Multiconstruct

What a year it’s been. The New Year found me in San Diego celebrating with my friend Steve from grad school. I always feel like, if I haven’t seen you for a long time when I do we’ll pick up where we left off and we did.

The La Brea Tar Pits have been on my list of things to do since I was a kid and they did not disappoint. I traveled on to the Bay Area where I stayed on another friend’s boat in the Berkeley Marina and also visited friends in Concord.

I was traveling in a Dodge Grand Caravan that had been given to me to support my homelessness work. During this phase of travel I started to work on my book The Practical Guide to Building a Better World. I began with an outline of each chapter and finished that in the first two weeks of the year.

After visiting friends I went back to travel, dispersed camping, hiking, seeing the sights and finding time to write. I had memorable visits to Death Valley and the surrounding area before heading East.

Chapter 1 was written as I more or less drive across highway 40 across Arizona and New Mexico. I stopped at a lot of ancient sites and took a deep dive into Petroglyph National Monument. I stayed a few days in Gallup which I’ve always liked and spent a day in Canyon de Celle which had also been on my list for a long time.

I stayed in more motels then usually because it was fairly cold for van sleeping. Between completing 28 days of stoic philosophical exercises and building in a routine of exercise and writing I accomplished what I wanted to on the trip.

Coming back through Kansas I visited Shae who I’d been talking to during my trip after starting dating before I left Leavenworth for an epic road trip last November. It went well and I returned for a Valentine’s Day date and she and the kids visited me in Columbia as well.

I had left my job to travel and write but I did some homeless outreach work and related case management in Columbia in the Spring for a couple of months with 4-A-Change. My brother John has taken over the business since I left Columbia but as he was between case managers I helped out until he could hire someone and I helped train them.

It was timely as I wrote my chapter on social service delivery doing the work. I had some modest successes and showed I could still do it. I also did training on case management for volunteers with CoMo Mobile Aid and Loaves and Fishes and later for the Flourish Initiative while I was steeped in the local resources.

Mostly though I was struck by the increase in homelessness and the difficulties at finding housing. I also noted a lot more seniors out there. It’s getting tougher and meaner every day with services increasingly strained.

My romance with Shae continued to blossom and we took a romantic weekend to Excelsior Springs. Our spending time together led me to staying over more until in retrospect we were living together.

Adjusting to family life was a nice transition and being a writer is a good lifestyle to relocate for your relationship. I kept on pace with the book and over the summer I found my voice for the book and began telling more stories versus technical details on building positive change.

We started to look for a property to buy but we struck out on finding the right live/work space for her photography studio. We did find a great historic home and we closed on it just before Thanksgiving.

I finished my manuscript and began to edit. A month or more of that and it was off to the publisher. We’re through the copy edit and initial cover design. We should be having presales together shortly after the holidays and should have books in the spring.

We’ve been packing and getting ready to move early in the next year. It’s very exciting.

I also reconnected with some old campaign staff and organizers who were excited about the book. Together we launched a political action committee called the New American Community to support my organizing and to promote localism. We’re claiming July 4th, 2024 as our born on date.

We supported some house candidates with fundraising assistance and built a digital fundraising operation. We have been preparing materials as well as doing some election advertising around the overall disappointing national election. Mostly though we’re building for the long haul.

Our goal is to identify, train, and support an organizer in every county in America, all 3,153 of them. We’re starting with the hard ones first. Our big campaign for 2025 will be to outreach and organize with county parties.

We believe that especially in very Republican areas organizing to win an election every 2 years is not the best strategy. We would like to see county parties organized as community benefit organizations working to meet the needs of their residents whatever that may be.

Think Nationally, Act Locally is our motto so we’re starting in Kansas where we received a promising welcome from the state party. We’re also talking to Missouri leadership and have been well received where we’ve been able to make contact.

Tomorrow Shae and I fly into Detroit to spend the holidays with my family and friends. New Years will find us in our new home celebrating a late Christmas with the boys.

On a personal note I’m down 62 pounds since my 2023 high. After returning to Leavenworth I joined a gym and hired a trainer to work on my posture and gait. I have been discharged from treatment for my liver and my sports medicine doctor who was addressing my knees.

Life is good and I’m excited to see what adventures 2025 brings. The move, the PAC organizing and book tour promise another year of consequence and travel. I hope this year your holidays are safe and bright. I will close with an important message from Batman.