Work People Translation World Money

We live in the house, it is finished inside and very nice.more then nice. notf inished outside which is a problem. Donot want to get to it. some other time. The hose is on the market but market is super louse.

Can ya send some pics? I imagine it'll be lousy for a while. Hey, did I ever tell you one of my dreams in life to round up some investors, buy a valley in British Colombia, preferably by the see, build a log cabin hotel, and trails through the forested valley, perhaps a ski slope for the winter, and rent it out like a hotel retreat where people can get away from hectic life, like a retreat? Every night there would be live guitar around a campfire, and during the day people could rent a horse or bicycle and go on excursions through the forest. The cabin would obviously be decked with internet so that they could stay in touch with business if they wanted to. You think there would be interest in something like this? Long term dream of course, but I would absolutely love building the trails and organising the campfire thing.

> Glad you are doing better then in the past. Not sure wher you are

> now. tell me.

On this Popolopos island peninsula thing just west of Athens and where Corinthia is. Circling it and should be done in a few days. Absolutely beautiful and wish I could stretch out the trip, hanging out and relaxing in each village for about 5 days rather than one night. Got another shit translation so each day driving for about two hours to next stop. Some people marked on my map the most beautiful places. Would be nicer to snail slower, but maybe again in the future.

ouo go to Praha, to be a

> "best men"???

Or groom helper or something. Maybe I'll button his collar, stand as a witness, and make a speech. Who knows.

you need an outfit, ha ha ha. Will Jens arrange it for you. I want a picture because youare good looking even in a teashirt. In an outfit (similar to your graduation) you willbe abosultely smashing. Sorry I can not be there.Keep me posted.

Yah, I thought about that. I guess the one nice suit I have is not nice enough? Will ask him about that.

And about Jana. She is NOT ON HER DEATHBED this happens when people communicate throug others. Jan tells me something, Iget upset, tell Keta, she gets upset and tells you. Jana is not in the hospital and far form it. She just was in Praha for 10 days stayed with Pavel. He would be the best judge how she is. Jana is like a rock, will not complain. Only to me on the phone. She may goto France for a week. Her hair grows back.Ther is a big problems with her mobility as she is losing nervesin her feet and hands and can not walk properly and it hursa lot when she does and she can not slice a bread since her hands do not wark. can not drive anymore. I worry about the stairs in the house. Suggested to her she goes down on her bum as little children do. She is back on the pills which give her this side effect but one has to chose what is worse. So no need to go to London now, I would be the first one to go. Would let you know. Send her postcard, she likes it very much.

Well it was Simona who said she was not doing well, and the thought is always out there, because it really isn't a problem for me and think it could make her happy. Maybe you could tell Jana, who will tell Simona, either of which may come to Prague while I'm there. Sometimes I wonder if Simona is jealous about me and the boys and almost rather I didn't spend so much time with them. I got that impression when I was staying with her, although it settled down a bit over time. Other times she seems potentially like an envious angry woman because Kevin dumped her and uses the boys as a weapon sort of, trying to carve them practically into girls, as Yannyk once said, to vindicate her anger against men or something. Anyway, one of the letters I was trying to send her was a possible offer to drive around her island next summer and take the boys with me on a trip. Would depend on a lot of factors, such as this French Fry Fuel, and work. And if they even let me on etc. But would love to drive around through Scotland and Ireland etc.

Simona does not check her email, so do not worry. I will tell Jana to mention it to her but better again I will call her. You have Skype, you call her.

My internet is way too limited, and I never really feel too comfortable on the phone, with anyone. Prefer conversation with beers between us, or emails. Just wrote her another postcard.

> I had no antivirus on my may machine so I coldnot write. i am back

> in operation.

How does an antivirus prevent you from writing? Anyway, recently I learned a lot about internet safety and actually purchased some programs. You need more than just one program to be safe.

Ciki is turnig 70 on May 28. has an email address now. she told meitis if you are at the computer, write toher. it will make her happy. I did not use her address yet as I learned today., hope it is right, she could not remember.

If I am at the computer? Ha ha, that's pretty funny. I'm ALWAYS at the computer, and SOMETIMES I even get sick of it and just read a real book!! But that isn't very often. Just wroter he a short note.

> I have togo tobed and sleep. will write agian. this wa

> smainlyabout us, I want to know about you.

Got my first payment to help someone with SEO and getting up on google and think eventually I could make 500 or bucks from him. I believe I should get more but it’s a start until I'm more famous about it etc. More and more people are asking me for link exchanges and even to advertise on my site, which is a good sign, because these things tend to escalate upwards once your pages get into the current. It's just too bad I don't have much time to keep working on it, or earning enough to hire someone yet. Need to pay debts first, and put some into the bank. But I do it on the side and it is nice that it is moving forward. I am sure that eventually it will all come to fruition. I am already near the top of google and competing against the best of them. Translations is very competitive so obviously my skills are correct.

On another note, not too long ago it dawned on me how it was possible that the government found out about your postal address in Prague and I imagined Ilona went down there with David or something and wrote it down. That thought really angered me, I wrote her a seething email, and based on her response I decided I'm done with her for once and for all. The reason I made an effort to maintain a civil or nice relationship with her in the past is because of David, but I feel he is old enough now that he does not need to have this family feeling. But it seems she is working on him to break off his relationship with me because I said I no longer want to send her money, which just shows what an envious stupid and selfish cow she is, because she does not realize that this could psychologically affect him to the negative. He seems a bit confused by it and we are emailing, but it is getting potentially heavy. I certainly will not cry if he abandons me, but I'll try a bit more. He has to learn that he is becoming a man now and he has to invest some to make a relationship work. In fact, he has to invest in his own damn life. He's just a leaf fluff in many ways and it probably suits Ilona fine, who would probably be more than happy if he grew into a useless male forever dependent on her and basically almost became her husband. So he has to climb out of that situation and prop himself up on his feet, and I hope I can help him by email. Or to travel together for a summer or go tree planting with him could turn him into a man once and for all. We'll see.

Can't think of much else to say. latero

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hey dude,

will you be in Czech during July/Augustish? Think i'll be able to be there for a couple of months and would be cool to hook up. If my parents did not call you I apologise but it's a life history of them simply not trusting anything that I can offer them. Perhaps too they want to do things legally, since they're sorta chicken shit.

I was wondering, my step mother said the Czech police are becoming total Nazis and are pulling over everyone to check their vehicle. Is this true? My truck certainly looks beat up, and some dork cop in Cyprus forgot to give me back my maly technikac (although I still have my velky). Everything is obviously expired since I've been gone for three years but I was told I can just explain to them that I've been gone for that long and am there now to get it sorted (which is true). I have a guy who used to help me get my technikac (because no STP would legally approve my truck). In case my dude can't do it anymore you know anyone who can? Lookin forward to some beer and games. Tom still in town and you play with him? I'm so outa shape I may even have to admit that my ass will get totally kicked around the court like that little ball!

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Howdy, just read your letter on my mobile and writing now so that it gets blasted off the next time I get to an internet café. Which I think should be tomorrow. Got another larger translation for my regular "shit" customer (for months I've been translating about EU money to upgrade the sewer system in Moravia and I start to see shit when I close my eyes) so I clamped down in some village and finishing it off. I also ran out of gas money so I had to find a secluded place where the police wont hassle me. Will be here for about four days and it's just lovely to be able to park anywhere along the Greek coast and feel like I'm in paradise. The people are all nice to me. Much nicer than those runts in Cyprus.

But it’s the end of the month and apparently money was already sent, so I expect to start driving again soon. Monday I plan to go to a café and check my bank account. Cost me more than a thousand Euro to get off the island. Spent my last dime before the next wad of cash came in and some bureaurunt was trying to get 60 Euro out of me for "clearance", the last stage before I can get back into continental Europe. I said there were all sorts of additional charges they didn’t tell me about and now I have no cash, but should expect it in a few days, but Friday was another holiday, so he said it would have to wait until Monday, but that it was illegal for me to park anywhere along the 3 km stretch of empty shipping yard and I had to pay him 60 Euro a day to park by his little booth, so 300 Euro by Monday morning. I looked at him, turned around and drove away, HAHAHA. Getting so tired of dealing with idiots. Will be scary to drive to Czech. Who said I wasn't going to drive there? And why wouldn't I plan to sleep in it if I were? Anyway, hope to finally paint it green, and hope to have enough cash to spruce up the belly. Starting to rust something horrible and need to put a stop to it. Don’t like this blue colour either. The conversion to FFF will cost something too so I have some saving up to do, but once that is all done will be a beaut of a truck. Still a fair amount more I want to do with it. Cant forsee wanting to settle down yet. Love driving around and discovering the world. Have even approached some youth hostel websites to advertise and help me find fellow travelers. One of the few things I'm missing. Otherwise I've gotten happily settled down in my work. Prague was constantly busy busy busy and the last year I would often sit in the pub, listening to the conversation, and thinking what an absolute waste of life and breath it all is. But understandable for city life. Out here on the beach though it is so peaceful and I do not feel the stress and anxiety of having to fill up my weeks and days with millions of things, in which case I can focus on my work and be more productive. Just recently I've started a project which I hope will bring some cash, and hopefully enough so I wouldn't have to translate. I can show it to you if you like and am rather proud of it. Most of it was developed by one Ukrainian programmer based on my instructions, and it was a way for me to run my operations very cheaply through a virtual office, with project managers logging in and exchanging files and communicating with one another. It was supposed to be my secret system which would maintain my freedom and allow me to operate a very large and efficient agency 24 hours a day. But all my search engine work has not yielded me the fruits I hoped for (although I expect it will, but eventually), so I did not have the need or work yet to put it to use. Based on a suggestion from one friend of mine I decided I will go ahead and offer it to other agencies, but it required tweaking the script, for which I obviously did not have the cash. But recently I learned PHP and I'm now struggling with the script to allow special subadministrator rights so other agencies could set up their own projects but not have the full administrator rights I have. A bit complicated but fun learning, and I hope to get this done in about a week, after which I will approach 6000+ translation agencies and see if I could find some interest. Was thinking of charging half a penny per word for its use. I usually charge a 3 cent markup, and agencies in the west usually charge at least 6 cents markup. I'm a cheap translator charging only about 4 euro cents, so with enough work it could be enough to cover my living, or more hopefully.

Don't worry about me chewing you out anymore. Think I've done enough of that in the past and decided I will try to never do anything like that again. I think Prague made me angry, all the pretentiousness, uncaring people, and gossip. I detest it and always fear going back to Prague a little bit, lest I explode at someone. But I decided I will not cower as much as I used to and put people in their place, if need be. Otherwise I know enough good people in Prague that I shouldn’t have to concern myself with those losers.

Concerning David, I offered him some work, but he doesn't seem interested. About two years ago I asked them to help me find work. Simply punching in email addresses from the Yellow Pages, but it was apparently too much for them, and lately with my emailing with David I learned that they expected greater vecnost to continue. I chewed out Ilona, who basically said I should end my relationship with David if I'm not paying. Which I'm actually prepared to do, if he does not come to his senses. We have been emailing a lot and I'm careful how I write, but I'm not going to send those two lemras any more cash just for nothing. I think my offer is reasonable that David is old enough to start working and do something for his household and take some responsibility himself, instead of acting like Ilona's monkey and pointing his finger at me that I should just send them money. I told them that if they had just helped me find work and not been such lazy arseholes I could be trying harder. For a year I wasn't even paying my own health insurance (and am still not, although I'm covered since I'm back in Europe now), taxes, payment for my accountant, etc. etc., and since they were not willing to raise a finger to help me I decided why should I sacrifice and stress myself for them? So I decided I will simply not send them money unless I get something for it. May not even see David while there because I told him he shouldn’t tell his mom I'm coming, for who knows what she is capable of. I'm done with that cow. The fact she gave them your address was a last straw for me. But I'm emailing with David and hopefully I can help him with the translation to get out of her grip. He's old enough for that. I know that tree planting might kill him, so I would paint the most horrid picture, but on the other hand it would totally change him as well. He would walk away from that experience a real man who can take life by the balls and make his own decision. Or perhaps I could help him a bit if he went traveling with me, but he has to decide what he wants. I'm not going to nurture his baby little hand any longer and its time for him to grow up. I am very careful how I write my emails, not to hurt him and discourage him too much, but it's time to be a bit tough with him as well. In the end he has to decide for himself what he wants to do. Hopefully he wont fall into that vacuum called Ilona and become some crippled Oedipus case.

So you guys are living in that fancy house? Must be pretty posh. Don't forget I could make you a nice website to help sell it. I think Flash would work well. It's like a slide show combination movie. You'd have to send me nice pictures though. I can show you some flash work I did for myself if you like. After that you can just use it to advertise Vlad's skills for future work.

Today is Sunday and I am going for a long walk. Hope to save up a lot while in Bulgaria working with my friend. Have started paying back debts and it feels good. Maybe I could work on some of his other places after Prague. But it would be filler work in between what I'm already doing, cause that pays more and I seem to have enough of it. We'll see.

Now to go through your letter a second time and cover anything I missed. As I said about the computer virus thing, these days one single software is simply not enough. I use several and have a pretty secure system. I can try to help you if you like. Here are some things I've learned recently:

- I have one software which creates a fortress on your harddrive, so if for example you want to install some software you are not sure about, or use your webbrowser within the fortress, it prevents anything from escaping to other parts of your Windows, and after you are done, it erases everything within the fortress. Free software.

- Outlook is susceptible to viruses. My email program is not, although it’s a bit more complicated to work with and set up, which is why I did not want to bother you with it. But it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a virus with this program with just emailing, unless you do something like double click on an attachment which is a virus. You only have to remember the bad file name endings. .jpg and .jpeg is perfectly safe (images), while .gif can be bad (the program by default blocks those).

There are many other ways you can protect your browser or computer but these are pretty well the only way you can get a virus. If you do not surf, emailing alone should be no problem at all (unless you use Outlook).

The only other way is if someone hacked into your computer, but you can protect yourself against that too (your virus software is practically useless against that though). It's called a Firewall and there are other ways too. But if you update your Windows and it’s a paid version, and make sure to turn on its firewall, you should be pretty good. Otherwise, why would a hacker waste his time with you, when there are banks etc.?

You can also lock down your Windows. There is a lot you can do.

Oh, and the latest fad is those memory sticks, so be careful about plugging other people's into your USB. You can protect yourself against that as well.

Alternatively, if you only use your web browser to log into your email account, and then unplug your computer from the net and do the rest of your work offline, you should be pretty well invincible.

The truck is still in good condition and should be able to go another 2 million kilometers possibly. Need to deal with the rust, but then should be pretty good. All brand new tires, thank you very much, and I hope to start paying those debts back soon enough. Otherwise its 3 tonnes of thick steel. Some car once smashed into me and was totally destroyed practically, and I could not even find a scratch on mine. The engine is a power horse. Those old Mercedes are a beaut and mechanics who know more than the common person always pat my truck in admiration.

I would only go tree planting for David's sake, and wouldn't look forward to it, but think it would do him a lot of good, if he could handle it. He needs a man around him and be subjected to harsher conditions, so he can grow up and be strong. Right now is the time to do it, if ever, I should say. I thought I could bring Simon, who is now in the US. That could give David some encouragement. In any case I doubt David would go for it, but you never know.

Concerning Ilona, something recently occurred to me that I'd eventually like to explain to David, when the time is right. And that is basically that he is an entire class or more above that family of village morons and that he shouldn’t let himself be hindered by them. It will be nice if he took some responsibility and supported his mother once he starts working, as a way of paying back all those years she struggled to support him, but not to let himself be hindered by those yoyos. I think he got all my intelligence and he should thank God every day it did not get diluted with hers. I tried to teach her some simple card games once and it was utterly futile. I never experienced that. Otherwise we had fun discussions and our relationship was nice, but she's too domesticated for me and I explained that to David. Not to mention that she is a far cry from my ideal and what I would ever consider settling down with. I realized recently that the girl of my dreams is so perfect I would have to be making a LOT of money to win her. And I doubt she'd want to move into a caravan truck with me, and I doubt I'd want to settle down somewhere with anyone and go back to a stagnant and boring life, so it seems increasingly probable to me that I will never settle down. What would interest me is to support homeless children and visit different shelters, and develop a really big family that way. Just having a couple of children doesn't really interest me.

I also wrote dad that if they come after him because of David, I may just consider that as sweet justice and let him pay. They all quite upset me with how they judged me so harshly and were not willing to help at all. They certainly had the means. Or they were dumb and ignorant like many and assumed I was just wandering along the beaches, doing nothing with my life, and was seeking support to continue my vagrant existence. I guess things will get clarified when I'm in Prague. In any case, I'm much more productive now than when I was in Prague. Liba said they didn't want to support me because they know that tree planters drink beer. Everyone had their own stupid reason, but hers the most. I can assure you I drank more beer in Prague for 15 years than I did with any tree planter. By far I drank the most beer in camp, but it was my compensation for working so hard.

The last letter to dad was fairly intense and covered my entire life and touched on his character. It ended up being both positive and negative, so in the end neutral, but will give him something to think about. I decided I'm just not going to take shit from anyone anymore. I'd rather be just open and honest and not play stupid games. I think he thinks that he is serving God by working so hard, but I have a thing or two I could say about that. Concerning Matuska, recently saw an old black and white Czech film which you made me think of. Not sure if you would like it though, since you guys have such impossibly conservative tastes. But who knows. It's about this group of Czech barbarian girls wandering around the countryside after some plague devastated all the people in the world. Quite well done and I like it. It is sort of like Lord of the Flies, except its with sexy chicks. It's on my server if you want to download it. At the very end of the movie they meet this old man who has a gramophone and plays his only LP, which is the Czech song "Roll out the Barrel". Really enjoyed the movie, but not like you are probably imagining it to be.

Well, that was quite a long letter, but its Sunday and I'm not supposed to work, so I got lotsa time. Cant even download movies anymore (get slow and expensive internet through my mobile), so I've been forced to read and work all the time. Now for a nice long walk in this peaceful area. latero

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Sorry for the big gap in responses - pretty hectic here. For the best man, I'm learning what all this means as much as you are. The words are interchangeable, and the responsibility is pretty much up to how you define it. In theory, best man helps the groom arrange the whole thing and signs up to do some of the day stuff, like calling the taxi if it comes late so the already stressed groom isn't going crazy trying to arrange + get married at the same time. In my case, I think most of this is going to be arranged + family is already going to be there. So you're off the hook on that. If you don't want to do the speech, no big deal. The custom depends and usually, the mom does the speech for the daughter and there's a first dance, etc. it all depends how complex we want to make it. For now, I'd say let's not worry about the speech, and I'll be honored enough just to have you attend the wedding and be the legal witness on the marriage (you essentially stand behind me and sign something at the end). If you want to do the speech, sure run it through me, I'll definitely be glad to have you do it - but will leave it up to you. There will be a bit of a crowd there :-D I'm eager to hear how all these ideas work out for you. Seriously, if you're saying you're sick of translating, you should be spending some time doing a huge book or movie or something like that out of your travels. You've definitely got the mind and all that to cover this stuff and I wish I did :-) Don't worry about any debts man, let's put all that behind us at this point, shall we? :-) if you have anything to give, give it to some homeless guy and make a plan where he actually uses it - that will be money far better spent than on paying off something that we both forgot the actual amount anyway (and I thought it was already settled anyway).

responding to your email I just read on my mobile.

For the speech thing I already wrote something up, asked your mom if she would like to give her input, and sent it to my sis, who said she had to read it twice and shed a tear, heh heh. Did you say you wanted to read it in advance? Used the best and inspiring literary skills I have. Will leave this up to you.

I hope to get into Czech by mid July so you can count on me for any logistical help.

Concerning the debts, I don't remember settling anything and I remember the figures (should be 6,500 Kc for the Croatian trip and 40,000 for the Monster commission - but the second one is screwed up in terms of planned payment time because they promised me a lot more languages, based on which I made the decision to move forward with the truck, but since the work died out I totally ran out of cash and was broke, so I planned to pay that part once I get myself on my feet better). I owe one translator for the Monster work about 40,000 (it took him a year to send me an invoice), 40,000 for one friend who accidentally sent me that much instead of the agreed 4,000 to cover my gas bills to help him find property while I was in Montenegro, then we got taxes for a few years, health insurance for a few years, a lot to my mom, my accountant for a few years... Yah, pretty disgusting and depressing, but I've gotten myself into deep pits in the past and always eventually pulled myself out of them with a clean slate. It's those occasional massive projects that come in. Yours was practically dwarfed by another project I did a few years before that. This is one of the main reasons I've been spending so much time these last few years trying to get to the top of google (with moderate but slow success), because its like fishing and I just need more of such large projects. Also one of the reasons why I write my travel blogs, because the more words the merrier say the search engines, and my strategies have been working. Actually, just recently got my first SEO customer. I'm getting a lot of quality link exchange requests, which shows that my pages are in the loop, but I don't even have time at the moment to deal with them. Will get around to it, but quality link exchanges put me even more into the loop, increasing traffic, and eventually leading to some job leads. So I assume things should eventually pan out. I'm definitely set up now to handle a much greater capacity and larger translation projects than I ever did, so it would be nice to fill up some of that capacity.

Yah, sick of translating, and was even getting totally bored of managing translation projects. But my new system will allow me to get away from that as well. Generally, if I ignore the translating (a necessary evil but which pays the rent), I'd say I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing because it is a nice variety on many different fronts – php programming, designing webpages, writing content, SEO, making videos for YouTube (part of SEO), making Flash pages, emailing with marketers out west who would like to set up affiliate branches there, in between which I can take a break, jog barefoot in the sand and swim on the way back. So generally I'm pretty happy with the way things are, and the fact that I'm not in Prague, because for a few years I felt it was making me less productive. There was just too much dope, friends and damn delicious beer, and I cluttered up my week with all sorts of busy stuff like playing squash, karaoke, basketball, volleyball, camping on the weekends, beer, beer, and more beer. All fun I have to say, but overall I felt I was just wasting a lot of time and was not happy with myself generally. Now that I'm out of the "busy city life" where one feels a need to clutter up their lives with such important variety, I've learned to enjoy the peace and quiet, and be content with my greater productivity. It's a bit difficult to motivate myself to keep in shape, but I'm doing okay. One project I'd like to get more into is acting as a tour guide. One of my pages is pretty high on google for such searches as "cheap travel Europe" or "cheap Europe tour guide" etc., and I've started tampering with the idea of advertising on some international youth hostel sites. Essentially if I could occasionally spice my travels with some fellow travelers, working during the week and going on little trips on the weekend, I would have a happy balance between work and meeting people. But generally I've managed to make friends here and there (for example, would offer English lessons in exchange for beer), and friends would come out and visit, so all in all I've managed not to get batty, but it would be nice to spice up my travels with a bit more people contact. Otherwise I'm enjoying the peace and the greater productivity.

Actually, lately I've decided I will try to get some translations from French, because I'm sick of wrestling with the Czech language and their mentality. Would be nice to polish up my French, probably a much more pleasant language to read, can probably get paid twice as much, and probably even translate faster, eventually. But still I want to get away from that grunt work and think things should eventually pan out for me. In between translations I got a gjillion interesting and varied projects I work on, most recently a charity project which popped into my head and thought could be interesting:

Africa charity project

Speaking of Africa, within the next few days will finally make my first and long hoped for donation of 200 Euro to some homeless shelter for children in Nairobi, Kenya. 100% goes to that and through a friend of a friend. Perhaps I might even find myself there on my travels! Apparently the kids will now be able to have three meals a day again instead of two, cause she said she was hit by the crunch as well.

Concerning your idea about what I should do, that's just one of the many projects I also work on. For example, about a month ago I wrote an email to 400+ literary agents (have always dreamed of being a writer one day) and am getting some responses back from them. Have also begun filming my next movie, this time for the purpose of submitting it to some festivals, because I realized I had some copyright issues with my last flick and hence could not submit it, even though a few people said I should. You might think I'm spreading myself out too thin and should focus more on a few things, but I enjoy all the projects I do, they all get interconnected in a way anyway, and mutually supportive, and for me the variety is much more important than any financial success. It is about life and enjoying what one does and not about how people perceive me. Yah, I've been struggling the last few years, but that occasionally happens, forced me to reflect and soul search more (which is a good thing), and still I was doing what I wanted to do, and enjoying the beautiful scenery and so damn glad I finally escaped the cold, which I had to suffer most of my life and simply had enough of.

Okay, think I covered all your points, and I realize you're a busy man, so I'll sign off now and stop this endless droning (was nice to take a break from translating about shit again – last few months almost exclusively centred around EU money pumping into sewer system upgrades in Moravia… - sometimes I see shit when I close my eyes and imagine I'm swimming in it within the caravan truck, really need to get away from this shit).

adiobro