Fall

I've been on Montana for six months now. It was a warm easy summer, but slow fishing in the rivers. Trout have declined in the last three years. It's disturbing. Bozeman has grown in leaps and bounds since I've been gone. Apartments have gone up all over the valley but are so expensive that many are vacant. I'm out of the real estate game for good unless I get a windfall from selling a screenplay. The writers' and actors' strikes are almost over and I wait for the return of the Taylor Sheridan shows 1923 and what's left of Yellowstone to start back up. Then 1944 will shoot in the Bitterroot Valley at some point. I hope to get on as background and hopefully a bit part.

Eventually though I may wind up back in California to avoid the winters. I've seen enough winters now since running off in 2011 with Linda Richmond who is incommunicado to me now. They can be a drag over time. My prostate cancer is gone but there may be a lingering effect of sterility that I'm investigating. It beats being dead. 

Looks to be a slow winter ahead. 

 

Current Mood

So happy to report a clean bill of prostate cancer health! I'm on my last hormone shot and clean one year after my radiation. Also after a horrible alcohol withdrawal reaction last April that involved a week stay in the hospital during Easter I've not had a real beer since. Onward!

I've gone back to my writing career and hope to resume the acting path I left in 2000 to complete school. Given the boom of Yellowstone shows in Montana I'm going to relocate back there in the spring to get a closer look at the action doing background and whatever level I can get to as a Sag-Aftra member for bigger parts. I'm writing several screenplays to market. Patriot on the Kennebec and The Longest Road are completed. Currently I'm halfway through Yellowstone: Blackwater Rising. Eventually I'll adapt the climate series Warm Front and Heat Wave. Have to keep eyes on the prize as there's no going back only forward through semi-retirement. Waiting on a new apartment by spring as the lists open up. 

The New Normal

Facebook takes much of my writing time but I've republished older work revised and two new novels: The Longest Road the WWII story of my father's exploits and Yellowstone: Black Water Rising about the fossil fuel industry in a semi fictional Montana Fishing town.

Over the summer I was diagnosed with a semi aggressive prostate cancer and am getting radiation treatments for it until the first week of February. Happy New Year! No glaring side effects so far. They say it is 75+% curable so I take them at their word. I attended my 50th high school reunion in Waterville and met many old friends and acquaintances for the first time in, well, 50 years. It went well; a great time.

All work has been postponed until after the treatments. The three hormone shots won't interfere with anything. The question is what to do with the rest of my time? Hard to say. The Pandemic is raging once again and jobs are plentiful in construction. I'll have to see. Until then it's one day at a time.

Wintering Covid-19 Pandemic in Maine

I've been in Maine since mid-October and already have managed to work in the Carpenter's Local #349 out of Portland on a trim/finish punch list job on $500K condos in the Old Port. I've been single now for two years and the relationship ended badly with hard feelings on both sides as hard as I tried not to have that happen. Shit happens.

I worked until Christmas but at Thanksgiving break I came down with shingles and it was and has been brutal. I was out six days while on the anti-viral and then went back until Christmas break and then the myalgia kicked in and I was out of it with pain. After a couple of weeks the supervisor texted an offer of layoff so I could get UI benefits and I accepted. So for a month and a half I've been healing slowly and it's close to being over. The rash that came back twice is dying off and should be gone soon but a snowy winter and cold almost like the old days makes even working inside and commuting a shot way into the city unbearably hard. There was at least one Covid breakout at the job so I escaped that and so I'm not in any hurry to try it again. The claim won't go through as UI laws and the Covid CARES Act monies of last spring are much harder to qualify for now. Whatever. I'm retired anyway.

The collision in Idaho is a now a lawsuit brought by me so I'm fighting the same insurance company who denied my claim against their client who was at fault. My evidence is unassailable on any objective legal grounds and I've given the court and defendant's counsel their requested documentation. If I can get the judge to review both parties' evidence I should win. We shall see after the next Zoom hearing later this month. I don't want a jury trial. That's just overkill for this sort of thing I believe the judge feels the same way. 

In current events, I continue to have problems with Facebook commentary and now I'm banned from posting for 30 days for quoting the Kill Mike Pence chant from the television clips of the insurrection at the Capitol. They punish the wrong people. I quoted this to a supporter on a friend's thread who was against impeachment for this crime. I've appealed to the FaceBook high court. We live in strange times that are long beyond interesting.

Back to Maine

After being out West for decades I'm moving back to Maine, but a different area than where I'm from. Windham area. Taos house lost money and I got nothing for my effort in a separation settlement. Well, I got two vehicles but the truck was totaled in a wreck in Idaho at the end of August. Now I'm fighting with the offending driver's insurance and if that fails I'll sue.

Bought a new used Ford F150 4x4 and it's nice. I'll be driving to Maine in that mid-October. Been in apartments for the last two years and have one to go to in Maine. Will work as can be found and fish lakes and rivers. Anywhere is better than Covid Idaho. Our old house here has been sold twice since we over remodeled it and the Montana house is gone too. It's all in the past now. On to the future. Go Joe!

Changes

It's been awhile since I updated this. FaceBook has really taken the place of the old Blogger world and that's OK. A year ago May my partner and I entered into a real estate venture in Taos, NM. It was an auction house. I won't go into the details but it's right up the road from Dennis Hopper's grave.

I and local help remodeled this old adobe over the summer and fall. It needed everything. New kitchen, wiring, a whole new bathroom and wall finishing and paint, window glass etc. During that time I learned I was removed from the Montana house after arguments over the house and we separated officially due to personal differences, behavioral issues like over drinking and economic decline from investments. I would have to return to some kind of work after 9 years of being retired albeit not in a the official way.

I finished the house and went to Florida to retrieve my truck and boat. I stayed the winter in Titusville where I sold the boat and the Ford Escape. The rent was too high so I retired for the income. We worked together at a distance to sell some of my stored things: Two more boats and the Triumph motorcycle. The Taos house continued to have problems in plumbing, even though new, the furnace and sewer hook up. In short it became a money pit. No profit. We finally took it off the market after a year. In the spring it will go back on in hopes of salvaging the best price possible to preserve all of that work I did and money invested.

Over the winter I suffered a retinal detachment and was operated on. I've been recovering ever since. It improves monthly. By June I had to get out of Florida. It was 100 degrees and humid. Can't take that. I managed to find a HUD subsidized apartment north of Twin Falls, Idaho and took it. It's not ideal but close to Silver Creek and the Big Wood River of our early time together in 2011-15. It's painful but familiar and economical. So here I am. I fished all summer with much success. I went back into carpentry where I worked at a milk plant trimming out a new office complex and now odd jobs on rentals in Twin Falls. Ezekiel left an arctic landscape here. The powerful winters that attracted us to Ketchum and Hailey years ago don't seem so fun now. I have my eye on Nevada long term. Lots of work and favorable conditions for retirees. Couldn't arrange housing this year. I'm on subsidized list for apartments all over from Hailey, Jackson Hole, and outside Las Vegas. We'll see.

Montana Spring

Been snowing since we got back from Florida in late March after driving from Bokeelia, Fl where we wintered. Fishing has never been worse there due to sugar pollution and subsequent red tide. Enjoyed seeing Dead and Company in Sunrise, Fl on the way north. Fantastic! Sold the Panga Marine EVO skiff and bought a 14 ft Panga made in Belize. Much more manageable and so much lighter!--The reason Panga Marine lost the skiff challenge. Johnson Motor was crap so need one of those eventually.

Guiding in Montana has proven difficult as there are too many guides in the area and now the state wants to put restrictions of the number of trips and closing sections for one day per week. This won't help business because not all sections of the river will be available depending on nothing more than the given day of the week.

Madison Back Of Beyond Guide Service

I've started a guide service in Ennis, Montana. This is my fleet for hire. Clackacraft Headhunter skiff and NRS Outlaw 130. Each accommodates two anglers and the rower/guide. My license #27343.

Ennis, MT

We finally sold the Hailey, Idaho house. Didn't take too bad a bath but it cost us money all the way out the door. Good riddance to a very unfriendly place at an ungodly cost. Livingston and Paradise Valley didn't pan out. Houses in town are crap and too close together, valley places are crazy high. Bought in the Madison Valley for a song compared to that and the 07 house has six acres crawling with pronghorn antelope. We're satisfied. The Western heat wave has been horrendous and tough on trout but it has finally cooled. Trout fishing the Montana rivers until October and then back to Florida for the whole winter. Here's to that!

New Year

Well, my Maverick Mirage HPX flats boat was fixed but it had other problems that came to light in early February. First, I got it to the island, after days of cold windy weather, fished for an afternoon and ran into solenoid problems. Mechanic fixed that but the problem took four days out of our two week stay. I had a slip at the harbor club on the mainland and had it there when an overnight rain storm almost sank it again. Hosed bilge pump this time, which is why it sank in the first place. Insurance companies won't replace those and they are always the cause of boats sinking. Managed to pump it out manually and now it's back in the shop for two new bilge pumps, one atop the other and each hard wired to a separate battery. Will see how that works in May when we return to the island. An unsinkable Beliezean style Panga skiff is in the offing when the time is right. Fished out of one three days in San Pedro Belize in early January. Pretty stable platform and runs in skinny water well, plus good in rough water. I'm sold. This problem and newly retired meddling neighbors from Minnesota who want communal satellite Internet in our building instead of buying their own make a future change a necessity. It will happen.

Boat Sank

A storm on Little Gasparilla Island inundated my Maverick flats boat the day before Thanksgiving. Luckily, my Progressive insurance policy covered nearly all of the $9k in damages.

Happy New Year!

Soon we'll be off to San Pedro, Belize for two weeks of sun and fun and of course, fishing. Should be a great time. Bitter cold here in Idaho.

Hunting Season

Warm weather has been nice but the buck deer are way up high. Haven't seen one, nor any does, which are usually in the yard off and on. Installed a new section of the roof with class B fireproof cedar shakes. Looks really good. Getting ready to return to Little Gasparilla Island, Florida for a month. Redfish and snook here we come!