New chapter in the midst of the Covid-19 May, 2020

10/13/2020

Well, I am house sitting for couple of nights and time almost up. I have a dental appointment tomorrow early and then get my new lenses to glasses. I have to get my shit out of the house before I leave for dentist I think in AM and then return to visit, find out when my friends coming back in afternoon. To short of a stay for all the prep I need when staying at someones house, from my living situation in the truck. This is all to personal to post on FaceBook. when I post on Facebook, I open myself up to opinions from friends that I am not looking for. I am more about journalling and trying to figure out how to move forward on my thoughts etc. For instance what spurred me on to write this little detail is I was crossing my legs, left over right and my left knew, shit the pain. I have already decided to pull out the knee braces I have been using for years. I had already looked for new ones that I could use to replace the tired ones about 2 months ago. They don't carry what I am looking for anymore. Looks like Amazon will be my answer. Amazon,. the online answer to Walmart. Amazon is the on line store we love to hate if we are for fairness and certainly someone is not operating on that principle. It is just the way it is in this capitalist system. It is not fair and either we can stay angry about it, move out of the country or try to change it from within or with out. 

I was really struggling finding the right buttons to use to update, publish and revert to draft. I get worried that my thoughts transcribed to here which have no real value at all will get lost if I hit the wrong button. Am I that unfamiliar with this page that I have to first get frustrated and finally figure it out? I guess so. Then it was in the wrong place, somewhere in the middle and I finally figured that out and moved it, of course, here it is in the beginning because it is the most recent entry. 

Saturday May 23, 2020

I am watching, listening to the Robbie Robertson interview on you tube in 2016 , talking about his life, his magic, how he got into music, playing the guitar, living in Canada, Living in Arkansas, back to Canada, Ronnie Hawkins, how he got into the band, Levon Helm, Bob Dylan. It is Bob Dylans 79th birthday today. Robbie is talking about writing his Biography. I am listening so it may have an influence on my own writing. I think about, the focus that I never had. I just have to write it from my best recollections.The interviewer brings standing Rock to the interview and Robbie his answers, his focus, his pace, his rhythm is so measured.  Six nations is near where he lived and what he learned from his cousins.  

Book stuff. I can do it from my head. It brings tears to my heart, why who, what can I do? How can I tell my story and who would be interested. From my heart, from my heart, from my heart, how I have thought from my heart. 

When and where I was growing up people rarely validated my feelings.  I think my parents may have not thoroughly understood me for sure from the start, I was so different. I was happy, happy kid, and they just thought what they thought. I was different in many ways, I was brought up with feelings that when I tried explaining them people never seemed to actively listen to me when I spoke about how I felt. From an early age, when I would tell someone, my stomach is upset, why was my stomach upset, anxiety. I had anxiety about going new places, a feeling. Boys, we weren’t supposed to have  feelings. I was based in feelings, but I wasn’t supposed to have them. I was a boy. I was supposed to be different according to what I had later found out. 

We are each our own persons. Some of us figure it out sooner than some others of us. I didn’t figure it out for many years, at least until I got cleaned up from my drug abuses, woman abuses and other abuses, I can remember some pretty crazy things. I will talk about them when the time comes, another chapter in the continuing recollections from this aging retiree. 

In elementary school in Los Altos CA I was labeled right away as a trouble maker. I was almost ok until about 3rd grade one day at lunch. I remember lunch there at Portola Elementary School. The cafeteria with their steam tables and the nice ladies that cooked the food and the tables with benches. I worked in the kitchen cleaning up but don't remember much about how I got the job or when it ended or why. I was a boy I was distracted, probably had ADHD, letters after my name, that no one knew about in those days.   It is important to recollect these things since I don't generally make any note of them in my daily life, but they did contribute to shaping the person I became, The Who I am now. I didn't capitalize them. 

So, in third grade I remember being after lunch and on the grass out by the ball diamond and there was my teacher I suppose out there and we were sitting in the grass. I said something about having an upset tummy and she said I was imagining it. Nothing else or perhaps, stop making things up, you just ate lunch, wait for it to settle. I don't recollect what it was making my stomach upset, perhaps something I ate, but no validation or consolation. Just as I perceived it, this cold response. Maybe my stomach was upset by the way I got treated by adults and some children in school. Why was I sitting alone near the teacher and other kids were playing? I would not be playing if my stomach was badly upset, I would be sitting or was I being punished for something? My troubles started around then as I recollect asking a lot of questions in class and being told to listen because apparently they thought I wasn't listening or didn't instruct me how to actively listen. They must have thought everyone knew how to actively listen because a majority of the kids seemed to be listing, therefore, I was just trying to make trouble. 

I remember riding the bus to Portola School. The school was sold long ago, maybe 30-40 years ago and there are some kind of housing there as I recollect from a previous trip down memmory lane.  I remember they were Crown buses and I used to catch it at the street that Bob Crane lived on Langston ST. real close to Los Altos Ave. 

I remember, going to the bus stop and it was raining sometimes, the driver looked like my grandfather. He wore the same kind of khaki trousers and the same kind of long shirt as I recollect my grandfather wearing.  

more updates, 

I am celebrating Bob Dylans 79th birthday today, SATURDAY the 23rd of May. By listening to and watching U tube videos of Robbie Robertson and the last Waltz and I remember someone asking me if I was going at some point, though I was in Santa Cruz County at the time. I didn't;t go and missed a great event, It was a thanksgiving dinner and concert at Winterland a place I don't recollect ever going to except in a distant fog of a my memory. 

May 24, 2020

All my entries are sometimes not all of them but I have to have dates, perhaps places listed, from the parking lot at  SE Cesar Chavez Rachelle and Jim's who seem to be  hell bent on me moving to Arkansas. Although 1/2 my age, they seem to be my bestest friends. That's a hard one. Perhaps it is because we just sort of keep in touch and I am included a lot when their parents come. Rachelles mom, Jeanie helped me move last June. I couldn't believe it. I am forever grateful to her. She was a school teacher and she was visiting helping with Jim and Rachelle's new baby and took the time to help schlep boxes etc. She is my age. we are from a different time period. 

I just had to watch a video on using hinges because I was trying to mount a couple of strap hinges on my rustic cabinet doors and they wouldn't work without being mortised. I seemed to have forgot about that. Cheap apartments I once worked in hung doors without mortising the hinges and I almost always looked at that and whined.  Now the screws are to long, so1/2 round molding is required for the screws to die into. I will glue the moulding on there.

I am not publishing any of this until I get it all squared away or at least it seems to me to flow and then come to a reasonable stop somewhere up the road. When the wheels stop turning, the vehicle will still pursue the future. I think that is the end and it is. One more thing, it is June 6 in the evening and I am done with this piece. 

Just about July 1, 2020

My whole intention right now is listening to music at Daryls House, where he invites other musicians to come and play music and he also has guest chefs for the food part. I can listen to the music and also transcribe my thoughts here at the same time.

Today was a bit unusual. I went to pick up a package on my little get around 1982 Honda XL 185S that I purchased a few weeks ago. I have a little difficulty getting my right leg over the seat and getting it on to the kick starter lever which is on the right side of the bike.

Once I got the bike started, I rode across town, Portland, Oregon from the NE to the SE to pick up a package but also to go to my storage and again, the 2nd or 3rd time trying to find my messenger bag. Got it, almost missed it again after totally rearranging that small 5 foot by 5 foot space. My goal this summer is finish the cabinets in my truck, get rid of the storage at the give it up place. Anyway, back to the pick up.

I get to the pick up location and get off my bike and go into the Plaid Pantry, chain local convienence store. I got to the hub locker popped it open, got my package and back outside. Reached in my pocket for my bike key. Well, it wasn't in any of my pockets, not on the ground, back track into store, not showing up there either. Not feeling real good about it. I almost called for a ride, but then got hold of the locker company, Amazon and after several minutes got them to open the locker thinking I dropped it in there. It was empty.

I have a spare key, over on the other side of town, where I had come from. Called the cab company, Radio Cab and a the driver drove on all these small streets, faster than the posted speed. I know as a professional driver, not going to tell him anything about his driving. He is a professional too and I am in the back seat and many of us know what it is like to have to listen to someone telling us how to drive. Get to the truck, get the key, drop some other things off and back the way we came. I gave him a handsome tip, because he is an excellent driver.

Got the bike going again and decided my other errands could wait to tomorrow. Came right back to the truck, my mobile living situation and using the tools that I had picked up to compress the spring on a pair of shocks I bought to take a specific part off that is missing from my motorcycle. No, couldn't use these shocks on my bike, from a different size bike, but the parts are similar. Got the hang of the tool, not quite like on the video I watched on You Tube but I managed. With that, I was done.

The loss of my two keys got me in a bad place. I intend to go back there tomorrow and bring a magnate and push it under places in the store I could not see under etc. and finish up my errands, likely buy some fireworks and get ready for the 4th. We don't have any loud fireworks in this state, but there are people living here who have them. Those loud booming fireworks scare animals, children, babies and throw some veterans into PTSD action and that is scary for them and sometimes us.

I know that about veterans from living with one who was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, Khe San in 1968 in the Ten offensive. That is another chapter and onward here. July1, 2020 10-4 over and out!

Chapter 001 May 25, 2020 as the rain drips on the roof of my truck

The roof of my truck, step van is broad and long. I park it partially under a tree, although not optimum for collecting sunlight for my solar system it is a gift from friends, parking under the tree.
The moisture is slight and the ground is barely wet, yet the moisture collects on the branches of the tree, the leaves and as it can no longer resist gravity, it drops on my truck roof with more volume than how it lands on the ground. My truck roof like a drum head and I am inside to hear the sounds being produced.

Moments, drip, drip drip. I did not think of this title to my blog on May 25, 2020, but back in 2008
I thought of the title sitting in the living room of my apartment and a faucet that might be dripping with this same kind of precipitation happening outside and I was sitting quietly enough to hear the dripping of the faucet. At least that is what I imagine and I am sticking to it, unless  I have a moment of clarity back into that past.

As the water with the rhythm of nature continues to beat on my truck roof, I decide to light my little heater to dry out the moisture that has managed to accumulate inside where I am living. I have decided rather lately this morning, since it is already past 12 pm to move to the cab of my truck that has seats where none are yet present in the sleeping food prep area. I have adapted to living in the truck. For instance, instead of sitting in the drivers area and using the steering wheel as a desk with which to support my laptop computer as I did last night, I am sitting in the passenger area with my feet up on the heater cover and my knees bent at an angle and resting my laptop between my thighs and supported there. Makes for a fine touch typing position. Of course, it is now late afternoon or should I say closer to early evening. I have discovered while not working as a school bus operator I have energy in the evenings and I have been reclaiming that energy and using it. Not having to force myself to get up at 0 dark anything has been a boon for me, putting me back into my natural circadian rhythm.

When that flash of time happened  when I worked on airplanes with me starting work at 2 pm and working until 10pm or so unless there was overtime was more relaxed for me and going to work was less of a chore than the last 13 years. I worked 4 10's and that gave me an RDO or Rotating days off.  When I went to work at 2 pm I usually left at 1 pm and before that used to smoke ribs in the morning and my neighbors would ask me why I was up so early smoking things or why I wasn't at work. When they got to know me better, they understood and I would sometimes ask them if they might be interested in eating some ribs. Yummy!


A brief interlude into my short aviation career. It started in 1995 when I volunteered to come wipe oil off a plane I was flying on. I got to wipe oil and so much more.  I worked on other airplanes and went to school to get my licenses. My career goal at the time was to work at UAL and when I got the job, that was  an adventure like none I have ever had. I was excited in a way that I had only been on small points along in my life. That is a whole other chapter that I have to devote time to. Actually, when I worked at that job, my favorite job, it was rarely a chore. I loved every minute of it. Even when I first started and the first 6 months they had us newbies greasing everything on the airplanes. We would get so dirty and greasy that we would wear Tyvek suits to keep our regular work clothes cleaner.

But I need to get back to the present and operating a school bus is much more difficult than the general public including teachers and staff at schools or parents can possibly understand unless they have done it themselves and done it for at least one year. This is one of my main concerns for school bus operators is the perception of most people because school bus operators are so under estimated and that keeps them down and not wanting to make waves because many of them have this as their only skill and don't want to be discriminated against or retaliated against at their there jobs. they could be discriminated  against I think it is called soft retaliation such as overlooking them from the seniority rotation, it was a mistake. Who's to say wasn't?

The job is already more difficult than can be imagined by many of you. Almost anyone can be taught to drive a school bus, but they can't teach you the skills needed to manage the students and operate the bus safely all the while protecting everyone on the inside and the outside of the bus. School bus drivers become operators as soon as they start transporting children. At that point they will will find out what is required. As an operator, I didn't  get it right away; I am a slow learner.  Much of what you do is try to stay out of trouble, stop at the required stops, pick up the kids and get them safely to school on time. All it takes is a late kiddo or a parent that wants to berate or praise or ask some question you don't have the answer for in the am or pm to be late for the next pick up or stop. It throws everything off, we are expected to be on time, but there are human factors that interfere. Human factors, they don't teach that in school bus operations as far as I recollect. I learned that in aviation human factors. Construction zones, flaggers, detours, collisions other drivers who fail to observe the school bus red lights and children in the area of the buses.

Just like the take off and landing of an airplane is the most dangerous part of a flight. So too, the picking up and dropping off of kids is the most dangerous part of our job, trying to keep them safe.   Safety is the number one job and although I hear from other enterprises that safety is also their job, it is not reflected in the operators that they have because they are transporting packages and food, clothing, auto parts etc. Transporting human beings and vulnerable ones at that is much more of a demanding job. It has been compared to being in the active military, foot soldier on the front lines being totally and hyper-alert all the time you are on duty in the yellow bus!

Many of us too have come from different disciplines, college graduates, Masters degrees and technical fields, aircraft engineers and mechanics, mechanical engineers, school teachers, school bus operators from other areas who know more than some of the average operators. It is good to come from a mechanical back ground and if one is operating a school bus the desire to learn more should be there, to better oneself in that profession. As with any profession we work to make ourselves better, work smarter, be safer. It is a good asset to have operators who strive to be the best they can be, who don't have to work because they are sick and there is a nationwide shortage of school bus operators.

Retiring this years is a  little difficult because I was not able to wish my groups of students well or have closure at the end of the year with5th and 8th graders who would be moving on to other schools and not being the senior class persons, but having having to start again at the bottom. Some of the same can be said for operators too. The last day of school and we gather at the dispatch office A new group of kindergartners and a new group of 6th graders.

I am adjusting the last couple of months to having an extended summer having been furloughed from my job in the middle of March. I had decided to retire this year after the school year was over the first week of June. I got a call the last week of May and dogged it because they asked if I was returning for the coming school year. It made it more real. I finally started calling back the following week, but I kept getting voicemail and was uncomfortable leaving one. I finally wrote an email to the guy that first hired me, who is still there. I told him I am retiring and that I also have a medical issue that I had to think about and it is hard to give up something that one has done much of their whole life, work that is.  All of this puts more on my table than I thought of at first. It is just compounding, it is like putting a layer cake together, except you are taking it apart because you forgot to put the frosting in between the layers.  When I think about taking responsibility for retiring and giving notice, I tear up because I have a lot of feelings around people I met, the change in my routine, going to a fixed expectations of the job and I don't do well in a non structured lifestyle. I am adjusting to  my own chaotic rhythm and my unstructured lifestyle.  I am readjusting to it. Also adjusting to the strangeness of living a truck. I try to be transparent, not like the other urban campers that don't have enough money or things and start moving onto the sidewalks. This is part of why I chose a truck and not an RV. I don't want to be associated with that group of folks.

I have reviewed this piece, edited and deleted, added more that I wanted to say, took away distractions that I had added and now, I will put it out there for you to read over.

Something strange, the electrical transmutation. Just a short piece, because I need to end the clutter of it.

I have always had a sensitivity to heat, sparks shooting from my finger tips, weird electrical sensations, Reiki Training, great perephial vision and this latest strangeness between my computer and I. It is an Apple Mac Book Pro, 13inch with some type of metal case 2017 and touching it with my hands and fingers is like a very low voltage, no amperage connection when on the charger is is stronger and I am touching the aluminum of which the whole body of my truck is constructed. It is strange, sort of vibrates my fingers, palms, wrists, going up my bare skin. Thought perhaps it might be static electricity, feels kind of like that, but it doesn't discharge. There is no discharge, it just keeps reminding me that it is there. I once worked in a winery back when I was 20-21 and that is another chapter, but I must say that I got shocked there many times being wet and working with electric pumps and extension cords that the insulation often got cut and the electricity leaked out for unsuspecting hands picking up a cord from a wet floor.. Another chapter as I said.

I just discovered something about it. I am wearing compression socks on my calves and they are pressed against this aluminum panel in my truck. the electrical charge is going between my computer and my truck and I am the conduit. When I take my legs off the aluminum panel, the feeling stops with hands or fingers on the compute, then I am not a conduit. Another day, I am wearing my pj bottoms and they and my legs or knees are touching the same aluminum and yes, I am getting the buzz.  It is like when birds sit on those 10K wires. As long as they touch just one, they are ok. if they touch two, they become scavenger food.

Upon further investigation, I find the electrical connection is electrical as I have it unplugged from power now and the charge is very slight, but still thereabout only if I am touching the truck. When it was plugged in charging, I was getting a rather strong sensation, not a shock. I have had plenty of those in the past. I know the difference. I try to stay away from situations that could hurt me. Like, hanging around under utility poles or big transmission towers.

Distraction continues to be my Nemesis

Sometimes it seems like forever that I come here to write, where does the time go? It is forever and a day. Facebook draws me away and of course, it is cyclic for me. Because I worked as a school bus operator for 13 years I had to find new word substitutions for times when I would have liked to use crass language. Nothing a middle school kid likes better than to use the F bomb and catch the new driver using it so they can get then removed! So, I went into a whole new language for my expletives, one that I invented for myself, more like a group of sounds as opposed to words and with that I can guard my position as bus operator from the spying ears of those who hold like to exert power over us. 

Onward, just want to report on my chaotic health. Got tripped down at work, it was an accident, not intentional that another driver stuck their foot in my path and caused me to fall right knee first into the hard concrete floor, hairline fracturing my right knee cap in two places hit my left shoulder on the wall further injuring my rotator cuff.

This whole thing, a crazy adventure. I will write more later on this very page when the computer platform is not rocking back and forth on my good knee!

The other thing, the neglected left shoulder, the one with the torn rotator cuff, the completely long biceps tendon torn from its anchor and retracted into what, the muscle? Went to the doctor on the 17th after many good days and some bad days before. It was almost feeling normal before the doctor, but he had me move it several directions and now it is almost as sore as in the beginning.

I am icing it as I work on the keyboard, but bed calls me. Time to lay down and get ready for tomorrow.

Chapter Oblivion, infinity

Feb. 8, 2016

My rebellion started long ago. It is now obsolete. No one cares that I have long hair, no one really has to deal with it besides me. There are much younger people at my work who have colored hair, mohawks, shaved on one side, long on the other. My battle over hair is over. Employers, schools now know that hair is not an issue that they care about. They still care about some of the same things, behavior, lack of funding, how can they teach those who can't sit still. I am nearly obsolete as well, not just my rebellions. I continue to fight against the system, but it has grown to big. I continue to stumble around with no apparent anchor. No foundation that keeps me stable, that I base my life on. In March of 2020 this is not exactly true for me now or was it then. I do have a foundation of truth, honor, justice, empathy and compassion. 

Sometimes I am afraid, afraid of what I am doing, how I can accomplish my goal. Afraid of not accomplishing, afraid of succeeding. I am alone and when I accomplish my goal will again be alone. I intend to visit folks, but I will still be alone. I have been ok with myself and being alone, I have been ok with myself for all this time, since about 1984 when the big change came. I have been alone with myself for a long long time. 

Watching the movie Kidnapping Mr. Heineken with Anthony Hopkins as Mr. Heineken. 

I am just hanging around waiting it seems to go back to work. I should be engaged with going to the outdoors, to the woods but I am holed up. Holed up in my place and watching a movie that is rather dramatic. A dramatic movie. Desperation, is following the kidnappers, desperation. Got all the money, but isolated. Got little money and isolated I am. I am isolated because I chose to be, I guess. Something is really wrong, it is to quite, the movie that is. Not trying to scare anyone here especially myself. 

One of Sir Anthony Hopkins lines as Freddy Heineken's in the movie was there are two ways a man can be rich: he can have a lot of money or he can have a lot of friends, but he can't have both. Hmm, food for thought. I have neither a lot of friends or a lot of money. I have neither. That is not true either here in April 2020. I have many good friends, good people like me. I have people who are concerned about my health, people who call me, people who ask for advice important moral questions. I have many friends. Why would I say I don't have many, I am a social person, perhaps because I still trying to avoid something that is difficult in my life. This is how it is with me, time traveling, it is what I do, jump around a lot, only metaphorically though. The jumping is in my mind. I am not physically jumping. 

Comeback to this in March 23, 2020

I don't have a lot of money, I have enough and a little more, but I have a lot of friends who have stepped into my life to make sure I am ok. I am ok, will weather this better than some of the people I know who can't live without employment. I have already set my life up for retirement and living without working. Before 1984 if I got uncomfortable, I would just disappear, a big mistake on my part. I left two different women that I found out later I was in love with them, each at separate times. I am discovering rather harshly that reality is a cruel companion at times. I regret my mistakes before 1984 and my own isolation is necessary. 

I have made up for a lot of my past. I became a school bus operator and really came to appreciate what the job entails. It is about building relationships and then as the children mature and move on we have to recover from that. But there are more children, more parents, more teachers, more administrators. Newer bosses. Changing partners. 

No job that I have ever had has affected me so deeply and with more satisfaction than keeping children safe on a moving school bus. Oh yep, I know that I wrote once it was the worst job I ever had, it is the hardest, but certainly not the worst.  It is a rewarding job, but there is a lot of BS and a lot of misunderstanding by the public and the whole education system for the job we do and the cooperation we are asking for and not usually getting it. 

I wrote an article once for a magazine, PDX Parent about school bus safety and of course, I got a rejection notice. I was surprised and disappointed. A magazine that catered to parents and they said they have in-house writers thank for your submission. It was just a passing thought. Have sights somewhere about that my career there is just a hapter in my ling blogging, that I may who knows, go into a book but it would certainly have to be self published. 

There are words I have had in my head for decades and whose definitions I must have got confused long ago because as I look them up, totally not what I thought they meant. Wow! This is just me, how I go about things when I am in my own time line, if I don't have to do anything for anyone else. 

Our President! This was 2009 and a far cry from today!

Add caption

once upon a time.

स्टील कंप्यूटर illiterate

इ दोन'टी क्नोव। इ दोन'टी क्नोव नो वहत इ हवे फौलेद up

Sometimes, I speak in tongues and even I don't know what I said, like here. I don't know, certainly not illiterate. Something. So, googling the text above brought me to conspiracyprophecyguy.blogspot.com

I must have liked it, I can't read it, ok by me. Just have to and the original date was 12/29/13.

Observations from the home is where I park it, my truck.

It is March 21, 2020

I am listening to the Grateful Dead Show on KBOO community radio which is another story in itself.

I am parked outside of the Bison Cafe in NE Portland Oregon. Having now been living, urban camping in my 23 foot step van since July of 2019.

Urban camping is especially a strange and challenging lifestyle. I have been working towards this for some time, although the actual working is still taking place. I have procrastinated many hours away because without a structure to my life, I am to distracted with my ADHD to settle down.

Now that the Corvid-19 virus is here, I am feeling more motivated and having survived the winter without having hooked up my little Dickinson Wood burning stove that is meant for those of us who might be living an alternative lifestyle. Actually made in Canada for marine use, but it has promised to be very excellant in my short van of which the living space is shortened to about 13 get long.

There are all kinds of blogs and ideas out there or van conversations and I am so far out of the box I did not follow any of them really.

Onward, this will be of my hang outs, no not the online hang out, but real time because I can use the internet here. However, there is a sign that says no overnight parking. Cully Blvd. Alliance.

March 22, 2020 no more hangouts for awhile, I am fixed here at my new home in SE at my adopted family who are also from another state. We do share a similar state of mind and they and I have been very close for the last 13 years.

I put the levelling blocks togetther this afternnon and backed my truck onto them. It looks pretty level, so I take out my torpedo level and viola, no not the instrument; the bubble in the level, only off one or two degrees. Sometimes we get lucky, but other times we practice and do well. There was steong motivation for me to get the truck leveled becuse my weather app says 95% chance of rain tomorrow.

It looks like a tornado went though the interior of my truck, I completely took almost everything out of where it was stowed. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to clutter or organization. Going to work has almost always been good for me because it provides an established structure. Did I mention I have ADD or some kind of variant to that.