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My friend Alexandros, the Greek, who I met in the Portuguese City of Porto in 2022, has graciously invited me to visit him in Athens sometime in Spring 2024. I have accepted. The flight from Poland to Athens is around $200 roundtrip, and I was already thinking about taking advantage of the geography of Ukraine, and cheap flights from the region to places in the Mediterranean and Middle East. I'm not going to book anything until this winter when I get a sense of what is what. I have continued to edit my chapter from Portugal of Blood on the Sunflowers. Hopefully it will be ready to be published sometime this week. Alexandros read it, as he is a major character in the chaos, and approved its content. "How the f*ck do you remember everything?? This answer is accurate 100%. I remember it," Alexandros exclaimed. "I dunno. I like to tell stories. So I have to remember what people say," I laughed. Max, Alexandros, and I really rocked that f*cking Sao Joao festival back in '22. In a few days it will be the anniversary of said debauchery. Max has been quoting sh*t from my Portuguese chapter for a while now, so I must've done something right!

Last weekend I had my graduation party. I want to thank everyone who came and made it a good day! The generosity of my friends and family was really heartwarming to see. Of course, being diagnosed with a deadly disease tends to bring out the generosity in others, but it's nice nonetheless. My cousin from Washington had a great time. No one had seen him in 7 years, so he had to go through the gauntlet of greetings. He doesn't really handle the liquor too well, so he spent the whole weekend recovering from seeing my uncle's band The Smokehouse Gamblers play on Friday night. He has now returned to the Evergreen State to fully recover from his bloody tour of Sleepy Sonoma. No fingers were broken, so that's progress! This week I plan to keep writing and giving thanks to all the people who contributed to the war-chest. I don't do thank-you cards, so I've got a ton of calls to make. Also I am editing the rough draft of Chapter 3 of my book, Blood on the Sunflowers, "Amor de Fado: Love Lost in Lisbon." Once I get to a basic level of acceptability, I plan to publish it on the website to give everyone a taste of what I've been working on for the last year or so. Blood on the Sunflowers is a nonfiction narrative about my time in Europe in the Summer of '22, from doing the Running of the Bulls to going to Ukraine. It is currently waiting patiently at 102,000 words for me to f*cking finish the thing.

Today is my birthday. I'm officially turning 26. Hopefully no more fingers will be harmed in the making of this production. My cousin from Washington has come down, and we are reminiscing. His mom also had Huntington's Disease, but he tested negative. Tonight my uncle's band, The Smokehouse Gamblers, are playing at a pub in Penngrove, CA. So, the possibility for finger-breaking remains high. I'm keeping this one short today because I have sh*t to do.

Last weekend, after a night of bar-crawling and debauchery, listening to my uncle's band, The Smokehouse Gamblers, play at a local dive bar that is the heart and soul of Petaluma, CA; after drinking countless beers and then doing shots of rum and tequila at the Tiki bar; and after smoking so my cigarettes my lungs went stiff; my cousin and I had a drunken powwow that ended with me waking up next day with scrapes and bruises, a sore jaw and a broken pinkie finger. So it goes. Why I break bones in Petaluma, California, and yet remain totally unharmed in crazy places like the Alps, Ukraine, or the Running of the Bulls remains a mystery. Maybe it's God's way of telling me I drink too much. In any event, typing this all out now with a broken finger, reminds me that all bodies are temporary, so use yours while you can! In my experience, events of serious bodily harm generally just increase my appetite to break loose. What? You say I can't drive a clutch with a broken leg and then hike in the Sierras with my drunken friends? I'll show you! Oh, no! My knee is locking up on a Portuguese Highway? Guess this means I need to do the Running of the Bulls while I still can. So in that spirit, I thought today would be a perfect day to write with a broken finger...

On May 4, 2023, I was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, a rare genetic disorder I inherited from my mother who died last fall. Before that, I was traveling the world, living a life of high adventure. I have started this blog in the hopes of both documenting my daily existence as the disease progresses, as well as continuing my series of unbelievable adventures and near-death experiences, with all the triumphs and tribulations those entail. Last summer, in July and August of 2022, after doing the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, I traveled to Ukraine to write about the war. I left the country to finish my last year of college at Sonoma State University in Northern California. Now I have graduated, and am returning to Ukraine to get back to the work I went there to do. This blog will consist of daily posts (hopefully), as well as uploaded stories and other material I have written. It will also have videos and photo galleries. I am returning to Europe on July 30, so that’s when the real content will start. I am currently working on a book about my experience in Ukraine and the Running of the Bulls, Blood on the Sunflowers. So it is possible I might drop little bits of that into the blog in lieu of more interesting content. There will also be lots of video uploads on YouTube or this page, as well as livestreams on Instagram. But once again that will probably happen when I go to Europe. I am also including a library where I will put all sorts of miscellaneous items that would never otherwise see the light of day. Also I’m pulling some stuff that was published in those wild years I spent at the Santa Rosa Junior College Oak Leaf. The mission of Dying Man Adventures is to support my travels and writing until the eventual day of my decline due to degenerative disease. I would have liked to get this blog up and running sooner, but somehow I had more important things on my mind, like graduating and being diagnosed with a deadly disease. Funny how these things happen. This blog has 5 sections: Deadman’s Blog This section is where I will attempt to write little 300 - 3000 word posts every day, but will probably end up failing to do so some days. Tasty Quotes This is a section where I will pull the tastiest quotes from my writing or from my lived experience. Submissions or suggestions are always welcomed. The Vaults This is a little place where I can publish some stories and content that never got published anywhere else, as well as pull content that has already been published elsewhere. Videos A spot for videos and recorded audio, although I don’t think I will have any recorded rants at this time, so enjoy the generic music! Mission This last section is the Mission statement with all the info you need to make a donation via GoFundMe, if you feel so inclined.