This is me, on one of the greatest weekends I have ever had. I had the opportunity to be one of the lucky people who worked on the repaint of Ken Kesey's famous Bus Furthur. I met wonderful people, saw the single most important vehicle in the formation of society in the last 50 years.. ( if we went back further, I would have to go with a model T, for all that Ford represented with assembly lines, blah blah)
The point is, as wonderful as that weekend was, and, but for a few blips of positivity in the years following, every thing else is basically in the crapper. I am 48, father of two -( one that will talk to me, one that is a teenager who really doesn't care if I am around ever again), I carry an extra 25lbs on me, I recently blew out an eardrum while sleeping, and as such now haven't any hearing in one ear, I wrestle with crushing chest pains every single day, I haven't been held in over three years even though my divorce was only just finalized in November, and I am about to have to move into a concrete, no windowed workshop to live .
  I was a contractor and woodworker, historic preservationist, did some arch design, and now I fix VW's since the crash... and it was a crash folks, lets get that straight.
                                              Now let me tell you why this is a fun Blog.
    I am going to document the abilities and methods of someone with nothing more than a high school diploma, absolutely no credit at all, and not a dime to my name, and create a place for myself.
Every story of late with the protagonist cashing in, and moving into a dirt mound house, starts with a 401K and a mastercard. Generators, paid help, delivery trucks... it's rubbish. Most of us are one unforeseen problem away from being on the streets. That I have internet access right now is lucky, and it will become problematic for me to keep this going, but we will ride it til it stops, as the culmination of all this is that I will never be heard from again.
For now, I am on line here and there, I do still have a phone for a couple of weeks, and I have begun the search for the cheapest land in Oregon that isn't a leftover toxic waste dump site.. or meth lab. My criteria thus far, is 2 acres, though more is awesome, and not total desert. Obviously, treed, with a pond or a brook would be spiffy, but I am not an idiot, (at least not in this arena) as to get my hopes up.
I have a 1977 VW Bus, which in this venture is going to be handy.. both as a pull in at night into the shop bedroom as to still be able to work in the shop when it isn't inside, and as the habitation module for the future property.
This, my friends... and I call you that as you are by virtue of reading this, as much my friends as anyone else in my life, is the start. a Walden for the swan song of America. A guide to chucking all the rubbish that the regular world expects you to care about and finding your peace. and possibly a future entry about how my VW, Melmo, will still work after and EMP burst, and yours wont..  but we'll see.
D