? What happens when the police stay away? Just sayin...

Phrases like Boomer Remover are sweeping the net but my favorite is: Does the unlimited drink package extend into the quarantine period? I don't think so...

Saturday morning numbers: Thank god, some good news. The experts are predicting that only 1.7 million people in the U.S. will die. Cool, and we only have 925,000 hospital beds in this country with only 1/10th available for the critically ill. I actually have more numbers but I'll just stop here.

My dear nephew Brian. My friend. So good to hear from you, it's been months since we last connected.

The Nashville tornados missed me but the one a month before went right over my little house while I sat at the screen door and watched.

Sorry to hear about Dave's broken foot from the snow machine but it's not like the guy has never had nothing broken before, sheesh... and I relate to quality time with your cat, it's the only thing that keeps me sane.

As to that ex-girlfriend, well, you don't need to pour booze on your hand, just drink it when necessary.

How am I? I realized today that this will be one of those periods in life that I will look back on someday and wish that I could recapture, because it's going downhill rapidly. Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself, just pissed that it's all finally catching up with me.

So what to do? I drank a lot of Corona back in my mexican beach bum days so I'm immune to that shit, so I should travel while everyone else is hunkering down like spineless bastards. It's not like this stuff knocks you down and makes blood spurt out of every orifice until you die a horrible death within minutes. Again, sheesh...

I will be heading your way at some point shortly in my trusty truck looking for new hot springs to conquer and smoke to soak in. We should hook up.

Your Uncle Jim.

Modern map API's (Application Programming Interface) use a data structure called GeoJson which represents geographical features and their attributes in JSON (Javascript Object Notation) format, to plot places on the map.

Over the many years writing map code I've devised a variety of ways to achieve this, most of them convoluted, involving PHP modules and MySQL databases.

My new app OMJRoute has now achieved a wonderful level of simplicity. The program reads a basic CSV (Comma Separated Value) file using some sweet JQuery asynchronous code, converts it to an Object, then into a GeoJson entity, and then places it on the map as a Layer.

The file format is simple and efficient: Longitude,Latitude,Name. For example, here's three Walmart stores with store number as the Name:

-96.770372,32.963375,8930

-97.578089,35.365702,7326

-86.492693,34.818134,7324

The file contains 4,339 entries for the US and is 113 KB in size, so it loads really quick.

You still with me? This allows me to create some cool layers on top of my Route Map showing things like Rest Areas and Flying J/Pilot fuel stations. The points are clustered so the further you zoom in, the more are displayed.

My ultimate goal is to apply the Places only to the Route. If it ain't along the way, you ain't gona see it, because it doesn't matter. I create this stuff to help me travel, and hopefully others...

I had the most profound dream last night. I was walking out of a large city towards skid row when I came upon an old black man struggling to pull a piece of plywood over a small arched bridge. I grabbed one edge and helped him carry it, glancing down at my arms and realized I too was black. There was a wild eyed crazed white guy on the other side pointing a large revolver at us, urging us to move on.

We came upon a mass of rundown apartments that we had to navigate to reach our destination. Behind us a throng of people several hundred strong had joined us as we walked through filthy kitchens and bedrooms, twisting and turning from one to the next. At one point we walked through a nursery with toddlers watching us in awe.

We finally burst through the last door to find a beautiful beach and sparkling ocean where we all threw off our clothes, ran joyfully into the water and bathed the grime of the inner city from our bodies.

Good morning America from southern Tennessee, I need to grab my coffee and get on with my code...