This is a private note that has been shared.
Brad Adkins - Bio (Personal)
I have a passion for skiing, cycling, pickleball, and overlanding. I love writing and I write every day. I don’t have a book in me but that is okay. I do manage a blog and post to it daily in addition to my other daily writing: https://lifeonab17.me/.
I am partnered but not married. I have been married twice in the past and have three daughters from those two marriages. My partner is divorced. Neither one of us feels an obligation to seal our commitment with a piece of paper at this stage in our lives. My partner is a strong woman, retired after spending a career in the financial industry. I am retired living living on a modest pension.
I worked for 37 years as a computer programmer at the Boeing Company. I wrote database extract, transform and load software. I was one of two developers charged with the development and maintenance of the interface between Boeing’s large-scale HR data warehouse and the online/transaction front-end database.
My overland adventures consist mostly of time spent off-road on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and in Southern Utah. Cammping is an integral part of my off-roading experience. I am an accomplished wilderness chef. (spoken humbly.) Cycling is an important part of who I am. I am planning to cycle across the contry for the third time starting on June 1st of this year. I ride solo for the most part and spend most nights camping. I average 60 miles a day on my cycling tours.
I have been referred to PsycNW because I have memory issues. My personal diagnosis is I don’t remember significant events that I believe most people would easily recall. The following is an example of one such memory event. My partner and I went skiing last week with another couple. They are friends, I know that, but little else about them. While skiing I was reminded through conversation (where I remained mostly listening) that the four of us met two years ago on a cruise of the Greek Islands. (Much of the cruise I don’t recall either.) I was also reminded that they spent a week at our house a year ago while they were looking to buy a home in the area. (I had no memory of meeting them on the cruise, or their stay in our home.) I tend to listen in conversations so that others can fill in the blanks in my memory for me. This mystifies and probably frustrates my partner. I do not have the bio-markers (the two representative proteins) that would indicate early stage Altzheimers. I am concerned that my memory is vague because I don’t care about other people as much as I should. I am a deep thinker but only (it seems) in ways that are very personal to me.
I love my partner very much. This is the most successful pairing I have ever enjoyed. I hope it is the last. I think it is a healthy relationship (not co-dependent) and I believe she enjoys having me in her life. I would not want ot live without her but I am not scared of living alone if for some reason that became reality.
On the subject of writing. My journal is very structured, as already mentioned, I write daily, usually for an hour, sometimes more. I read daily. I am meticulous about the maintenance of my journal and take great pride in it, even though I am the only reader of it. I also enjoy maintaining a web presence through the publishing of my blog. I recognize that is a bit “old school.” I spend little time on Instagram, Facebook and social media in general. I realize that is something of an anomaly compared to my peers. No one (that I know of, that includes my partner) reads my blog. I’m not disturbed by that in the least.
This is the first time I have sat down to write about myself other than in my journal.