JasonGastrich.com

Everyone should write about moving things that inspire them.

Since I attended small, private, Christian schools until I graduated high school, I was surprised at the way some San Diego State University teachers behaved and contradicted what I was taught.

I attended SDSU immediately after high school and my freshman Biology teacher taught the evolution of species like it was a fact. I was taught in grades 1-12 and in church that the earth is thousands of years old and he taught students that it’s billions of years old. When I asked him questions, he got upset and became boisterous. He said everything came about by “serendipity” and he defined it as “blind-ass luck”. Since I was taught things that contradicted his claims, I purposely wrote wrong answers on tests and didn’t do very well.

In my last semester at SDSU, I took Bible as Literature. However, it wasn’t taught by a Christian or even a religious Jew. It was taught by a radical, feminist Jew that wanted me to write papers on how the gospels contradicted each other and stuff like that. I needed to pass the class to earn an English minor, so I didn’t want to drop or fail it. Since she contradicted the Bible, I didn’t care if I passed or failed and I wound up with a D and barely earned the minor with my B.A. in Psychology.

I suspect that others may run into similar issues if they attend religious schools and then attend secular colleges.

I’ve always liked riding bikes. It’s an inexpensive way to exercise and travel.

The last four months I’ve been riding a bike around Kauai. I think I ride about 10 miles a day. It has 18 gears and it was about $120. However, I have spent almost $400 total so far (e.g. seat post, rear rack, locks, 4 tires, tubes, grips, etc.).

When you ride a bike all sorts of things can go wrong. From flat tubes to theft to grips and tires wearing out it can add up. I still think it’s worth it though. It has averaged just under $100 a week to ride a bike, but I think it’ll decrease.

I was a little surprised that the original tires only lasted three months. However, they were mountain tires and the road tires I replaced them with could last twice as long. I already bought my next set (~$50) too, so I don’t have to worry about finding more tires for a while.

I am fortunate to have Hele bike shop in Kapaa. They do affordable, quick repairs. I bought tries from them and they have repaired a couple of flat tubes.

I have heard that there is a shortage on bike parts in Kauai and online. I hope they resolve it soon because I have also heard a lot of people are riding bikes for a change.

Good luck.

Note: Hawaii's government decided to award its unemployed workers that qualified for PUA with an extra week of benefits (e.g. 6 weeks of $300 instead of 5 weeks). Also, UI recipients not PUA recipients have received a free $500 debit card to be used at Hawaii restaurants.

I started using Safeway’s Apple application (aka "app") a few weeks ago and it has saved me lots of money. This is a brief unpaid review (not an ad).

I have an iPhone and a Safeway employee said I should install their application. It was regarding a special one-time offer on some crackers. I needed it to get the special price.

I hadn’t used it because of privacy concerns. I figured it would be pointless too. However, I think it has saved me about $28 so far because it sends me coupons, personal offers and rewards. It is connected to my Safeway card too.

I used Safeway’s WiFi while shopping to move a $1 off reward into my shopping cart in the app and have it applied to my purchase. I wanted cash back and a paper bag the most, so it worked well.

I bought organic broccoli for $3.41 a pound. There was no sign on it saying sale and I think it was just a special offer to me because I bought it in the past. It saved me a buck or two and it was delicious. They had a lot of great-looking, organic broccoli, so I hope to get more soon.

I am new to the app, but I think Safeway gives shoppers 1 reward point for each $100 they spend and it can be redeemed for various things or saved. I think they are roughly $1 off each $100 spent which is 1%.

I am going to keep using the Safeway app and keeping track of my savings. It looks like I am saving about $10 a week on average now though

I don’t think it’s fair to judge President Trump on only three of his four years in office. Nonetheless, if we do that regarding the U.S. economy it was still very average.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic consumer confidence was high and the stock market was doing fairly well. However, the GDP growth rate was still in the 2-3% range which is typical of other administrations.

Despite President Trump’s claims the U.S. economy was not the greatest that it has ever been. Its GDP growth rate was higher with other presidents. The debt was lower, the budgets were balanced and unemployment was lower at various points before he took office.

One thing that COVID-19 has revealed to us is that the stock market and very rich people can thrive in a pandemic while most of America suffers and declines. The stock market used to be seen as the barometer of U.S. economic health, but not anymore.

I can’t imagine Joe Biden doing worse with the economy than the Trump administration did in its first three years. In fact, I think the confidence bubble under Trump will be gone and Americans and investors will have a more sober and accurate assessment of stocks and the economy.

The Trump administration has failed to help consumers and businesses during the pandemic even though they are going out of business and people are ready to be evicted. For instance, 104 24 Hour Fitness gyms were closed never to be reopened.

I think history will reveal more facts about the Trump administration’s lies and subterfuge, but it has been a failure in more ways than one including the past and present economy.

I recently passed the three week mark in my 80 day intermittent fast, so this is an update.

I have been pleased with my progress and I weighed 157 pounds with clothes on a few days ago. I could be in the 140 pound range when I finish in December.

Three weeks ago I added 5 pounds to each weightlifting exercise in my routine. Last week I changed the angle and this week I am changing the angle again. I might add 5 more pounds too.

These machines have three positions for each exercise. You can move the lever to 1, 2 or 3 and depending on which one you choose the most intense part of the exercise can be at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.

My healthy diet has provided lots of energy. I eat an organic, vegetarian diet that is high in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. I avoid most fats and sugars as much as possible. My bowel movements are solid. TMI? Remember when I asked the Smithsonian if they wanted some of my poop? Those were the days, but I digress.

My steady sleep routine (e.g. the same 7-8ish hours) restores my energy each day. However, a few days ago I stayed up all night, so I was a little tired for the next two days. I didn’t doze off though, so it didn’t tax me too much. I took a brief nap which helped, but I was fully aware the next day. I just conserved energy in between caffeinated beverages.

Speaking of caffeinated beverages Mount Hagen instant organic coffee has been a godsend because of its versatility (e.g. just add water). I have been buying it from Amazon and getting three for $30. The first shipment sounded like broken glass, so I refused it and they sent it again. Now I am over halfway finished and more coffee is on its way in the mail.

Sometimes it is difficult to find everything I need in Kauai. Sometimes my only option is the mail. Occasionally, one store 90 minutes away might have it in stock for three times as much. Nonetheless, I like supporting local businesses as much as I can.

I have been getting plenty of sun lately, so I have a healthy tan. My weight loss is making me look younger and healthier too. Hopefully this is the last time I will say this because I intend on keeping it off. Good news: no more jiggly fat!

My face is getting more defined and I finally bought reusable razors. I had used cheap, throwaway razors for many years, but I finally took the dive. Felt like starting a new relationship. They work better, so it was a good choice even though I have nicked myself a couple of times.

America is in a strange place right now and so is Hawaii because of COVID-19. However, it doesn’t affect my diet or routine very much; at least not yet.

I have been staying hydrated which isn’t always easy because the high humidity in Hawaii actually draws moisture out of the body. I drink lots of water in my refillable, Brita filter bottle.

I had to buy a belt a few days ago and stop buying size 32 shorts. I tried on my size 31 jeans last night and they fit well. I hadn’t worn them in a while and I was thinking about cutting them into shorts, but nah. I hope my clothing shrinks in the laundry.

I like eating, so it can be a challenge to stay under 5,000 calories on eating days. However, I try to eat around 4,500 calories to ensure weight loss over the course of two days.

I did two hours of cardio the other day in addition to my weightlifting and bike riding around the island. I have been riding the exercise bike and watching the news at the YMCA. Cross-training is good because it makes muscles grow by exercising them in different ways. I may jog on the club’s running machine too, but I doubt I will ride the beast.

I am not big on “before” pics, but I may post some “after” pics in December after it ends. No nudes though. Stop asking.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

President Trump’s administration approved $300 a week in extra Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) for five weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the American workforce. It is called Lost Wages Assistance (LWA). He said he wanted states to give unemployed workers $400 extra a week by supplementing the federal government’s $300 a week with $100 of their own. However, only two states did that (and they are red states).

According to senator and majority leader Mitch McConnell his Republican caucus is divided on the issue of approving more stimulus relief money before the election. Perhaps they would take the Democrats more seriously if they would have found a way to help people like the president told them to do.

I don’t know why the Democrat-led Hawaiian government refrained from following the Trump administration’s guidance. Is it took late for them to change course? I know people that could use an extra $100 a week. It could amount to up to $500 and that’s a lot of money for most people.

A lot of things are happening right now and sometimes many things happen very quickly. The news reports on some events, but at different angles and stories quickly come and go. Therefore, I think we need to watch closely and stay plugged in to avoid being deceived. People in the two major political parties may stop at nothing to get their man elected.

When I was a little kid I wasn’t allowed to listen to certain types of music. In fact, I didn’t even know though they existed.

In junior high and high school, I discovered a lot of bands on the radio. My friends introduced me to them too.

A kid named Mike Procopio lived a few doors up the street from me, so we hung out sometimes. He was my age, but one grade behind me and he went to local public schools.

Procopio had an older brother named Tony that showed him a few bands. He was an upperclassman, but he would take to us sometimes. Tony was actually one of the coolest kids in school, but I digress.

Procopio introduced me to AC/DC when I was in my early teens. I remember thinking the guitar work was amazing. Also, I was shocked and eventually relieved that such a crass, ungodly band could exist. It meant that the powers that be weren’t in control of the world; just the subculture around me.

Since I attended Christian schools from grades 1-12, I had an odd perception of reality. Many things that I learned were wrong and I was slowly introduced to lots of stuff by my friends. AC/DC was one of them. I also had a neighborhood friend that liked playing Dungeons & Dragons, but I digress again.

Shout out to AC/DC! Angus is an inspiring guitarist and I will never forget the concert I attended. The entire band is so fun and awesome and I don’t know how they found the only two guys on earth with an amazing leathery, sandpaper singing voice, but they did and they did it with style.

Since President Trump is a Protestant Christian that keeps nominating Catholic justices for the Supreme Court, I figured it would be wise to analyze the similarities and differences in reality and in practice.

Most non-Catholic Christians consider Catholics Christians. However, some people don’t for a variety of reasons.

I have a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and I was a Christian apologist. I debated and studied theology and doctrines. I think the two religions are awfully different.

When a Christian church wanted to condemn a cult they would say they changed the person of Christ. I think that’s essentially what the Catholic Church does, so it is a cult as well.

If you are supposed to believe and trust the biblical Jesus for salvation and if the biblical Jesus is represented by the letters X, Y and Z and if you trust a Jesus with qualities represented by the letters X, P and L are you saved according to the Bible?

Catholics consider other books part of the biblical canon. The Old Testament addition is called the Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament addition is called the Apocrypha. Most Protestant Christians are unfamiliar with them and the stories and characters that they contain.

Catholic priests interpret scripture different and they add to the scriptures too. For instance, Protestants know nothing about penance, indulgences or purgatory.

Taking communion is different in the Catholic Church because they think the bread actually becomes Jesus’ body. In the Protestant Church it is only symbolic.

Protestant Christians don’t think about Mary or the saints that Catholics pray to. Protestants think they should only be praying to God through Jesus.

Besides the doctrinal issues there are also some social issues that they differ on. For instance, Protestants are generally fine with contraception even though the Catholic Church condemns it. Both religions support saving sex for marriage though.

It would be interesting to hear Amy Coney Barrett talk about the final authority. I think that tends to be a sticking point or point of contention because a Protestant will say God or the Bible, but the Catholic will say the Pope or the Church.

Most Protestants consider the Bible to be a closed canon (e.g. it will not be expanded). However, the Catholic Church adds laws, commands and requirements that they consider to be on par with the Bible.

Another major difference is Catholics think Peter was the first Pope. They also think that Jesus created papal succession and it began with Peter. However, Protestants disagree.

According to Catholic doctrines when the Pope speaks under the inspiration of God he is flawless. He is perfect. Protestant Christians do not believe this and they do not have a central figurehead.

Although there are liberal Catholics that prefer the Democratic Party there are conservative Catholics like Barrett that are a lot like Protestant Christians when it comes to anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-ACA, anti-socialism, etc. They have a lot of common ground even if their religions don’t jive which is something they don’t seem to care much about anyway.

Recently the Trump administration said they are supporting “herd immunity”. They are the only people in the country gathering in large groups without requiring masks.

I don’t think that the U.S. can obtain herd immunity this way. If only Trump supporters or even the entire Republican Party supported herd immunity it wouldn’t be enough people nationwide.

If the Trump administration could convince mayors and governors, senators and congresspeople across the U.S. to seek herd immunity, then it would be possible. However, I don’t think the U.S. can acquire herd immunity if only the red states seek it. Furthermore, some red states have a mixture of Democrats and Republicans in office. How are they supposed to craft an approach to the pandemic?

The bottom line is we needed a very different response from the beginning. Since the Trump administration disbanded the pandemic preparation team that the Obama administration created and since they called it a hoax and ignored it for a while it exacerbated the problem and let it get out of control.

The vaccine might not arrive in time. There still isn’t an AIDS vaccine. The virus could mutate and it could be ineffective. New flu vaccines must be created every year. It could be ineffective in its own right. Not enough people may want to take it to make a difference. It could be hard to find or costly. It could make people sick.

There are a lot of unknown factors. I am not even talking about methylmercury and nanobots yet, but I could.

I think the vaccine could be helpful to some populations if it works. However, I think the 2019 Novel Coronavirus was in the U.S. for a while before they knew it or did anything. This combined with their short-sightedness and lackluster response has caused tremendous suffering and an extraordinary number of deaths.

The country is different now. People are different. America is fractured. Many people even rich people are wondering when they will get their next paycheck. Some of the people that people tend to ignore are totally forgotten now.

Hawaii has lost 80-90% of its tourists. It could change because they relaxed the mandatory 14-day quarantine with a clean COVID-19 test pre-flight. This began on October 15, so we will probably see the results of this step soon.

I hope we can come together to overcome this virus and the related issues it has caused and come out of the tragic darkness stronger. I can’t say I see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I am pretty sure we’ll eventually see the light.

I think it is strange that Amy Coney Barrett was chosen to be on the Supreme Court. For instance, there are already lots of Catholics and President Trump isn’t Catholic.

President Trump had about four months left in his term as president when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, so I don’t disparage him for picking a justice. I think that was well within his purview. However, I think he should have picked somebody else.

Since I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household in America, I usually know what the Christian Right is thinking. This is my take as far as Barrett goes.

Barrett is apparently from or supports an ultra-conservative Catholic sect. Nominal Christians that attend churches across America will accept her. They generally accept Catholics as Christians because they don’t delve into theology.

I think only a small percentage of fundamentalist Christians will reject Barrett and they will probably do it because of Catholic doctrines. However, I think many Christians rightly assume that she will reflect their conservative values (e.g. anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-ACA, etc.).

Unfortunately, since the Republican Party has a majority in the senate there is little that anybody can do to stop Barrett’s nomination from being approved. It is likely just a matter of time.

Some people are talking about expanding the Supreme Court to 10 or 11 justices instead of nine. I think we should have a national discussion about it to discover all the pros and cons. It seems to be functioning fine with nine, but perhaps there are benefits to having more justices. Experts should weigh in and we should discuss it.

Attention Militia Members and Leaders,

As an American citizen that does not endorse a political party, I am exhorting you to do the right thing for our country. Please consider the following.

America is not a Republican or Democrat country. In fact, registered Republicans and registered Democrats don’t even make up a majority of Americans.

Many politicians have abused the system in various ways for a long time. I don’t have any favorites because I don’t play favorites. I judge everybody on their own merit and by their carbon footprint. How do you judge people?

It is a shame that the Trump administration did not use the COVID-19 pandemic to unify the country. Not only did the U.S. need a unified response to COVID-19, but it still does. A piecemeal approach has failed.

Please consider avoiding racial politics and other nonsense and protect the rights of all Americans. I thought armed militias were standing by to challenge the government in case they abuse people and infringe on their rights. I thought the right to bear arms was in case we needed to rise up and overthrow the government one day like our forefathers did.

The U.S. military is equipped to put down any insurgency that may occur. I have supported a bloodless revolution for a long time even though I recently revised my expectations. What do you intend on doing if the government is content on destroying the planet?

Consider that the most important thing is life. Every American should have the right to thrive without polluting the planet. Pollution destroys and kills lifeforms and makes earth less habitable. If we can’t cleanly thrive, then things need to change. If the government turns you into a bastard just because you want to own a house and a car, then why don’t you take it up with them?

We live in an uncertain time and some options that were never on the table seem like they are on the table now. Use discretion and make sure your actions will result in positive changes.

P.S. The South won’t rise again.

My every-other-day fast is going well.

My body is changing because I am losing fat and gaining muscle. My muscles are becoming more toned and defined too.

Even though it is typically warm in Hawaii, I have felt a little cold at times lately. I think my decreased body weight causes it (e.g. under 160 pounds). I don’t mind, but I may need to dress warmer at some point.

My stomach has been growling on fasting days. This is unusual for me. Sometimes it is loud too!

I write down everything I eat and how many calories it has. This helps me know how much I eat because I eat a lot. Nonetheless, I think my body responds well to this sort of diet and fast regimen. It seems to use stored food and stored fat for fuel on fasting days which is what I expect it to do.

I don’t change my exercise routine on fasting days. I workout with weights 4-5 days a week and I ride my bike 5-10 miles a day. I also do a little yoga, swimming, exercise biking and walking. This helps me burn about 3,000 calories a day.

I intend on reaching my goals in time. I am disciplined and determined now, so it’s probably just a matter of time. I have been encouraged by seeing a positive difference.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

Dear Readers,

Thanks for your interest in A Brand New World. It has been an exciting book series to write.

I intend on writing 70 stories for The Addendum which is the 11th book. Afterwards I will either end the series or write one last book. I haven’t decided yet. I may bring Rico back for the final book.

Today I wrote the 35th story in The Addendum, so this marks the halfway point. I have several story ideas and I will get many more in the coming days.

I intend on finishing and publishing The Addendum in December or January. If I am differently inspired, I might continue it for 80-100 stories. We’ll see.

I intend on temporarily publishing new stories on my website and continuing to offer the books in Kindle and paperback on Amazon.com. Speaking of books I may eventually offer all the books in a single volume. I may also offer a special book (or part of a book) that will be of interest to hardcore fans.

Thanks again for your interest.

On October 3, I began another 40 day fast in 80 days. I am eating every other day again.

I have blogged a lot about these sorts of fasts. My diet and exercise routine has been working well. I have been getting stronger and losing fat.

I weigh around 157 pounds and I will likely be in the 140 range when I am done. December 21 will be my last day and I may do another one in January.

I eat nothing except organic vegetarian food and I avoid unhealthy food. This gives me lots of energy even on off days. I also drink organic coffee and tea and it wakes me up and gives me energy.

On eating days I count my calories because I eat a lot. I simply try to stay under 5,000 calories. When I stay under 5,000 calories I lose fat because I burn more than 5,000 calories every two days.

I am looking forward to continuing this regimen. It works well, so it is just a matter of time before I am stronger and leaner.

Good luck in your diets, fasts and exercising.

After I finished 100 days of quarantine on July 8, I moved from Kapaa to Lihue and began a 40 day fast in 80 days by intermittently fasting every other day. Today is the last day.

The fast has been a success because I lost weight and started a cardiovascular and weightlifting regimen that will continue. I started riding my bike everywhere on July 8 and I began lifting weights 4-5 times a week on August 31.

On Wednesday I weighed 158.8 pounds. This means I might have lost 10 pounds.

There is no secret to my success except for determination over time. There were days when I wanted to break my fast and there were days when I wanted to overeat, but I just exerted some self-control.

On fasting days I ate about a teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt. Besides water it is the most important thing to ingest. Some days I swallowed a little organic honey. I also drank organic green and rooibos teas.

I smoked weed in a water pipe almost every day. I didn’t have any marijuana in quarantine, but after I left I found it. It relaxes my muscle spasms and helps my anxiety in addition to being fun and making me feel good.

I typically keep a flask of organic red wine in my backpack. I think it’s the healthiest alcoholic beverage I can drink. However, I drink very little on fasting days.

I ate nothing except organic vegetarian food and most of it was healthy. However, I typically ate over 4,000 calories! I just figured I was eating 1.5 days of food for two days. I only exceeded 5,000 calories once though.

After my intermittent fast ends tonight, I intend on eating for a few days, fasting for a few days and beginning another 40 day fast in 80 days on October 3. That will keep me disciplined until the end of the year.

Riding my bike 5-10 miles each day has been good exercise. I think I burn about 2,400 calories if I am sedentary, but I probably burn 3,000 on days when I ride 10 miles especially if I lift weights.

I like my weightlifting routine because it is short and sweet. I use 3-4 machines over 30-45 minutes. I also do a little stretching.

I swam some laps in the pool, but I didn’t care for it too much. It seems like I exerted a lot of energy to get a small return. Apparently, I only burn around 4-5 calories per lap, so I would rather do something else.

On Mondays and Thursdays, I exercise my chest and triceps muscles with the chest press, incline press, shoulder press and triceps pushdown machines. On Tuesdays and Fridays, I exercise my back and biceps muscles with lat pulldowns, rows, back extensions and biceps curls.

On Wednesdays I exercise my legs, but it is my least favorite routine. I ride my bike about 10 miles a day, so my legs always get a workout. Sometimes I walk a lot too. Nonetheless, my leg routine includes quadriceps extensions, hamstring curls and the “sex machine”.

I forget what the sex machine is actually called, but that was the name my friend gave it in high school. It works the groin muscles and the outter leg. You simply pull a lever to shift the weight and it does both.

I suspect that I will weigh under 150 pounds by the end of the year which will be at or near my goal weight. I don’t have a number in mind, but I was 153 in high school and I was 135 in 8th grade. I was as big as 187 my senior year in high school. I imagine 140ish will be fine, but we will see.

I like my routine and it is effective, so I expect to continue it and be successful. I am seeing more definition in my muscles. I am getting stronger and tanner. It feels good to get leaner and fitter too.

I have been buying clothes in size medium. They fit me well, but they typically shrink, so losing weight as they shrink is wise because they will fit for a longer period of time.

Good luck in your fitness endeavors and if you need some guidance try reading my book Do the Math Diet. I count all the calories in everything I eat and that book articulates how I have been successful. I wrote that book after I lost weight and saw my abs without fasting in 2012.

Where have you slept? Anywhere interesting?

I have slept in many different places. Here is a list of them.

San Diego State University dormitory
San Diego State University fraternity house (Kappa Alpha Order)
San Diego Central Jail bunk bed (top bunk)
Oceanside, California apartment (two)
Escondido, California house (two)
Escondido, California friend’s house
Linda Vista, California apartment
Lynchburg, Virginia apartment
San Elijo, California campground
Squaw Lake, California campground
Monterey, California Laguna Seca campground (tent and longbed truck)
Stone Mountain Park, Georgia campground
Zion National Park, Utah
Parks, Arizona house
Flagstaff, Arizona geo dome
Flagstaff, Arizona hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada Golden Nugget hotel (and others)
Laughlin, Nevada Colorado Belle
Hobbs, New Mexico hotel
Dallas, Texas hotel
Ft. Worth, Texas hotel
Shiloh, Texas campground
Jonesville, North Carolina motel
Scottsdale, Arizona friend’s apartment
Maunaloa, Molokai friend’s house sofa
El Cajon, California friend’s house sofa
Kaunakakai, Molokai One Ali’i Beach Park concrete
Miami, Florida concrete
Miami, Florida Douglas Park
Lihue, Kauai concrete
Kapaa, Kauai condo
Honolulu, Hawaii Hilton Hawaiian Village Rainbow Tower hotel
Kahului, Maui (concrete, asphalt and grass)
Ala Moana Beach Park
Wailua, Maui condo
Poipu Kapili condo in Kauai
New York City park bench (under one and on one)
New York City church pew in the Bowery
New York City hotel in Chelsea
New York City Fresh Meadows (Queens) girl’s apartment I met online
San Diego, California girl’s apartment I met in Tijuana
Memphis, Tennessee girl’s apartment I met online
Greyhound bus
Hume Lake, California cabins
Yosemite, California campground
Catalina Island, California (hotel, friend’s house and cabin)
Salinas, California hotel
Pacific Beach, California apartment
Pasadena, California house
Pasadena, California former in-law’s house
Dublin, Ireland hostel
London, England former wife’s relatives’ house
YMCA Three Arches hotel in Jerusalem
Netanya, Israel hotel
Tiberias, Israel hotel
Athens, Greece hotel
Long Beach, California bleachers
Lakewood, California racquetball court
Long Beach, California church courtyard (bench and concrete)
Long Beach, California library concrete
Long Beach, California library roof
Long Beach, California alley
Maunalua Bay Beach Park in Hawaii Kai
Key West, Florida Post Office concrete
Haleiwa, Hawaii concrete
Banzai Pipeline concrete
Santa Barbara, California greyhound station concrete
Vancouver, Washington campground
Nanawale Estates, Hawaii house
Scranton, Pennsylvania hotel
Niagara Falls, Canada hotel
Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina dormitory
Millsaps College, Jackson, Missippi Kappa Alpha Order fraternity house
Baltimore, Maryland friend’s house
Bethesda, Maryland hotel
Tulsa, Oklahoma friend’s apartment
Arvada, Colorado friend’s trailer
Colorado Springs, Colorado hotel
Greeley, Colorado hotel
Lexington, Kentucky hotel
Santa Fe, New Mexico hotel
Moab, Utah hotel
Sedona, Arizona hotel
Mission Bay, San Diego hotel
Dayton, Tennessee hotel
Atlanta, Georgia hotel
Compton, California friend’s motorhome
Los Angeles, California hotel
Long Beach, California car
Burbank, California hotel
Long Beach, California winter shelter
Kaiser High School, Hawaii Kai hurricane shelter
Palmdale, California former in-laws’ house
Ridgecrest, California cousin’s house
Hesperia, California girlfriend’s house
Tracy, California girlfriend’s house
Wilkesboro, North Carolina aunt’s house
Kona, Hawaii hotel
Anaheim, California hotel
San Francisco, California hotel
Berkeley, California YMCA Hotel
Phoenix, Arizona hotel
Lihue, Kauai motel
Lihue, Kauai airport concrete
Molokai airport concrete
Los Angeles International Airport
Lahaina, Maui hotel
La Paz, Mexico Hotel Los Arcos
Tijuana, Mexico hotel
Rosarito, Mexico hotel
Harbison Canyon, California girlfriend’s house
Shreveport, Louisiana hotel
Hollywood, Florida aunt’s house
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida hotel
Woodstock, New York campground
Visalia, California hotel
San Diego, California hotel
Carlsbad, California hotel
Yuma, Arizona hotel
El Cajon, California hotel
Sierra Blanca, Texas hotel
Bluefield, West Virginia hotel
Coconut Grove, Florida concrete
Old Stadium Park Honolulu, Hawaii (grass and concrete)
Mililani, Oahu friend’s house
Kahului, Maui Seaside Hotel
Kepuhi Beach, Molokai wood structure
Morro Bay, California campsite
Mount Laguna, California cabin
Etna, California cabin and wilderness

I guess you could say I sleep around....and that's why I think everybody should get a house when they turn 18.

Last update: July 7, 2020, 1:33 a.m. HST

I have not been tested for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, but something was going around in Maui in mid-January. My friends were sick with lung congestion and they gave it to me.

For the most part I functioned normally, but I experienced chest and head congestion, body aches, fever, dehydration and fatigue. It peaked before the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and I had to take a nap. I never take naps, so it was notable. I was just so wiped out that I needed to sleep for a few hours in the middle of the day.

I didn’t realize that there was a lot of infectious mucous in my sinuses. One of my friends was congested and I told him how he could drain his sinuses and then I realized it. You press your tongue on the roof of your mouth and they drain.

I thought I was over this illness, but I relapsed. After draining my sinuses and going to bed that night, I woke up with chest congestion again. The illness had moved back into my lungs. This made me fight it off again.

This was a weird illness because I normally don’t get sick or I get over it within a day or two. This illness made me sick for well over a week twice.

In January in Maui nobody was talking about COVID-19. In fact, nobody took it seriously until March when they started closing stores. Therefore, I didn’t know what I had and I didn’t try to get treated or tested.

I didn’t do anything in particular to get over it. However, I drank a lot of water to try to stay hydrated. I also took my usual organic garlic and organic turmeric/black pepper supplements, drank organic tea and ate an organic, vegetarian diet. At the time I was fasting every other day and drinking organic apple cider vinegar and those things helped. I also occasionally smoked weed in a water pipe and since marijuana is an expectorant it pulled the mucous out of my lungs. I walked several miles a day and occasionally stretched and practiced yoga too.

On another note I finished writing the 10th and final book in my A Brand New World series in Maui before I left on March 28. It was called How It All Ends and it took place in Maui Memorial Hospital. Sadly, after I moved to Kauai it was reported that there was a major outbreak of COVID-19 in the hospital.

In Kauai I decided to continue the series, so now I am writing another book called The Addendum. However, it has nothing to do with my illness.

If you catch the virus stay strong. If you take good care of yourself you should be able to fight it off. Professional athletes have not died. Only two, old, overweight soldiers have died. This leads me to believe that strong people survive, so be as strong as you can.

Good luck.

I dreamed that I was driving a vehicle in San Diego with Jordan in the passenger seat. I tried to make a u-turn somewhere that looked like the freeway overpass near Hillcrest.
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I was looking for the 9 freeway (which does not exist in reality) and I mentioned to Jordan that it was one of the lowest, single-digit freeways that I had ever heard of and the only ones I knew of were the 8 and the 5.

The light changed and I was allowed to make a turn if it was safe. Oncoming traffic was approaching, but I thought I could make it, so I flipped a bitch and an angry woman in a white car honked at me and sped past me.

A vehicle hit my vehicle and sent it careening down the wrong road on the right, but suddenly we were above it. The van that we were in went over the shoulder and hit the inside of the tunnel and spun around. It didn’t hit any vehicles or block traffic, but it was facing the opposite way.

Four ladies stopped and talked to us. All of them looked like Drew Barrymore, but I only got a good look at two of them. One of them acted like she liked me and had heavy lipstick and something on her forehead. It looked like a scab that was slanted and in the shape of an eye.

This is a list of my personal injuries. They include physical injuries and not emotional injuries. I could write another list of emotional injuries, so perhaps I will blog it later and call it Mein Kampf II.

I was born in 1974 and here is my list by year. I have not had health insurance for many years, so some ailments that I diagnosed are my best guesses. I have tried to treat them in various ways and there are other details and peculiarities that I could mention later.

1979 - at a family gathering a dog bit me in the face and left scars

1987 - during an El Cajon Pop Warner football game a player decleated me after my quarterback threw an interception and it stunted my growth by about 4 inches, caused persistent muscle spasms throughout my body and pain and my ribs to stick out

1991 - when I threw my “flipper” during 1-on-1 practice with one of my football coaches at Christian High School I felt excruciating pain in my shoulder and it went limp and numb and it was not properly diagnosed and it never fully recovered

1992 - tore my quadriceps muscle at soccer practice at Christian High School which caused pain and eventually caused inflammation in my opposite hip

1992 - I went up for a header playing soccer for Christian High School and hit another player’s head and it split the skin above my eye and I needed stitches

1999 - I was dragged behind a car and it left scars on my elbows, knees and hips

2004 - I got a spinal tap after being poisoned because the ambulance staff said they thought I might have spinal meningitis and it caused lingering nerve pain

2004 - a Glendale, California dentist botched a cavity filling and created a shelf that led to a persistent gum infection below the separation between two teeth

2010 - I sampled weed that was donated to the medical marijuana collective I directed and I got a lung infection because the patient didn’t tell me that it had mold which caused a persistent cough

2010 - I got persistent eye floaters from the prescription antibiotic I took to get rid of the lung infection

2012 - two Los Angeles Police Department officers abused me and I suffered nerve damage in my hand and forearm via handcuffs

2012 - a man punched me in the jaw in the 24 Hour Fitness bathroom in downtown Long Beach, California and it caused my jaw to click when I open my mouth wide

2012 - I was ill and inadvertently blew my nose hard and long during a muscle spasm and went legally blind in one eye and it was shortly after getting a tuberculosis skin test for coaching high school soccer in California

2014 - I was hit by the #13 bus in Honolulu and possibly fractured my wrist and it caused lingering pain

2017 - I was bitten by a tick in Honolulu and possibly acquired Lyme’s disease

By the way I don't complain about health problems and I still live an active lifestyle. For instance, today I rode my bike and walked several miles. I try various organic treatments, exercise, stretch, fast and practice yoga to try to remedy these issues because I prefer those things over Western medicine.

I was prescribed 750mg of hydrocodone for my back, but I didn't even finish the bottle because I disliked how it made me feel. Marijuana treats my muscle spasms pretty well, but it doesn't cure them.

I intend on maintaining such balance and symmetry that nobody can even tell which side of my body was injured. I think I am doing a pretty good job so far.

After I turned 18 years old on August 13, 1992, I voted for Independent Ross Perot in November. My parents were Republicans and voted for George H.W. Bush and they were anti-Clinton like our church.

I think I voted for Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. I also ran for Governor as a Republican in California’s recall election in 2003.

I voted for Republican John McCain in 2008, but I did not vote for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama in 2012. By 2012 I was no longer a Republican or identifying as a Christian or a conservative, but after the medical marijuana raid on my home in 2011 I could not vote for Obama. It wasn’t until later that I realized that Republican mayor Jerry Sanders was also to blame.

I did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016. I liked Clinton even though the churches I used to attend villainized her and her husband. I wanted to see the first female president, but I thought she was too much of an establishment Democrat. Trump lost my interest with his behavior during the primaries. I thought his Republican opponents were right about him and he would be bad for the country.

During the Obama administration I started liking Democrat Secretary of State John Kerry because he was a straight-shooter and cared about other nations instead of just wanting to bomb them. During the Trump administration I started liking Republican Mitt Romney because of the bold, principled stands he took. If I could go back in time I suppose I might vote for Kerry and Romney.

I wanted to see the first black president, but when Obama ran the first time I was at the apex of my conservative Christian path and his liberal views were unappealing. I blamed him and his Drug Enforcement Agency for breaking down my door and radically changing my life in 2011, so I had no interest in voting for him in 2012.

I am not excited about Joe Biden or Donald Trump, so I won’t vote for either of them in 2020. I think Biden lacks principles and a vision of his own and will succumb to the popular opinion of the Democratic Party. I think Trump is a liability and the worst president in history. Perhaps I will vote for a 3rd party candidate or write myself in.

I am an independent voter and I like to vote. I have voted for presidents and people running for other offices. I have also voted for ballot measures and such.

Good luck and don’t forget to vote.

Yesterday I dreamed that I was pursuing a lady and she liked me. She was boarding a bus and I was squatting on a perch. There was a line of people and as she was about to board I asked somebody if I should get my things now or later. They said later, so I jumped and dropped to the ground behind her and boarded.

I talked in Spanish to people boarding the bus. I said it was very large and other things. They were friendly and understood me.

She sat toward the back on the left in a middle seat, so I sat in the middle seat one row behind her, but suddenly she was sitting next to me on my right. We talked and she kissed me and I kissed her for a while. It was dark in the bus, but not pitch dark.

Eventually the bus stopped and we got off. She gave me a small, white purse with handles to hold and I took a shower. Somehow I was at my parents’ house in their guest bathroom.

My feet tracked water on the floor, so I used a small towel that I had hung on a little trash can to wipe it up. I got ready and went outside.

Two kittens were playing outside on my parents’ lawn and I was holding the lady’s purse. I say lady, but she was in her 20s and lean and beautiful with long, brown hair.

One of the cats had beautiful blue eyes and soft-looking fur and it became startled when it saw me. A guy and a girl were walking down a concrete path nearby and the girl was smoking a cigarette. She was heavyset, on a cell phone and our eyes met.

I was wearing white socks with no shoes outside. I needed to go somewhere nearby and upstairs to get my shoes. However, I didn’t want to leave because the lady was there and I wanted to wait for her, so I started to go back inside the house and I woke up.

19 Names for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
June 21, 2020

19. Kung flu
18. Chinese virus
17. Oriental fever
16. Chop suey fluey
15. Asian death
14. Ninja pox
13. Bastard bat disease
12. Chopstick chills
11. Kung pao nightmare
10. Red sun rash
9. Shanghai shits
8. Yellow infection
7. Commie cancer
6. Tibetan typhoid
5. Hong Kong hangover
4. NC Bruce Lee
3. Chink cold
2. Jackie Chan cough
1. Rice paddy RIP

Note: I am not racist. My best friend is Chinese-American. This is a joke. If you don’t like it fuck off.

Seen any good nudes lately?

Many Americans are repressed. If you don’t think so try watching TV and you will quickly see what is “not allowed” for no good reason.

I support pornography and I support prostitution too. There is no good reason for it to be illegal.

When I stumbled on myfreecams.com I was amazed. Lots of women around the world broadcast live and take off their clothes and do sex acts (without men) for tips. It is brilliant.

You can watch for free and you don’t even have to create an account. However, I wanted to give back, so I have bought tokens. I am happy to support these ladies and I can tell that some of them are very kind.

Guys are lucky to have women that want to share themselves with us. We definitely don’t deserve it. Previous generations would kill for something like this. The least we can do is tip them and stand up for them.

Lots of groups get mistreated and don’t have much of a voice in society and adult entertainers is one of those groups. They don’t have a lot of money or power, but they have love and they like to make people feel good, so they can be happy. Who else would you rather support?

Consider being an advocate and an ally for adult entertainers because they deserve it.

Today marks my one year anniversary because my last day on Twitter was June 14, 2019.

When I first left Twitter I was disappointed. It was a little like withdrawal from a drug. However, over time I realized it was for the best.

For a few years I developed my account by following 1,000 users a day and around 50% of them would follow me back. After several months I would unfollow the users that did not follow me back. I never did anything shady though. For instance, I did not buy followers or use bots. I did it all by hand.

I developed my account this way with a company that found the most engaged followers of any user. I would type that user’s name in their application and follow them. This was an interesting way to do it because people followed me that had similar interests. I even followed lots of engaged users that were following Al Jazeera, Press TV and some other foreign companies which garnered me a large international following.

The drawback of developing your account this way is it makes it very difficult to read your timeline. Following that many people made the new tweets from them fly so fast you could hardly read them or find certain ones from certain users.

One day toward the end I decided I wanted to use my account differently and I had gotten a suspension or two and I threw caution to the wind and unfollowed everybody. Afterwards I followed back a few hundred people and I could actually read their tweets in real time.

Before I unfollowed everybody I created a web page with links to my favorite Twitter users. I clicked on the links to see what they tweeted. I frequently responded, but it was rarely in a timely manner. Not to mention I was living in Hawaii, so I was already off their time.

I miss following people around the world because I had some relationships that I valued that evaporated. I also miss my extensive list of journalists because it was scrubbed too. I had compiled a very long list of thousands of journalists around the world.

I am extraordinarily different than the people that use Twitter, so not reading what they say isn’t a big deal. I don’t want to be like them and I don’t care what most of them say. However, I miss connecting with some of them. I miss encouraging some of them too.

Like most things in life Twitter is for the rich and for people that want to be popular and those things don’t matter much to me. If people want to read what I say they can visit my website.

After I left Twitter I started posting my “tweets” on a web page called Quotes. In fact, I published a book called 2019 Quotes and I intend on publishing two books of quotes this year. At the end of June I will publish 2020 Quotes - Part 1 and at the end of December I will publish 2020 Quotes - Part 2.

Writing my quotes on my web page is better than using Twitter because I have no character limit. I don’t have to be concerned with trolls and argumentative folks. I didn’t like their system of followers and likes anyway. Who cares about those things besides vain people? Are they still too afraid to add a dislike button?

On my website I don’t have any ads, trackers, counters or intrusive coding. Everybody that visits my site can do it privately and I will never know anything about them. I like it that way too. I don’t like the websites that use cookies to track us or spy on our emails and such and I have left Gmail and several others for that reason.

Leaving Twitter was one step in retaining all my data and being more private. I might not have the same reach as I did on Twitter, but I could. At least nobody can ever steal my data like they did. I am still missing the last 7 months of tweets because I backed them up 7 months before my 3rd and final suspension and then there was no way to back them up.

I caution you. Beware of relying on a website or 3rd party to retain your data. Tumblr stole my data when they suspended me too. These companies are above the law and they are into mind control not freedom.

Twitter should revert to U.S. laws instead of acting like the speech police. Since they want to control what people say they are stifling creativity and making cookie-cutter people. Users may not see it, but that’s what is happening.

In case you didn’t know my three suspensions were for asking comedian Daniel Tosh if he was retarded, telling off several Catholic trolls that ganged up on me after I tweeted Pope Francis and telling off an anti-choice jerk that said people shouldn’t let their kid around me because I am pro-choice. It turned out that I actually knew her because she had given me massages and I had taught her daughter how to play guitar and coached her kid in soccer. She was Catholic and apparently didn’t care for my evolution (e.g. leaving Christianity).

Twitter was an interesting experience and I doubt it will be around forever. There are other places I can go, but I like my website the best. I started broadcasting on Periscope a couple of months ago, but don’t tell them.

I never asked people to follow me on Twitter. I remember that whenever I hear people telling everybody to follow them. In my seven years on Twitter I only asked Fluffy the comedian and the Dalai Lama to follow me. I asked Fluffy because I moved to Long Beach, California and he lives there. He followed me and I was stoked. I asked the Dalai Lama because I liked his tweets and poking fun at him and he was following zero people.

I think companies should distance themselves from Twitter. They get a lot of free advertising. Since they have some serious issues they should probably be regulated like a public utility. If government agencies must use them to speak to people, then they aren’t like a typical business. They should have a way to appeal suspensions too.

I have not used Twitter under a pseudonym and I have not used my business account. I could, but I probably won’t. However, if Twitter bans somebody and they stop using their service and it is the way the government warns people about hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. then what? They could be putting people in danger because they don’t support free speech.

I took a break from Instagram, but I might return one day. You might find me there. I tried Reddit for a few months and it was ok, but I left. I reactivated my Facebook account, but I refuse to spend time on there because I could waste hours. I only use it to send a message that I want people to see every week or two and it generally points to my website or is from my website (e.g. a quote or story). Maybe someday I will reconnect in a more personal way with my friends and family.

Thanks for reading. Good luck.

I dreamed that people broke into my home to steal things. They came in and out through the window more than once.

When I caught them they ran. They had no remorse too.

When I looked out the window it looked like the parking lot at San Diego State University. I was on the top floor looking across the lot and the thieves were getting in the elevator to go down.

I didn't recognize the thieves. However, I think there were two girls and two guys. I saw the two girls and one was overweight and one was short. Our eyes met before the elevator closed and they were belligerent.

It was raining hard as they got away. As I stared out the window I considered that a dangerous thief might be right outside and could attack me through the window. I woke up at that moment.

What has your experience been with the police? Mine has varied because I have had different experiences with different police officers around the country and the world.

This is a summary of my experiences in alphabetical order with foreign countries at the bottom.

Buffalo, New York

When the Canada Border Services Agency made me return to the U.S. (more on that below) in 2012, they gave me to the Buffalo police department and they drove me to Buffalo. They were professional and we made small talk in the squad car. I was not handcuffed or mistreated.

El Cajon, California

When I was 15 years old in 1989 I was driving a Honda Aero motor scooter and a police officer pulled me over. I wasn’t sure how long he had followed me, but I was surprised to discover the officer was my friend’s brother! One of my close friends that lived a few doors down from me had a brother in law enforcement. He was nice and told me I should avoid riding with my headphones on and he was right, but I liked listening to music while I rode. He didn’t ticket me and let me go with a warning.

Hobbs, New Mexico

As I was returning to California on a cross-country trip in my car in 1997, I was stopped at a checkpoint in New Mexico. The Hobbs Police Department wanted to see my driver’s license and registration. Strangely, I didn’t have my registration with me, but I told them I had purchased it and accidentally left it in California. They said I had to see the judge the following day and prove to him that I had it.

I stayed the night in a hotel in Hobbs and had my insurance company fax me a copy of my insurance. I took it to the judge, he accepted it and I continued on my way.

The Hobbs police treated me well. They did not single me out because they were stopping everybody. I think they believed me, but still made me prove it to the judge.

Honolulu, Hawaii

I had several experiences with the Honolulu police because I lived there for a few years.

When I was hit by a bus in 2015 the police came and took a report. I think they did a good job. They gave me the police report number and I was able to get in touch with the bus company’s attorney.

When I slept outside by the Children’s Center they came and asked me and a local guy to leave. There was a “tent city” of sorts nearby where lots of houseless people were living. However, I was simply staying overnight. They could have ticketed me, but they didn’t.

While I was sleeping outside in Ala Moana somebody stole my bag. I only had sandals and a library book in it. However, I had to report the book as stolen, so I didn’t have to pay the library for it. The officer I spoke to was professional and took my report and gave me a slip with the report number on it and it satisfied the library’s requirement.

After I bought a new bike I left my old bike outside my storage unit and locked it. However, it was stolen, so I reported it as stolen. The officer came and made the report, but it was never recovered.

When I slept outside in Ala Moana next to a Public Storage facility with other houseless people the police came and gave everybody a citation. It was simply a warning, but it said I was forbidden to return for one year.

When I slept in Ala Moana park at night I was ticketed by two goofy, white police officers (one male and one female) on four-wheel, ATVs. I was there after 10 p.m., so it was warranted, but they could have let me go. I went to court and they said I could pay $50 or do 7 hours of community service, so I chose community service.

I only slept in Ala Moana park 2-3 times after 10 p.m., but the police caught me another time. The court appointment time was difficult to read on the ticket and I read it wrong. When I showed up for the hearing at the courthouse they said it was in the morning and I missed it. I was upset because I made the effort to be there and could not read it. They said there was a warrant for my arrest because of it and they asked me if I wanted to go to jail. I said no and left. I think they could have handled it differently and rescheduled my hearing.

When I was sleeping in the afternoon in the park in Hawaii Kai the police told me I was not allowed to attach anything to a tree. I had used string to attach two tarps in an upside-down V-shape above me to block the sun and rain. I honored their request though and they left.

Kauai, Hawaii

When I lived in Oahu, I visited Kauai in 2018 for a few days and slept outside. While I was sleeping in Lihue a female police officer woke me up and asked me some questions. I had my passport, so I gave it to her because she asked me for ID. I think she ran it to see if I had any warrants for my arrest and I didn’t. She said I could keep sleeping there and I did. I felt like she was looking out for me and I appreciated that I was in the system and on her radar because I figured it would keep me safer.

Long Beach, California

On the first day of school at Long Beach City College, the police gave me a jaywalking ticket. It was like a sting and they cited somebody else in front of me for jaywalking, so I figured I would get away with it. However, a different officer suddenly arrived and ticketed me as well. Both of them were on motorcycles. The officer that ticketed me was an African American and the other cop was white. I wanted him to let me go with a warning, but he wouldn’t do it. I think he wanted to make an example out of me and deter other jaywalkers.

When I was sleeping outside in front of the downtown library a Latino police officer did a sweep and was ticketing all the houseless people although some of them ran away. As he was writing the ticket to the guy next to me I asked him if he could turn off his engine because it was choking me. He got angry because I asked and he handcuffed me, put me in his vehicle and took me to jail. I had to get bailed out. I thought that was totally inappropriate.

When I was sleeping outside near the corner of Cherry and Carson at the top of a staircase, the police asked me some questions. They ran my name and noticed I had a warrant which was for not taking care of the jaywalking ticket. He could have taken me to jail, but he told me to take care of it and left. For what it’s worth he was a white officer with a white partner.

One time I was walking in downtown Long Beach early in the morning before school and before a store with a public bathroom was open. I went to the back of Albertson’s grocery store to poop in a plastic bag. Nobody was around and I was fast. However, a security guard was suddenly there and asked me what I was doing. She called the police and they quickly arrived and ticketed me. I thought that was inappropriate because no bathrooms were open and I was being discrete and clean about it.

Los Angeles, California

I was in my hotel room on Western Ave. and there were police outside. I saw them through the window, but figured they had a reason and the reason had nothing to do with me. However, they were there for a long time, so eventually I opened my door and walked a few steps on the 2nd floor balcony. One cop was on the phone and I asked him if everything was ok and he ignored me. Before I could make it back to my room two, big, white cops ran out of a nearby room and grabbed me. They pretended like I was resisting, but I wasn’t. One of them said, “Stop resisting!” I said I wasn’t, but they slammed the handcuffs into my wrists so hard that they cut my wrists and I still have a scar. I screamed in pain and yelled for somebody to help me.

The police detained me for over an hour for no reason and with no criminal charges. I had no shirt on and they had hurt me so badly that I pooped my pants when they did it. I just lost control of my bowels because of the excruciating pain and the nerve damage they did. However, that didn’t stop them from being horrible people.

As I sat on the asphalt with handcuffs on my wrists, a female, Asian police officer mocked me. It was out of line. Eventually they put an African American man in a vehicle, but I did not know what he did or who he was. However, they asked me if I wanted an ambulance and tried to convince me to say yes. I repeatedly said no.

Eventually Sheriff A. Wright who was African American showed up and let me go. I could hardly believe what just happened and I was in shock. He did not give me the officers’ names or reprimand them, but he gave me his name on a card.

I filed a lawsuit in the Long Beach courthouse, but it was moved to San Pedro. I filled out paperwork to have them serve the sheriff for free because I had low income. Their rule provided free service if they could find the person, but they charged a fee if they couldn’t find the defendant. Unfortunately, they said they couldn’t find him and wanted me to pay a fee. The judge dismissed the case without prejudice because she knew it was not filed in vain. This was the worst experience I ever had with the police and I have nerve damage from it.

The day before this happened I stayed in a hotel in Burbank, California. My room had a big, circular blood stain on the floor. It looked like somebody died and bled out.

I notified the management about it and they didn't care. I asked them for a late check-out and they let me leave at noon instead of 11 a.m.

I called the police because I thought somebody might have been murdered in the hotel room and the hotel might have been covering it up. They arrived a few minutes after noon and the hotel was upset that I was still there.

I think the police that arrived were in the Los Angeles police department. It appears that Burbank has their own police department though. Nonetheless, they were not particularly interested in it, so I left.

The same police officer that responded to my call was also at my hotel on Western Ave. However, he was wearing a different name tag. I recalled his last name ended in "ian" in Burbank because I wondered if he was Armenian. He looked like it. He was the officer on a cell phone that ignored me immediately before the two white officers grabbed me and abused me.

I think there may have been a correlation between the two events. Also, I had called the police earlier in the day before they abused me to ask what their response time was. I felt like somebody was after me, my hotel was in a bad area and I wanted to know how long it would take the police to arrive if I needed to call them. I called them on my cell phone a few blocks from my hotel on Western Ave., but I might have told them my hotel's address, so they could estimate their response time.

Maui, Hawaii

While I was sleeping in front of Goodwill in Kahului, I thought I was being attacked. Somebody bumped my bike into me with his bike. I jumped up and called 9-1-1 and within a minute or two the police arrived. One officer took down my information and the other officer searched for the perpetrator. I was impressed with their arrival time and professionalism.

This happened around 2:30 a.m. on May 24, 2019 and I remember the date because I was going to search in the Makawao Forest Reserve again for Amanda Eller. Since my sleep was interrupted I decided to go the following day, but the search party found her, so I did not need to go.

As I was walking in Kahului in 2020, a houseless person assaulted me, so I called 9-1-1- for the police. It took them 5-10 minutes to arrive, but the houseless person that hit me was still in sight. They took my report, but didn’t do anything else. I figured they would talk to the man and at least ticket him. I think they failed to do their job.

Miami, Florida

While I visited a restaurant in 2018, I noticed a kid that might have been 20-25 years old. He looked at me strangely. After a few minutes I walked across the street to another restaurant to get online. After I sat down the police arrived and asked me to come outside with them.

When I got outside they said I was being accused of stealing the man’s wallet! It was an outrageous charge and untrue. They put me in handcuffs and rifled through my backpack. They asked me many questions too. It felt like it could have been a setup because I was new in town and they wanted to know my story.

As I was being detained several police officers arrived and asked if I was ok. Oddly, a diverse group visited. The initial officer was Latino and an African American man and a white male officer checked up on me and everything. Another white officer searched my backpack and left a flask of wine open, so it spilled.

I was a little exasperated with their treatment. However, I figured it might have been standard procedure and surmised that I would appreciate the same treatment if somebody stole my wallet.

A police officer talked to me another time in the Coconut Grove area of Miami. I was staying up all night and somebody was smoking a cigar at a Starbucks table outside and it said no smoking on the table. It was blowing on me and sickening me, so I confronted him.

The smoker was with a woman and I think I embarrassed him, so he called the police. It was revealed to me later that the smoker owned the nearby cigar shop. Nonetheless, the police arrived and talked to me. My gym was nearby and I didn’t want to cause a big stink. However, I could tell it was a conundrum for them because he was breaking the rules and I was right, but he was a business owner.

It was after hours, so I could not ask Starbucks to enforce their no smoking rules. As the police were discussing the issue in private I decided to leave. It looked like they were going to side with the smoker and they didn’t tell me to stay or anything, so I walked away.

New York, New York

When I was outside in New York City late one night in 2012 the police asked me some questions. I was holding a nice American Fender Stratocaster electric guitar on a park bench by a basketball court. They warned me that I was not in a good area and that I should consider going somewhere else to avoid getting mugged. I appreciated the way they were looking out for me and I took their advice and left.

Oceanside, California

When I lived in Oceanside in 2001, two men broke into my van that was parked in front of my apartment’s fence and stole my Yamaha acoustic guitar, American Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, DigiTech RP-7 multi-effects pedal and CDs. I saw one of them jumping the fence in the gated community, realized what they did after checking my van and called the police.

The cops found one of the perpetrators in the nearby McDonald’s drive-thru. They recovered my electric guitar and pedal and arrested him. I went to court and the judge ordered him to pay restitution for the acoustic guitar and CDs that his friend stole and he made a couple of payments before disappearing.

I think the cops did a good job of recovering my valuable equipment, but I wished they would have been able to recover everything.

Pennsylvania

On a cross-country trip in 1997, I was driving the speed limit on cruise control and I was pulled over for driving too slow. I wasn’t using my mirrors because that’s how I rolled at the time. My cruise control was set a couple of miles per hour under the speed limit and I didn’t like to look at angry speeders behind me.

I was surprised that the police pulled me over, but after the white male officer did I noticed a long line of cars behind me. It was a long and windy road and they couldn’t get around me.

San Diego, California

Since I was born and raised in San Diego county and lived most of my life there I have had the most experiences with the San Diego police department.

The police pulled me over on the freeway for driving too fast and ticketed me. I drove a couple of fast red cars, so I was easy to spot. However, they typically wrote a lower speed on the ticket that was 10-15 miles per hour slower than the speed I was actually driving. Once or twice they decided to let me go with a warning.

In 1994, I got pulled over for driving under the influence (DUI). I rolled through a stop sign leaving my fraternity house on San Diego State University’s campus. My apartment was only a few blocks away, but they didn’t care and gave me a field sobriety test around 2 a.m. They were right though and I shouldn’t have been driving. It was the last time I ever drove drunk.

The police took me to the station and gave me a breathalizer test which I failed. They put me in a drunk tank, but I was only there a few hours. I made two phone calls and one was to a friend from high school to pay my bail and the other call was to a fraternity friend to pick me up.

In 2009, the police came to my apartment in Pacific Beach because a neighbor called them. My former wife and I were arguing. I had a .357 magnum Smith & Wesson pistol that with a gun lock in a case on a high shelf in the bedroom for protection. I had purchased it in Virginia during graduate school in 1997. They apparently asked my former wife if I had a gun and she said yes and they made me surrender it to them. I didn’t want to give it to them, but they acted like they were going to arrest me if I didn’t give it to them.

I never got the gun back. I had to pay a fee and a fine to get it even though it was legally mine and never used or mentioned in any marital argument. They should not have taken it and that was wrong.

In 2011, the police coordinated with the Drug Enforcement Agency, Child Welfare Services and the Department of Forestry to break down my door at 6 a.m. (with a no-knock warrant) and raid my home because I was growing medical marijuana. It caused us to get evicted and it was the last night my daughter slept under my roof. This was another wrong thing that they did.

During my four days in jail for the aforementioned debacle thieves broke in and stole everything valuable from my house assuming the police locked the door. After I got out of jail and was able to make a police report a white, female police officer found one of my guitars at a local pawn shop. It was the same guitar that the Oceanside police recovered and it was valuable, so I was thankful.

I wrote a book called The Wrong Side that goes into detail about my experience starting at the moment they broke down my door including my time in the downtown San Diego jail. I was not treated very well in my first 24 hours in jail. The worst part was probably being isolated in a large room with bright lights and cold benches. They apparently expected me to sleep there, but it was very difficult. I was also very cold.

I yelled for somebody to assist me, but nobody responded. I don’t know if you have ever tried to sleep in a big, cold, bright room by yourself while law enforcement ignores you, but it is not easy.

In the morning I was isolated in a smaller room until I saw my attorney. After I complained to him about the treatment he asked some questions and told me I was isolated because one of my charges child endangerment. However, he said they shouldn’t have treated me that way because my charge was not a sex crime or anything like that. They apparently isolate sex offenders because other inmates tend to harm them, so they either accidentally isolated me or did it on purpose because they could.

I was in jail for four days before I was bailed out. Even though my bail was paid much earlier in the day the police kept me until 12:01 a.m. I heard they do this because they can get paid for keeping somebody an entire day even though I was only there for one minute of the day.

When I finally returned to my abode a few days later (due to my dad's suggestion that I stay at a hotel) and called the police to make a report about the theft they took a long time to arrive. They took so long that I thought they might have been blowing me off on purpose.

Santee, California

When I was 16 years old, my friend and I used to steal pull-out car stereos for fun. We didn’t really need the money, but we would sell them. We only did it a few times before we were caught.

We were taken to the Santee Sheriff station because we committed the crime in Santee. They handcuffed me to a bench. The police that arrested us in La Mesa were cordial and did not abuse us, but they handcuffed us too.

Instead of going to juvenile hall they put us on the juvenile diversion program because we did not have a criminal record. This was a nice thing because it was removed from our record when we turned 18 years old.

Sierra Blanca, Texas

On a cross-country trip in 2012, I was stopped by the police at the infamous checkpoint in Sierra Blanca. Willie Nelson was stopped in 2010. Armie Hammer was stopped in November 2011. Snoop Dogg was stopped in January 2012 and Fiona Apple was stopped in September 2012.

The police made me get out of the car and a drug sniffing dog jumped in the car and the trunk. I did not have any drugs with me because I had been arrested for growing weed in San Diego in March 2011 (see above) and I did not want to risk traveling with it. I had two machetes in the trunk, but they didn’t care.

I wondered if I was on a list because of the weed arrest even though I ended up getting the felonies dismissed and taking a one-misdemeanor plea deal in child endangerment (which was bogus, but it set me free without a trial). Since they didn’t find anything they let me go.

Texas

A few hours after I left the checkpoint I was pulled over for speeding. I was driving very fast because I was going to North Carolina to visit my grandma. My uncle said they put her in a nursing home and she was very ill, so I was worried about her.

The freeway was a two-lane road and some semi-trucks were driving slowly, so I passed them on the shoulder. I think one of them called the police because the police pulled me over on a straightaway and I was looking for them. There is no way that the officer that pulled me over could have seen me pass on the shoulder or drive very fast.

I told the officer I was going to see my sick grandma, but he didn’t care. He gave me a ticket for speeding.

Outside the U.S.

Canada Border Services Agency

In 2012, I rode in a Greyhound bus from New York City to Toronto, Canada. However, they stopped everybody at the border, made us exit the bus and searched us. I had a little marijuana in a yellow, Pledge security container and they found it. It was some Three Kings weed that I had brought from California.

I didn’t like the way they treated me because I was a medical marijuana patient. However, I was actually going to Canada to visit a doctor because I didn’t trust any U.S. doctors at the time and I thought they were lying to me. I didn’t even want to tell them where I was going. Therefore, I must have sounded shady because I had no place to stay. I wasn’t visiting anybody in Canada and I didn’t know much about the country and what I was going to see or do there besides visit the doctor.

They made me sign a paper that basically said none of this ever happened. I was in a cell-like room and felt like I had no choice. The deal was if I signed the paper they would let me return to the U.S. without my weed, so I did it because the alternative would have been going to a Canadian jail.

I didn’t like the way they treated me and it soured me on Canada. I had visited Niagara Falls about 15 years before this incident and I even stayed a night on the Canada side. Nonetheless, this experience made me want to avoid returning. The Buffalo police drove me to Buffalo and dropped me off in the middle of the night at the Greyhound station and I had to catch another bus after sunrise.

Tijuana, Mexico

I started going to TJ when I was 16 years old because my friends liked going there to drink beer. They would serve us without carding us unlike bars in the U.S. where the legal drinking age was 21.

We liked to park in a U.S. parking lot and walk across the border to keep our vehicle safe and avoid buying extra insurance. However, one time I had to pee very badly and peed in the street and the police caught me.

I was not driving, so I was somewhere between buzzed and drunk and I had no money. They wanted a bribe though. I told them I had no money and begged them to let me go. I could see the border in front of me and I could taste freedom. Eventually they let me and my friends go. I appreciated their mercy and grace.

Federal Highway 1, Baja California, Mexico

One time I drove to La Paz. I was actually going to Cabo San Lucas, but La Paz was so beautiful I decided to stay there instead of driving to the bottom of the peninsula.

Somewhere in between Mulege and Loreto on the 1 highway (the only one) I was stopped by the federales. 5-6 men dressed in black with machine guns made me get out of the car and open the trunk.

I did what they asked and used my limited Spanish to communicate with them. They wanted my boom box (aka ghetto blaster). They kept saying, “Cuantos!? Cuantos!?” (“How much? How much?”)

The exchange rate was about 10 to 1 which meant 10 pesos equaled one dollar. It was a very nice boom box and worth about $120, so I started the bargaining at 1,000 pesos. They said, “No! No!” and were disgusted at my offer and kept saying cuantos. This kept happening at 800 pesos and 600 pesos. At that point I put my foot down and said it was not for sale and they said ok.

I don’t think I had anything illegal with me, but they could have done something bad to me because I was in the middle of nowhere and hundreds of miles from the U.S. I was thankful that they let me go. I think they were just bored and didn’t see many Americans and wanted to chit-chat a little and know what I was doing while searching my car.

Stockholm, Sweden

On my trip to Israel in 2001, my former wife and I had a layover in Sweden. Before we could board El Al airlines and continue to Tel Aviv, they questioned us for about 45 minutes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think it was because my former wife was an Arab (Palestinian/Lebanese/Armenian).

They asked us all kinds of questions about our intentions. It was pretty clear that we were Christians on a religious pilgrimage that was also our honeymoon. However, I think they were paranoid and worried about her. They questioned us separately and then talked to each other. Eventually they let us continue, but we missed the flight because it took so long, so we had to take the next flight.

Tel Aviv, Israel

After we arrived in Tel Aviv our luggage was missing. We figured some airport police found it and stuck it somewhere, but nobody knew where it was. They said they would find it for us. Their solution was to put us up in a free hotel in a town called Netanya. We hadn’t intended on going there and many years later I wondered if they spied on us in the hotel with listening or viewing devices.

About two days later they called us and said they found our luggage and they delivered it to us. Of course they opened it and looked through it.

This was a little over the top. I don’t think it was necessary because we had U.S. passports and were American citizens. It seemed a little paranoid and irresponsible, but we were easygoing because we were on our honeymoon and didn’t have any other options. We were safe there, but immediately after we returned to the U.S. the news said a bomb went off in Netanya.

Last edit: June 13, 2020, 7:00 p.m. HST

I left the keys in my car with the windows down and went inside a building and when I came out it was gone. I walked around the parking lot, but nobody was there. A few people were there before, so I figured it would be safe for a few minutes.

It looked like I was in La Mesa near Grossmont High School and by the I-8 freeway. It was sunny, but suddenly it became dark outside and I went inside use a phone and call the police. I walked behind an old white man with gray hair that unlocked a chain-link door on some stairs. He let me enter with him, so I could call the police.

I was in a room that had several people in it and they looked like they were waiting and in the same family. They had similar, penetrating, blue eyes.

There was a pretty girl next to the phone on the wall and her belongings were scattered around it. I asked her if I could use the phone and she said ok and scooted over and cleaned off a chair for me.

The first phone I tried didn't work. It was an old, tan phone like the old rotary phones. She handed me another phone and told me to use it and I did.

As I made the call she stretched out next to me and leaned on me. She was young, lean and tall and I didn't mind. However, one of her relatives gave her a look and I think they were competing for my attention.

The car that was stolen resembled the first car I ever had. It was a blue 1985 Toyota Camry.

The dream seemed real and I was emotional and concerned about my car. I wondered whether or not the police would be able to find it. I thought they might find it, but I figured it could take some time and they probably wouldn't immediately find it.

I dreamed that I rented a room for multiple days somewhere, It had natural wood decor and it was cold outside like it was fall or winter.

There were two beds and I think I was with a male friend. However, it turned out that they had also rented the room to two other people.

I asked the guy I knew to talk to the people at the front desk and ask them what was going on. He left and returned and said they swore at him.

I noticed there were other people in the room because I saw them through the window when I lifted the curtain to see outside. I thought somebody was out there because I saw a shadow and heard a noise.

There was an old woman with white hair sitting on a bench outside, but suddenly she came inside and said they rented the room to her too.

There was another man in the room. He was wearing a blue bandana over his face and he was cowering under some covers. He looked afraid and didn't say anything.

I was upset and wasn't sure what was going on, I didn't want to hurt their feelings, so I just said I am an only child and I like my privacy and I thought the room was for just me. I didn't seem to mind the guy I knew being there and he reminded me of my friend Wally.

I thought about calling my dad because I thought he was responsible for booking it. However, I didn't call him. I wasn't sure if he was to blame or not and I wasn't sure if he was still alive.

Since George Floyd’s death these have arguably been the 30 worst-hit cities by protests and violence. This is a list of the governors and mayors that are in office in each city and state and their political party.

Governors have jurisdiction over the state and mayors have jurisdiction over the city. 10 of the cities have Republican governors and 19 of them have Democrat governors. There is no governor in the District of Columbia.

Two of the cities have Republican mayors, one city has an Independent mayor and 27 cities including the District of Columbia have Democrat mayors.

Atlanta:
Governor: Republican Brian Kemp
Mayor: Democrat Keisha Bottoms

Baltimore:
Governor: Republican Larry Hogan
Mayor: Democrat Jack Young

Bellevue, Washington:
Governor: Democrat Jay Inslee
Mayor: Democrat Lynne Robinson

Birmingham, Alabama:
Governor: Republican Kay Ivey
Mayor: Democrat Randall Woodfin

Boston:
Governor: Republican Charlie Baker
Mayor: Democrat Marty Walsh

Chicago:
Governor: Democrat Jay Pritzker
Mayor: Democrat Lori Lightfoot

Denver:
Governor: Democrat Jared Polis
Mayor: Democrat Michael Hancock

Detroit:
Governor: Democrat Gretchen Whitmer
Mayor: Democrat Mike Duggan

Fort Lauderdale:
Governor: Republican Ron DeSantis
Mayor: Democrat Dean Trantalis

Houston:
Governor: Republican Greg Abbott
Mayor: Democrat Sylvester Turner

Las Vegas:
Governor: Democrat Steve Sisolak
Mayor: Independent Carolyn Goodman

Long Beach, California:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat Robert Garcia

Los Angeles:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat Eric Garcetti

Louisville:
Governor: Democrat Andy Beshear
Mayor: Democrat Greg Fischer

Miami:
Governor: Republican Ron DeSantis
Mayor: Republican Francis Suarez

New Orleans:
Governor: Democrat John Bel Edwards
Mayor: Democrat LaToya Cantrell

New York City:
Governor: Democrat Andrew Cuomo
Mayor: Democrat Bill de Blasio

Oakland:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat Libby Schaaf

Philadelphia:
Governor: Democrat Tom Wolf
Mayor: Democrat Jim Kenney

Phoenix:
Governor: Republican Doug Ducey
Mayor: Democrat Kate Gallego

Pittsburgh:
Governor: Democrat Tom Wolf
Mayor: Democrat Bill Peduto

Portland, Oregon:
Governor: Democrat Kate Brown
Mayor: Democrat Ted Wheeler

Sacramento, California:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat Darrell Steinberg

Saint Louis:
Governor: Republican Mike Parson
Mayor: Democrat Lyda Krewson

San Diego:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Republican Kevin Faulconer

San Francisco:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat London Breed

Santa Monica:
Governor: Democrat Gavin Newsom
Mayor: Democrat Kevin McKeown

Seattle:
Governor: Democrat Jay Inslee
Mayor: Democrat Jenny Durkan

Tampa:
Governor: Republican Ron DeSantis
Mayor: Democrat Jane Castor

Washington, D.C.:
Governor: N/A
Mayor: Democrat Muriel Bowser

I dreamed that I had a big white car like my grandpa's Ford Thunderbird that I got after he died. I was in a shopping mall and I had loaned the car to some ladies and they drove it into the mall to give it back to me.

I was riding an exercise bike which was like a car seat and I needed to push some buttons on it to communicate with the broadcast. I had to get out to see the screen that was in the back of the seat, but when I pressed the buttons nothing happened. Nobody on the TV responded. I felt like I was trying to win something.

There were women everywhere and they looked like soccer moms. I felt comfortable around them.

I wanted to leave, but before I left I noticed there was a lot of garbage in the passenger seat floorboard and a few things in the seat. A nice, pretty, young girl with a bad complexion was standing outside in front of the passenger door talking to me. She said she was dropping the class on babysitting. She said it was better for old people like Joe Biden.

After she spoke she put her head down. She was holding some folders and books, so I couldn't see her face or eyes. When I looked around the things she was holding, I noticed she was also holding a cell phone. I think she wanted a ride, but the passenger seat was too cluttered.

When I sat in the driver's seat, it was very far back and flat like someone was lying down. I had to straighten the seat and scoot it forward to reach the pedals.

After I started driving, it began making a loud whirring noise. I thought it was the engine at first, but it turned out to be the fan turned on high, so I turned it off and it went away.

As I drove some people looked at me even though they were with others. I wasn't sure if they were checking me out, wondering what the noise was or wondering why I was driving in the mall.

There were lots of people and chairs and some tables in the mall and it looked like a food court. I was driving very slowly down a gentle hill on the right side until it flattened out, but people got in the way, so I switched to the left side and kept rolling.

As I was almost out of the mall, I thought about the reason why I was driving in the mall in case I was stopped by authorities. I was going to say that I loaned my car to some ladies and they drove it into the mall to return it to me, so I had to drive it out of the mall which was the truth.

The car was dirty and it looked like it needed to be washed. Some of the ladies were youthful and strong and looked like they were part of a soccer team. It could have been the women's national soccer team.

The mall looked like Parkway Plaza in El Cajon, California, but it also looked like Queen Ka’ahumanu Center mall in Kahului, Maui and the Lakewood Center mall in Lakewood, California.

I turned right to leave the mall and I could see the bright sunlight outside. The doors were wide open, so I was able to drive out without a problem. As I was about to leave I woke up.

I dreamed that I was getting ready to take a flight and I surprised people that I was leaving.

I had accidentally bought a big, multi-pack of cereal from Walmart with dairy in it. After I took a bite I realized it and wanted to return it.

I was selling a vehicle before I left and I cleaned the inside of it. I think it was a van like the 1985 Toyota van I used to own. I left a few small things in it like some PVC connectors and a utility knife.

I pooped in two containers and wasn’t sure what to do with them. I eventually washed them out and threw them away in a clean, public bathroom with a big mirror in it.

I needed two, big, cardboard boxes from Home Depot to take my things on the plane. I was given a tiny black key because somebody put my things in a storage locker. It looked like I was in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii or downtown San Diego, California.

I was in a dark movie theater looking for some of my things. Hardly anybody was in it, but suddenly it was full.

My dad was a few rows ahead of me and talking to a stranger and trying to help him with something. The stranger acted like he was entitled to his help, but I needed his help. That’s when I told him I was leaving and needed to catch a plane.

I dreamed that I had a bike that I needed to put somewhere, so I could take a shower.

I was at Shadow Mountain Community Church which was also the campus for Christian High School in El Cajon, California. There were lots of people there and they were in line.

I grabbed the bike which needed air in the rear tire, brought it inside and stashed it beside a sofa. It folded in half and became small and out of plain sight. It was a dirt bike like the BMX style. I made small talk with someone.

I had cut in line, but I wasn’t waiting to get inside for the service like they were. I climbed some black stairs to get to a room with a sofa and I jumped over the arm rail to get down. It was an 8-10 foot drop, but I was ok.

As I sized it up I realized that I could hang off a vertical rail and climb down or drop several feet. I think it was a spiral staircase. I wasn’t concerned about dying, but I thought I might injure my ankles. I’m not sure why I didn’t walk down the stairs, but I think I wanted to get down fast and away from the crowd.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to find a shower. This upper room was in the lower campus near the Science and Math classrooms. The gym, men’s locker room and athletic field were nearby. In reality it is a one-story building and there is no second floor.

The people didn’t get in my way or try to stop me as I came and left to find a shower. I woke up before I left the campus and before I showered though.

I dreamed that I was walking through an airport with a few people and Josh Cox was one of them. He was a pro football player now and successfully replaced Tom Brady as quarterback with the New England Patriots.

Cox looked stronger than he did when we played high school soccer together. He had filled out and hit the weights and maybe even taken steroids or HGH.

I told him congratulations on all his success and he looked at me, smiled an we shared a laugh. He wanted to take a side door out of the airport and I almost followed him, but I said I had to go to the bathroom, so I stayed inside with the others.

After he left I told somebody how I played soccer with him in high school and how he didn’t get a lot of playing time. I mentioned how he was one grade behind me. I wondered if he might get me into a football game one day.

Suddenly I was in my father’s living room and only Sarine was there. She was sitting in a low lawn chair on the patio facing the grassy back yard looking at her phone. It was raining and she was getting wet and wearing dark sunglasses.

My fast went very well even though I switched to a detox diet on Day 17. This is my final update.

I successfully avoided food for about 17 days and experienced many great things. I had mental clarity and saved time, energy and money and lost body fat. I also related to people that can’t afford to eat or have no access to food. I like standing in solidarity with the poor.

After researching detoxification diets I decided that it was time to do one and I have been eating only detoxifying foods for the last five days. I have avoided chocolate, granola, wheat, wine, chips and sugar. In addition to my regular coffee and tea regimen, here is the organic food that I have eaten:

Day 1: Spicy pumpkin seeds, almonds, Himalayan salt, four bananas, a green apple, popcorn with olive oil and cayenne, sunflower seeds, a whole pineapple, a small avocado, two very small sweet potatoes and Dandelion tea.

Day 2: A yellow onion, red bell pepper, bean sprouts, extra virgin olive oil, pinto beans, etc.

Day 3: Green, leafy salad mix, freshly squeezed lemon juice, yellow bell pepper, red onion, carrots, tomato, etc.

Day 4: Orange bell pepper, yellow onion, bean sprouts, walnuts, orange, tofu, sunflower seeds, cashews, etc.

Day 5: Popcorn with coconut oil, etc.

On the day that I changed from fasting to a detox diet, I stayed up all night. I ended up taking a 2-hour nap in the afternoon though. I also slept for about 12 hours the next night.

On Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5, I took Epsom salt baths. I had never taken one before, but they’re great. They are relaxing and draw toxins out of my body. I bought a 5-pound bag of Epsom salt, so I still have plenty of salt for more baths and I look forward to taking them.

I was stoked that I was able to fit into a bathing suit I bought several years ago. It is a Size 28 waist, so I haven’t been able to wear it for a while. Also, I mentioned drinking a little wine during my fast, but I ended up having a little only three times. I think it is ok to drink a little organic red wine during a fast, but your body may treat it a little like a simple sugar, so you don’t want too much especially if you are avoiding fruit juice.

On the last few days of my fast, I began drinking a shot of organic extra virgin olive oil each day. It was good and cleansing.

I want to do a saltwater flush soon. It cleans you out very nicely. I have done a couple of them in the past with sea salt, but I will do one with Himalayan salt. They work quickly, so make sure you have an empty stomach and are near a toilet if you try one.

I may fast for a week or two in June. In the meantime, I am on a detox diet and moderating my caloric intake. I probably won’t change my diet too much even when I begin eating my normal diet again because I have plenty of energy and feel strong. Eating lots of fruits and vegetables is also a good way to eat less and maintain a healthy body weight because they are filling and full of vitamins, nutrients and fiber.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

I dreamed that I was trying to catch a flight somewhere. I asked Nancy Pelosi to make the reservation for me and she did. I wasn’t sure what time my plane was leaving, but it was soon; the same day and between 9-10 a.m. and I think it was around 8 a.m.

I was on a football field in the middle of a football game without shoulder pads or a helmet just like everybody else. I wanted to smash a big guy because I needed to block him. I told him I needed to go and he gave me his phone number.

When I looked in my phone to type it my phone showed strange characters that I couldn’t identify. He told me his number, but there was a letter in it. He eventually wrote it on a piece of paper for me. I may have given him my number as well. I told the man that I was going to Maui because he asked, but I may have been going somewhere else.

I was cleaning out my car in a parking garage and putting things in three piles. It looked like my first car which was a blue, 4-door, 1985 Toyota Camry. One pile was for trash, one pile was to pack and one pile was to take in the house. I found a full tube of blue and white, Dr. Bronner’s peppermint toothpaste on the passenger seat floor.

I entered a tall building with many floors via an elevator through the parking garage. I took some clothes out of my backpack on the floor of a big room because I had too much clothing for the trip. Most of the shorts that came out were too large and I had no belt, so I left them.

Inside the big room I took a shower, but there were three people in it. An old man was sitting on a piano bench next to a piano teaching a boy that was playing and the other boy was waiting. Nobody seemed to notice me. Somehow I was showering in the middle of the room without a shower (e.g. not in the bathroom). I looked down and saw my flaccid penis. Water wasn’t getting everywhere, but I felt like I was getting clean.

I worried that I was going to miss my plane. I thought about asking Nancy to reschedule my flight to a few hours later, but I didn’t want to call her and I figured I would just hurry and handle it myself.

I dreamed that I was in a crowded park like a theme park and people were walking around. I was with Sarine and people were playing games and winning things like a carnival.

I left Sarine to play something and had to climb up wood logs that were spaced a few feet apart like a fence or a ladder. There were several of them. When I got to the top I was able to grab three things that were in the air by themselves.

Before I headed to the bottom I had to drop everything that I grabbed to get it below. One item was a an oblong Speak N Spell game in a colorful box. One was a white plate that I felt like I possessed earlier and the other item was a great prize, but I wasn't sure what it was.

As I descended I was very light like I was floating. I didn’t use my legs, but I hung on with my hands and let go of one log to grab the one below it with my other hand.

When I got to the ground I grabbed the best prize first and almost hurried back to Sarine. However, I remembered the plate and grabbed it too. It was stuck in a bush and there was another white plate even more lodged in the bush that I left.

As I was looking for my other prize I heard people cheering and I noticed a familiar looking man with it confidently walking and people were excited for him. He had a horizontal, white and yellow San Diego Chargers lightning bolt on his blue collar. I asked somebody what the prize was because I couldn't tell on the box. It looked like a colorful spaceship and somebody said it was a Speak N Spell.

Instead of chasing him and confronting him I decided to let it go and let him have it. I was about to return to Sarine, but it was so crowded that I asked somebody if they could call her and tell her I was on my way, so she could look for me. Right afterwards I woke up.

The theme park looked a little like Frontier Land in Disneyland. The atmosphere was like a summer camp. I felt safe and at home even though there was such a great cloud of witnesses.

There were some people with name tags watching me win the prizes. They acted like they had authority as if they were in the military and they were dressed in brown.

I felt like I had already won some prizes before I won the big one, but I don't remember winning them or what they were.

Hello,

I have written dozens of books as you can see, but when people go to my Amazon author page that I created they are exposed to my oldest, religious books. I am no longer religious, so they do not give my readers an accurate depiction of me or my recent hard work. It is essentially dishonest.

The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained, The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained, The Collegiate Workbook and 10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings need to be removed from my Amazon author page or at least removed from the front page.

I wrote those books over a decade ago while I was being deceived in a dangerous cult. I left the cult and now it is only fair to remove them from the top of my page, so my newer works can be seen first. Also, I don’t like looking at them. People that don’t understand your policy and your system likely think I want those books seen first and I do not.

I am aware that people can click links and see newer books or they can scroll down. However, your default mode is reflecting poorly on me and I would like it changed. I am proud of the way I am now. I do not care for the way I used to be.

Please advise. I would like to maintain my business relationship with you if possible.

Sincerely,
Jason

It is almost time to celebrate my one year anniversary because my last day on Twitter was June 14, 2019! I recently realized something though.

I visited my Amazon Authors page because I wanted to remove a couple of old, religious books I wrote from my page. I didn't think the way they were coming up on the top was representative of the dozens of books I have written since then. It wouldn't let me, so I contacted Amazon, but that's another story.

When I clicked on my 10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings book to see how I could remove it, I noticed a comment with a graphic. The graphic was a screenshot of my last two tweets on Twitter. Apparently, Emme Olivera bought a copy of my book before she tweeted me because Amazon only lets people that buy the book comment on it. Sadly, her review had nothing to do with the book, but I digress.

It dawned on me that I might know Emme Olivera. I knew a lady named Emme and she was the only person I have ever known named Emme. She was a Hispanic lady with a daughter that lived in military housing with an Irish guy. I taught her daughter guitar lessons and she eventually did a barter with me because she said she was a massage therapist. I went to her home and got a massage and taught her daughter. I also coached her daughter in soccer with my daughter.

This lady found me in an ad that I put in The Rock Church's website. She lived a few blocks from the church and wanted a Christian to teach her daughter. However, I think she was actually Catholic.

When these things occurred to me, I visited her Twitter page at http://twitter.com/emmeolivera and noticed it was suspended. However, I visited the archive.org capture of her page from July 16, 2019 and saw her profile. This is what it said:

Emme
@EmmeOlivera

WokeAF RedPilled! Wine and Louis
Vutton Enthusiast! Lindsey Graham is my
spirit animal! TRUMP is a gift from God!
#FloridaStrong
Chattahoochee, FL

If it is the same Emme Olivera, then she either moved to Florida or made a fake profile. Click the graphic above for a full-sized screenshot.

I thought it was strange that she was attacking me in a conversation about abortion. It seemed like she was enticing me on purpose. The way she acted by reporting me to Twitter and immediately taking screenshots and posting them on my Amazon book’s page with a one-star review lends credibility to that theory.

Leaving Twitter was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I have more time and I have been writing my thoughts instead of tweeting them. I already published one book of them and I will publish another book of them at the end of the year. However, I miss tweeting certain people because it was the only way I communicated with them. I also miss my followers.

Before I sent the tweet I thought about it for a minute. I knew that it could get me banned from Twitter because I had already received two bogus suspensions for things that I said, but I didn't want to walk on eggshells.

It is shocking that I invested time in her daughter in soccer and guitar lessons and she told me that people should not let their kids near me. She quickly deleted those tweets to me probably because she was ashamed and didn't want to get suspended from Twitter. By the way they call a ban a suspension.

You can read her off-topic, agenda-driven book review on Amazon.com if you want. I posted this reply to her:

“Poor baby. I told this woman that I was pro-choice and she told me that people should not let their kids near me. Notice she didn't quote the awful things she said to me to support her anti-choice opinion.

I am part Seminole. She is in Florida. I have never talked to anyone like that on social media, but nobody has ever talked to me like she did. Not to mention my ex-wife ran off with my kid (which she apparently knew) and the government in California took my teaching credential* for legally growing medical marijuana in my house (for medical marijuana patients).

I am not ashamed of what I am and I do not try to control millions of people with my beliefs. In fact, I have no beliefs now and I just recorded a video called Unbelief to explain why. This woman makes me proud to be who I am now because I am no longer like her.

Note: Her Twitter account is suspended now.

--

The picture in her profile is not her, so it is either a fake or a different person. I suspect it's a stock photo that she found online.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. I ultimately blame Twitter because they should allow people to say whatever they want. Unless they allow any lawful speech on their platform they are trying to control people and I won't be controlled. I would rather keep my data and my art on my website. There is no good reason they can’t make data from a personal web page resolve on their website. Furthermore, it is sad and pathetic that entities like the U.S. government must login to a Twitter account to communicate with people.

Lastly, I have little respect for the anti-choice crowd. I am willing to formally debate an anti-choicer too. If you extrapolate what they think it is a horrible, mean-spirited, untenable position, so I have little patience for them. I think they know the way they are too and that's why they lurk in the shadows and use shady tactics. Nobody should tell another person what to do with their body and invoking a deity to do it is the worst kind of awful. In fact, I received my government stimulus today and made four $40 donations to Freedom From Religion Foundation, NARAL Pro-Choice, #TeamTrees and NORML, so I put my money where my mouth is. See the first four screenshots on my screenshots page if you don’t believe me.

Take care,
Jason

* Correction: After I took a misdemeanor plea deal after fighting four bogus felonies for a year in California for growing medical cannabis for a medical marijuana collective in 2011, they made me surrender my Emergency 30-Day Substitute Teaching Permit because the misdemeanor was in child endangerment.

Today is the midpoint of my four week fast and it has went very well.

A couple of days ago I rode my bike to the laundromat and a couple of food stores. I had plenty of energy, but I was a little tired when I returned. I think it was because I have not been exercising lately and due to the fast.

I bought some organic honey, organic apple cider vinegar and organic green tea for the fast and some food for after the fast. However, I have been thinking about eating the chips!

I thought the Kirkland raw organic honey would be good to consume during my fast, but I changed my mind. I think my body treats it like a simple sugar instead of the medicine that unadulterated honey is. I think consuming it by itself resembles consuming fruit juice by itself and it is better to eat the whole fruit.

I bought more of the organic, raw “spreadable” honey because it is better. Neither honey has sugar added, but the Kirkland one resembles pasteurized honey and the spreadable honey resembles caramel. Instead of consuming a dollop of both daily, I am consuming two dollops of the spreadable one.

I use organic extra virgin olive oil on my body daily and it is good for my skin. I also use it on my armpits and it mitigates smells. Pulling it is good for my overall mouth health too.

My body has not smelled too much, but my armpits have smelled a little like chlorine. The apple cider vinegar might have something to do with it. I have been drinking two swigs of it daily.

I brush my teeth once or twice each day even though I don’t eat. I even floss them about every other day. You may not think it is necessary, but it is.

I have considered stopping my fast early, pausing my fast and having a “cheat day” and extending it to 40 days. I like to keep my options open and keep things fluid. No pun intended. All I know is I I need to keep going and I won’t quit or fail by accident. Whatever I decide to do it will be purposeful.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

Last night or this morning I dreamed that I was standing in a barren field with a child and there was a very strong wind. I jumped and stayed airborne, suspended horizontally with my arms outstretched. My hands were clenched into fists as if I was holding a pole like a flag, but there was no pole. The child marveled.

I also dreamed that I made a circular, glass plate with a small, blue design in the middle of it. Unlike a traditional plate, it had raised sides around it that extended a couple of inches upward as if it was designed to hold water. I tested it to see if it was flat enough to rest on a table without wobbling and it was a little wobbly until I pushed on it and it became flat in the middle and stable. It was warm and still pliable, so I could mold it.

I also dreamed that I was in a room of people sitting in chairs, but I was standing and talking to my childhood friend Charlie Kohler. It looked like they were waiting to hear somebody speak. He had big muscles and spoke in a deep voice like he did in adulthood and his young, blonde daughter was sitting behind him and one chair over. People were getting food from a table in the room and I asked him if he wanted anything. I wanted to return to the field to fly in the wind again.

On Sunday night or early Monday morning, I dreamed that I was playing in a soccer game with little girls. It was tied 0-0.

We were at midfield and the ball went into a big hole in the ground. Some kid grabbed it and the referee said it was a handball. I almost grabbed it, then I said, “Can I touch it sir?” and he said yes.

I grabbed the ball and put it on the ground to take a free kick. It was barely on my team’s side of the field at midfield that was marked with a white line. I kicked a low, hard, line-drive to my team’s forwards. There were two girls against one of their players and it ricocheted off one player and another one put it in the back of the net.

After we scored the goal we jogged back to our positions and suddenly we were in a classroom. All the students were at their desks in elementary school. I walked around and realized the game was over and there was one seat available next to a girl that looked disorganized. Her belongings were scattered on the floor along with a picture that she drew. I was about to take the seat next to her and I woke up.

I dreamed that my dad and I went to a concert in Los Angeles and it looked like somebody’s home. Billy Joe Armstrong was there and he was about to play some songs. He was getting ready in the kitchen with a lady that was having trouble with singing a part and I said maybe she did not write the melody. She ended up singing the harmony in Chasing A Ghost. Later I heard the song over the venue’s speaker and R.E.M. was performing it. I don’t recall Billy Joe singing it, but I remembered hearing it.

My friend from then Kappa Alpha fraternity Bobby Cherry was there and he came in the room. My dad and I were sitting in the back and he said something and entered and left fast and I said hi. He had his dreadlocks like he did in college. I asked my dad if he remembered Bobby bailing me out of jail which happened in reality 25 years ago and he said yes.

The venue had an organic cardamom machine in the back. I told my dad I needed to buy some and suggested maybe 8 ounces. It was $18.69 a pound and the price was written in white on the glass. It was a big machine like a popcorn machine. I asked the woman working there if I could buy some and she said I needed to come back on Monday or Tuesday.

Something was wrong outside the venue. People looked angry and I thought they were upset at me. It might have been because we were taking cuts in line and racing to the front.

We hastily got into the venue without waiting after walking around a big, tall, dirty, white building on an incline. However, when we did we were the first ones indside. The concessions were directly in front of us. There were two people in bed on my left with a white sheet over their head in a poorly lit room. They looked afraid and peeked at us.

I asked the woman working behind a wood counter if they had any organic food and she said no and insulted the way I looked. I asked her if she had looked in the mirror lately. She had a double chin.

While I was sitting in the venue somebody brought me a big cup of hot water and put it at my feet on the right. It looked like my coffee cup in reality which has colorful words related to Hawaii on it, but it was bigger. I thought it was a drink that was not organic, so I did not drink it at first. However, eventually I realized it looked like water, so I took a small sip and it was hot water. I decided to avoid drinking it though.

I remembered how I had been drinking a lot of cups of tea and coffee lately and how it was easy to make them indoors. I did not need to ask anybody for hot water. I added up the number of cups I drink a day and it was 8-10. I did this in the dream about reality.

In the venue I mentioned Jenny Shepherd who was my first college girlfriend and I asked my dad if he liked her. He said no because she was giving money to somebody he did not like.

My dad seemed exactly like I expected him to be. Sort of quiet and supportive, but not looking like he was having a great time.

Suddenly I had a little popcorn in my mouth and I was chewing it. I wondered if it was organic or not and thought about spitting it out. I did not recall putting it in my mouth. I remembered that I was fasting though. I didn’t swallow it.

I told my dad that LA was weird. I said LA is like three San Diegos.

After we left my dad was driving us down the street. A beautiful, tall, blonde woman was skateboarding down the street very quickly as fast as a car and we passed her on the left. She looked at me and smiled. A few minutes later she passed us on the left. She had flowers in her wavy hair like a headband.

I told my dad that we stopped at that place to eat with a group from Hawaii and he said he remembered. However, I was referring to a group that I was in that went to Israel and Greece in reality and we did not stop there.

I did not see the members of Green Day there. I think it was a solo gig or with Longshot. Billy Joe was with a woman in the kitchen and I think they were washing their hands. I heard running water. I did not recognize her, but she looked like a singer.

Billy Joe had dyed black hair and seemed irritated about something. I think he was taking a break in between songs. When I saw Billy Joe I told my dad that he was marred with grown up kids and he said huh.

The venue was on a hill and I could see down it like I was above it. It looked like Griffith Observatory’s view and it was in the daytime and bright outside.

I woke up to a crazy sounding bird again. It had four descending notes and did it 3 or 4 times. I thought about recording it.

My fast has went very well.

I made two bowel movements on Day 1, but didn’t have another one until Day 6. I made two solid, normal-sized bowel movements. I think it was honey and a little food that was left inside me.

The last thing I ate on May 2 was organic pinto beans. I like to eat them before fasting because they make good bowel movements. I don’t like eating things that might not pass well.

Each day I typically drink several organic things. They include several cups of coffees and green teas, one cup of hibiscus and rooibos teas and apple cider vinegar. I was drinking one of my cups of green tea each day with 3-4 organic cardamom pods, but I ran out today. I also drink copious amounts of water.

I haven’t been hungry and it has been pretty easy. The only time I think about food is when I play FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape. I recently downloaded it and I like it even though it’s all about growing food.

I don’t have much food in my house. It helps to keep it out of view, so I haven’t seen it.

It feels like my posture has improved and I am standing taller. I also look leaner and younger. I think I lose about a pound or more every two days.

I have also drank a little organic red wine twice (e.g. 2-3 ounces). I think it has beneficial properties. I also think it is better than fruit juice because fruit juice usually has sugar added even if it isn’t on the label. I don’t think fruit juice fasting is very beneficial though.

I have gotten into the habit of having a spoonful of raw honey in the afternoon and a squirt of raw honey in the evening daily. They are from different sources and I think they have beneficial properties as well.

I also swallow some Himalayan pink salt every morning. It nourishes me and meets my daily quota for sodium, so my body functions well. I don’t measure it, but I swallow about a teaspoon.

I had some eye strain for a couple of days. It started on one eye one day and then it was in the other eye the next day. It went away and my eyes feel fine now. I think it happened because I have spent a lot of time online looking at screens.

In recent days I have added a little organic cinnamon to my coffee. I prefer black coffee, but the organic French roast I bought is a little bitter, so it improves the taste. I also think cinnamon has some health benefits.

Each day I take two organic supplements in vegetable gel caps that I made. I fill one type with organic garlic and I fill the other type with organic turmeric and a little organic black pepper. They reduce inflammation and strengthen my immune system. They also have antimicrobial and antifungal properties among other things.

I do not take any pharmaceutical drugs or over-the-counter medications. However, I do take a daily B12 tablet that was made from plant sources. Since I am a vegetarian I do not get hardly any B12 and it aids in the production of red blood cells.

Every day and sometimes even twice a day I pull organic extra virgin olive oil. I swish it around in my mouth for about 15 minutes and spit it out. Afterwards I rinse my mouth and brush my teeth. I also rub the oil on my body.

I haven’t exercised too much because I am indoors due to the government’s stay-at-home order. I have taken a couple of short bike rides though.

On Day 4 I started getting colder than I normally get indoors, so I started wearing socks. A lower body temperature is common when you fast because your body generates heat when it digests food. It is not unbearable and I prefer to stay cool anyway.

This probably goes without saying, but I have showered daily. Your body burns fat as fuel in a process called ketosis, so you will smell different and not good when you fast. It is a good idea to stay clean.

I feel strong and I look healthier. I am determined to continue and finish strong. Quitting early is the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I am considering extending it to 40 days.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

While I was intermittently fasting every other day I decided to fast for four weeks (28 days in a row).

I like fasting. It helps me break away from monotony and focus. Also, I have not been exercising very much because of Hawaii’s stay-at-home order. Therefore, eating every other day was not serving the same purpose it did in Maui.

I started this fast on May 3 and I intend on breaking it on May 31. However, I might extend it to 40 days. I have fasted for 40 days three times and I know I can do it. Read about my most recent 40 day fast here.

Yesterday, I bought some organic things from the store that I will need. I purchased dark and medium roast coffee (light roast has more acid that can bother your stomach), apple cider vinegar, green tea, honey and extra virgin olive oil. I already had rooibos tea, hibiscus tea, honey and Himalayan pink salt.

If you have fasted for an extended period of time, then you know you can’t drink much honey. If you have too much you will get the squirts. Sometimes I don’t have any or I drink a small squirt when I get an upset stomach. I prefer raw organic honey the most.

While you fast I think it is even more important than usual to avoid ingesting plastics and synthetic chemicals that may be harmful. I use a glass spray bottle for the olive oil and a metal tea ball to brew loose leaf tea. Plastic leaches and so does bleach in bleached coffee filters (buy unbleached ones if you must use them). Your body doesn’t need those things.

Pulling oil is good for mouth and gum health. I put some in my mouth and swish it around for 10-15 minutes and spit it out. Spit it in the trash because it could clog your drain. Rinse your mouth with water afterwards and brush your teeth. It helps with bad breath too which is a notorious sign of somebody fasting.

I will be writing a lot and recording videos while I fast. After I record my 10th and final video in the My Journey (2012-2020) series tomorrow I will record at least six videos on abortion, unbelief, marijuana, privacy, fasting and COVID-19. You know. Keeping it light.

My body will stay in ketosis while I fast and I have discovered that body fat is actually a great fuel source. I always have lots of energy and mental awareness. In fact, I think the “keto” diet (ketogenic diet) is dumb, but eating that way tries to get your body into ketosis.

I took pictures on Day 1 and I intend on taking pictures on Day 7, Day 14, Day 21 and Day 28. I don’t have a lot of excess body fat, but I have some fat that I will lose. I imagine that I will lose about 15 pounds.

Here I am on Day 1!



Fasting has been such a great discipline for me that I intend on publishing a fasting book that I am writing. It is a great way to pursue better health and many people could fast to avoid health problems and diseases. Consequently, I intend on selling it in paperback and Kindle like my other books, but I also intend on putting it on my website for free.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

I was not actually driving on Washington, but I was driving east on Oakdale. Perhaps that symbolizes how I wanted to be a politician and ran for governor in California and lost. Even though I wasn’t on the road I thought I was on, I was still on the right path and going the way I wanted to go.

If I was going east on Oakdale, then turned on East Main in East County, does that mean I was in East Jesus Nowhere?

I didn’t look at Jordan because I was driving, but it may have symbolized the way that looking at her again will probably make me cry and I will look away when I first see her again. I haven’t seen her since 2012. She was probably a young child because that’s how I remember her and that’s when we had fun together.

I turned right on East Main and turning right could symbolize choosing the right path. The convenience store on the corner had been robbed in real life when I was a kid. That was where Sarine was pulled over by the police in my dream. Perhaps that symbolized the way that she stole my daughter Jordan from me with the help of law enforcement even though they were supposed to enforce the law.

Before my great grandma Alice lived in a rest home she lived in Shady Lane Apartments which is a block or two away. Also, right before I left San Diego in 2012 I spent one night in a seedy hotel on East Main Street because it was cheap, near the freeway and I thought nobody would ever find me there. Perhaps Main symbolized several things like my grandma’s kindness and wisdom and leaving who and what I loved for a long time behind literally and figuratively in the rear view mirror.

I used to have an old 1985 Toyota van and I used to want a big conversion van. Perhaps it symbolized something I used to want and no longer want. Also, since it’s called a “conversion” van maybe it had religious significance (e.g. conversion/deconversion to/from Christianity). I used to be a Christian.

The college classroom was the same room I took a guitar class in at Long Beach City College. It was in 2013 and I earned an A and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, after I took the class there were budget cuts to the college and they stopped offering it. Perhaps that symbolized the way my marriage was fun and good in the beginning, but it was quickly and swiftly over and gone and I was powerless to change it.

Sarine saying she was supposed to be with me could have been the fulfillment of a wish. When we had marriage problems, she gave up and stopped loving me. Perhaps it was symbolic of the way I expected her to love me.

I didn’t show any emotion or have a reaction. I think that symbolized how I didn’t know if I could trust her and how I thought she might have been lying because her mom told her to. Her mom controlled how she felt in our marriage and sometimes her mom made her happy and we got along well and sometimes her mom made her angry and we didn’t. I didn’t know what they said because they spoke in a foreign language. I only knew what she told me after she got off the phone.

The voice over the loudspeaker that I couldn’t understand might have symbolized God and the writing on the wall. In a way my head was in the sand until I finally gave in around 2009-2010 and agreed to divorce her. I committed to her and God and figured she would honor her promise to do the same thing, so we could weather any storm. It wasn’t easy for me to discern that lie and it took a long time to give up like she did. We saw lots of marriage counselors and I took our problems seriously, but I always worked from a position of knowing we would be together forever and in retrospect I was wrong and deluded.

The police probably symbolized judgment and the law. Sarine apparently getting off without a serious legal consequence could have been symbolic of what happened in real life. Also, after she got out of jail for domestic violence against Jordan and me in 2005 she was nice and humble and wanted to make an effort to iron out our relationship issues. Perhaps it symbolized that as well.

This morning I woke up and I had been dreaming in my sleep. This is what I recall.

I was driving in El Cajon, California down Washington as if I was coming from my friend Bobby’s house. Somebody was in my car and we were talking. I never saw her face, but I think it was my daughter Jordan as a young child.

My former wife Sarine was in another car and I was following her. We turned right on Main and a police officer pulled her over and I kept slowly driving. I wondered what happened and saw his lights flashing and wondered if I was going to be pulled over next.

I looked in my rear view mirror and saw her being pulled over and slowly rolling into the convenience store parking lot on the corner with the police car behind her. There was an old white conversion van in front of me.

Suddenly we were inside a college classroom and we were talking. She was out of breath and exhausted like a hot mess and said she was supposed to be with me and threw her hands in the air. Jordan was with me there with her.

We heard a voice on a loudspeaker, but could not understand what it was saying.

I woke up to strange noises. A bird was outside the door and squealing. I had never heard anything like it.

I met a girl in Israel named Rexella Richardson and this is about my relationship with her.

In 1997-1998, I visited Israel with my graduate school on a study tour. Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary took a group of undergraduates, graduates and laypeople to Israel, Greece and Jordan. For me it was an academic experience and I wrote many papers for course credit.

During the initial orientation in our hotel I met a beautiful blonde girl named Rexella Richardson. She was there with her mother even though she wasn’t a student at Liberty in Lynchburg, Virginia like I was. She was actually a student at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee and she was from Atlanta, Georgia.

As we toured the biblical sites I saw Rexy over and over and we flirted with each other. She was sweet and I liked how I made her laugh. She seemed into me too.

While we were there we got baptized in the Jordan River and sang Christmas carols in Bethlehem during Orthodox Christmas which is on January 7. We also took communion at the Garden Tomb and visited the Upper Room.

When we had free time we coincidentally ran into each other in the lobby and talked. Eventually we started having a physical relationship. She even performed oral sex in my hotel room.

We both had deep religious convictions at the time, so we avoided sexual intercourse. After making out on a Tel Aviv lifeguard tower, we left Israel and went to Greece with the group. Our group was much smaller in Athens because not everybody went there. We saw the Parthenon and biblical sites together and enjoyed each other’s company.

By the time we returned to the United States we were dating. We exchanged contact information and kept in touch on the phone and via email.

Rexy’s mom was very nice and I talked to her on the phone and emailed her. She liked me a lot for some reason. I think she admired my zeal and thought I was handsome. Both of them talked with a Southern accent and were sweet Christian people.

I visited Rexy and she visited me. One thing led to another and we decided to take a road trip together. We drove to South Carolina and I bought her an engagement ring at Zales and we got engaged to be married. It was our first engagement, so we were excited. I was 23 years old and she was a couple years younger than me.

After South Carolina we visited a few other states on the way to hear a Christian concert in Texas. We were fans of Caedmon’s Call and part of their fan club called The Guild, so we drove to Shiloh, Texas for their exclusive fan club concert. We camped, sang, danced and had fun around the bonfire.

We also visited Stone Mountain and attended a music festival called Atlanta Fest. Lots of Christian bands played and we danced and sang and had a blast. I pitched a tent for us and we camped there for several days.

At one point we flew to Monterey, California for a Christian music festival called Spirit West Coast. It was exciting and we camped there as well.

After the concert we drove a rental car south along the scenic 1 freeway to San Diego, California to visit my parents. They liked her and we hung out with them as we stayed at a beautiful hotel on Mission Bay. I took her to church and showed her some of the places I enjoyed when I grew up there.

We got along well and had a lot in common. However, we had minor disagreements from time to time. I think they were just ordinary relationship issues that young people tend to have.

Somewhere along the way we began having sex. I think we felt a little religious guilt, but we justified it because we were engaged to be married. There was nobody else that I wanted to be with and I loved her. She said she loved me too and we were close.

After I returned to Virginia and she returned to Atlanta, Georgia when school was out, I visited her. She took me to Dad’s Garage comedy club and Andy Stanley’s North Point Community Church even though I was more familiar with his dad’s ministry. We even saw a premarital counselor to iron out issues in our relationship.

When I visited her parents’ house, her dad pulled a gun on me after I got out of my car with her! I ducked behind a wheel well as Rexy ran inside, got her clothes and things and left with me. Apparently, as an ultra conservative Christian he had abused her and expected me to ask him if I could marry her before asking her. However, I had a relationship with her mom and I had asked her and she already said yes. Both of them lived in fear of him and I doubt they told me everything he said and did to them.

After school resumed I visited her at Bryan College and we got a hotel room. Unfortunately, her friends visited us while we there and told the school that we slept together. Having premarital sex was against my school’s rules and her school’s rules. Therefore, Liberty expelled me and Bryan College expelled her too.

Since I was renting an apartment in Lynchburg, Virginia, Rexy decided to live with me there. I took her to 24 Hour Fitness and we worked out together. We also used their tanning beds. I gave her spending money because she didn’t have a job. We attended Thomas Road Baptist Church and heard Jerry Falwell’s sermons.

One day she started crying while we were having sex and I didn’t understand why. I thought it was because she had been abused by her dad. Perhaps she wanted a baby and wasn’t getting pregnant. Perhaps she fell out of love with me because our lives had changed so much. Whatever the case was she ended up leaving and we broke up.

I didn’t keep in touch with Rexella or her mom, but when I searched for Rexy online many years ago it looked Iike she was married and living in Florida. I also discovered that her dad had died a couple of years after we broke up and I wondered if it was a judgment from God or if his wife did something to him. I wish her and her mom Carolyn all the best.

Today is Day 18 of my 40 day fast in 80 days and this is an update.

My fasting has went well. I am eating every other day for 80 days, so I have fasted nine days this month and I have eaten nine days too.

Hawaii’s government has issued a stay-at-home order for people and they only want people to do “essential business”, so I haven’t been exercising as much as usual. I usually walk or ride a bike everywhere including the cafe, gym (which are both closed), etc. This has caused me to burn fewer calories, but it hopefully won’t last too much longer.

Several days ago I decided to record (and broadcast live) 10 podcasts about my journey over the last eight years. I also decided to record them every other day on fasting days. Yesterday I recorded and broadcasted my first one and it went very well. I was even able to archive them on my computer and server and upload the video and audio file, so people can watch or hear it.

Before I broadcasted the live podcast I decided to start broadcasting live on Periscope. Since I used to comment on live mainstream media broadcasts on social media I wanted to watch CNN and MSNBC live and broadcast my comments in real time. It worked very well and in my first day of broadcasting (e.g. a few hours) 472 people watched and heard. I have done it twice and the second time was successful as well and I even watched a little Fox News. Gotta be fair and balanced.

On April 12, I created a web page for screenshots and started uploading screenshots throughout the day to my website. Since I stopped using Instagram it has come in handy. I also created a web page for my audio files and uploaded a couple of vocal clips to my website a few days ago. I intend on uploading more soon.

I am writing four books right now. Here is some info about each one of them.

109 Haikus in Kauai is my third book of haiku poetry. I started it on April 14 and I have written five haikus so far. In 2018, I wrote 102 Haikus in Hawaii Kai in Oahu and in 2019 I wrote 103 Haikus in Maui in (you guessed it) Maui.

A Brand New World: The Addendum is the 11th book in my A Brand New World series. The first 10 books featured 500 stories that I published in Kindle and paperback formats. I started The Addendum on April 5 and I have written seven stories so far and they are on my website.

At the end of the year I will publish a book of original quotations. It might be called 2020 Quotes, but I haven’t decided yet. I write them every day and I have written hundreds of them, so I will have thousands by December 31.

I am also writing a book of general poetry and I started it on April 2. I have written two and a half poems so far. It will be my 22nd or 23rd published book of poetry depending on which poetry book I finish writing first.

This blog is not an advertisement, but it shows how creative a person can be while fasting. I think the extra time I have because I don’t have to eat or prepare food is helpful. I think fasting helps me focus and stay focused. However, I tend to go to the food stores on fasting days to have food ready on eating days. I ride my bike there and have plenty of energy.

A few days ago I had three dreams in one night. I called them nightmares although that might be debatable. All I know is they were disturbing and very detailed, so I typed everything that happened. When my friend asked what they meant, I analyzed them and was able to interpret them. There was a lot of symbolism and wish fulfillment and they referred to events in the past, present and future.

When I eat I only eat organic food. I have been eating blue, white and orange carrots, pinto beans, bananas, red bell peppers, oranges, whole wheat bread, jalapeño potato chips, habanero pea chips, dark chocolate, spicy pumpkin seeds, popcorn, raisins, sunflower seeds, salad, whole wheat tortillas, cashews, almonds, walnuts, lentil soup, honey, taco shells and celery. I have taken turmeric with black pepper supplements and garlic supplements multiple times daily too.

Every day I drink lots of water and organic liquids. These include green tea, hibiscus tea, rooibos tea, coffee and red wine. I also drank a little chamomile tea until I ran out.

I do not use table salt and I usually avoid sea salt, but I add Himalayan pink salt to some foods. I also swallow some pink salt on fasting days because my body needs it and doesn’t get it from food. I wash it down with water and it gives me a boost.

I will probably blog another update next month. Good luck in your fasts and diets.

When I analyze dreams I recognize that some things are symbolic and some things are a fulfillment of a wish. Water represents spirituality. Charlie and me in the water probably represented our spirituality because we grew up in the church and he is still a Christian. Sarine on the floor could have represented her being homeless. It could have represented us not getting along too because sometimes she slept on the floor after an argument.

I think the neighbor across the hall that was deformed might have represented Steve Skinner who was the neighbor that lived next door to me in Pacific Beach; the one that I argued with that told the police on my medical marijuana grow. Perhaps it represented his judgment because it looked like his head had been burned. Maybe his resemblance to Fauci was due to Fauci sounding right to some people at first, but like a selfish alarmist trying to cover his ass eventually like my old neighbor did.

The bathroom stall that resembled the one at Long Beach City College was where somebody stole my backpack in 2013. They made off with my passport, wallet, computer, etc. However, it definitely wasn’t the same exact stall. Since I didn’t know where the stall was in the dream perhaps it represented not knowing who stole my belongings or where they were.

Mark Baldwin might have been the first person I smoked pot with when I could relax and have fun without stressing about going home to my parents’ house afterwards. The plants in his photograph weren’t pot plants, but they could have represented pot plants. I have thought about moving to Washington, D.C. and D.C. has had legal weed for a while. The paper photograph might have represented the good ole days.

Pat Keough could have been in my dream because we were good friends and had fun hanging out together. My parents let me take him to Hawaii with us on vacation when I was 16 years old. He was with me in Poipu, Kauai when I lost my virginity to one woman on the beach, made out with another girl in a jacuzzi and fooled around with Rhonda Barondess in her condo. About 25 years ago he even bailed me out of jail. He was the first one in my core group of high school friends to get married and then he disappeared and had other responsibilities.

Alex Minassian (my former wife’s cousin) and I got along well. The apartment felt like the apartment that I rented on Noyes St. and he visited once. He is a drummer and we played music together and jammed in Pasadena, California once. He was a little mysterious and I think he did the same thing (walked out of the living room and into my home’s hallway without saying anything) when he visited. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He was Arab and his family had ties to Lebanon (which he visited).

I only had an Android cell phone for one month of my life in 2012. It was squeezed in between times when I owned iPhones. I bought it right before I drove across the country to see my grandma in North Carolina because I thought she was on her deathbed. It turned out that she was just in a convalescent home (a real bad one). Perhaps it symbolized traveling. I used its map feature and learned how to use it on the fly.

My daughter Jordan is 17 years old and turning 18 in September. I think that is why there was either $17 or $18 that Sarine stole from me and returned. In 2012, the government awarded her 90% custody and she essentially stole Jordan from me (all things considered) and I intend on being with Jordan after she turns 18. I won’t have anything to do with Sarine and I have not honored the government’s decision to be a father 10% of the time.

The picture Jordan drew probably represented nostalgia and her as a kid like I remember her. Sarine gave me some of her artwork in 2012 and it was probably the last thing I received that was from Jordan.

The alcohol swabs might have been a fulfillment of a wish. I use them daily and I am running out of them. I miss the Costco ones, but I buy Walmart ones now. Walmart has two kinds and one is low quality and the other is twice as expensive as the ones that Costco used to sell.

Charlie carrying me on his shoulders might have represented the way that he has always been there for me. It could have represented us as kids in the pool too. I was a chubby kid and besides my dad he might have been the only person to put me on his shoulders in a swimming pool.

The phone facing outward is interesting. When I used to use WiFi at Kahului’s McDonalds there was a JW that had his phone clipped on his belt facing outward with a big JW sticker on it. I am always sensitive to people pointing their camera at me and I was always displeased when he walked by me and I made a few comments to him about several things. Eventually he got rid of it. I am not sure how I clipped it in the dream because it didn’t have a typical case clip. It was just sort of suspended on my shorts by magic!

Sarine had a bleeding problem in real life. I think it might have been caused when she was raped by pastor John Maynard as a child. It was gross and I think she suffers from sexual dysfunction mainly because of that experience. She would bleed when she wasn’t on her period and she would usually bleed a lot when she was on it and when we had sex. I didn’t know about it before we got married because we didn’t have sexual intercourse before marriage for religious reasons and I think it ended up hurting our marriage a lot. I think she has repressed her thoughts and feelings about what happened.

It was dark everywhere except for the restroom with Charlie. I think the darkness represented the difficulty I had seeing the truth about the people that were around me. The darkness outside when we were in the water could have represented the dark world.

Last night (technically early this morning) I had three dreams. This is what I dreamed.

I dreamed that my former wife Sarine Hamalian was sleeping on the floor to my left and I was sleeping alone in the bed next to her. I woke up and she was gone. It was very dark and the bedroom door on the right was open a little.

It was very dark and my high school friend Mark Baldwin was standing in my home a few feet from the door because he was visiting from Washington, D.C., but he couldn’t stay very long. He showed me a photograph of the kitchen in his house and several large, green plants that were hanging from the ceiling and no people were in it.

The neighbors were awake and it was early in the morning and dark. It looked a little like my apartment in Pacific Beach. One old man was short and had a deformed face and was gross looking. It looked melted and scarred. Their door was open directly across the hall. There were also two other elderly people with things in their hands inside the apartment.

I realized that Baldwin probably had marijuana and I was thinking about asking him if he had any. He looked great and like he did in high school with a full head of hair and lean. I told him he looked good and he took it in stride. Somebody else was there with him, but I didn’t see him. I thought it may have been one of my best friends (and his friend) from high school Patrick Keough.

The old people across the hall (we were at the end of the hall and the end was to my right) looked like they were moving things, but I couldn’t tell if they were moving stuff around the apartment or moving out. I said, “Apologies” because it was so early and I had visitors. Everything was dark and they didn’t mind. They didn’t stop what they were doing or say much.

The old woman in their apartment was overweight, had long hair and looked familiar and the deformed man looked a little like Anthony Fauci, but uglier; bald and smaller. He looked like his head had been in a fire.

There was another old man that looked like he was with the old woman, but I didn’t get a good look at him even though I noticed three of them in their apartment. He was on the left, the woman was in the middle and the little deformed man was on the right.

I dreamed that Sarine was doing something in my home and somebody else was there in the dark and I asked who it was and he said, “Alex” (which is Sarine’s cousin), but he walked out of the living room and into my home’s hallway as soon as he said his name. He didn’t look at me when he replied, but I saw the back of his head and it sounded like him.

An Android cell phone of mine was missing, but in the living room Sarine said she didn’t take it. I asked Sarine in the bedroom if she stole anything from me and she handed me cash that she took. The bills were new and crisp and there was a $10, $5 and two or three $1s. I was surprised that she stole money from me.

On my bed was a hand-drawn picture on a vertical piece of white, 8.5“ x 11” paper from a child and it was from Jordan (my daughter). It was of a person with a wry smile and a large head and I thought she tried to draw me. It wasn’t very good, but I liked it because it was from her. I never saw her, so I thought Sarine put it there.

I opened a dresser drawer next to the bed to see if I could find the Android phone, but it wasn’t in there. I noticed a green and white box of Curad alcohol swabs (which were the same ones that Costco had sold out of and stopped carrying a few months ago in Maui in real life).

As I was sizing up Sarine in the bedroom, she said she was on her period (menstruating), then she admitted she wasn’t, but said she was bleeding a little. I said I didn’t think I wanted to have sex and she acted like she didn’t either. I started saying something about not being too interested in girls anymore, but I stopped myself. I told her she was a bad person and she said, "I know."

I dreamed that I was distressed and my best friend from childhood (who is American-Chinese) Charlie Tang was sitting on a toilet in a well-lit, clean public bathroom (it looked like the stall in the English department at Long Beach City College with yellowish metal doors) and I walked in and told him that I was missing my phone. He startled me because he suddenly appeared there. Something about his demeanor was unnerving. I told him somebody stole my phone and when I felt my pocket for it, it wasn’t there, but when I looked down there was an iPhone clipped to the outside of my shorts. Its screen was facing out.

Suddenly I was being carried by Charlie in deep water and he was drowning and I was sitting on his shoulders. I was concerned that my iPhone and my white, Apple head phones that were disconnected in my pocket were going to get wet and stop working. I considered that the phone might be ok because it had a strong seal. The phone was in my left pocket and the head phone were in my right pocket.

These dreams were nightmares and there were three of them. I kept waking up and going back to sleep and dreaming until I woke up and wrote what happened after the third dream.

This week I am beginning a new podcast.

On Friday, April 17, 2020, I am beginning a 10-week podcast adventure. I will record a 20-30 minute video every other day. It probably won’t be available live, but I will upload the recording and link it on my website. Since it’s 3-6 hours earlier in Hawaii depending on where in the U.S. you live, it should be available for you in the evening or the following morning.

This unscripted podcast series will cover the last eight years of my life and it will teach viewers how to survive on the street. I was going to write a book about everything in the future and I still probably will, but I have the time, resources and technology now to record a podcast.

This is the schedule and what you should expect.

1. April 17: Long Beach, California (downtown, attending Long Beach City College, tickets, 24 Hour Fitness, writing books, creating a website, social media, marijuana in the mail, storage, riding the bus, laundry, air pollution, Hollywood, Lakewood, Compton, sleep issues, thefts, etc.)

2. April 19: Organics (food and drinks, flaxseed oil, sesame oil, alcohol, grocery stores and restaurants, health food stores, chemicals and soaps, etc.)

3. April 21: Honolulu, Hawaii (living in Ala Moana, sleeping days, riding a bike, Waimea and Pipeline, Kakaako, storage units, rain, noise pollution, skyscrapers, locals, etc.)

4. April 23: Miami, Florida (living in Coconut Grove, visiting the Everglades and Key West, various sleep spots, food and beer, A Brand New World: How You Will Die, gym, metro train, etc.)

5. April 25: Hawaii Kai (first haikus book, walking and busing to laundry, sleeping days, free Pepsi bike, mongooses, rainbows, windward storm, etc.)

6. April 27: Ala Moana (new health food stores, gym and sauna, libraries, marijuana, Chinatown, organic wine, Foodland, sleep patterns, storage, biking, bugs, etc.)

7. April 29: Kahului, Maui (second haikus book, garbage, looking for Amanda Eller in the forest, COVID-19 issues, gym and camp shower, sleep spots, being attacked, health food stores, biking and walking, mail, Kihei, etc.)

8. May 1: Kauai (third haikus book, COVID-19 issues, Kapaa and Lihue, health food stores, YMCA, government money, bus issues, condo, Hanalei and Poipu, etc.)

9. May 3: Molokai, Maui and Big Island (centipede, airport, bikes, house sitting, deer meat, mom’s ashes, Wailea, Kaunakakai, One Ali’i, food, dentist, Hilo, Pahoa, hurricanes, living off the grid, Kilauea volcano, etc.)

10. May 5: Summary/Wrap-Up

That is a rough sketch of how it will go. There is a little overlap because I visited neighbor island while I lived in Oahu. I also visited San Diego, California a couple of times, so I will articulate how I did things along with the highs and the lows.

Thanks for your interest.

Sincerely,
Jason

I am writing this blog because I want to find my sister. Maybe you know her or can help.

I have never met my sister, but my aunt and uncle said that my mom gave her up for adoption before I was born. I don’t know why because my parents have never said anything about her and my mom is dead now.

According to my aunt and uncle, my sister was born in New Jersey between 1967 and 1970 and her name is Crystal. Perhaps she is between 50 and 53 years old now.

My mom was 5’ 3” with blue eyes and brown hair and my dad is 5’ 8” with brown eyes and brown hair. They are predominantly German and Irish, but my dad is also a small part Seminole.

My mom’s last name was Sayles before she was married and my dad’s last name is Gastrich. My mom’s full name was Shannon Lee Sayles and my dad’s full name is Lindsay Rexford Gastrich in case that helps. I think she probably gave her up for adoption in a way that they didn’t keep in touch.

My mom, her mom and her grandmother were obese, so perhaps Crystal is overweight or obese too. My mom and grandmother were devout Christians as well. Her grandmother was named Ma Rose and lived in Jonesville, North Carolina. Her husband Pa "TW" Rose paved the town.

I am going to record a video and run advertisements in newspapers looking for her. I was raised as an only child and I would like to find my only sister. Anything that you can do will be appreciated.

I do not know whether Crystal is my full sister or my half-sister. However, my relatives left New Jersey many years ago and my mom’s side of the family is mainly in North Carolina now and my dad’s side is mainly in California in case that helps.

My mom has a sister and two brothers and my dad has two sisters and two brothers, so Crystal has more family than she probably realizes.

My Great Aunt Dixie Sawyer that lives in Hollywood, Florida claims that the Gastriches are related to Nazis even though nobody in the Gastrich family has ever mentioned it. If she is right, then Crystal may be related to Nazis as well. All of the Gastrich men I have ever known are U.S. military veterans, so perhaps she served the country too.

My mom’s side of the family including me are musically inclined, so she may be a musician. My mom dated somebody in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and attended Woodstock in 1969. I recall her talking about Newark, Jersey City, the Jersey Shore and Neptune. My mom also lived in Wisconsin when she was young.

In light of the COVID-19 infections and deaths in New Jersey, I am concerned that my sister could have gotten ill or even died. I hope she is ok.

Several years ago I created a web page that I hoped she might find, but it didn’t work. Besides that attempt to find her this is the beginning of my search. I am going to check genealogy records, prisons, social media and court records until I find her.

I visited Hoboken, New Jersey in 2012 and I thought about her. I had a limited amount of time and resources and I didn’t know where to start looking. I hoped that I would run into her, but of course that was wishful thinking.

My phone numbers is 619-333-8297 and here is my email.

Thanks and good luck.

Sincerely,
Jason

I am going to start podcasting soon!

Don’t worry. It will be interesting and unique. Here are the details that I know so far.

Since I have been holed up because of the absurd COVID-19 scare I have been doing a lot of thinking. I have the technology and the ability to record and broadcast a podcast, but instead of mocking the COVID-19 response to no end (which I could easily do) I had another idea. Why don’t I talk about the places I’ve been and the life I’ve lived over the last 8 years!?

In 2012, I started living on the street in Long Beach, California. It was an amazing experience and I was only arrested one time. I moved to Hawaii in late 2014, then to Miami on December 25, 2017 and back to Hawaii. During that time I visited Molokai and Key West and lived in Maui, Oahu, Big Island and Kauai. How? Well, I am glad you asked. You will have to watch the podcast to see.

I am a perfectionist and I want to live as long as possible. Those are two reasons of many that I live like I do. I am a strict organic vegetarian. I also avoid burning gasoline and coal because I am an environmentalist.

Do you know what it means when somebody has a nose ring? It means they know a fake environmentalist.

Anyways, some people live on the street and look like something that can dragged in, but not me. I shower daily, stay fit and work hard. In fact, I have published dozens of books and I intend on publishing my 50th book this year.

It will be my pleasure and privilege to explain how I have stayed healthy and clean. I will also share personal experiences from my trips. I have only been attacked a few times. I think it will be a lot of fun.

I don’t like long podcasts or YouTube videos, so I will keep them short. I will record 10 podcasts and each one will be about 20 minutes long. That’s it. They will cover topics like living in Long Beach, eating organic food and drinks, moving to Hawaii, living in the islands, sleeping days and staying up all night, moving to Miami, visiting the Everglades and Key West, visiting San Diego and returning to Hawaii to live.

One day I may write a book about homelessness and include a lot of what I record in these podcasts. I have thought about doing that for a while, but I figured that I would do it after I got off the street and I am not quite done yet.

This month I am following Kauai’s stay-at-home order in a beautiful beachfront condo, so I may do the podcasts here. I may begin in a few days and finish by the end of April. I haven’t quite decided because I am still in the planning and writing stages, but it is coming along.

By the way I used to record podcasts and broadcast them live a with Winamp’s SHOUTcast. I suppose I was a podcasting pioneer. I also recorded audio devotional messages that accompanied a weekly, inspirational message that I emailed for 10 years when I directed a non-profit organization. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it.

Thanks for your interest. I look forward to producing some quality podcasts soon. I will put links on my website and Instagram and upload them to YouTube.

Good luck.

Sincerely,
Jason

I am homeless by choice. Here’s why.

In 2012, after fighting four bogus felonies for a year in San Diego, California for growing medical marijuana plants I accepted a one misdemeanor plea deal on the day of my trial. I was innocent, but I took it, so I didn’t have to go to trial because I didn’t trust the jury or my public defender.

I lost custody of my daughter during the heinous ordeal, so I had no desire to stay in San Diego anymore. I visited New York City, San Francisco and Long Beach to determine which city I wanted to live in and I chose Long Beach.

I had enough money to relocate to Long Beach, but I could not afford an apartment, so I decided to live on the street. My father had told me about homelessness as a child and he thought I could do it for a few years if I needed to, so I decided to try it. He said he was homeless and lived in his car for a while when he was much younger and I could tell by the way he talked.

When I began living outside many things began dawning on me. I realized how dirty it was outside and how much automobiles polluted the streets. It was repulsive not to mention how gross cigarettes were too. I finally understood how billions of people burning gasoline every day was destroying the planet.

I attended Long Beach City College for two years as I lived on the street and I was a writer and copy editor for The Viking newspaper. I began eating organic food and I stopped eating “conventional” food because I wanted to give myself the best chance of staying healthy and alive. I also realized how conventional food was causing diseases while harming the environment. It wasn’t easy or cheap, but I did it and I obviously had to stop eating at restaurants because restaurants don’t sell organic food.

One day I received about $250 from a class-action lawsuit against Apple and it was almost exactly as much as a plane ticket to Honolulu, so I moved to Hawaii. While it has been cleaner in Hawaii, an extraordinary number of automobiles still pollute the island every day. Sadly, the amazing natural beauty of the islands stands in stark contrast to the way that people are polluting them.

Day after day as I enjoyed living outside I started realizing how burning coal and burning gasoline were causing gigantic problems for the entire world. It has caused me to avoid wanting to rent a home that burns coal and it has caused me to avoid wanting a vehicle that burns gas. I decided to ride a bicycle around town and take the bus when I had to travel a long distance.

I have not asked anybody for money, but some people have offered me money, gifts and lodging. I have not attempted to live in a homeless shelter and I have not tried to get a vehicle. I have not sought cash aid (welfare) either. In fact, I have turned down free vehicles because they burned gas. I am also uninterested in “affordable housing” unless it runs on clean energy. I posted an ad on Craigslist seeking a room to rent in a home that runs on clean energy, but I did not receive a response.

Before I started living on the street, I had several jobs to make ends meet. A couple of them provided residual income and allowed me to work from anywhere and continue earning money. My rich parents offered me a small, weekly sum and I have received EBT (food stamps) and that has been good enough for me.

Now I am a different person. I think people that burn gasoline and coal lack integrity. I am no longer religious and I think religious people are a big part of the problem. The government, businesses, consumers or the church could avoid destroying the planet, but none of those groups will do it, so there is no hope until there is change.

I am humble and I have not felt the desire to repeatedly broadcast my situation even though it fills me with a great sense of pride and personal satisfaction. I live a lot like Jesus and I am more like Jesus now than I ever was before. In fact, I have realized that religious people in America are nothing like Jesus. The Bible was written mainly by homeless people for homeless people in my opinion. The earth is my footstool and you won’t understand the Bible until you are homeless.

I refuse to rent or buy a home if it burns coal. I refuse to buy a car if it burns gasoline. I also refuse to eat food if it is not organic. Imagine if everybody had the same convictions.

Another part of my personal evolution is vegetarianism. I stopped eating meat on the street when I started eating organic food because it was impossible to find cooked, organic meat and I had no way to cook it. However, I have always liked animals and supported animal rights, so it was my pleasure to finally leave them alone. I never realized that I could get all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that I need in a vegetarian diet, but I can and I do.

I am an organic vegetarian and the only one I know. Veganism doesn’t go nearly far enough. I eventually gave up yogurt, cheese and all dairy products because I discovered they were an unnecessary and unsustainable part of my diet. I also gave up fish and seafood, so you could call me a strict, organic vegetarian now. Pescatarians should be careful about mercury, lead and plastic and they should consider that fish actually do feel pain (sorry Kurt Cobain).

I used to clothe and feed the homeless when I had a home, but I have even more respect for the homeless now. They are not destroying the planet like everybody else. Therefore, if there is a God and a heaven they will certainly be rewarded more than people that are harming the planet. It is flabbergasting how bad people can be so arrogant. If there is a homeless man and a single man in a SUV, I will talk to the homeless man and shun the man in a SUV and possibly give him the bird. What do you do? Do you think single people that drive SUVs have mental illness? I do even though I wanted to be one of them decades ago.

I shower every day and I don’t look homeless. People are often jealous of me too. It is an odd dynamic and it gets even stranger when random people start putting down the homeless. I have become their advocate and I have more in common with them and the one that causes the rain and cleans the Earth than I do with the people that are destroying it.

It feels good to get this off my chest because I know people don’t understand me. You need to know that I am not trying to fit in. I don’t want to be like you. I don’t care if you buy the books I write, but I hope you enjoy them if you do. I have no ads on my website and I don’t want anything from you. I won’t bow down to any of your gods. In fact, I hate them because of what they are doing to you and life on Earth.

I think this generation will be hated by future generations. People in the future will suffer because this generation is destroying the planet with their lifestyle. Although your peers are understanding now because they share the same vices people will not be understanding when animals go extinct, they can’t breathe clean air outside, they must move inland because the seas rise, etc. People won’t understand why this generation didn’t make better decisions.

If everybody stopped destroying the planet for a while, I think they would stop trying to sell us things that destroy the planet. Does anybody have enough integrity or guts to do it though?

If and when I get enough money I will buy or rent a home that uses renewable energy and I will buy an electric car. A car and a house that do not pollute the environment are acceptable to me, but a car and a house that pollute the environment are not.

I will inherit my father’s house one day and I will either install solar panels or I will sell it and buy a home that uses renewable energy. Many years ago I asked my father to install solar panels, but he has not done so yet.

I take every thought, every word and every action seriously. Most people are playing a game in life and are stuck somewhere in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but I am not. My needs have been met and I am a self-actualizer.

I don’t have regrets and I don’t have worldly needs. I have done many great things, traveled around the country and the world and written dozens of books. I have been married, a father and I have earned a B.A, M.A. and Ph.D. If I don’t do anything else or if I die today I am content. Perhaps I will write a memoir or an autobiography one day.

Now I live in Kauai and I am fortunate that my dad has put me up in a beautiful condo during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order otherwise I would be outside. I have been wanting to get back outside though because I like it out there and that is where I belong right now. However, I would be a fool if I didn’t accept his gracious gift and be thankful for it, so I am. I shower at the gym and Hawaii’s governor closed the gyms. They have even closed public bathrooms and water fountains. I am not afraid of catching COVID-19, but I need to drink water, shower and use the restroom at the very least.

Americans are on the verge of getting a large sum of money from the government and if I get a handout from them, I will donate a portion of it to a non-profit organization that plants trees. I don’t want a carbon footprint and I want to make up for the carbon that I have already injected into the planet.

Please take this blog in the spirit in which it is intended. I judge everybody on their merits. I hope you judge yourself and get good at it, then judge others and me. There are many ways to live and many ways to do things. You don’t have to act like everybody else does. I won’t be unless they are doing something right and admirable.

My power comes from my righteousness. Also, I would be an idiot if I worked lots of hours for somebody, earned money at another job and flushed it down the toilet in a rental unit just to harm the planet. In fact, nothing sounds quite so stupid, so rest assured that I will remain outside until I can live sustainably indoors.

I have told President Trump that I will no longer participate in his system. It’s a trap and a trick and I figured it out. I saw through the illusion and now I am on a better path.

Living on the street for 8 years has been exciting and not without some challenges. Millions of people around the world do the same thing. Also, if I count every dollar I make and receive I have more than people in most countries.

In addition to those changes, I have made other lifestyle changes too. For instance, I use a refillable plastic filter bottle for water and won’t buy plastic water bottles. I use glass spray bottles for oil and I won’t use synthetic soap or detergent, but I opt for organic things.

When Dr. David Jeremiah got cancer many years ago, my dad said he sent him a congratulations letter because he knew God was testing him and wouldn’t give him a trial that he couldn’t be victorious in. I feel the same way about homelessness and when I hear that somebody becomes homeless I want to congratulate them as well. If you quit destroying the planet with your lifestyle it is an admirable thing and worthy of praise whether you have options or not.

Good luck.

I became a Christian when I was 7 years old, but several years ago I stopped identifying as one. This is a blog about my faith.

First, I still believe in God. When I told people that I wasn’t a Christian anymore some people called me an atheist. However, I am not an atheist because I don’t know that God does not exist. I realize there is a strong atheist and a weak atheist position though.

The strong atheist says there is no God and cites evidences. The weak atheist position is more like being agnostic. It doesn’t make any positive claims. I am neither of those now, but I am always open to new information. I respect both positions although I judge everybody on their carbon footprint and their own merit.

Someone told me that you would have to have all the information in the universe to know that God doesn’t exist. They said, “How do you know God isn’t on the dark side of the moon?” They also said agnosticism is a tenable position, but strong atheism isn’t. Some unbelievers seem just as religious as believers, but I digress.

I always thought Jesus’ alleged claims to be God were a little flimsy. My Christian teachers said he hid his Godhood because he would have been killed immediately and he wanted to finish his earthly ministry. However, I have had all sorts of doubts especially in recent days.

I doubt that the Bible is accurate and it is disappointing that none of Jesus’ writings exist. It is also disappointing that the New Testament is written like a college freshman’s persuasive speech or novella. I would have more respect for the New Testament if it was journalistic and simply said what happened instead of begging people to believe it.

Whether or not Jesus said he was God (and whether or not a Bible writer said he was God), I do not think he was God. I think there may be a creator and Jesus is not the creator. If there is a creator, then I think the creator has no gender and no body. I also think the creator may be upset by people calling Jesus the creator.

The Bible is an offensive book. I could write books on it, but if you have read it, then you already know. I think it glorifies murder, genocide, absurdities, unprovable claims, threats of eternal damnation, rape, incest, etc.

Ultimately faith is a choice and you either choose to believe or you choose not to believe. I don’t have faith in the entire Bible anymore, but I wonder about the “God of the gaps”. That phrase used to be used with a negative connotation to refer to religionists and I didn’t think it applied to me, but I think it could now because that’s all I believe.

I look at the human body, the Earth, the solar system and the universe and I can’t fathom how it came into existence or became this way without a God (or many gods). Perhaps different Gods have different powers and functions. Many ancient cultures believed in many gods before monotheism was popularized. If you believe in God intervening in everyday life it is impossible to determine whether one God or many gods are doing it.

Either in the beginning was stuff or in the beginning was God. Until we have convincing answers to my questions I am going to consider how a God could exist. My theological perspective might be called general theism or deism.

Christians may think I am still saved because of the “once saved, always saved” doctrine and that’s fine. They can think whatever they want. In many ways I think I understand the Bible better and I still think there is value in biblical prophecy because adherents could make those prophecies come true. I earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in Biblical Studies, so I know what the Bible says.

Although I think it may have been better to grow up without religion, I feel like I understand believers and am a well-rounded person now. I debated atheists, cultists, skeptics and scientists. I also earned a B.A. in psychology at San Diego State University, so I have had secular education as well. In a way I know two sides of every argument and sometimes I think neither of them are right.

Lastly, I think proselytizing and circumcising children is akin to child abuse. We should protect children and encourage them to learn and make difficult decisions when they become adults because they don’t have enough information or a well-developed brain until they are older. They certainly shouldn’t have to decide between eternal damnation and faith in Jesus for eternal life before puberty.

Good luck.

I recorded these instrumental songs on acoustic and electric guitar about 10 years ago. I use alternate tunings, effects and even a multi-track recorder on some of them. Enjoy.

Arianna
DADDAD
God Bless America
Open G Jam
Reprise
Together Again

I was married for 10 years, but it could have ended very quickly. This is what happened.

My former wife Sarine got pregnant on our honeymoon because she didn’t take her birth control pill like she said she would. Since she was only 20 years old and we were newly married, I suggested that we give our baby up for adoption and have children in the future. She refused and said she would leave me if I insisted, so I decided to be the best parent that I could be.

From the first days of our marriage we got into disagreements and arguments even though we never argued before marriage. We saw a bunch of marriage counselors, but nothing seemed to work. I was her first boyfriend, she was born in Lebanon to immigrants and she moved about two hours away from her parents for the first time to live with me after we got married, so I think those things among others made it difficult to have a successful marriage.

About halfway through our marriage I began experiencing back pain at work from a childhood Pop Warner football injury. The doctor prescribed 750mg doses of hydrocodone and I hated it because it made me feel like a zombie. I would just sit there and stare at the wall. However, marijuana was a game-changer.

After a medical marijuana doctor recommended weed for my ailment I began vaporizing it and feeling better. However, what I didn’t realize was how much it was going to help me deal with my wife. I let arguments go. I didn’t raise my voice or fight with her anymore. I managed my anxiety and was like a different person in that regard.

I think Sarine wanted to split after she got pregnant. Her sister made off with a dude’s child, but that’s another story. Perhaps their mother planted stories in their mind about acquiring and raising a grandchild without a husband. However, all of her complaints about me were moot after I started medicating because I didn’t act that way anymore. I didn’t even argue with her about leaving town for several days a month to see her family several hours away.

Eventually Sarine decided to criticize me for using marijuana. She told me I shouldn’t take my medicine in front of our daughter and she villainized me instead of caring about my pain. In fact, it became stressful because she would try to make my life a living hell because she knew I was growing and thriving and she wanted to leave. When I took marijuana I treated it like a mountaintop experience and I worked, exercised, fathered my daughter and did everything else as well as I could.

Toward the end of our marriage we started growing and harvesting weed at our home. This made us start a medical marijuana collective and grow it on a larger scale for legal patients. She never tried marijuana, but she helped grow the plants for the collective. However, after law enforcement raided our home and effectively ended the collective (and our marriage) she turned on me and the patients. She even said she would testify against me in court. At that time she would have done or said almost anything to get custody of our child.

We never went to trial because after fighting four felonies for a year they offered me a one misdemeanor plea deal on the day of my trial in 2012 and I took it. They offered her the same thing and she took it as well.

Marijuana is amazing and it causes lots of positive effects. I think it even helped to extend my marriage possibly twice as long as it would have lasted. It definitely eased my pain and helped me deal with a bad situation.

My previous 40 day fast in 80 days went well. That makes two down and today I began the third one.

I rarely weigh myself because I think the way I feel and look are more important than a number. However, I have weighed myself a few times during the last 6 months to see how well my efforts are working.

When I began my first 40 day fast in 80 days (I have already fasted for 40 days in a row) on October 1, I weighed over 180 pounds. Now I weigh around 150 pounds. Therefore, I think I lose around 15 pounds each time I do one.

This intermittent fast will end on June 20, 2020. At that time I will probably implement my maintenance diet of eating two days and fasting one day. My weight seems to stay the same when I do that in between fasts. Perhaps I will do another intermittent 40 day fast and begin on July 1.

When I eat I will only eat and drink organic food. My diet will consist of food like cashews, raisins, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, honey, cereal, black and pinto beans, lentil soup, granola, ramen, potato and corn chips, carrots, red bell peppers, cucumbers, apples, bananas, red wine, coffee, hibiscus tea, rooibos tea, green tea, etc.

My body has changed and I feel like I am leaner and stronger. I recently moved to a hilly island, so being lighter on my feet is advantageous to my lifestyle. I may also ride a bike for exercise and around town.

In addition to the things I mentioned, I will also ingest Himalayan pink salt (no table salt), organic black pepper, organic turmeric/black pepper capsules and organic garlic capsules. I also take a plant-based B12 supplement because I am a vegetarian.

I will probably blog an update around May 1. Good luck on your diets and fasts.

Strange things have been happening in Hawaii and in the country lately. I hope people are taking note.

After the first U.S. death from COVID-19 was reported on March 1, the stock market began plummeting. Reportedly, there are 547 domestic deaths to date. The Dow Jones stocks have dropped over 10,000 points and trading was paused more than once because the bottom was falling out. The index dropped another -582 points today.

The executive branch has taken it upon itself to lead the movement of forcing business closures, curfews and such. Hawaii’s Gov. Ige, New York’s Gov. Cuomo and California’s Gov. Newsom are some in the forefront and they are Democrats as well. Mayors like Kirk Caldwell, Bill De Blasio and Kawakami have made headlines for their extreme measures and tough talk as well.

Ross and TJ Max closed a few days ago. Most of the other businesses closed a few days later. Any piece of outdoor furniture that isn’t nailed down in Kahului has been removed. They also closed the libraries and the national parks.

I think the only things open are Walmart, Costco, 7-11, fast food (take out/drive thru only), UPS, gas stations, the shopping mall (which is almost empty), USPS, banks, airports, drug stores and grocery stores. Hotels have been open, but the governor just decreed that every visitor to Hawaii will be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine when they arrive, so some of them are closing. Maui Seaside Hotel is closing on March 26, 2020.

I am uncertain about bus service, but Hawaii’s Speedi Shuttle is closed until May. I think taxis are considered an essential service.

Stores like McDonalds, Down to Earth, Home Depot and Whole Foods used to have water dispensers for visitors, but they have stopped giving people filtered water because of the dystopian virus crisis. It seems mindless especially when I hold my refillable bottle to a sensor and it fills it. How is that spreading germs? If it spreads germs, then they shouldn’t have been doing it.

The NBA canceled its season. Late night comedians are broadcasting from their homes. They just canceled the Olympics in Japan today after Canada said they wouldn’t be coming.

Some businesses appear to be returning on April 1. Most businesses have a sign in their window explaining why they are closed and their intentions.

StorKeeper storage in Honolulu sent everybody an email saying they were closing because of Gov. Ige's decree. A few minutes later they emailed everybody again and said they would stay open with shorter hours and encouraged people to stay home. They serve a big homeless population that needs their stuff daily, so it is good that they are staying open.

As of March 23, COVID-19 has killed half the number of people that the seasonal flus typically kill in the U.S. in that time in a low year. Sometimes the seasonal flus kill over 4x that many people, so the seasonal flu in a bad year kills over 8x the number of people that COVID-19 has killed.

People should try to eradicate the most common causes of death. It’s too bad that this isn’t one of them because of all the work they are apparently putting in.

Whether we like it or not the handling of the COVID-19 response has been a sort of tit-for-tat spat between Democratic politicians in the executive branch and the Republican presidential administration. For instance, before the local Democratic politicians shut down businesses they had to have expected the federal government to cut people and businesses checks.

Good luck.

Since none of Jesus’ writings are in circulation it is difficult to determine the truth about Jesus. However, there are some discrepancies between the way that Jesus is portrayed in the Bible and the way that Christians portray him.

Jesus is usually seen as a family man with children and adults around him. He is wearing beautiful, new clothing and looking clean. In reality, Jesus tried to run away from his parents as a child. Around age 30 he preferred being homeless than living with his family. There’s no evidence that Jesus was a carpenter and learned Joseph’s trade. When his mom and brothers visited him he ignored them and said he was already with his family, but he was with his disciples.

Jesus obviously had a biological father which is anathema to the superstitious, but I digress. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with Jesus for a while, then they moved to Nazareth and reared him. Today none of those places are considered part of Israel. They are full of Arabs though. Therefore, I think there’s a good chance that Jesus’ biological father was not Jewish. He could have been a rich Arab or Samaritan though.

Jesus uses different words to describe heaven and the kingdom of heaven. It seems to me that he may have been referring to an earthly inheritance that he was expecting from his biological father. Perhaps his father had a large house that he was intending on giving to Jesus when he died, so Jesus told his homeless friends they could join him if they were holy (e.g. if they didn’t trash the place) because there were many rooms. If we consider that there are errors and lies in the Bible and if we assume that his followers lied about what he said and did (and misunderstood), then this perspective comes into view. We can also consider that all of the above is true and Jesus lied about a heavenly inheritance, but knew how to talk about it with authority because he was expecting an earthly one from his real father.

On the cross Jesus said, “Eli, why have you forsaken me?” The Christian church taught me that the weight of everyone’s sins - past, present and future - were laid on his shoulders at that moment, so he uttered those words. If we consider down to earth options, then perhaps his father was named Eli and as he hung on the cross he realized that his rich father was not going to save him and he was not going to get his earthly inheritance.

I think you must use eisegesis to believe Jesus claimed to be God and I don’t think he did and I don’t believe he is God. The closest thing we have to it is saying, “I am” (in Greek or Aramaic?). There are no clear statements from Jesus about his Godhood. The Jews that were looking for a prophesied Messiah for a long time examined him and said he was not the guy. If Jesus was God, then he would have said, “I am God” and his disciples would have written it and it would have been canonized in the Bible. The Christian church taught me that Jesus didn’t plainly claim to be God because he would have been immediately killed and he didn’t want to end his ministry early, but I do not believe that anymore.

Christians and churches like to focus on certain aspects of Jesus that they admire. However, they over-spiritualize everything and miss a lot of stuff. I think what I just wrote is more likely, so I respect Jesus as a prophet and that’s it.

Good luck.

On September 11, 2001, I was living in Oceanside, California with my new wife. We had gotten married in April and postponed our honeymoon trip to Israel to December.

While I was eating breakfast and getting ready for work, I turned on the TV and saw what happened. I was astonished, horrified and shaken. I woke up my (former) wife Sarine and she seemed strangely amused and intrigued by it.

I went to work as a teacher at a Christian school, but it was different. My junior high school Bible and History students needed me to pray with them, talk to them and listen to them, so I did. They were not terribly upset, but they knew that something bad had happened even though it was thousands of miles away.

It was a surreal day and I probably talked to dozens of parents and faculty members about it just to see if they knew about it and to comfort them. 9/11 was a huge tragedy and I hope there isn’t another one. In fact, I hope that we can eradicate death.

Good luck.

Climate change happens slowly and in strange ways (e.g. making a hurricane more powerful). Like a frog being boiled in a pot of slowly-heating, hot water we are in the midst of this “climate change”. It used to be called global warming, but scientists say it causes other problems, warming wasn’t the only effect and it understated what is happening.

I say, “Bears and snakes care about the climate. I care about pollution.” It is strange how the name it has been given has never blamed humans.

I think another reason people don’t worry about the effects of this disaster is because it may be happening in other parts of the world first and in different ways. It is like a disease that manifests itself in different ways. I think coasts will see changes like Magic Island will become an island.

People that don’t notice slight price increases may not think about it, but eventually the most expensive foods will be much more expensive and with the rich in mind. Some food that we enjoy today will be impossible to find at the grocery store.

It’s concerning that humans are destroying animal habitats underwater and above water. With some tweaks we probably wouldn’t be killing everything. It just comes down to using different chemicals. It is going to have to be a local, national and international effort though. The world’s population is too big for some people to do whatever they want (e.g. dumping chemicals in rivers, polluting like there’s no tomorrow, etc.).

I think we underestimate the negative effects that humans are having on heating the ocean and irreparably harming the food chain. I don’t think it is possible to harm the environment without harming ourselves.

I hope we can hurry up and leave the old way behind. It seems funny for this to be the last generation that pollutes the place. Depending on how bad it gets before everybody around the world changes the planet will change drastically for the worse before it gets better. I wonder how understanding that generation will be.

Like the last generation that has to die. Dying people want to extend their life, but they’re managing their death. It will be awfully sad to know they’re gone forever and they’re the last ones to go. It will be sad to be the last generation to mismanage and destroy life on earth.

Today is Day 60 of my 80 day intermittent fast and it has went well. I have eaten for 30 days and avoided food for 30 days and there are 20 total days to go until I am done.

I rarely shop for clothes, but I visited Ross to see if they had anything in my size or smaller that I liked. I didn’t even know which size I wore, but my waist is around 30-32 inches. I didn’t buy anything, but it wasn’t because I am shrinking fast. I actually found one pair of shorts that I liked, but I had to wait too long in line to buy them, so I left.

A few days ago I wore size 32 shorts with a button and zipper that I bought in Hawaii Kai in 2018. They fit then, but they didn’t fit me in recent days. They fit well and feel good now.

My gym measured my body fat a few days ago and it was 24%. That’s higher than I thought it was, but at least I know and have an objective record now. I weighed 155 pounds at the time.

I feel a little like I did when I fasted for 40 days straight without food. I am quickly headed into a leaner body and there is little I can do to stop it (even though I don’t want to stop it). I have found a way to lose weight that works for me and my lifestyle and now it’s just a matter of time as I “feast and famine”.

I know what I look like, so I rarely look in mirrors. However, I haven’t been shying away from them because of my weight. I am growing in confidence and I like what I see in the mirror. I look stronger, healthier, happier and leaner.

At this point it is difficult to know whether I will do one or two more 40/80 day intermittent fasts. However, I will definitely do at least one more beginning on April Fool’s Day (no joke). During that fast I will need to consider my long-term maintenance options and plan that aspect of this journey.

I have been fortunate to eat a lot of delicious, healthy organic food on my eating days. My diets have consisted of things like lentil soup, broccoli, cashews, tomatoes, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, corn and potato chips, popcorn, granola bars with dark chocolate, peanut butter cups with dark chocolate, ramen noodles, whole wheat crackers, honey and agave, coconut, carrots, apples, oranges, etc.

I consume the same organic things whether I fast or not. They include green (with cardamom), rooibos and hibiscus teas. I also drink black coffee daily and a swig of apple cider vinegar or red wine. This should go without saying, but I also drink copious amounts of filtered water. The only other things I consume are Himalayan salt, organic black pepper, sesame oil, extra virgin olive oil, turmeric supplements (with ground black pepper) and garlic supplements. I spray the sesame oil on the broccoli and I “pull” it by swishing it around my mouth for 5-15 minutes.

This is the second time that I have done this diet and fast. I think I have lost about 35 pounds and I am noticeably different now and proud of myself for my hard work. I feel better overall too.

I will write a final update after I finish on March 20. My maintenance program between 40/80 day intermittent fasts for about 12 days will probably include eating two out of three days four times. It worked well in late December.

My dad visited me in Maui last summer when my weight was at its highest point and he is going to visit me in Kauai this summer. I will not be surprised if I am 40 pounds lighter, but I bet he will be surprised. Although it will be an adjustment in many ways this sort of diet and fast will be conducive to a change in scenery even if it means eating different food because I don’t need to count my calories to successfully eat every other day and lose weight.

Since I have learned a lot about fasting various ways I am going to finish writing my book on fasting and publish it. There is no projected publication date yet, but I would like to finish it in 2020 and not only sell it like I do the others, but put it on my website for free (perhaps by request). Fasting is an important, life-saving discipline and I want to encourage people to do it right, well and often.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

During my senior year of high school I met a girl named Jennifer Felio. She transferred to Christian High School from Granite Hills High School which was the nearby public school. She was short and fun with a pretty smile and a nice body. I was 17 years old and she was 15 years old and a sophomore.

One day Jennifer said her parents were going to be gone all night, so she wanted to have a small party at her house with me and a few friends. My friends Jason Wenning and Andy Herbert came with me and we spun drinks and listened to music.

Eventually I was making out with Jennifer in her room and we wanted to have sex. We ended up doing it for a long time as we listened to Guns N Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II albums, Nirvana’s Nevermind album, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, etc. (It was 1992.) She was on top of me the whole time and she was actually in great shape. I used condoms and she didn’t get pregnant and I didn’t come for a long time because of the latex and my buzz. My drunk friends peeked in the room and saw us at least once.

Since we attended Christian High School and drinking alcohol was against the rules the school investigated after they heard about the party. They threw all of us out of school too.

After Jennifer’s parents got the news they were angry, so she said I raped her. Fortunately, she changed her story very quickly. However, I still remember my dad approaching me on the soccer field and asking me if I raped her and I said no way.

Our parents forbade us to see each other, but we saw each other one last time with supervision. It was a pretty genius move too. Both sets of parents could tell by our behavior that I didn’t rape her and that I loved her as much as a 17 year old boy could. Our relationship was destroyed and I was a hurt by her lie, but I knew she didn’t mean it and it was a meaningless lie she said to try to get out of trouble. It was good to clear my name though because any time somebody makes an accusation like that it stays out there until it’s addressed.

I still remember Jennifer’s hug before I left. It was tight, strong and long. She said very little in front of her parents except for apologizing. I think she was trying to send me a message with her hug that it would be ok and maybe she was sensitive to the way that I was sad and hurt. Not only did I lose my girlfriend and get accused of something horrible I didn’t do, I also got thrown out of school my senior year and had to attend graduation with lots of people I barely knew.

Jennifer and I were thrown out of school for drinking beer at a party and for having consensual sex. Either one of those things was such a violation of Christian High School's rules that we would have been sent backing. We weren't even allowed to attend a party if beer was being served there even if we didn't drink.

My intermittent fasting has been going well, so I wanted to blog an update.

I started intermittently fasting (eating every other day) on October 1. I did it for 80 days, so I could fast for 40 of them. It worked very well too. That fast ended on December 20, but I began another one on January 1. This one will end on March 20.

During the 12 days from December 20 to January 1, I maintained my weight by skipping one meal every three days, so I ate two days and fasted one day four times. It worked as intended too.

Since October 1 I have eaten 65 days and fasted 61 days. I began eating a normal amount on eating days (e.g. 3,000 calories), but started eating 4,000 to 5,000 calories or even more several times. However, I couldn't keep that up and I eventually returned to a more normal diet on eating days (e.g. about 3,000 to 4,000 calories).

One key to my successful fasting is liquids. It is important to stay hydrated and I like drinking lots of antioxidants too. I swallow about a teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt on fasting days too. Occasionally I will suck on a little (unsweetened) organic black licorice. I have also pulled organic sesame oil for good mouth health.

I have lost over 20 pounds and my body including my stomach is shrinking. I am not sure what my optimal weight is, but I am in the “normal” range now and I still probably have 20 pounds of fat that I could lose. I weighed about 180 pounds when I began and I was 159 when I weighed myself a few days ago.

This sort of diet/fast has been working well for me. It is my first experience with intermittent fasting. Since I have fasted for many days many times, it didn’t make sense to intermittently fast for a partial day. I figured that I would binge at night and destroy the hard work of not eating all morning and afternoon. Instead I started looking at my bedtime as the time to eat again because I sleep for about 8 hours and I won’t eat in my sleep (or be conscious), so I won’t think about food (or look at the clock). For instance, it is about 1 p.m. now, so this fast will be “over” in about 9 hours although I won’t eat again until tomorrow morning when I wake up.

There are health benefits for those that fast. Maintaining low body fat is also rewarding. I feel energetic every day and I am quicker as I walk around town. My clothes fit better and I have less inflammation. I don’t get as hot and sweaty as I used to get, but sometimes I get colder than before. I simply wear layers or warm clothes and drink warm drinks like organic tea and organic coffee.

My organic vegetarian diet is serving me well. It is not cheap, but it is worth it. Preparing my own organic food instead of eating at restaurants helps to offset the higher cost. However, I live in Hawaii and I think everything is more expensive than the mainland.

I am going to finish this intermittent fast like a champion. I intend on being in the low 150s or even 140s on March 20 when I stop. I will likely maintain my weight like before and begin my third and final intermittent fast on April 1 (no foolin’). It will last 80 days and I will fast 40 of them again, so it will end on June 20 (the day before Father’s Day). At that point I expect to be lean and I may eat a normal daily diet or use my maintenance diet of eating two days and fasting one day every three days.

All sorts of health problems await people that eat unhealthy food and maintain an unhealthy body weight. If you need to make adjustments to your lifestyle I hope you do it or at least try. It is worth it and you only have one body, one life and one planet.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

In the United States today, marijuana laws are different from state to state. Marijuana is also a Schedule I drug on the federal government’s list. This has caused lots of problems.

Marijuana (also known as cannabis) is clearly medicinal and fun. Otherwise, states would not be legalizing it for medical use and recreational use. In fact, hundreds (if not thousands) of doctors recommend marijuana for patients every day.

In my experience whether marijuana is illegal, only medicinally legal or recreationally legal it can be found on the street. The police do not seem to care about marijuana sales and consumption as long as you don’t do it in front of them. However, this is my experience and others have different experiences.

Unfortunately, people of color are reportedly arrested for marijuana more often than white people even though they consume it at roughly the same rate. This leads me to believe that marijuana decriminalization would be wise.

As it stands the federal government could arrest anybody at any time for any amount of marijuana. Fortunately, the federal government does not have a police force, but they do have the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of Forestry, the CIA, the FBI, etc. This means they don’t patrol the streets, but they can be called on to bust somebody. They usually work with local law enforcement which can put them in a predicament.

I lived in California when it was illegal and I wrote a pro-marijuana speech as a freshman at San Diego State University in 1992-1993. In 1994 marijuana became legal for medical purposes only, but it took many years to get the medical program off the ground. It was legalized for recreational purposes in 2018. This has cut the cost to the consumer in half.

Marijuana businesses have trouble getting bank accounts because banks are federally insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and marijuana is illegal to the federal government. This has caused them to prefer cash and keep large amounts of cash on hand. Unfortunately, pot shops have had to hire security guards because thieves have stolen from some of them.

I received a medical marijuana recommendation in California over a decade ago because of a pinched nerve in my back. It occurred during my childhood because of a football injury and marijuana calms my muscle spasms. It makes me feel better and helps my anxiety and probably enhances my creativity.

Now I live in Hawaii and it is medically legally here, but not recreationally legal. When I lived in Oahu, I knew one place that I thought was a medical marijuana collective, but I wasn’t sure. Now I live in Maui and there are no pot shops anywhere that I know of. This is problematic because people still consume it and sell it on the street.

Having to renew a medical marijuana recommendation every year is problematic and expensive. Having to get a brand new medical marijuana recommendation in every state I visit or live in is problematic too. Why don’t they work across state lines? Why can’t one work for life if you have an ailment that doesn’t go away?

Unregulated marijuana could result in people getting sick. We saw this happen with the vaping epidemic and marijuana’s name was dragged through the mud because some people reportedly vaped marijuana and became ill. However, I have vaporized marijuana flowers for years and it is a good way to ingest it with minimal side effects. They must be vaping some sort of tainted liquid that isn’t actually marijuana by itself.

When I directed a medical marijuana collective in California, I had to sample donations to make sure they were up to standards and wouldn’t make the patients sick. Unfortunately, it caused a bad lung infection one time because the patient didn’t tell me that it had black mold on it. He tried to get rid of it in the oven to no avail. I had to go to the hospital and get medication which caused other problems. If marijuana would have been legal like other herbal supplements, then that wouldn’t have happened (even though herbal supplements should be regulated better). A 2015 study in New York indicated that 21% of the time the herbal supplement on the label is in the bottle, but I digress.

I will not bring marijuana or any resinated smoking instruments (e.g. pipes) with me on an airplane; not on my person, in my carry-on or in my checked baggage. I simply do not trust the people working at the airport to look the other way. The federal government has hired the TSA to search bags, so if they do their job they could confiscate it or even arrest me. They probably wouldn’t, but I won’t risk it.

Some people like it the way it is because they think it pleases everybody, but it actually doesn’t. It causes a lot of problems for everybody. For instance, if it’s totally illegal, but easy to get on the street some states may never legalize it. They think this pacifies the people that want it illegal while not enforcing the law helps the people that want it. They still suffer from the types of problems that I mentioned though. It can also be hard to find and time consuming to get when there aren’t shops. Also, the government makes nothing on marijuana sales when it’s illegal, but they make a pretty penny when it is legalized.

The United States government needs to reschedule or deschedule marijuana. It clearly isn’t a Schedule I drug based on the criteria. Researchers have encountered many problems because of its illegal status and that’s one reason why its health benefits have been somewhat of a mystery to many people for a long time. The DEA has allowed only one authorized grower: the University of Mississippi.

Marijuana is more like an herbal supplement than a drug. I have taken the “marijuana pill” called Dronabinol and it was a lot like Hydrocodone. The doctor prescribed 750mg of Hydrocodone for my pinched nerve, but I hated it and didn’t finish the bottle because it made me feel like a zombie. I just sat there and stared at the wall for hours. On the contrary marijuana makes me physically and mentally active.

Insurance companies pay for pills, but they don’t pay for marijuana. Why? I don’t want to take pills because pills cause side effects and lack some of the important compounds in the plant. This is another big problem that should be fixed.

I hope the U.S. can fix its drug laws and especially marijuana laws. Nobody has ever died from smoking marijuana. A lot of misinformation has tainted its reputation, but it has many benefits and it isn’t going away.

President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives by a vote. Now he is on trial in the Senate. These are some thoughts that I have been having.

- Without witnesses and evidence it isn’t much of a trial.

- I don’t think America’s founders and framers would want the president’s friends or foes conducting his trial. Perhaps the Supreme Court should do it.

- If Donald Trump was innocent, then he would not care which evidence is included or which witnesses testify. However, he has ordered several witnesses to avoid testifying.

- All sorts of logical fallacies have been uttered by pro-Trump attorneys, politicians and pundits (e.g. appeals to authority, appeals to numbers, special knowledge, false dichotomies, etc.).

- Republican Mitch McConnell said he is not an impartial juror and then he took an oath to be an impartial juror. He should probably be recused.

- The House of Representatives has a Democratic Party majority and the Senate has a Republican Party majority. Therefore, before impeachment began people already assumed that Trump would probably be convicted in the House and acquitted in the Senate.

- The House needed a simple majority to convict the president, but the Senate needs a two-thirds majority. Therefore, it is likely that more total elected Congressmen and Congresswomen will vote to convict President Trump and he will still be acquitted.

- The vote to impeach President Trump in the House was 230-197 and 229-198 on the two articles of impeachment.

- Republican politicians don’t seem to care about the president’s poor behavior and they would rather excuse it and shift the focus to whether or not the president can be impeached at all.

- Attorney Alan Dershowitz is poisoning the well when it comes to John Bolton’s potential testimony to the Senate. Dershowitz has not read Bolton’s book, but claims that whatever is in it will not be able to convict the president.

- President Trump has emphatically said he behaved in a perfect manner. Therefore, if the Senate does not impeach and remove him from office we can probably count on him to do this again.

- President Trump has disrespected the American voters that voted for the politicians that voted to impeach him. He doesn’t seem to understand that when he belittles members of Congress on their decision that he is belittling the people that elected them.

- Approximately 54% of Americans polled said they think the president should be impeached. Approximately 54% of the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president.

- Milk and water are the only two liquids allowed in the impeachment trial. What about coffee and tea?

- The Republican-led Senate voted to begin each day’s trial at 1 p.m. EST. This seems politically motivated because it has been covered by CSPAN-2 which few people watch at odd hours. Dershowitz’s defense was given during prime time. What a coincidence! However, I am in Hawaii and the hours are actually good for me because they are 5 hours ahead of us here.

- Attorney Alan Dershowitz used hand-waving to explain why he is on video saying a president does not need to commit a crime to be impeached, but he says he does now.

- Senators have been falling asleep, leaving for bathroom breaks, doing crossword puzzles, etc. It does not appear like they are taking the trial very seriously.

- The Government Accountability Office said the Trump administration broke the law by withholding aid money to Ukraine.

- If the words "quid pro quo" weren't uttered it still doesn't mean there wasn't a quid pro quo.

- Whether Ukraine knew about President Trump's actions or not is irrelevant.

I was saddened to hear about the early, untimely and tragic death of Kobe Bryant, 41, and his daughter and seven others. Here are some random thoughts.

I have listened to about a dozen reports and tributes to Kobe Bryant. He was a great basketball player. While the accident does not look like it was caused by foul play there are some odd things (to me) about it.

- The helicopter took off at 7:06 a.m. my time (Hawaii Standard Time) which is 6:66 a.m.

- The man flying the helicopter (Ara Zobayan) appears to be Armenian and the radar indicates he flew over Glendale, California (which is like an Armenian enclave) before crashing in Calabasas.

- Most helicopters do not have black boxes like airplanes, but they should. Perhaps this accident will provoke a change.

- Law enforcement grounded their helicopters due to fog that day.

- The night before Bryant died (literally hours before) LeBron James passed his scoring record. James moved into 3rd place and Bryant was demoted to 4th place all-time in the NBA. Like the class act he was, Bryant publicly praised James (on Twitter) for his accomplishment. It may have been his final public statement.

- Bryant had retired 3-4 years before the crash, so he had already finished his amazing NBA career.

- I remember where I was when Kobe Bryant announced his retirement in 2016 because I was at the gym in Honolulu, Oahu and everybody was watching it on TV.

- I remember where I was when I heard Kobe Bryant died because I was in Kahului, Maui at McDonalds and I read it online shortly after it happened. I was waiting for my laundry to dry as I read it.

- P.O.D. has a song called Boom that says, “here comes the boys from the south” (SoCal) and “from Madrid to Calabasas”. Kobe Bryant’s team beat Spain in the 2012 Summer Olympics Finals (although it was in London) and died in Calabasas.

- Since his daughter Gigi died with him I wouldn’t seriously consider his wife as a suspect in foul play (even as a fiction writer).

- The cause of death appears to be human error due to adverse flight conditions, but there might have been something wrong with the helicopter. I hope they can figure it out and prevent other accidents.

- Kobe Bryant played his NBA home games at Staples Center in Los Angeles and on the day that he died the Grammy Awards ceremony was in Staples Center. Bryant died in the morning and the awards ceremony was in the evening although it was probably an all-day event.

R.I.P. Kobe. You will be missed.

My intermittent fast is going well. This is an update.

I weighed myself 48 hours ago and I weighed 162 pounds. I was fasting and I hadn’t eaten all day like today. However, I was wearing clothes. I weighed 169 pounds the last time I weighed myself, but it was during an eating day.

My weight fluctuates as I eat and fast. Perhaps I am about 165 pounds, but I still have 56 days remaining. I figured I would weigh between 150-159 pounds by March 20 and that seems realistic.

I caught a cold and it made me tired for a day or two. It is lingering a little, but probably because it’s humid in Hawaii. I think my defenses were temporarily lowered by my diet and lifestyle, so when I encountered somebody that was sick my body didn’t immediately fight it off.

I like the feeling of nothing in my stomach. I also like seeing my body shrink because I feel and look healthier. Being lighter on my feet is handy because I have been walking around town.

On fasting days I have only consumed apple cider vinegar, green tea, coffee, hibiscus tea, rooibos tea, black licorice, Himalayan pink salt, water, garlic capsules and turmeric with black pepper capsules. Everything has been organic too.

Last year when I did my first 40/80 day intermittent fast I think I was around 180 pounds in September. I started on October 1 and finished in December and started again on January 1, so about four months ago I was about 20 pounds heavier. I suppose that’s a noticeable difference.

It’s good to be headed in the right direction. Perhaps I will start another 40/80 day intermittent fast on April 1 and it will put my weight in the 140s when I finish in June.

Some people pay a lot of money for surgery, training equipment, classes, trainers and gym memberships, but being able to control your weight on your own is wise. Saving money and experiencing better health are motivating.

My body is leaner now and I am seeing more definition in my legs, arms, face, etc. My clothes fit well and I am going to stop wearing the largest clothing soon because it is very big now.

Whenever I find my optimal weight and maintain it, my body is going to require fewer calories than it required when it was bigger. That should save me time, energy and money.

I think having organs that are sitting in fat is unhealthy especially if that fat came from food with impurities. I eat only organic vegetarian food now, but I wonder if I will burn old fat as I continue because I wasn’t always this way. Perhaps I have some body fat that is unhealthier than I realize.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

Tulsi Gabbard is my representative in Hawaii and she has been my rep on two islands (East Oahu and Maui). I lived in Maui in 2016 for a while and returned in 2019 and nothing has changed.

East Oahu is well maintained. When I lived in Hawaii Kai, most of the streets were intact and it had a newer look and feel. It was relatively clean. However, Maui is a different story.

Kahului, Maui is the largest town on this island and it is not well maintained. The roads haven’t been fixed in at least three years. There are dark paths for people that want to walk and it lacks enough bike lanes. Some bike lanes have weeds growing in them. Who do you call about mowing the bike lane?

There is a lot of new developments in South Honolulu (where I lived for a few years). They usually fixed the roads after a while. However, it took them a while to fix the water issue I reported in Ala Moana Park. It tasted like metal, so I avoided it and they eventually shut it all down and repaired it. Probably bad pipes.

As much as I like Tulsi Gabbard and appreciate her following me back on Twitter, I just want to see the U.S. in much better shape than Hawaii. Fixing the roads should be the bare minimum along with making a safe, lighted walkway for people to get to different parts of Kahului. Ever try walking in the dark after the rain with big puddles and mud everywhere and cars driving by in both directions on an unlit road with no sidewalk? Not fun.

Maui's bus system is poor and I would rather walk and avoid it. Bus stops are disgusting. People are smoking and homeless people stay sit at some of them all day. The buses come late and not often enough. She apparently has no vision for it because it hasn't changed.

Maui's libraries use old computers that have limited capabilities. I don't even visit the library anymore because I can do everything I do at the library elsewhere. Also, Hawaii State Library System used to check out Hotspot-enabled netbooks for three weeks at a time when I moved to Hawaii in 2014. However, they stopped doing it a year or two later because they did not get another grant from the Bill Gates Foundation and all the netbooks were lost, broken or stolen. She has apparently had no vision to continue that either.

I like Gabbard’s liberal viewpoints and the way she sees the U.S. military as a veteran. There are lots of good things about her. Nonetheless, I would only want to endorse her as the best presidential candidate if her Congressional district was awesome and it isn’t. It’s gross, inhospitable and dangerous in Kahului (much of Wailuku isn’t any better).

I am working on a book of pictures that will highlight all the garbage I see in Kahului every day. There is an extraordinary amount and all different types. It keeps adding up too. Pretty disgusting. Hopefully it will inspire change and a cleanup.

If you walked the streets of Kahului every day like I do you would probably say, “How anybody could vote for an incumbent is beyond me” to

The first two weeks of my intermittent fast went well and I have been eating every other day. That means I have eaten for seven days and skipped seven days of food so far.

Today was an eating day and I ate a lot of organic food including popcorn, salt and vinegar potato chips, dark chocolate peanut butter cups, broccoli, noodles, sunflower seeds and a couple of other things. I might eat a little more food before I sleep, but I will still create a calorie deficit in a 2-day span which is my goal.

I eat around 4-5,000 calories every other day and burn about 6,000 calories in two days. It varies depending on how much I eat and exercise, but it has been working, so I have taken a few liberties.

I stayed up all night a couple of times and ended my fast around 11 p.m. I didn’t see any point in waiting another hour because it seemed dogmatic. When I stay up all night I eat about 400 more calories unless I exercise (e.g. walk somewhere or go to the gym). I did a “perfect” 80 day intermittent fast last year, so this one is going to be tailored more closely to my mood and schedule.

Instead of drinking organic red wine like I have been doing lately, I am drinking organic apple cider vinegar. I think they do something similar for my gut bacteria (my microbiome). I am going to finish it before I drink wine again even though it tastes horrible and I like wine.

I am looking forward to getting leaner because there are some benefits (along with some challenges). Requiring fewer calories will be refreshing (and save money).

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

Have you ever worn Birkenstocks sandals? They are very comfortable.

When I was in college I got my first pair of Birkenstocks sandals and they were comfortable. I remember wearing them to class because it was a short walk from my near-campus apartment. They lasted many years and conformed to my feet. I had them so long I resoled them and repaired the cork.

Two years ago we got a pair of Birks on Nordstrom.com and after about a year they slowly broke and started hurting my feet. The pain came on slowly but surely both times and then it took days for it took go away. They broke in the same spot too.

The last time my shoes broke to the point I could not wear them I was visiting Kauai and living in Oahu. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring other shoes and as soon as I got there the pain was unbearable. It caused pain in every step. When I returned to Oahu, I returned the shoes to Nordstrom and replaced them.

I am going to mail my current shoes to Nordstrom because I am in Maui and we don’t have one. They will credit our account and I will get other shoes, but I am concerned about Birks’ quality now. Also, Nordstrom.com is sold out of all the Birks I could find.

About a week ago I made myself stop wearing the sandals and wear shoes and the pain is almost gone. I thought it was something else, so I didn’t worry about it until I realized what happened again.

I walk a lot, so I need some shoes that I can put some miles on. My Adidas shoes with laces are fine, but I prefer wearing sandals sometimes.

Good luck if you buy Birkenstocks. You might want to ask about their return policy.

Are you overweight?

Over the last decade or two people have changed the way that they speak to and about overweight people. Some people were jerks and labeled as bullies. However, I think good people with edifying things to say have been vilified for saying anything about overweight people and the backlash that Jillian Michaels is facing now is a point in case.

Being overweight is unhealthy and it takes its toll on your knees, ankles, organs, etc. My mom was obese and had complications from a knee replacement, so I know what being overweight for a long period of time can do. Her mom and grandma were the same way. It isn’t good for you.

I think the extreme backlash against anybody that says anything about overweight people is counterproductive. Bullying isn’t the solution either though.

When I coached soccer and we lost one time, my dad reminded me that the players wanted to win even more than I wanted them to win. I think the same is true about being the optimal weight. Overweight people want to be the optimal weight more than others want them to be that way.

I have struggled with my weight over the years. I was an overweight child and my mom used to say she liked my belly fat. She didn’t want me to be skinny. Nonetheless, I think I was supposed to be 4” taller and that could be the main reason why I have struggled to maintain a lean body. It has caused me to fast and diet and learn a lot about health though.

I hope people can be encouraging and edifying when they rightly judge overweight people and exhort them to be their best. The issue of body fat tends to be an emotional one and some people are flat out mean to overweight people. However, if we are to reverse the trend of kids and adults becoming overweight and obese at alarming rates we can’t stop judging, but we need to accurately judge and make loving exhortations.

I am fasting every other day again for 80 days. Afterwards I hope to write a book on fasting. In fact, I have already started it and I may put it on my website for free in addition to selling it. I think fasting is a key discipline and it could be the only way to reverse this trend. I have already written a book called Do the Math Diet which is about losing weight through calorie restriction.

I think portion sizes are detrimental to some people. For instance, a 5’ woman that weighs 100 pounds and a 6’ man that weighs 200 pounds have different dietary needs. Perhaps restaurants need to adjust their menu and customize it more, so big and small people of both sexes can easily eat a sensible amount. I imagine if I was any shorter that I would probably be heavier because my metabolism would be slower. In short (no pun intended), I think it is easier to be tall and lean than short and skinny because of serving sizes.

It is difficult to lose weight and keep it off. Some people pay for liposuction or other medical procedures to remove fat. Most people can’t afford this potentially dangerous shortcut though.

Lastly, I think the American diet is partly responsible for the obesity epidemic (and diabetes and some other diseases). It would be wise to eat an organic vegetarian diet with plenty of fiber and vitamins and avoid white flour, hydrogenated oils, GMOs, artificial colors and flavors, processed cane sugar, antibiotics and steroids, etc.

This month I have been eating on odd days and fasting on even days. It has went well and I am anticipating losing about 10-15 pounds between January 1 and March 20. I will probably blog an update in a few days.

Good luck in your diets and fasts.

After President Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, Iran shot over a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq that were housing American troops. Whether or not there were any casualties remains to be seen, but according to the media Iran has reported that they killed Americans.

If Iran killed Americans, then there will be an American response and this conflict will probably escalate into a tit-for-tat war. If Iran didn’t kill Americans, then I think there will be a window where diplomacy could work. President Trump and his team needs to find a peaceful way out of this for everybody. I think the U.S. also needs to reevaluate its interests in the region and elsewhere.

Iraq’s government has voted to expel the U.S. military from its country. Iran and Iraq have had disagreements, but they have also been regional allies. It seems foolish for Iran to fire missiles at a base in Iraq because they could kill Iraqis. Nonetheless, it is clear that Iraq and Iran want the U.S. military to leave.

Reportedly, Iran has threatened to attack Haifa, Israel and Dubai, UAE and they might. However, I imagine those are secondary targets and they are not disclosing their primary targets. It seems silly for them to give their enemies time to prepare for their attack, but this entire situation is pretty silly if you ask me.

The U.S. government has disrespected Iran and other countries for a long time and they don’t seem to care. I just hope that the country with the biggest nuclear arsenal and the largest military can find a way to invoke world peace instead of World War III because I think both are within our grasp.

Now I am reading that a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 plane took off in Tehran, Iran and immediately crashed and killed 176 people. Reportedly, this has happened three times in different countries in the last 10 years and this is the deadliest crash. Whether or not an anti-Iran actor is to blame or not remains to be seen, but planes don’t fall out of the sky for no reason. Also, the best crooks commit a crime and get away with it, so if somebody caused the plane to crash they might get away with it especially if they used a weapon that has never been seen before.

It has been about a week since I stopped using Reddit and Instagram and it feels good to have my time back. I haven’t used Twitter for 6-7 months.

I have created a Pictures web page that resembles Instagram. There are rows of three thumbnail pics that are (bookmark) linked to larger pics with a caption and time stamp. I have also created a Twitter-like feed on my main page with videos, links, quotes and other stuff like I used to tweet and post. I am still contributing to my Poetry and Quotes pages too.

I get tired of sharing my data with other companies. It seems like a bad trade-off. I think some of these companies have too much power too.

I still don’t have my last seven months of tweets from Twitter. When I was banned in mid-June 2019, I only had a backup file from seven months previous. I contacted them, but they did not respond. I never should have been banned in the first place, but they should at least let users backup all of their data at any time. Twitter also destroyed my lengthy list of journalists, but I digress.

Tumblr did something similar. I used to blog on Tumblr and post all sorts of things. However, one day (around 2013) they banned me for posting a Weezer song because they said it violated their copyright or something. A ban seems way too harsh and I was unable to get my data from them after they banned me. I don’t think they even provided a way to backup my data, but a third-party did it while the account was active.

I think developing my website and hosting my data there is the wisest idea. I even do it with zero ads and no trackers or counters. I am optimizing it too, so my web pages should rise in search engine rankings soon.

I have a couple of To Do lists and I have accomplished several things already. One thing I crossed off my list was updating my News Links web page at http://z.sdkid.com. There were a lot of defunct codes on it and it was an eyesore, but it is much better now. 80 U.S. news links and 185 international news links are constantly being updated via RSS feed.

I don’t need much inspiration online to create, but I like seeing some people I follow as they create stories, travel, tell jokes, interview people, create shows, skits/bits and movies, etc. I also like thanking musicians for their hits and hearing about their concerts and new albums. However, I need to keep everything in its proper place. Fortunately I have a lot of discipline as a self-employed person, but social media can be addicting.

I hate doing things that feel like a total loss. If I feel that way about a social media company especially when they may take my data I won’t use them. Fortunately I have stopped using Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Google Search/Gmail, Tumblr, Wordpress, Instagram, etc. and I have never used Apple iCloud. It’s not that I inherently like the little guy, but some of those companies don’t respect free speech and others want to monetize our data or allow the government or potential hackers to have access.

Social media companies still treat our data like a bank treats money and they expect to make money on it. I think people have accepted that business model because their favorite companies that are built into their favorite devices having been getting away with it. However, I would prefer to use a different company with better encryption and greater privacy that hasn’t manipulated the American people and the world.

I update my website with my iPad and I am having trouble embedding Spotify and YouTube. Their applications do not offer the embed codes and their web pages do, but YouTube’s isn’t working and Spotify’s site requires a PC. It seems like they don’t want their songs embedded in websites because it shouldn’t be this difficult. It used to be easier to do too.

Keeping all of my data on my website is wise, but it takes a little longer to upload it because I have to code and upload the files (through Port 21 somewhere). I like customizing it the way I like it though. Companies like Twitter and Instagram should let people customize their experience too. Why should I care about likes, upvotes or downvotes? What if I don’t want to see them? Companies should also let people skin their page, so they don’t look so mundane and similar.

Anyways I may return to a social media platform to check in on people from time to time. However, I am enjoying my break. I have some ideas for new content that I want to post on my website and publish in upcoming books, so stay tuned. Since people have to go the extra mile to visit my site I want to follow through with posting the innovative content that I imagine, but it takes time to develop something new and create.

Take care and good luck.

After using Instagram for a few years I decided to take a break. I don’t know how long it will last, but I have created a Pictures page on my website. I may also create a slideshow feature. In the meantime these are the pros and cons of Instagram.

A lot of celebrities are on IG, so they post pictures and some of them create interesting stories. Each person is unique and has a different way of expressing themselves. I followed old and young people, big celebrities and regular Joes. Seeing them create graphics, questions and effects was fun. I will still drop by IG from time to time and see what they are creating.

Some people on IG just post their half-naked body in every pic. That’s cool too. Whatever floats your boat. However, I just unfollowed about 150 users because I didn’t know who they were. I am following about 800 now and I may reduce it a little more.

IG would never let me upload a dynamic .gif. Why? That was unhelpful.

Sometimes when I uploaded pictures they wouldn’t look good because they were accidentally zoomed in. Sometimes IG gives you no option except to zoom your picture and it ruins it.

I hate using portrait mode. I have a Bluetooth keyboard and I like it in my lap. I don’t want to hold the iPad in portrait mode as I charge it and listen to something with the headphones because it’s impossible to sit up straight. Why Apple didn’t put more inputs in the iPad and make them on the other sides is a mystery to me.

IG is a little vapid in the vein of some other social media platforms. Some people with lots of followers post advertisements because they make lots of money from companies. I never unfollowed them for doing that, but it was a little distasteful because I was rarely interested in what they were selling.

I liked how IG let me post 10 pictures at a time. When I was using Twitter, I preferred posting pics to IG sometimes because it would take several tweets or one IG post.

I also liked replying to people in their posts, stories and DMs. I think they read them and sometimes I would get the feeling that they were responding in a way in their posts or stories. It was a little like the way I began communicating with some people on Twitter. “Subtweeting” was what we called it.

I didn’t like how some features were unavailable if you didn’t have a lot of followers. This made it sort of a sick game. Companies sell Instagram followers, so it is just a matter of who has the money to buy them or who wants to go that route. For instance, popular accounts can send active hyperlinks in stories, but everybody else can’t. It isn’t fair and makes it more difficult for everybody.

I don’t like or trust Instagram because it is owned by Facebook. Everybody knows how their carelessness and greed led to foreign people buying ads and attempting to influence the result of the 2016 presidential election. Also, in 2011 a federal government employee said she spied on my Facebook account which inevitably led to my arrest on trumped up charges.

I thought it was rude when Mark Zuckerberg asked for nude pics of users. It was rude and creepy. Facebook said it was to prevent users’ nude pics from being stolen and circulated because they would be able to match up their nude pics and remove the stolen ones. However, it seemed like a gross, weird, bad idea and there has to be another way.

I haven’t missed IG yet, but maybe I will later. I certainly don’t miss it like I missed Twitter after I was banned. Now I am happy to have my time back because I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I may get some time back from leaving IG, but I will be spending more time on my website, so it will even out.

Pick your social media companies wisely because some of them are crooked. Backup your files too. There is an application that backs up IG files if they ever stop providing the downloadable file.

Good luck.

Today I am starting an intermittent fast for 80 days. I am going to eat every other day, so I will skip 40 days of food and it will end on March 20. I did the same thing from October 1 until December 20 and it went well.

Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions? I am going to make a few changes this year. Here are some of them.

I uninstalled the Gmail application and I no longer use Gmail as of today. I don’t even let Gmail keep a copy of my email anymore. I think my migration was long overdue. ProtonMail seems better and it’s encrypted.

I am using a VPN (virtual private network) whenever I surf the web now. That means I have the utmost security on my tablets and devices. I have been testing ProtonVPN and it works well. It doesn’t use too much memory and it doesn’t reduce speed much if at all. Many years ago when these sorts of things were first being offered in the AppStore they made everything load slowly (or never load). It is great to see they have come a long way.

I stopped using Reddit as of today. It was a strange experiment after I was banned from Twitter. I even accrued over 21,000 karma points in a little over six months. However, it was just too weird and unfriendly. For instance, I was banned from the most popular subreddits for dumb reasons. The moderators don’t support free speech and divergent points of view. They expect people to act a certain way and each subreddit is very different, so Reddit isn’t for me.

I have removed several links from the links bar on my website. I don’t want to support Google (even if it’s a link to Translate), YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. They can stand on their own two feet and I get nothing for linking them.

I added links to my Amazon Author page and email address in the link bar. I also added a picture of me that is linked to a new pictures page.

I stopped posting on Instagram as of today. I need another break and this may be a long one (e.g. 3-12 months or more). Also, I want to host my own data instead of posting it on a website owned by Facebook.

I published 2019 Quotes yesterday in Kindle and paperback on Amazon. Today I am going to publish a book of 70 poems called 70. About 10% of it will be poems that were not uploaded to my website and never seen before. I have already started writing more poems and quotes, so I will upload them to my website soon and they will be included in books in 2020.

Happy New Year and good luck in 2020.