Bama’s Bunker

When I moved to California, there were already a lot of people named “James” there. So to prevent confusion, people started calling me “Bama James,” which was over time simplified to “Bama.”

This is highly ironic, in that, of all the people I grew up with in Alabama, I was probably the least likely to be thought of as a poster child for the place. On the other hand, only about once every 5 years did someone from my hometown actually make it to California, so as cultural representatives go, I was it. I learned to glorify my redneck roots.

Years later, flailing about for purpose and rootedness, I almost bought a country store in a remote part of the southwest. It was a cinderblock building with two 5000 gallon gas tanks, in a town of 200 people.  Most of the business happened during hunting season, and the rest of the year it was just locals.  I had grand visions of being the village coffee spot.

“Bama’s Bunker” was a good friend’s immediate suggestion of a name.  I wound up back in Silicon Valley doing UNIX sysadmin stuff, but the name has lived on as an ideal: find some acreage, put up a monolithic dome, live happily ever after in Bama’s Bunker.

Ever towards that goal, albeit with some distractions, we will present here, from time to time, various thoughts and references such as might be related.

Originally, this site was made with a utility that converted bookmark files to static pages, and was never meant to be much more than just online bookmarks.  The static pages are the vestiges of the bookmark folders. Some topics are still active interests, some are obsolete. Studying the logs, it seems that people are mostly interested in VW diesels (particularly diesel vanagons), dogs, and converting utility trailers to campers.