About Me

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Welcome to my blog - My name is Jim Bull and I share this information with you in the hopes of helping you or a friend or family member in some way. Here you'll find motivational material, my views of life and some background info from my past. I help others live the life they've always wanted through the sharing of information regarding all areas of life.Please let me know how I can help you. Ezekiel 36:26

Sunday, October 16, 2011

From Simple Truths

Weekly Verse
"And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."
-Colossians 3:17

Weekly Quote
 "God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission. I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next."
John Henry Newman

Weekly Thought
Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After seventy-five combat missions, his plane was shot down, and Plumb parachuted into enemy territory, becoming a POW. He survived his ordeal, however, and eventually returned home. While eating in a restaurant one day, he was approached by a scruffy-looking man who said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam and were shot down!"

"How did you know that?" asked Plumb.

"I packed your parachute," the man replied. "I guess it worked!"

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about the unknown man who'd saved his life. From that day on, he determined to always take notice of—and say thank you to—those who "pack his parachute" each day.

Make the most of each day by thanking those who "pack your parachute" and by making an effort to do the same for someone else.

Father, I know that You can use even the smallest gestures and efforts. Thank You for all the little things people do for me, and help me to be an encouragement to someone else today. Amen

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Friday, October 14, 2011

Planning for the Future

As I was working off my 90 days at the jail for "driving under suspension" I was quickly planning my future, or so I thought. You see a good friend of mine rented a second floor apartment on the west side of town and he called me one day at work to let me know that the first floor efficiency was opening up soon. I just had to have this place, you see there was a girl that lived on that side of town that I had my eye on and I knew she hung out a lot and partied on the third floor of this very same building. It was a crowd that I kind of knew and I was just certain that I could score this prize if I could just be around that "scene" more often.
So I got the number of the landlord and while I was supposed to be at work one day I was off to check out the apartment. I jumped on a motorcycle at work (still no license and in jail for driving without one) and off I went. I met the landlord, looked at the place and told her I would take it. Now wait a minute she says, I need to learn a little about you before I rent you this place. Well of course I made up some kind of story and convinced the lady that I was the guy. Timing was perfect because just as I was getting out of jail the apartment was becoming ready so I moved right in.
The goal was to hang out more with the crowd on the third floor and get to know this girl better. Turns out while I was finishing up my last couple weeks in jail that she started to date another guy in the crowd. It turned in to a bit of a competition at first but the dude definitely had a lot more going for him than I did. Her choices, a relatively good kid who's family owed a successful small business or an ex felon with no money and bad intentions. Anyhow, he got the prize and I moved on.
It would be the beginning of a two year binge of chasing women and the ultimate buzz. I would again meet a whole new group of people. People who taught me how to smoke crack, people who had people shot because of drug deals gone bad, people who would let people lay along the road and die after a traffic accident because they didn't want to get busted, people that would do just about anything to protect their self, and I was right there helping to lead the charge. It would be a new level of selfishness, deceit, run ins with the law and near death experiences. It would be a time that has too many details to divulge here, a time that I barely escaped with my life. Matter of fact the day I left that "scene" I called my dad and begged him to allow me to come home, he said ok and asked when I wanted to do it. My reply, it has to be today dad. I knew it had to be that day because I wasn't sure if there was going to be a tomorrow. He didn't like it, but he came and helped me move that day. I was so desperate that I set up shop in their garage because there was no room in the house. At the time my parents were caring for my sick grandparents and it was the only place to go.
I was just happy to have a place to lay my head, a place away from the madness I had become a part of. It was a new start, but by now you should no me, again it was a start in the wrong direction. Planning my future, I had no clue.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Right Back to Jail

It wasn’t very long that I was out of rehab that I moved back to my original hometown and I was hanging with some of the old crowd and a little bit of a new one too. We were really into drinking and we were all still underage. I believe I was home for less than six months and I got pulled over for speeding on my way home late one night and I was drunk so I got a DUI charge. Because of my recent stay in the drug and alcohol rehab the judge denied my ARD application and sent me off to jail to serve 48 hours behind bars and he gave me a year’s probation period in which they took my license for 90 days.
Again, I shrugged it off and continued on with my wild lifestyle showing no respect for anybody or anything. I had lost my license but it didn’t stop me from driving. I was on my way home from work one evening just a few weeks after my arrest and a car full of girls pulled up beside me on a two lane, blew their horn and waved and took off. Of course I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by so I was off on the chase. Just one mile down the road I heard the sirens and saw the lights in my rearview and thought oh crap. As I watched the car full of girls drive off in the distance I pulled to the side of the road to “deal with the police” so I could get on with my evening.
As the officer approached my vehicle I was quickly conjuring up a story. I told him that I left my license in my other car or something or the other so he told me to sit tight and that he needed to check with dispatch. As he came back to my car the first thing he did was advise me to contact a lawyer, that driving without a license on a DUI suspension was a mandatory 90 day jail sentence. I’m thinking, you gotta be kidding, and I’m not even drinking and I get 48 hours for driving drunk and 90 days for driving sober, what is wrong with this picture.
It turns out the officer was correct so off I went to the county jail a short time later. Fortunately I was able to get on the work release program so I could continue to work and party, after all it was all about the buzz. As I traveled back and forth to work I would still manage to smoke a joint and even sometimes do a little drinking, depending who was on duty back at the jail. The county prison was strategically placed only about three miles from my work so I never had trouble getting a ride. It’s funny how things work, I remember coming in from work one evening and there was one of the counselors from the drug rehab I attended. He was at the jail to interview another inmate for the program a whole county away. He took one look at me and just kind of chuckled and asked me why I was there. I told him my story and all he could say was, I think I told you so…

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Leaving Re Hab

I had finally managed to leave the rehab for good. I had worked my way almost the whole way through the program in record time and I was about to be released when I messed up. It was about 6 months in and they were allowing me to attend art school with the plan in mind to be released after several weeks of successful attendance. Unfortunately I blew that notion a few weeks in when a pretty girl at school offered me a Quaalude, I took the drugs, didn't get the girl and went on a two week binge before returning to the program. Thus I had to start over and go through the whole process again. I was just about through the levels when my year term had come to an end. A few weeks prior to that I managed to get a painting and remodeling job with a pretty solid firm in town and I found a small third floor efficiency apartment to rent.
Things went pretty good for the first few weeks, my employer was keeping me busy and I was staying away from the old crowd. It was easier because I was a whole city away and I really didn't know anybody except for the people at work and a girl I met who was an outpatient and attending the rehab for night counseling. (we'll call her sally)
Sally and I hit it off good and we started to date. Of course her dad didn't like this because he knew my background and was trying everything in his powers to keep us apart. He was running for mayor of a small town and didn't need his daughter associating with a guy like me. I managed also to bump into a local kid who I met in rehab who had recently got out too and the first thing he did when we bumped into each other was to hand me a bong. At first I declined but it didn't take much urging from my new friend to get me to cave in.
That was kind of the beginning of the end of the sobriety. I was now smoking pot again with the new kid, Sally's dad was making it hard for me to spend any time with her, so I started to travel back to my old hometown on the weekends to see who I could meet up with and what I could get myself in to.
Well the bible says, seek and you shall find and sure enough another truth from that little black book that so many of us run and hide from. The weekend trips turned into weeknight trips too and before you knew it I was missing work, late on my rent and getting stoned all the time. (I think they mentioned something at rehab about staying away from the old crowd) obviously they were right again.
From that point things are kind of sketchy in the old memory banks. My old girlfriend had ditched me so I was pretty much partying with the guys and always on the hunt. We did a lot of drinking and party hopping, I had to be around 19 or 20 at the time and I had finally landed a real job as a salesperson at a local motorcycle shop. I had hooked up with a new crowd of old friends that would eventually lead to my heavy use of cocaine and more jail time. Life was a party and we were living it large, it was a time of anything goes and living for the buzz.