And so it begins...a new adventure. Though there have been so many, maybe I should just say "and so it continues". I left home when I was 15...doesn't seem possible that that was 37 years ago. I've worked at jobs from Mexican restaurant dishwasher to Commercial Fisherman, from Landscape Laborer to Shell Oil Firefighter, from Maintenance Mechanic to Ranch Foreman, and about 50 or 60 others. I've lived from Hawaii to North Carolina, from Alaska to Alabama, and many places in-between. I've been a football player, a motorcycle racer, a skateboarder, a pseudo surfer (so far, I'm pretty talented at falling off my board), a drummer in a Heavy Metal band, a drug addict, a snow skier, a convict (not hard time, mostly just County), a Sonar Tech in the U.S. Navy, a biker, and a Father. I've piloted a helicopter, rode a dogsled, walked for a month on a broken leg, and more than once have had a loaded gun pointed at my head. I've fed hungry people, taken in strays (people and animals), felt ribs crack while doing chest compressions on a heart attack victim, trained and became certified as an EMT, been in street gangs, fought fires on a Helitac crew, been in several motorcycle accidents, a few auto accidents including rolling a car, and a whole lot more.
Now at age 52, I'm moving to Ecuador, and depending on whether I can achieve Residency or not, I may be wandering around South America, moving from country to country every few months. Either way, it should be an exciting adventure full of new experiences, new people, new foods, and new cultures. So much to experience in life, so little time to fit it all in.
So anyway, welcome to my blog and thanks for joining me on this fantastic journey. I'll probably get better at this with practice, so stick around. I plan to fly out of here (San Jose, California) at the end of April. Heading for the southern coast of Ecuador...warm water, nice waves, sunshine, palm trees...paradise.
Tons still to do to get ready. Much to sell (a business, inventory, a truck, a Harley, guns (including many black powder), ammo, tools and tool boxes, excess survival gear, a piece of land in southern California, etc.
Ha, I'm noticing that my writing is mostly just making lists...I'll work on that. How about I throw in a story from one of life's adventures? I'll tell you about one of those times when I had guns pointed at my head.
I was working for a commercial door company called R&S Erection (no, really...we loved handing out our business cards). I was living in Antioch and working in Hayward (a 50 mile commute). I would ride my Suzuki 1100 to work and split lanes to get through all that bumper to bumper commute traffic (for those unaware, splitting lanes is riding the white line between cars on the freeway). So anyway, I was late for work one morning and was splitting lanes at around 60 mph while traffic was going about 5 to 10 mph. When I got off the freeway at my exit, I heard a siren and saw flashing lights in my mirror....bummer, getting pulled over. I pulled my bike off to the shoulder, put my kickstand down, climbed off and started removing my helmet.......when suddenly the doors to the cop car that had pulled up behind me flew open, 2 cops got out quickly, guns drawn and pointed at me. One was yelling for me to "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND", while the other was yelling "PUT YOUR HANDS UP". They were converging on me quickly and didn't look too happy. I shouted over them "HEY WAIT, I'M JUST LATE FOR WORK". Turns out that they had been trying to catch me for the past 11 miles. I was involved in a high (not very) speed chase and hadn't had a clue. I was very late to work that day.
