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Hike On!

Yesterday, I almost quit our 2026 Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Before we even started!

I started thinking about how difficult it was gonna be. It’s never been difficult for me before. I’ve been athletic my entire life and been hiking/backpacking since 1974.

We hiked 4.5 miles the day before yesterday and I woke up tired, so sore I couldn’t walk and just horrible energy. Is this how most people feel training for a thru-hike? Damn, you non athletes are tough. Couch to trail hikers are super human.

My 2021 thru hike was physically easy. Even with a new diagnosis for Parkinson’s disease I was still physically strong, even underneath my dopamine deficiency.

Fast forward four years. Three failed thru-hike attempts, Parkinson’s got a lot worse, I had double cataract surgery, a hernia repair from choking too much, every single side effect from every Parkinson’s drug showed up and wrecked havoc on my psyche, brain surgery to have an internal electrical stimulator (DBS) implanted, wore out a ten year battery in two years with maxed out voltage, another surgery to replace the battery with a rechargeable one and a software AI module upgrade. I am now fully a cyborg with relatively mild Parkinson’s disease and a titanium spine. Wow, what a ride. And to think I didn’t maintain my fitness. Shame.

We are “training” hard to not fail again and are perfectly willing and able to deal with my syncope/seizure events when I overdo it. I have at least ruled out any heart involvement since my last event I had sleep tracking on and saw no rhythm or heart rate changes. I think they are just dopamine depletion and a sign I am overdoing it. So hike on.

We do plan to post YouTube videos along the way spontaneously but not necessarily a daily vlog. I prefer a long documentary format when we finish. But yall know me. I can’t shut up so I’m sure I’ll annoy with regular shorts and reels.

Why post at all besides for friends? Because my health problems and therapies applied have resulted in “miraculous” outcomes. After 18 heart attacks, 16 heart surgeries including a quadruple bypass at 45, 6 stents, dying three times from those events, twice broken vertabrae injuries repaired with new titanium devices, torn knee with a new meniscus device, busted hip bursa from injuries, new eyeball lenses, a stomach mesh to fix/prevent future hernias and now an AI implant in my chest to stimulate my brain to control the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, I am pretty much normal for my age (60) in terms of any physical capability.

I can still lift weights, walk, hike, carry a backpack, beat the hell out of a bag and quite frankly kick ass. If I kick ass too much,

I just have to lay around for three days and let my base dopamine rebuild.

Other Parkinson’s sufferers need to see this. Keto, DMSO, exercise, peace in your life and a loving relationship can allow you to deal with this horrible disease. And a couple $million in healthcare costs (thank you Nashville VA) and technology! Thanks be to God.

The real surprise, you Parkies listening? No meds. of any kind. No levedopa, no agonists, no statins, no BP meds, zero zilch nada.

I stopped Carbidopa Levedopa and rasagiline in August 19th and haven’t looked back. It took a couple weeks and Boom, I am me again. Psychologically speaking I was losing, had lost my mind (depression, impulse

Control disorder, psychosis etc). This “is” the goal for DBS and for me along with Gods grace has returned my sanity.

But, I am very memory impaired for the medication period. I have lost several years from the end of my thru-hike in 2021 until pretty much the end of August this year. Sorry if that has affected you but damn look what I was dealing with.

Cut me some slack. Or not. Your choice because I’m going hiking because that’s what I do.

All the way in 2026. Georgia to Maine. We are leaving Feb 1st thru march. Cherry picking weather and life plans before we commit to a date. We are selling our house so still working to get it back on the market.

We will be bringing our RV along, parking it ahead a week or so at a time. Shuttle back and walk to the RV. That will allow us to run back for doctors (they won’t leave me alone) etc.

How long? 6-24 months. Of course we hope to finish in a year but we will finish no matter how much rest I need. Six months is possible if we train. We are.

Silas, our Australian Shepherd, is coming with us. We need to find someone to watch our cats.

Gear- we are both under 12 pounds base weight but I will be adding 2.5 pounds of equipment to manage and charge my brain device. Yes, I will carry my guitar all the way again.

We will be “Platinum”blazing but visiting as many of our hostel friends as possible. Hotels are better for me to rest in.

Are we hiking “for” a cause? Yes, to

Show the mercy God has given one he called

We aren’t raising money. If you want to donate for Parkinson’s do so. Michael J Fox would be a good choice or even more impactful would be to find a local rock steady boxing program for Parkinson’s sufferers. Lots of research going on that is very promising but local neurologist physical therapist are small business that actually help. They could use the donations for people suffering today.

And in the words of a good friend of mine:

“Hike On”

To God All The Glory. I walk because he carries me and to think I used to think he just made me strong when it was Him all along. Find the truth before it is too late. Ask a Christian or pick up His book.

#L0ngtermonthetrail

Importance of Striving To Not Do Bad (The LinkedIn Campaign)

I’m a 60 year old, retired, somewhat disabled Veteran of our Armed Forces. I’m an Eagle Scout, an Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker (2,200 miles), former Reserve Deputy in the Sheriff’s Department. I am a trusted member of the FBI’s Infragard (White Hat community of cybersecurity professionals). I’ve gone thru the door with joint teams of deputies and US Marshalls to serve warrants for wanted persons while actively working full-time as Vice President and Senior Vice President roles in Fortune 100 and Music Industry businesses. I’ve held Top Secret security clearances, briefed Generals, deployed to War Zones, been injured horribly several times in the field, Graduated from elite schools at the top of my class. I’ve been neuro-psych tested so many times I can regurgitate the tests. (I passed them all, still).

I’ve led teams of people in all walks of life; military, white collar, Law Enforcement, teams so good technically anybody would put them up against any other. I’ve fought for those teams, sacrificed my own rewards and damn near my own career for some of them.

I’ve got advanced degrees in Computer Science and Finance. I’ve had tremendous impact on industries through their early adoption of technology before, during and after the .Com boom. I’ve been responsible for tens of millions of IT budgets and raised well over $100 million in funding for startups. And, I’ve made and lost ($180 million) in four days because deals signed on a Friday don’t last through a Monday when planes run into buildings. That money would have made it harder for me to be a good person so I was never that sad.

Been There, Don’t That.

I’ve worked for a lot of leaders and a few people assigned over me. For the most part, I saw what I would expect, military leaders are rock-solid having been formally trained and raised in a meritocracy and the larger the company most likely the better a leader the Ceo is. I’ve seen a lot of young entrepreneurs who will succeed because they care about the team they picked to get them there, I’ve seen old, wise Billionaires willing to spend their time with younger leaders to impart wisdom (thanks Mr. Eskind).

I’ve seen leaders and some assigned over me who had strategic vision and believe in what we were doing and knew the rewards would follow, and those who money at any cost was the norm. I’ve seen teams of leaders start health care companies with an idea that wellness should be rewarded and it works. I’ve seen new technologies absolutely storm several industries and the success those that can bring.

I’ve also worked for people that no matter what, they thought they should be rewarded because they deserved it. Regardless of the size of the business, the model, whatever, some leaders think they are worthy of what they see others get. I remind them money is the root of all Evil.

My career ended a little different than I expected. What arrogance to think what I expected would play out. Sure, I got to retire mid 50s and hike the Appalachian Trail. Got diagnosed right in the middle as you know if you have read this blog. The 4-5 years leading up to that retirement was one of heart attacks, strokes, dying in transport from one hospital to another for yet another heart surgery, monthly spine steroid injections, kidney stones, falls, seizures and failed leadership assigned over me in dealing with losing their “Tech Guy” when a deal was in the works for what they thought they were entitled to.

The past 5 years since “retirement” was spent trying to fulfill a lifelong dream to hike the AT, progressing with Parkinson’s Disease at a rate so fast it has its own sub-category of research, having an advanced, computer controlled stimulator (Medtronic Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)) inserted into my brain. That stimulator allows me to walk, talk, eat and sometimes sleep. It has allowed my cognition to improve to a point I am finally done with the brain fog that set in after my 2017 heart reconstruction. And most important, It allows me to remain alive because without it I wouldn’t remain.

I am in all practicality a cyborg. Damn, pretty cool for a “Tech Guy” but pretty damn scary for a Cybersecurity guy. Absolutely terrifying.

Getting to this current state has been quite a journey. As soon as diagnosed with Parkinson’s my Movement Disorders Specialist (MDS Parkinson’s doctor), began the job of finding the right mix of chemicals to relieve my symptoms and help me live better. Those drugs work several ways but essentially you start with some neuro protective drug (rasagiline for me). From there as you progress, and I did fast just like I did the prior three years, they add the gold standard “levodopa”. Essentially a dopamine replacement therapy that makes it past the blood brain barrier. This helps your muscles system “move” and with Parkinson’s you really start to understand what body processes are controlled by muscle movement.

Since I was hiking the Appalachian trail and using more dopamine than usual, my MDS added several dopamine agonist drugs to the mix. These help dopamine hand around longer than normal for use. They also have horrible side effects, interactions with other medications and can cause cognitive and behavior problems. Couple them with anti-anxiety meds for panic attacks and you have one hell of a psychological profile to manage for a Type A, smart, aggressive, trained warrior who was trying to survive. Add in divorce lawyers, bosses that cared more about their own “deals” than their teams, doctors too aggressive with meds and all you can do is get by and try to do no harm. By the way, rantings on social media aren’t’ harm if they are true.

I do believe that If I hadn’t realized the meds were making me crazy and stopping them on my own, I would not have survived. Luckily I did and was able to suffer along well enough for DBS surgery, the ensuing two years of programming DBS correctly and having stimulation turned up so high I am me again. Seriously, I haven’t been this clear mentally since 2017.

I sit here now, five years retired, a life I never dreamed of, happiness, technology that has effectively “cured” me with emerging hopes of stem cell therapy that will make it permanent. I am off all pharmaceutical drugs, my heart has relaxed now that I’m not responsible for success and failure for Global IT systems that failure means stock price deterioration, failed bonuses and I feel great.

I also sit here, an old man, looking back at a great Career and knowing I can hold my head up every single day because I treated people well and tried to do the right thing. My name, my reputation are important to me because my actions are a reflection of Him and He has high expectations for me and YOU.

Be good. Be good to other people. Care about your teams, Reward people and do your damn job and you will be rewarded.

I’m done. BMI needs new leadership. If that isn’t apparent then I’m blind. The songwriters need their interests looked after not the rewards of a public company management team going to a quasi-not for profit monopoly. Want riches, start or grow a company for other rich people, don’t force a deal that sells out almost a century of history.

Oh, and I’ve warned a lot of you in the past, investigate who works for you. It isn’t’ that damn hard. Hell, give me a call and I’ll do it for you. Getting pretty good at OSINT and love uncovering Evil. Special discount to husbands in a divorce. LOL

Seriously, regardless of skill, if a person is of questionable morals or ethics, do you want them leading your teams?

I’m bored, available for speaking events, light strategic consulting, done both a lot. Thinking about a book. Want to read it?

Hike On!

DBS Pictures eeewww look away

Where Have I Been and Am I Still Blogging

Yes, I am alive and well. Hiking, retired and ready to start sharing again.

I am L0ngterm. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in June of 2020. Right in the middle of a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. I say “a” because it is not my first walk.

I knew I had PD for several years. I woke up from yet another heart surgery (18 including bypasses, catheterizations, stents, yada, yada, yada) in 2017 and knew something different was wrong. I continued on, something had changed about life but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was still me but something had shifted in the Matrix.

I tried to retire from work a year early in 2019. Financially we were ready because I had planned to retire at 55 my whole life. Some in my life were too selfish to let me get away from the stress of running companies at the expense of my own health; family, friends and bosses, they all ask me to give more than I could or wanted to. Not theirs to ask of me. But Hey, I’m Superman so why shouldn’t they expect it of me? Because I get to make some decisions in my life for ME.

I kicked around for a year, took a ton of vacation, hiked my ass off and whatever was going on got worse. Finally in early 2020, I said I had enough and retired effective March 1, 2020. Never looked back. Early retirement is all I ever dreamed it would be. Try it.

PD has no definitive diagnosis until autopsy, that’s one medical test I’m willing to put off a while. You get diagnosed after several years of stress that you are going crazy because those around you think it is in your head. Doctors tell you it is in your head and you need to decrease your stress. If you know you, you know you. No one else does.

Luckily, I progressed enough (lucky to get worse just to get help? Really?) that a new Doctor at the VA (by the way, the VA is great in Nashville!) diagnosed me quickly. What a relief. Or, is it?

The meds for PD, primarily levodopa, act to replace or enhance your brain’s natural dopamine or at least act as the organic precursor to your own body producing dopamine. Much like diabetes, our bodies do not produce enough of what we need to function. Unlike diabetes, we can’t measure our level of dopamine, the meds take an hour to “kick in” and for a lot of us, that hour is one of pain, discomfort, fatigue, weird symptoms and can last longer than an hour or fail altogether. When it fails, all you can do is wait till your next dose (three hours for me) and hope the next one kicks in.

Enough with what Parkinson’s is, this is about me.

I am alive and well much to some other’s chagrin. I have always taken what life has thrown at me, stood up and overcome. When I had a quadruple bypass at 45, I went backpacking on the AT a month later. Crazy? Maybe. For me it was the best way to prove to myself I was still me.

When I had C3-C7 laminoplasty spinal surgery two years ago in 2020, I fell climbing Mt Katahdin 6 weeks later because I was still weak. The problem isn’t that I fell its’ that I didn’t get back up and keep climbing. Or, the problem is that I thought I should even be attempting to climb Mt Katahdin 6 weeks after major spinal surgery. I’m not Superman, quit trying to act like it.

I’ve been struggling with Parkinson’s Disease much longer than even I thought. I can tell now that a lot of the back pain I’ve had over years was in fact a neurological problem called Dystonia. This is where certain muscles in your body have a faulty signalling and contract in a painful, unrelenting fashion. That pulling can pull spines out of alignment, permanently bend bonds in your foot, cause chronic soft tissue damage from micro-fiber tears in areas such as your rotator cuff hence frozen shoulder could in fact be an early symptom of PD, or not. Only the successful relief from Levodopa will tell if its PD or just an old injury.

I am not going to win this time, you can’t win with PD. But you can trick that sucker and let him walk alongside you. I am the walking man and I will keep walking until my last breath. I am not Superman no matter how I’ve tried to act. I must slow down, learn patience and most of all accept that L0ngterm thru-hiking the AT at a pace of 8 miles a day instead of 20 and maybe, just maybe take 2 or 3 years to finish my next one instead of one season may be the right way to do it and not piss off my friend, Mr Parkie.

Don’t feel sorry for me, envy me for He has given me the strength to stand up and walk. He may be carrying me but my feet are on the ground and I am me again. I have successfully come through the 1^st year of Parkinson’s Disease which as I have learned may be the worst year of PD. After that, even though it is progressive and degenerative, you at least know what it is and know what the worse for now is. From there it is all just incremental. Not a cliff.

I can handle incremental, slow change. Isn’t that just aging? PD is more than aging, but I think I’ll just assume PD is a manifestation of everything that is wrong with me conveniently wrapped into a tidy package called my daily burden.

That daily burden is 19 hours of wake time, separated by 6, 3 hours incremental doses of Levodopa. Taking your meds, waiting 45 minutes for it to kick in via a process that I call the “Wave”. This wave feels like the Levedopa enters my brain, and spreads from the middle of my brain in a slowly expanding, slightly warm rush of central nervous system stimulation. Hopefully that doesn’t sound pleasant because it isn’t.

After about 15 minutes, the wave fills my brain and poof a light switch is flipped, and I am “On”. On is when our dose of levodopa is currently relieving our symptoms. Sometimes it kicks in very well and we feel almost normal.

That almost normal feels so good, it is almost as if we don’t have PD. If you get too many of these in a row or too many days in a row, you may start wondering if you were misdiagnosed. The answer is no, you should feel lucky because at some point in the next week that great On response to Levodopa will turn into a failed dose altogether or a couple days of less than good response.

Don’t look at me and think, “Poor guy”. I don’t feel that way. I am dealing with what I have in front of me today but trust me it is in eager anticipation to the good days that I know always return. Ever the optimist, I have always been. No other choice. I’m glad to be alive.

What is the opposite of “On”? well “Off” of course. In PD, Off is a no, no. At all costs, healthcare should assume Off is bad, throw tons of dollars at finding drugs that reduce or eliminate Off time. That isn’t going to happen. Drugs come with side effects. Side effects or as I start to call them, unintended symptoms.

Just remember, I am still here! It may not be about you now. I have no choice. You do! Don’t let it be one of regret, I have none. I sought happiness so I walk. I found contentment, that is more than I expected. Everything isn’t great in life, yours or mine but I wake up every single day and KNOW I will try to treat each person I encounter like I expect to be treated. Im still shocked how people can treat others. I will not behave like them. I will remove them from my life.

Want to know a little more about PD? Here are a couple of links to get you started. Not from a disease perspective but from a experience perspective.

https://themighty.com/topic/parkinsons-disease/man-with-parkinsons-disease-confessions

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/10-more-things-wish-people-224034776.html

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/10-things-wish-knew-life-223156909.html#:~:text=%2010%20Things%20I%20Wish%20You%20Knew%20About,Some…%203%20Parkinson%E2%80%99s%20is%20always%20there.%20More%20

Portfolio tracking will resume as soon as it is divorce safe to do so.

Remember, “Malignant Parent Syndrome” is real. If you know someone whose parent is lying to them about their other parent, you have a responsibility as a friend, family member, fiancée, boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever to make sure your friend or significant other knows that in a marriage there are always two sides. Does one side being different make the other side wrong? No, they are sides of the same coin. Likewise if the child, especially if they are an adult, “picks a parent” to side with, you have an obligation to speak up or you enable future mental health issues.

Leaving an unsupportive spouse is not wrong, especially if you have the only Biblical acceptable reason for divorce.

Love is love, you can’t change the definition to suit you. Always be honest with those you love or be prepared to comfort them when you can’t answer their questions as to why they let it happen to them, they didn’t you did.

Love is honesty. Lies grow in dark, Truth allows the light to shine.

Hike On!

And so it begins…

I’m retired! Yay! Cue the horns, balloons and confetti.

Welcome. Did you know Financial Independence (FI) is freedom? I am going to begin this story explaining how I have come to understand this truth. Along the way, I’ll throw in details about how I retired at 55 and how I plan to fund my retirement.

I’m warning in advance this site will have a lean toward dividends as the primary leg of the retirement income stool. Gonna state right up front this isn’t about safe withdrawal rates (swr) out of a depleting portfolio. This is about investing in income generating businesses and living off of that income stream along with the other legs and glue that bind a real family’s retirement plan.

I’m glad your here. This is my first blog so be kind as I learn. Thank you.