The Jim Baumer Experience began as a personal and professional workspace. I launched the site as a platform to share and write about ideas and theories I was working on and had been piloting for more than a decade. This was back in 2012. I also wanted to create my own WordPress website.

My fascination with reinvention got me started blogging and exploring the topic back in 2002. I then spent the next 15 years as a freelance writer and independent publisher.

Life can be capricious. I lost my only son in 2017. Losing an adult child is devastating. Sudden, unexpected deaths like his shift the entire foundation of a father’s (and a mother’s) life. Nothing is as it was. Even the ordinary becomes strange and unfamiliar.

One never recovers from something like this. However, as they say, “life goes on,” even if that life is framed by grief and mourning. We’ve launched a nonprofit in Mark’s memory, in an effort to further causes he was passionate about, like protecting Earth.

In August of 2018, deeply depressed and spiraling due to grief, I decided I’d had enough. For some odd reason, I walked into my back office, saw my guitar case housing my Yamaha acoustic filmed with dust, and pulled the guitar I’d had for 25 years (and rarely ever played anymore) out of the case. I tuned it, and began working through a few songs I still knew how to play. I felt better.

That afternoon began a journey I’ve been on now coming up on eight years. For more on the music of JimBaumerME.