James Strawn

How to stop a buss for a train crossing AND pull aside for a police car to pass at the same time. Enjoy!

Greetings LearnToBus supporters. Once again, thank you so much for your interest in my story. I really appreciate and will never forget what a lot of strangers did to help me and my family. I'm sorry I haven't posted or engaged here lately. I've been so busy with the bus driving, my volunteer work, and personal creative projects. I'm still up for a livestream session or something like that if enough people are actually interested. Otherwise, I will probably be laying low and just checking X periodically. If you want to keep following me outside, the best place to do so is through my website, strawnarts.com/ which includes a sign up button for my upcoming book release and my social email address. Thanks again @y'all.

I'm glad the area covered my my local school district is relatively rural and scenic. It beats driving a 40 foot beast around in city traffic when it's full of very loud kids.

Would people be interested in me doing another live stream? Or would it just be me in a room by myself like a dork? I'd need to figure out how to get the video part working this time. Maybe MJ can help.

My Bumpy Life... in case you thought I was faking all of this. 😂

Tales from the Bus*: A few days ago it was cold (for September) and one of my elementary students was borrowing the sweater of another one. Harma, the girl whose sweater it was, yelled out the window, "Carly, you still have my sweater!" so the girl outside tried to throw it back and overshoots and the sweater ends up on top of the bus. Good power, bad aim I guess. There's no way to climb onto the roof of a school bus and the broom isn't long enough to knock it off. So I call dispatch for advice since that ones obviously not in the driver manual. They're silent on the radio for a minute or two while they discuss, and then they come back and say just keep driving your route. So I did. The sweater fell off a block later so I went around the block and retrieved it. The kids went nuts and I gave Carly her sweater back the next morning. * No AI was used here and the names have been changed

I'm late to the party here, but apparently I was also featured in India's largest daily news source: ndtv.com/offbeat/us-techie-l… It doesn't mention the bus coin, but it does mention the viral reaction. Thanks to everyone who played a part in that and to @AnirbanKun91149 for bringing this to my attention.

Fun Friday: In case you find yourself about to drive away in a forty foot bus, here is how to do the air brake check.

As the second in a pair of Business Insider articles, my dear wife Natalie's back-to-work story has now been features as well. It looks like most of it is still behind a paywall today, but I'll share again when the full article is available with ads. businessinsider.com/17-year-…

Image from the route this week. I wonder if he means that the guns are mounted to the backhoe? Should I drive the bus onto the property and ask? Maybe he could set me up with some bus-gun mounts. And why am I being so gender stereotypical? Maybe it's a woman! 🤣

Greetings to those in this community who have befriended me and encouraged me to stay active. I haven't been meaning to ghost anyone and I'd like to keep in touch wit the friendly ones. It's true, I have been busy (work, family, volunteer work and my book project), but the main reason I have been active is that I honestly don't know what to post that would actually be interesting to people. Also, I'm not very comfortable drawing attention to myself so I don't want to bombard people with a self-obsessive approach. So I'm open to suggestions if anyone would like to see anything in particular. I'm open to another live stream if that's of interest. Hopefully this time I can get the video and Q&A working better. Thanks for your time and attention.

Shameless plug, but I'm really going to need willing Beta readers if I'm ever going to produce something I'm truly proud of. You can read about my novel here strawnarts.com/leap-second and sign up to be a beta reader. The only pre-requisite is you can read. 😂 What would you do with one second nobody else has, and what happens when it starts running out?

Howdy folks! A 3-minute video update and thank you note is attached. Short version: The pumpfun coin has already made it 1/10 of the way yo a real retirement goal. Amazing! Also, I told my supervisors at the bus barn about the coin and the social following and the seemed as surprised and happy about it as I've been. So thanks again to everyone and I'll send more updates when I can. Have a great week.

This one's too hard to say in a video, so I'll just write it: 1988, third quarter of Senior year of High School, I received 5 F's and a C. Five F's!!! By the 4th quarter, I managed to get most of them up to a D — what an achievement! — except for "12 English". On the day before graduation I still had an F, so the teacher showed true kindness by calling me at home and demanding that I come into school and complete an overdue essay. I tried to make excuses but nothing stuck. So I drove my $150 Oldsmobile over there and sheepishly entered the classroom. The essay passed and I passed. My teacher then escorted me down a few hallways and into the school office. He showed me my report card, then put it down on a table and changed the F to a D. So I walked the next night and became a High School graduate. After a very fun year working and living in Yosemite National Park, I decided to go to my local community college as a Commercial Art major. Note the ironic final F in my report card for "Art 2" ... what an idiot! From there came an Illustration degree from Cal State Long Beach, a short but exciting stint as a water safety extra in a (VERY) major motion picture (Hint: "I'm the king of the world!"), a real paying artist job in the video game industry and, finally, Adobe in the year 2000. Why am I sharing this now? Because I really am an idiot. Or at least I thought I was on that warm June day of '88 and for most of the years since then. So when I found out that I had actually gotten my dream job at Adobe, it seemed way too good to be true. In fact, it was a wonderful place to work, both in the office and remotely. I have nothing bad to say about any of my co-workers, the company as a whole or its products. I'm using one of them for this very post. But the fact is that I spent a lot of my time there worried and frightened that someone might find out the truth about my schooling and declare me too stupid to work there. It's called imposter syndrome and it has defined most of my adult life. (working on that) Actually, that's most of what I had always planned to say in my retirement speech... how my co-workers were all so capable and brilliant (they were) and that the hardest part about working there all those years was the fear that the real me would eventually be found out and I'd be asked to leave. Sadly, that last part came true, in a sense. No, I wasn't fired for being stupid, but it sure felt like it on that other warm June day last year, the day I received my layoff notice. 37 years after my eternally embarrassing last day of high school. Why am I sharing this with the world right now? Because I'm over it. I've learned that life goes on, even after the truth comes out, and that there's always room for a second chance. Or third, or fourth, or fifth... I've started a new job where I feel equal to everyone else. Even better, I've been surprised and amazed to learn that there's this big group of people out there who find me interesting, fun, and worthy of their attention. I don't know why you see something inspiring or special about me, but I'll take it. The fact that you are willing to encourage me with your words and your coin is both amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you for taking a chance on me. -$James strawnarts.com/bus-coin No AI was used in the drafting of this message. Sorry.

Greetings everyone! I'm taking a little respite today in a pretty special spot. Thank you again all your encouragement and support. Enjoy the view!