A New Dawn, A New Day

 

MILE APOCALYPSE 2026 – DISPATCH FROM THE RUINS Mile 0 | Midnight, January 1, 2026 Death to 2025

The parties are over. The last slice of pizza devoured, the final beer guzzled, champagne fizzing into a hollow toast as the ball dropped. Midnight struck, and the world pretended everything reset with that magical countdown.

We all know the lie. Nothing changes in those ten seconds. Millions whisper resolutions into the dark, only to shatter them before the hangover fades.

Not me.

I'm burning it all down to build it back.

2025 lies in ashes behind me—old habits torched in the fires of one final night of debauchery. I rose from those embers this dawn, systematically rebuilding. Day by day. Decision by decision.

Thirty pounds already sloughed off like dead skin from the corpse of the old year. More to burn. Miles stretching ahead like scorched earth, forging me into something sharper, harder, unbreakable by journey's end.

I enter 2026 debt-free, a pilgrim with nothing but a backpack heavy with jerky and tuna pouches, a gallon jug of water, and this device to broadcast from the void.

Either I complete the 2026-mile exile north along US-95—through atomic ghosts, surreal sculptures, and the gates of the Bunny Ranch—or the Nevada desert claims me, coyotes picking clean the bones of the man who dared too much.

At 12:01 a.m., under a swollen moon mocking the revelry below, I stepped off the porch of [REDACTED] into the graveyard of suburbia. Confetti corpses littered the streets like fallout. Solo cups rolled in the wind, rehearsing for the tumbleweeds ahead. The neighborhood slept off its sins, unaware one soul had just incinerated his past.

Pack slung—sustenance for the wasteland. 75 Hard ignited. No cheats. No retreat.

The old world died with that door click. From its cinders, the exile rises.

marionevado.art

The road north opens like a wound. Red Rock fringes loom as the first arena. Goldwell ghosts wait mandatory. Temptation beacons from the horizon.

Burn it all. Rise reborn.

Mile Apocalypse Total: 0 / 2026 75 Hard Streak: Day 1 Weight Lost Pre-Exile: 30 lbs Mercy Bank: Empty—for now.

The ashes cool. The pilgrimage ignites at first light.

What remains to incinerate? The desert will decide. 💀🏜️🔥

dreamstime.com

A Long Walk

 Going into 2026 I have a few goals that I want to accomplish.

The main one is that I want to have lost a total of 100 pounds by my 50th birthday. This weight loss started in October 2025.

I plan on being more active for the year and eating better, working on things a little bit at a time.

One of my exercise goals is to walk a total of 2026 miles for the year, and I will be attempting to do a weekly blog to go along with it detailing a long walk starting on January 1st.

I will be utilizing Google Maps, Grok and my imagination to go from my door step to places unknown over the course of this journey.  I have a few ideas of where I want to walk to, but it is going to be a work in progress as everything is up for change an interpretation.

I know my first destination, but I do not know how I will get there, how long it will take or anything that might side track me.

This is where Grok comes into play.

Grok, if you don't know, is just the Elon Musk AI bot/app/whatever.

I am telling Grok where I start, where I want to go and that we are using actual paths to get there.  Grok will utilize google maps to plan out my route, let me know where milestones happen. Help me find gas stations, towns, attractions, etc.  Then I will walk to those and talk about my journey and make up a million things along the way.

I've been wanting to get back into writing a bit, so I'm using this as an excuse to do it and hope that I can at least be mildly entertaining along the way.

My first roadblock is ....  this blog and square space.

Everything was working fine until my domain imported over to square space which caused it to stop being viewable and a "website coming soon" page went up in it's place.

So, This will be published and I'm going to go work on figuring out how to get it viewable again.

Wish me luck.

If you're reading this, I succeeded.

2026 is on the horizon

 2026 is right around the corner and I've got a few things on my plate that I'm looking forward to.

The biggest one is that I have been making my own BBQ Sauces and I plan on selling them at Farmers Markets locally, in Las Vegas.

I've been taking samples to work and having co-workers try them out and so far it's been positive.

I have someone making lables for me so that I can put them on the bottles when I have batches to sell.

I plan on having a website running with information so people can contact me to order.

Demon Drip - My Favorite

So far all is going well and I'm looking forward to putting my effort into this venture.

I've already got friends and family back home waiting for me to get ready to launch so that they can buy sauces and have me ship them out.

Other things on the horizon, in no particular order.

I plan on being debt free before the end of 2026.

I am working on my physical and mental health to be a better person in a multitude of ways.

I have a goal of losing a total of 100 pounds by the end of September.

I started reading the Bible for various reasons and plan on reading a little each day until I convert to catholicism or my brain explodes.

I'm probably going to do 75 hard again in 2026 - I need some focus.

I'm also planning on walking 2026 miles in 2026 and I have an idea of turning it into a fun (fun to me, maybe not to anyone else) story that I'll share on the blog in intervals.

I'll share more as the time is right.

Can't wait to reveal more BBQ sauces as I get the lables (Currently printing out labels but I'm getting samples of stickers that I can buy to attach as well).

Hope y'all doing well - whoever that might stumble upon this that is.

Reunited

 

As all things come to pass, my parents are now reunited in the afterlife.

I'm trying hard to believe that there is an afterlife and that they are together again and enjoying each others company.

My heartache will dull with time as will the children's.

I miss you both tremendously.

2025 - Another New Year

 It's been over a year since my fingers graced these pages.  Since my last posting a lot has happened. I realize that I used to come around to write to help me cope with things or to get thoughts out of my head so that I could deal with life better and over the past year that probably would have done me good.

However, time moves on and life changes.

We are now sitting firmly in 2025 and life continues to change and evolve.  Today I gave my daughter her last Xmas gift which is a quad so that she can ride around with her brother in the neighborhood.

He is the one who follows the rules and does things properly and she is the one I have to worry about. But, that's why she has to ride with him so he can keep her in line.

So, what is going on for 2025?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

I'll be playing Video Games.

I'll Be grilling Meats.

I'll be Drinking Beers.

I'll be Playing Pokers.

The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess.

I'm at a point where I feel like I'm ready to start playing poker again.  I have a teeny tiny bankroll of wadded up cash in my sock that I'm going to start taking to the casinos (probably mostly South Point) and playin super tight while waiting for pocket aces so that I can get my money in pre-flop and hope that my opponent doesn't get lucky. You know, until I build up a few buy-ins and can play super loose and aggressive until I blow almost all of my money and have to resort to buying in short and pushing all in with anything that looks like it could help me win a pot.

I'm also going to work on losing weight again.  I've done it before and it's time to do it again.  I'm not giving pounds as there is no use for that, but I'll talk about successes and failures as I'm trying to get healthier.  

I'll also resort to posting my grilling success stories and pictures of smokey meats that make mouths water and panties wet.  I'm not 5 star chef, but my family enjoys what I cook and I definitely want to start making more (different) items on the grill.

When I say grill - I mean any of my backyard outdoor appliances that the wife has come to accept as I cook more which means she gets to cook less.

I also want to work on upgrading these backyard appliances over the course of the next year or so as I use them all the time and feel like I should treat myself to something better in one way or another.

For instance, I have a 22" griddle that I use.  However, I want to retire this griddle to use as our camping/mountain excursion griddle and get a bigger one for the back yard.  As it is now, when I'm doing steak and cheese sandwhiches I don't have enough room to cook everything all at once.  So, I have to cook things in a rotation in order to accomplish the goal.  More room will lead to a happier grrouch. This will also lead to drinking less which, I guess, is good in the long run.

Trapper Old Dudes

So, here is to a better 2025. Weather it is a happier 2025, a healthier 2025 or just a more fun 2025.

Life is short, make it better.

In theory - Tomorrow will be my first poker session of the year and hopefully I can bring back some good news to talk about how I am destroying the poker tables and picking up all the pussy.

Peace out and Trapper on dudes.

Bafangool

I've been slow to post lately and there is a lot going through my head.  But, between being constantly busy with life and death and just generally trying to deal with things I haven't really been able to put finger to keyboard properly and be coherent.

However, I had to share.

I'm at work recently.  The other day, the other week. The other something. Time just kind of bleeds right now.

But I'm at work and this older lady comes into my department and is looking at options to replace her flooring. (by the way, I'm typing on a chromebook that I don't usually use and the keyboard is smaller and thus the keystrokes aren't exactly where I am used to them being.  If you catch mistakes, especially in spelling, it is because I either missed that correction or I just didn't care to keep fixing them).

This lady is older and italian. She is telling me about certain things she wants to do and that she has had quotes from other companies over the past 5 years. She is going into details I don't care to know but is also giving me good information so that I can help lead her to something maybe she would be happy with.

However, she goes into this story about how she had a flooring quote and a window quote.  The window quote, from a company I have no affiliation with, came back at like 50 grand or higher.  She is explaining how the guys giving the quote are trying to convince her to drop 50k because they work on expensive, multi-million dollar homes and those quotes are higher.  She says that "my house is 250k, why in the hell would I put 50k worth of windows into a 250k home, it makes no sense to drop that much money.

As she is talking and relaying this story she gets to the point where she turns the crew down and tells them that it is too expensive and she is not interested.

She looks at me and says, "You know, why the hell do they think my little house should put that much money worth of windows into it.  Bafangool!"

I pause.

I smile.

My eyes water.

I don't know if she caught it, if she ignored it, whatever.  All I know is that I'm having a good day and enjoying random conversations with strangers at work and this lady drops a Bafangool on me, out of nowhere.

In all of my years, 47 of them now, I have now only run across two people who I have ever heard utter this phrase.  

The first was my dad.  He used it a lot when I was in my middle school and high school years.  It was just a common expression from him.

Now, here I am, weeks after his passing and some random lady enters my life and drops a random Bafangool on me and shortly later just disappears to go off and think about what she wants to do, probably never to be seen again (by me - no one murdered her, no need to look into it).

I've come a long way from my younger years when I thought I was an athiest and now realize that I'm probably just agnostic.  I don't know what I believe in or where life is actually headed.

But, one thing I am one thousand percent sure of is that through this random encounter my Old Man was telling me that everything is going to be alright and to lighten the fuck up. Life is too short to waste it on being unhappy.

Bafangool indeed, dad, Bafangool!

I honestly needed that.

It's so hard to say goodbye

I have tried to compose this many times over the past week and have come up blank every time. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I do not want to accept the fact that it is real.

Every single day.  Multiple times every day, I find something that reminds me of you.  A look, a joke, a noise or even just a random drink on a table will take me back to a memory that is seared into my brain involving you.

That's normal. I spent nearly 47 years of life with you in one form or another. From living in the same house and seeing you daily to living across the country and only talking to you occasionally.

You were with me through the best times of my life and the worst times.  You got to experience the three greatest joys of my life and I can move forward with no regrets because of that. 

I started life with you in it.  You helped me grow older and turn into the man I have become. You helped me through some really tough years in middle school and through all of my younger asthma problems.  You were there for me in High School when I was a not-quite-typical teenager but still dealing with teen issues.  You were really there for me when I went away to college and you would drive mom up to see me at the drop of a hat.  If that was to visit or even just to come up and grab my laundry (because I was too lazy to do it).

You were there when I almost died of an asthma attack, multiple times in fact.

After college you were there for me when I went through a relationship crisis and the ended up moving across the country.

You were there for my next crisis and the next and the next.

You were there when I got married and when my children were born. You got to hold both of your grandbabies and love them and spoil them.

You were always there and you loved every minute of it, and even if you didn't you never complained.

This is what makes it all so hard, you were always there for me when I needed it and in your last moments I was unable to make it back in time to be there for you, with you.

I know that you know I love you, always have and always will. But, it breaks my heard that I have to live with the fact that in your final moments I wasn't quick enough to make it to you.

Feeling sorry for myself will not help, it just hurts. I'm just having trouble moving on.  I'm not dealing with your death well.

You can know something is coming and you can think you are prepared for it, but in this instance I realize I was not ready for anything.

I miss your voice.

The other day I was deleting some voicemails and I ran into the last one I ever received from you.  You called me completely by accident and you are talking to someone in the background.

I hit play and the moment I heard your voice I balled my eyes out.  I will never delete that message.

You mean so much to me and my life. What I am, what I was, what I will be.  How I raise my kids and how I hope they grow up. I am sad you won't get to see them get older.

Sad you won't get to see Jacob continue to play soccer, won't get to see Sofia become a balarina and do her crazy dances. Sad you won't get to throw pillows at them again or build things, see their graduation or weddings.

But you will always be there, you will always be in my memories and thoughts and I don't ever want them to fade.

I feel incomplete without you right now and I know that over time I won't be so sad and miserable all the time and I know that all of your suffering has ended and you have nothing to worry about and that everyone helping to take care of you can breathe a sigh of reliefe knowing you are in a better place watching down over us.

I just love you so much and I miss you so fucking much.

Rest in Piece dad. friend. everything.

I hope I do you proud.