032508

                                                                             Clearwater to Gulfport, FL

Tuesday March 25, 2008

     7:54am  I woke up at seven this morning. I found a badass campsite. It's so perfectly concealed right in the middle of Babylon. I'll take pictures. I got a full seven hours of sleep last night. I really hope that my webhost is nice to me. It seems like they like me because the guy last night read that note I had written and said, "You should be okay. You're non-profit." He said it should be fixed in four to six hours. If it does work I can totally do my typing at the school and catch up today. I also have tons of taquerias everywhere. Even a Puertorican restaurant. Hopefully I can get a lot of work done here.

     8:48am  All packed up and ready to go.

     8:53am  I'm on Drew Street already, on the sidewalk. There's a big sand parking lot with those woods behind it right across the street from the college. Perfect. I can get a lot of work done here. I really hope my website is up today. I am crossing my fingers. I really hope it's back up.

     9:11am  My website is back up!  Hooray!

     4:31pm  I am hereby caught up on my typing! I am making this entry off-tha-brain. This morning I ate a turkey sandwich I had left. My last food. Then when I got hungry around ten I had a protein shake. I'm really hungry now so I'm going to go hit up a taqueria. I want to figure out how I can make my HTML files with Microsoft Publisher here at the library. Maybe I can do it with straight HTML, sans editor. Earlier this cool black dude bummed a cigarette off me and I gave him my website. Maybe he'll smoke me out. Who knows. My stomach is grumbling now. I'm going to go eat. I'm caught up on my typing! Hooray! Wow, regular nine to five workday today.

     4:44pm  I forgot to check my email and the weather. I'm walking back to the library.

                   It's not supposed to rain until Sunday. And even Sunday it's only a thirty percent chance. The weather rocks in Florida. 

     5:04pm  I stopped at the bus stop in front of the college and I took my thermal bottoms off. 

     5:12pm  I paused again in front of the First Christian Church to take a top layer off. It's seventy three degrees right now. The weather report said the high would be at sixty seven. No one can predict the future!

     5:16pm  Just got to Belcher. There's a taqueria. I might hit them up. 

     5:19pm  I'm about to pass Belcher and I see a Taqueria Del Valle. Hopefully I will eat. 

     5:20pm  The "manager is not there." The guy even tried to offer me water. I got water.

     5:24pm  Gorditas del Don Huicho.

     5:27pm  Saul en Don Huicho's me esta dando comida. Te lo agradezco, senor. Todo el mundo recibe credito, gracias. 

                   Sweet, I scored on the second try. Now I'm going to walk this to the 7-11 and eat it and tell my story until the sun comes down. Then I'm going to crash out and have another day of typing tomorrow. I don't have any typing to do, I just have to try and update my site now. 

     5:42pm  Man, I totally scored at that last taqueria. The guy gave me a heavy bag of tamales. Six tamales. I'll take a picture of them. 

                   Ha, right now this bible thumper taxi driver saw my shirt and tried to hand me something. I quickly denied him saying, "Nah, that's an old story. Let me give you something new." He was all, "I'll trade you." He actually listened to a lot of my story. 

     6:37pm  I'm still over at the 7-11 close to Keene Road and Saturn. The same one I came to the other night. It was awesome. Right before that bible thumper took off in his cab this guy with his girlfriend yells, "I like your shirt!" I gave him my website.

     6:38pm  These ignorant kids were walking and I scared them by offering my website. "What? You don't want world peace??"

     6:54pm  I had no presentations at the 7-11. I gave out my website very little. I did give it out though. I'm going to walk back to the college and get on a computer. I'm bored. The library closes at nine. I'm going to go figure out how to update my website with this MS Publisher program. I wish I had Frontpage. I got my batteries charged at the library while I was typing. Eight hours straight. 

     7:35pm  My camp is behind Joe DiMaggio Sports complex. Right across the street from the college. 

     7:40pm  I'm at the library. 

      8:53pm  I'm leaving. They're closing. It's cold. I should go to the bathroom and layer up first.

     9:16pm  I walked up to the Hess gas station at Belcher. I'm going to hang out here and loiter for a while. I should go back to my camp, but I'm not that tired. Plus, I saw a white car in the sports complex parking lot. It's probably a cop, so I'll walk down there later. I was on the computer for a shitload of time today.

     9:45pm  Some magic happened! After I got finished up at the library I walked up to the gas station at Belcher. I had gone to the 7-11 earlier and nobody talked to me there. I was just standing there exposing my shirt, exercising my freedoms and passing out my website and I met Crow. He's going to take me to some magic place. It's called The Blueberry Patch(blueberrypatch.org). He asked me if I had anything tying me down to Clearwater and I told him not at all. I just caught up on my typing and am free to go. We're going there after we stop for coffee. Let's see what happens. 

     9:48pm  We came to PJ's Coffee House of New Orleans. I was actually in New Orleans not too long ago.

     10:04pm  Crow has a message for everybody. Crow: "There are a few things that I want the world to find out. Chaos is going to come your way...in a peaceful way. Save all your seeds in a nice little jelly jar hidden back in the back of the closet. When that day comes that you feel you need to take a ride, go out and release those seeds back into the nature where we all came from. Let's re-populate the planet with marijuana."

                     "The game we play is let's pretend and pretend that we are not pretending."

     11:42pm  Man, I have been magically transported to this haven, this Shangri-La in Saint Petersburg. I cannot wait to take pictures in the morning. What's this place called again? Let's have some history on this place. The Blueberry Patch. It's been around for thirty years. Dallas Bohrer owns this place. It's an artist-retreat. The oldest surviving artist-retreat in Florida. It's so amazing. I cannot wait to take pictures in the morning. What was your name again? Brian. Can I take your picture?

                     Tiki God made by Brian Ottoson, filmed by Mike Stanley

                     Group picture with Joni.

     12:58pm  I met William Mason Beck. Billy Beck. He's telling me about the law of attraction. Billy: "The law of attraction is that everything you think, everything you say and everything you do comes back to you. It's like Karma, but it also works in such an act that you can project out thoughts and have it come to you and manifest in reality. That's the law of attraction. And there's ways to train yourself to learn how to attract anything you want in your life. 

     2:27am  Oh my Love, I can't believe where I landed tonight. I am still in shock. There are so many cool people here. 

Next day..