I'll talk a bit about me for now. I live in Alaska but come from the Midwest. Missouri, to be specific. I maintain helicopters and have lived, more or less, out of a bag since the mid 80's. I started my career in the United States Navy back in 1984. I was then a kid without any real direction that found my career of helicopter maintenance back then. I served aboard the USS Constellation, the largest aircraft carrier in the fleet at one time. It is now in Texas, I think Brownsville, being turned into scrap iron and razor blades. Time marches on. I served one four year hitch then went to school and received my federal license as an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic. I'll go more into my career later on.

I came to Alaska in 2008 and went to work in a remote research camp way up on top of the world. After my summer was over, I was invited to permanent employment with the company that brought me here. I accepted and have been here ever since, but for a couple of short trips back to Missouri. I consider Alaska my home. I love it here!

I met my soon to be wife during my first winter here. She was looking for a bowling partner to a charity event. We still have never bowled. Too busy! This lady was the first person I have ever been able to talk with. I was always quiet and didn't speak much before I met her. She still doesn't believe it as she can't seem to ever get me to shut up. She was the person to make me realize that I am autistic. Just so you know, I have never been tested or received an “official” diagnosis. I can read though. She pointed me in the right direction, and I read. The more I read about autism, the more I related to it. Every symptom, every quirk and every mannerism I learned about was me (and will always be me). I am very high functioning, I believe I would be labeled as an Aspie if I were to go through testing. An aspie is someone that has something called Asperger Syndrome. We more or less are able to fit into the normal world and carry on productive lives. We are different though. I always new something was wrong with me but didn't know how to go about learning what that something was. I am socially and emotionally stunted. I had what is now called rage when I was young. I didn't know how to make the thoughts in my head come out of my mouth coherently when I was agitated, causing a lot of frustration for me. The more agitated I became, the more frustrated I became. The more frustrated I became the madder I got. Yep, I was a little hot head because of it. Does this explanation make sense to you? Kids are drugged for this behavior now. It's easier to turn them into zombies than to deal with them and try to understand and help them. As a side note (please bear with me, I have a tendency to go off on tangents!), did you know that the United States takes more pharmaceutical prescribed drugs than the rest of the world combined? It's not that all of these drugs really help us, all of these drugs continue to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies and the health care industry. All of these drugs we take are actually enslaving us to the corporations we serve. Enough of that tangent for now.

As I said, I am an aspie, an high functioning autistic. Since I didn't know about this growing up, I went through a lot of friends, acquaintances and relationships over the course of my life. Every time I would meet people, things were great and loads of fun...for a while. It usually took between six months and one year before they would move on from me. I was always devastated when my calls were not returned, day after day and time after time. I had no clue as to why people didn't like me. Over the years, I made less and less friends. I was tired of rejection. Before I came to Alaska, I pretty much burrowed myself into my little hole and never came out. The darkness had set in for me. I drank a lot. I am a recovering alcoholic, by the way. I talked to very few people. I had turned to what I will call an alternate reality. What was fake became real to me and what was real was fake. I'll get into that at a later time. I still have problems confronting that one. I nearly took my own life. I am glad that I didn't, otherwise I never would have met my wife and my dog. I quit drinking four years before I came to the last frontier. It took me every bit of that four years just to learn to live without alcohol. I met an LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor) named Jody. I owe that lady my life! If it hadn't been for her, I never would have made it through those first years. If you ever find this blog and read this...Thank you Jody. You know who you are!

Moving on, I am narcissistic. This means I am very me oriented. The world revolves around me in my pea brain. Not intentionally, that is unfortunately how my brain relates and fits me into the world around me. " I did this. Look what I did. Come see this, I did it." Get my drift? I never knew until my wife pointed it out and finally after much exasperation on her part, got me to see and understand it. This is something that has been with me my entire life. No one ever said a word to me about it. No one ever said knock it off, all those years of going through friends and relationships. It was easier just to ditch me. I don't blame them one bit. Looking back on my life, I would have ditched me too. I will probably always be self centered. It doesn't mean that I am not trying to change though. I really want to. It is tough. It is going to be a lot tougher than not drinking ever was. Empathy is not a natural feeling or emotion for me. Putting myself in someone else's shoes and seeing things from someone else's perspective is near impossible for me. I am trying though. One day, I hope for this to be something easy and natural for me.

In spite of myself, I have had an interesting life. I have done many things and traveled quite a bit. I hope to go into many of my life's ups and downs as this goes along. This is a very quick and basic explanation of me. Hopefully it makes sense to you and very hopefully, I can help someone else down the road with my writing. As you read about me, I am learning more about myself. I have said before that I would be a researchers dream. Who knows, maybe I can help someone. Thank you for stopping by my place in cyberspace and taking the time to be here.