Bowing to Insta-culture.

Something I wish to avoid with this particular online journal  is the requisite narcissism and ego-maintenance that accompany the very few non-professional 'blogs' I actually waste my time reading.

I tend to be long-winded and self-important in other places on the web, so I promise you -that would be any human being (sorry webcrawlers) who should be unfortunate enough to fall into this depraved corner of the virtual world - that I will attempt to maintain the humility with which I have been impressed since birth. Which of course on the face of it seems to be contradictory to the nature of online journals.

Why do we keep private journals or diaries? So we can look back on ourselves years later and see how immature, completely backward and hubristic we were, ergo we put them online so we can let everyone else know how immature, completely backward and hubristic we are RIGHT NOW!

Well, I already know all that stuff, so why let everyone else in on the secret? To that end, I plan not to engage in the proverbial puffing of the chest, the posting of the glamour shots, the outlining of the minutia that is the excrement of my life.

I will not pretend to be smarter, more important, ultra-clever or more beautiful than I actually am. With this comes one caveat: I may at times completely amaze myself, which will be noted here and would be noted in ANY private journal or diary anyway. i.e. AH was starting to smell like caca, then I realized I had not flushed her for three weeks. *ZING*

"Jim," you may ask, "if you are not so awesome as to need a place to advertise yourself, WTF man?"

In the interest of dissemination of information and a perspective thereon, I hereby claim this web address for ALL MANKIND to serve as a portal to... (oh, see! there is the hubris!)

Where does the word 'blog' come from? Interestingly enough the OED does not have a definition for the word 'blog', but it does have one of my favorite words, LYPEMANIA. Is blog not more mundane than LYPEMANIA? According to Internet references it is a short for web log. Which gets compounded to weblog. But then there are two letters removed, which gives you a contraction absent the apostrophe. So, it should be written as 'blog, but we omit the apostrophe due to the lack of the general public knowing anything about the English language anymore? (or anymo') I see the word til used very often without its requisite apostrophe. 

I may use the form 'blog here just to piss you off. Yes, Jennifer Thompson, YOU! The word apparently originates on the web in 1994, but not in conjunction with 'web log'. Probably talking about someone's huge dump they took at Burning Man.

"Dudeski... I fukkking just blogged up that porta-squattie!"

"No way, broski!?"

"Way, broooo! Is it the mushrooms, or did my dick just fall off?"

So, where was I? Oh yes. I wish to chronicle my personal journey about the country in my motorhome. I could do it on paper, but my wrist would hurt after 20 minutes, and I script like shit. I could do it on my laptop and keep it personal, but inevitably (already in fact) I would be asked how the trip was going, post or send some pics, etc. This solves many problems at once.

Oh yes, the name! Having been asked about the name of my coach, I decided on a two-name approach. Her first name is Althea, after the Grateful Dead song and her last name is Harvey, which is cool because it has RV in it, and it is a cool name besides. If I get really pissed at her or need her undivided attention, I may even toss 'III' on the end.

"Althea Harvey the IIIrd, you get your ass up that hill or I will sell you to the fucking Gypsies! I serious!"

So, yeah... I'll try to approach this whole thing with a healthy dose of humility. Be like Buddha... be Buddha.

Hurry up and wait!

This is my mantra while the Pacific Northwest is getting dumped on by feet of snow. I was hoping to leave next week on my worldwide tour of the Western U.S. I am NOT sure if this is to be, because I fucked up after I bought my RV.

The day BEFORE I had planned to winterize it, the storm hit us and I think might have seriously damaged my RV's plumbing. I am not SURE about this... but I have to expect the worst. I didn't have that much water in the holding tank (1/2), so I don't know how the freezing of that water has affected the rest of the system. I have not done ANYTHING since to attempt to thaw anything out yet, because I am paranoid about what might happen if I don't do it right. I was hoping that the eventual higher temps here will let things happen naturally.

This means of course, I will have to check for leaks and hopefully the pump isn't wrecked. If the system is damaged, I will have to figure out how to deal with it on the cheap, since the few bucks I have for the trip are not enough to replace the plumbing system, if need be.

We are expecting 5" of NEW snow tonight. Whoopee! I am dancing! Not really. It is hard to get anywhere in the city currently, much less LEAVE the city for warmer climes. I got the word that trying to get further than Eugene, OR, is out of the question.

If any one has any ideas on how to deal with a frozen plumbing system on an RV, let me know.

That is all - Jim

The beginning of the end, friend-o.

So, it goes like this. 

My name is Jim Edgar. This online journal is going to chronicle my adventures around the U.S. of A. in my wonderful new RV. Why Jim, you are asking?

Because... I opened a bar in Seattle called Georgetown Liquor Company in the summer of 2006. Due to certain issues, I have decided to sell it and while I am still young (39) travel around my great country and document my travels here.

My website My Cat Hates You is where you would usually find such drivel, but my users have complained about my blatant political ramblings. Being a hardcore liberal does not appease everyone, and I have lost some users because they are NOT liberal and just want to look at cats and not deal with my espousing of 'socialist' agendas and the power of freedom from our corrupt leader, Dubya. 

If you don't like hearing about these things, I suppose you should go elsewhere. I plan to #1, talk about traveling in my vessel (yet to be named) and #2, delve into some political rhetoric. BUT, you will find that I do not ramble the party line or relate to issues in an ideological fashion. While I am an evil liberal, I deal in logic but moreso in compassion. These are aspects that I find beneficial to us as a culture involved in a larger world. 

As a great, if not the greatest, world power, we have a certain mandate to create a leadership role model for others to adhere to.

I have been busy researching life on the road and adapting to the nomadic model. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how I relate my experiences to you.

I am not sure where to go first. I live in Seattle, and that is about as far as you can go before you run into Putin up in Alaska or the orcas in the NW pacific. So from here, it is ALL south to me.

Let me plug my books Bad Cat and My Cat Hates You real quick. They are both in major bookstores and would be great holiday gifts. Buy 'em up. It helps me buy gas for my trip and is good for your karma!

That is all. - Jim