thanks everyone for the encouragement, it's been nice that people have been chiming in with their own experience and it's given me some great perspective.
i took a break from StP for a few days and now that I've got my mind more wrapped around the situation, and my parents have calmed down a little, i feel a lot better about the situation. it still sucks ass and feel super guilty about being a drain on my parents but we'll work through it and i think the overall outcome is going to be good in the long run.
the first thing is that my parents have the money to loan me (it was supposed to be for fixing the house) so i'm going in on the 3rd to get this dentist work done and out of the way as fast as possible. I'm facing one root canal, some bone grafts, and a bunch of crowns, so i'm really not looking forward to the experience.
seeing how i need to repay my parents as fast as possible, i've been going through a list of things i can do to start working on that (until i get a job) and i've decided to bring back the StP bandanas along with a new patch, two different types of buttons/pins and a discount on my books in the StP etsy store. I've ordered most of it and I'll make an announcement when it's available for sale, some of is really good stuff that I'm pretty proud of, so hopefully you'll like it!
If all goes well, I'll get the first 1/4th (1k) repaid before I get a real job (more on that next). At least this way you folks can get something cool in exchange for helping me out and promoting the site. oh, and about putting ads on StP... the trade off really isn't good enough for a site like this, since the ads are usually just too intrusive, look ugly, and ultimately don't really net enough money to make the annoyance worth it. along with the etsy store, i'll share some other ideas i have below.
as for settling down and finding a 'real' job, what im looking at doing now is basically getting a job working for a school district as an IT technician. unfortunately it'll probably have to be in bumfuck egypt (those are the ones hurting the most for someone) for at least the first year, then maybe i can move somewhere like seattle or somewhere i can be around more of my own kind.
I'm overqualified for sure, but since I've never made more than 7k or so a year, 31k/yr makes me feel like i'll be rich; of course, the majority of that will have to go towards paying off my debts. I'm looking at somewhere around 30k in student loan debt that i defaulted on over 10 years ago. Honestly I never thought I would be in a position to pay it back (not that i wanted to) but rejoining the 'real world' is probably going to result in a garnishment of my wages if i don't.
i'm hoping that i'll be able to squirrel away enough on the side to save up to buy another school bus and renovate it into an awesome mobile living space for traveling around when i finally rejoin the rest of ya'll on the road. of course the above debts plus paying back my parents, having to get a car (for the job) and other things (probably 30k in credit card debt that i hope to declare bankruptcy on) i think i'm looking at a minimum of three years of being settled own before i can hit the road again.
but like i said above (and others have suggested) i plan on using this time as productively as possible. alongside the school bus conversion i mentioned above, i'm thinking about starting/resuming an StP podcast, although i'll probably need some people to co-host with since i've found it's hard to carry something like that alone. maybe a weekly web stream turned podcast? i dunno exactly what format it will take but i do have a LOT of really good ideas i've been sitting on for a long time that would be interesting to the members of StP. If i get that going i might switch to doing a patreon (instead of our current donations system) but i want to make sure first that people that choose to support StP get their moneys worth out of it (in terms of entertainment or information).
i've also had a long term dream of getting StP incorporated as a non-profit and starting either a hostel (where StP members can stay for free, tourists pay a moderate fee) or a punk-rock RV park (which would be a bit easier to get started). basically some kind of StP HQ / learning center for travel.
we'll still do the jamboree this year as well, i'll just plan far ahead (in term of budget) so i can be sure to be there. setting up the 2018 jambo forum section is very high on my to do list.
anyways, gone on a bit of a tangent there, but you get the idea. so it sucks that i'll be out of the travel game for a while, but at least i'll be here keeping the fire warm for anyone that wants to come by and visit
