I’m in my 19th month as a Stage 4 cancer survivor. Never ever take a day, a friendship, or a sunset for granted. That is the mantra. One day at time and try not to get ahead of yourself. Keep things in perspective.
I’m probably in the best physical, emotional, and spiritual shape I’ve been in …. in maybe forty-five years or so. My cup runneth over…truly it is. I have been touched and blessed by God for these nineteen months.
I owe Dr. Showalter. I do. He closed that door, look through my eyes and my soul, and told me what I needed to be told and said, “Let’s go.”
My muscle mass and weight are back. I’m doing things physically which I honestly didn’t know if I would ever do again.
The journey continues and my spiritiual evolution as well.
These are my five current top pre-workout songs and you know, I think my soon to be five year-old grandson Robert would approve.
1 Seven Nation Army–The White Stripes
2 Eye of the Tiger– Survivor
3 Boomer Sooner!–Pride of Oklahoma
4 25 or 6 to 4– Chicago
5 Running Down a Dream–Tom Petty
Never take a sunrise or a sunset for granted. Smell the roses. Make the time to smell the roses…literally.
Be kind and scatter decency and love…even in Oklahoma.
Less than a week now before the big presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Ankle Bracelet Boy. I have to to admit the historian and political scientist in me are somewhat interested.
Should Trump indeed set the tone for this impending WWE Smackdown event by wearing gold plated ankle prison bracelets and then drop the 1-800 number in which the more societal leaning miscreants in his base can purchase a set for $89.95 with a credit card?
Get to work Vince and Linda McMahon….you can do this. Billionaire wheelhouse stuff, guys.
ONLY IN THIS AMERICA….TRUMP’S AMERICA where transactional greed has never flourished as it does circa 2024 could this be the entry to a U.S. presidential debate.
So…how will Kamala Harris conduct herself in this debate?
She needs to remain calm. She should stay away from the Hillary stuff and not assume every person in America not yet convinced she should be POTUS is a deplorable societal miscreant.
She should go high and give the impression that she could possibly in fact do a few things to help the average American who wasn’t propagated from a billionaire’s sperm bank… or is a DNA descendant of Alex Jones.
That would be my starting point and I’d hammer on that theme throughout the debate.
How can a real president help the average American navigate life in 2024 in what has become America Crazy Land?
If I were her…I’d hit the fracking thing and calmly explain why the Green New Deal can never be the sole template for American energy policy moving forward. It doesn’t work by itself exclusively. Even if you’re the most lit-woke member of the far left… by now you should be somewhat coming to terms with this.
I’d offer James Lankford and his fellow gutless GOP senators the opportunity to bring their very same immigration bill to my desk on DAY 1 to sign. And then I’d sign it because it would be the most important piece of immigration legislation in the last thirty years or so. Duh.
These are the kind of real things real presidents do to help real Americans.
Then I’d point out to Ankle Bracelet Boy the 150 member bi-partisan Association of Political Scientists recently rated the list of American Presidents one through forty six.
Hmmn…MJ wonders to himself how that went?
Lincoln, a Republican, edged out FDR for the No. 1 spot on the list. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican as well, I think was around No. 5 on the list behind Washington and Jefferson. And…Dwight D. Eisenhower, yet another Republican, was in the top eight. Go figure…three iconic Republicans made the top eight and not one of them would give this ‘dubious person’ the time of day if they were still involved in American politics.
So where did Trump rank?
No. 46. Dead last where one would hope a convicted felon would rank.
Where did Joe Biden and Kamala Harris rank?
No. 14.
Probably could have been higher if they hadn’t had to clean up the mess of the previous four years created by POTUS 45 who ranked No. 46.
Several snarky comments on my private message box in regards to the recent fishing and travel blog content of late. Que sera. Too bad.
MJ is pacing himself. What else can I say?
OU played Temple and Oke State didn’t even play a Division I school. I’m not wasting my time blogging about either one of those games. OU plays Houston this Saturday, and Oke State vs. Arkansas is the noon national game. So… at that point MJ will begin blogging about this college football season.
I did however watch the USC Trojans handle the team I hate the most in college football…that being the LSU Tigers. Great game. I don’t hate Lincoln Riley. I hope other OU fans at some point can put that behind them. It’s kind of like the whiney bitch attitude of the Thunder fans when KD left to go the Warriors so he could have Steph as his point guard instead of Russell and win a couple of rings. That was a tough decision, eh.
As far as the NBA…I need to get going a bit this week with what will be my award winning coverage of the 1 Denver Nuggets, 2 Golden State Warriors, and 3 OKC Thunder. Some of you Thunder fans who have left inappropriate comments on my private message box in regards to my comments in regards on the Thunder the past three NBA seasons…should be pleased that I now consider the Thunder championship relevant. And I will announce right now I have the Thunder listed as my No. 4 team most likely to win the NBA Championship this season.
As far as the worthless piece of shit human debris human junk bond who I will not name on my blog any longer….MJ will wait until after the ‘presidential’ debate to comment on the trajectory of this absurd Kamala Harris vs. the Human Junk Bond presidential election cycle.
My Labor Day weekend was stellar. I changed my lake schdule and only visited the Sportsman Lodge Lake between Seminole and Wewoka….and then fished Lake Carl Blackwell in Stillwater with nephew Noah yesterday. I caught a few fish each day, but nothing spectacular.
But just being MJ Nature Boy and being out at these beautiful Oklahoma lakes was beyond theraputic for me. Maybe if some of you human rabble who plan on voting for the Felon should try the nature thing some time and see if it might help you regain some human perspective.
Next Sunday… I think MJ might end up at either Lake Wewoka, Lake Holdenville, or possibly the highly touted Lake Konawa.
It’s time for me to go work out and I need to get musically pumped.
The horrible Oklahoma weather in July and August has subsided for the time being. This is fishing weather for Mike J. Plus, the college football is awesome as well.
For me…these are the components of Oklahoma which I really love….fishing and OU football. Maybe tourament racquetball and golf as well before my right knee and cancer issues. They’re part of my soul…my DNA fabric. My memories of my fishing mentor…Joe Carter Sr., when I was a young kid are still with me as on old man. I learned quite a bit from observing ‘Joe Senior’ given he was probably one of the greatest anglers in Oklahoma sport fishing history. He was literally buried with his fishing gear gently strewn on his body inside his casket. What a great dude. A gentle, solid giant of a man.
My schedule is very much going to be fishing oriented for the next six days. It will go in this order…..Robertson Municipal Lake this evening in Seminole, Shawnee Twin Lakes early tomorrow morning ( first time there for me ), crappie and channel cat fishing at Lake Carl Blackwell with my nephew in Stillwater,… Alex, Oklahoma pond on the family land (great black bass pond), Lake Canton, and then maybe the best of the three ponds here on the HOA grounds near the mini-Deer Creek ranch which has some of the best fishing around for those who actually….. you know, how to fish. One of the great things about having dumbass white Trump people out here is that they don’t know how to fish and the fish population is always strong. These people told me twenty years ago they couldn’t fit fish stocking into their budget. So I’ve taken care of that myself for the last twenty years. Good lord. I’m so grateful me and Klay Thompson aren’t really white.
So anyway…I’m outta here. On the road gone fishin’ and ‘Running Like the Wind’ as long as God allows me to do so.
Joe Jr. goes yard off Mitch ‘Wild Thing’ Williams to win the World Series. The kid from Millwood High School. I still get goosebumps.
Big night for the Sooners in their inaugural SEC season. Temple is awful, but you know what…Jackson Arnold needs to gets his groove on and start showing the college football world why OU in no way sweated Dillion Gabriel’s departure to Oregon.
BTW….good luck, Dillion. Unlike some in Sooner Nation….MJ loved you. You did fine…the defense and field goal kicker…not so much.
This will be my third workout since our return from Denver and afterwards I have to go by Integeris and pick up my September chemo and steroid package.
Kamala did pretty good last night. Her answers on fracking and the nuance she used in explaining why submissive cowardly GOP senators like James Lankford will need to step on the pending immigration bill were admirable.
Obviously…MJ will never ever vote for the felon, punk, sociopath, pathological liar who will not be named again on this blog, but I think Kamala completly stands where she needs to stand with intelligent, pragmatic former Republicans like me if she wants to win this election.
Can’t wait to see to see the debate if the human junk bond shows up.
We’ve been back from Denver for a couple of days and thankfully the godforsaken Oklahoma heat is supposed to subside tomorrow when a game changing northern front reaches the mini-ranch in Deer Creek.
So it looks like I’m going to make it through another summer. We cheated though this time around by spending almost half of July and August in either Crested Debutte, Gunnison, Seattle, and Denver. If MJ continues the Stage 4 cancer journey in a good way then the plan next summer is to escape godforsaken Confederate Oklahoma for six of the eight weeks of the July-August period.
Hopefully… my sister Jan will be retired in San Diego by then and we can hang around Del Mar with her and her iconic cat Zumi for at the very least a week. San Diego is my birthplace. It’s where I want some of my ashes tossed into the Pacific Oceanalong with a Pacifico beer bottle. It was MJ’s beginning and it will be his ending spot. It just seems right that way. I refuse to have MJ’s ashes left in a Confederate state even though I Bleed Crimson and feel as if body parts of me are literally sprinkled randomly throughout the Deer Creek ranch/nature reserve.
We spent almost three hours at the incredible Denver Botanic Gardens. It was INCREDIBLE. Right there on a par with the nature reserve on Bainbridge Island and the Woodland Rose Garden next to the zoo in Seattle.
It’s the Teddy Roosevelt in me. Mike Pence is completely full of shit. Donald Trump in no way is like TR. Mike J is another story. I feel as if TR’s soul is in me with the love of reading, nature, botany, and never fearing to enter the ‘Arena of Life’.
Of course spending time with the very high energy Robert (4) who clearly has some Russell Westbrook’s competiveness in him…and the steady Aubrey (3) is always a cherished time for Mike J as well.
I had two great meals at places in Denver where OU fans and alums are revered as if one were in Norman. Stoney’s Sports Bar is actually a sports bar in downtown Denver owned by an OU alum and probably my favorite place to have a Coors Light, a pulled pork sandwich, and just take in the aura of the Sooners’ greatness.
And then my second great meal was at this little hole in the wall Mexican sports bar I accidently stumbled into on University Street just a bit south of the University of Denver campus. A home run for MJ in that it was this beautiful little bar/restaurant just right for grinders like me who’ve worked their asses off their whole life and need a break from white people. I had the best Chille Relleno ever.
I washed it down with a couple of Canadian beers and found myself sitting with some OU fans who migrated over to my table after seeing my There’s Only One Oklahoma T-shirt on. Ya….they invited me to come back for the OU-Texas game and be their honored guest. People are so nice. They truly are. Plus, we spent one night in a Sleep Inn in Oakley, Kansas and a group of K-State fans sat with there as well at the breakfast bar after seeing the iconic OU T-shirt.
Pretty soon MJ needs to tell Joe C who his best ambassador is out there besides DeMarco Murray in the world beyond Norman.
OU starts the their first SEC season tomorrow night hosting Temple. One would hope the absence of Nic Anderson will not be a big deal in this game.
DeMarco Murray, dude…MJ’s suggestion is that you keep the cell phone in your pocket during the ESPN telecast.
As a real man who lives in godforsaken stupid Oklahoma….I guess at this point I’ll have to live vicariously through other real men who live in different regions of our country.
I will admit….I’ve given up on Oklahoma. When I observe back to back governors like Mary Fallin and Kevin Stitt, when I see two U.S. senators like the gutless James Lankford and the cagefighter Markwayne Mullin, and when I see an education czar like Ryan Walters… I pretty much know it’s time to piss on the fire and call in the dogs.
See Mike J pissing on the fire in Oklahoma. How sad for a state with so much potential.
So….thank you Steve Kerr for stating the obvious in your seven minute DNC speech. You stole the show, buddy.
Thanks also to Pop in San Antonio for all the things of which he’s had the courage to say as well…no less in a red state like Texas. My two favorite real men in the NBA.
Which brings me to Russell Westbrook who is now a bench piece hybrid guard for the Denver Nuggets. Thank you as well Russell for being the one member of the gutless OKC Thunder organization who had the balls to say some things about Donald Trump. I love that in you, Wild Thing. Just do me this one favor though this NBA season…when you’re tempted to jack an ill advised three…please don’t. Do that for MJ and he’ll have your back.
I promise I will.
Hope, faith, love, and God. If only the fake Trump Christians would ever implement these qualities into their daily lives.
We scheduled our Saturday afternoon in Seattle around the USA’s gold medal game versus France. With the game being played in Paris it seemed fairly likely this game would be a fairybook type of game…and it was.
It was absolute must see basketball for both the rabid and casual hoops fan.
STEPH IS THE GREATEST SHOOTER IN THE HISTORY OF BASKETBALL. PERIOD.
I hate to write this, but I genuinely wonder if Kevin Durant would have won an NBA championship if he hadn’t had Steph Curry as his point guard. I know Kevin won both of those NBA Finals MVPs, but my basketball gut feeling is that Kevin never would have won an NBA championship ring without Steph. Add to that…Steph has won two of his four rings without Kevin. Add to that… Steph would have won a fifth ring if his idiot teammate Draymond Green hadn’t kicked LeBron in the balls in the 2016 NBA Finals turning the whole series upside down.
Let me blog this emphatically…Draymond Green will be in my crosshairs the first time this season he begins his bullshit. His behavior these past two NBA seasons is simply not acceptable and I was very disappointed TNT’s Ernie Johnson allowed Draymond to be on the TNT panel during their NBA Playoff coverage. Selfish stupidity should not be rewarded. No way. I know Ernie is one of my cancer mentors, but that was extremely weak.
I’m excited about the Warriors. They’ve added Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson, and Klay is now a Dallas Maverick. I still think the Warriors at some point might need to unload Andrew Wiggins, but we’ll see if he can find some consistency in his game which has been sorely missing since the Warriors’ most recent NBA championship two years ago.
Johnny Kuminga it’s time to become a star, buddy. You need to fill the role of the second leading scorer beside Steph EVERY GAME.
My first blogging piece when we get back from blue-purple Denver will be to write about Klay’s move to the Dallas Mavericks.
My powder blue Jamal Murray jersey is packed and ready to go for the trips to Bonnie Brae and Washington parks where El Prez can hang with other passionate Denver Nugget fans this coming week. Who knows….Jeff Green actually lived in Bonnie Brae when he won his ‘ship with theNuggets…maybe Russell and his family will buy a home in family oriented Bonnie Brae as well.
The NBA season kicks off with the much hyped OKC Thunder at the Denver Nuggets on October 24th. MJ is already hyped about that game and maybe who knows….maybe my son will take me to that game as a birthday present for my 67th birthday. Hint…hint.
We just had a fantastic one week trip with my older sister in Seattle. It was superb in every regard. We did the Bainbridge Ferry trip the very first day and that pretty much set the tone.
Going from godforsaken uber Trump fake Christian Oklahoma to a blue city like Seattle where you know people actually read books and such was like going to a European city like Geneva or maybe Amsterdam.
I mean as soon as we got back to godforsaken Oklahoma there’s the State Super of Schools one Ryan Walters showing everyone why Oklahoma is indeed tied with Mississippi for the most wretched educational system in America. Good choice there Kevin Stitt along with the state turning down $50 million in federal dollars which would have provided school lunches for those not attending a Ryan Walters charter school.
Ttuly amazing. TRULY. Stitt will take $13 billion from the feds to rebuild bridges and highways, but not really interested in helping kids who didn’t win the birthright lottery.
But enough of that. We will be heading to Denver which isn’t as blue as Seattle in a few days… and they read books there as well and don’t elect former cage fighters to the United States Senate.
And keep this in mind…Mike J might be the least lit woke human in America… and yet ‘these’ people in Oklahoma still have me blogging this bullshit.
Are you people kidding me?
And, oh…it would appear Donald Trump’s fake religous epiphany after his near death gunshot wound is just as fake as the Oklahoma fake Christians. It’s like watching Dennis the Menace on steroids.
I took my fourth Pet Scan as soon as we got back and it was clean for the third straight time. But there is still challenging work ahead on the Stage 4 cancer journey. But I’m ready. MJ has seen the sword and will keep the hope, the faith, and the love of God on his shoulders. Dr. Showalter and I fist pumped and nodded. Let’s go.
Looks like the Golden State Warriors have made yet another move to bolster Steph this season. BTW…Steph was brilliant in the last two games for Team USA as they won the gold medal in Paris.
When we get back from Denver I’d very much like to get started covering the NBA on my underground Thunder blog because this season is going to be an exceptional one in the Western Conference.
After my Seattle sendoff workout this afternoon, I did what I usually do after a Wednesday workout. That being, I drove over to the Integris Cancer Center and found my prayer spot. Dr. Showalter would be proud of me if he ever read my blog. I know he would. He would shake his head in disbelief, but I know he would be proud of me.
There’s a beautiful little spot on the second floor between the Infusion Area and the physical therapy gym. Outside the window it’s landscaped with thick green fescue grass and a mixture of Japanese Maple, Colorado Blue Spruce, and Atlas Cedars. A quaint little rock-lined stream flows through the middle of the trees. It has become one of my favorite meditation and prayer spots.
Just being there with other humans who are on the same journey as myself always forges me. Always reminds me of what a blessed life I’ve already lived and how much I still have to live for.
My father joined AA when I was 28 years of age. AA is basically a god-first program. My experience with him as he went through AA has been incredibly valuable to me on my Stage 4 cancer journey.
God first. That never changes. Ever. Your faith in god has to be absolute and your faith in yourself needs to be strong as well.
Just slow things down. One day at a time. One week at a time. One month at a time. Live every day to the fullest and never fail to appreciate the sunsets. Become a sunset savant.
My thoughtful friend in Tulsa, Bill Davis, sent me a very simple little book on trusting God, staying calm, and finding your faith.
I’d like to post my favorite page from the book before I head off to Seattle.
2 Peter 1:5-7
Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perserverance; and to perserverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
So simple. Just keep it simple.
I can’t wait to get back after our trip in Seattle and blog about our beautiful trip in Seattle with my older sister.
And I didn’t write fake Trump Christians one time.