Then, Now and Yet To Come...

20 Years Ago

1. I don't recall the dates specifically, but I was either going, gone to, or just returned from Hawaii with my family. I was so young that I don't remember much about it. I only remember being "abandoned" by my brothers at the hotel. They were screwing around on the elevators and didn't want me to come, so they left me on the bottom floor and told me to wait. 30 minutes later my brother sheepishly came and got me.

2. I got grounded for the first time right around this time. My friend Bryson and I were throwing rocks from the gutter up into the flower bed of my neighbor's house. For some reason, he went to go investigate a rock he had thrown, and I didn't notice. I threw the next rock and beaned him right in the forehead.

3. I had my first "not real" kiss. It was the (older) next door neighbor Holly Diefendorfer . We kissed under water in her kiddie pool.

10 Years Ago

1. I was in 9th grade at Kearns Jr. High.

2. I was lead stage-crew guy, and loved it. Too bad Mr. Carling was the teacher. What an ass.

3. I "modemed" on a daily basis to Lowerlights and Chatterbox (http://www.lowerlights.com/). That was really the start of my "growing up online." Most of my friends were found through Lowerlights.

5 Years Ago
1. I served a mission in Columbus, Ohio. I lived in Whitehall, Reynoldsburg and London. I came home after 11 months due to depression. Boo.

2. Moved in to David's parent's house and slept on a fold out couch for a couple months, then the floor for a couple more. I bought their old car, which shall forever be known as the Ghetro. It was a ghetto Geo Metro.

3. I started working at DirecTV. Ugh.

3 Years Ago
1. I got married to the love of my life, Trisha! We got married in the Salt Lake Temple after having met 5 months prior. I must be from Utah.

2. We moved into the Mark Twain apartments in Taylorsville. Surprisingly we never got robbed, nor shot at. Our cars didn't even get broken into. Ironically, Trisha's car got broken into at my parent's house in Murray, where we would never have expected it.

3. I started working at Mstar. (http://www.mstar.com/) I started at 7 bucks an hour doing technical support for the WebSentinel product. After a couple months of only working for 2 hours a day (playing games and looking for another job the remainder of the time), they started getting busy with the UTOPIA project. I started working in order support to make sure installs were completed.

4. We got a cute little Shi-tzu named Mosley. He had a hard time potty training because both Trisha and I were working. We had him for a year and a half and then decided to give him to a friend of Trisha's who had 3 little girls that could play with him. He's much happier now. We visit him occasionally.

1 Year Ago

1. I started looking for a new job because Mstar had just moved down to Orem. The drive (being 45 minutes each way) and the company running out of money were the main factors leading to me looking. I didn't really find anything worth accepting, however.

2. We moved in with Trisha's parents (in their basement). After seeing Trisha's sister live there for almost a year prior to us moving in, we were really worried that it was going to be a horrible living situation. It turned out to be ok. I kept to myself, and the basement was 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else, so I was in heaven.

3. Trisha was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. It sucks. She is always in pain and it has made things difficult for her. I wish I could just take her pain away, but I feel helpless.

So Far This Year

1. We bought a condo in West Valley City. It's a bit ugly on the outside, but the inside is upgraded and nice. Finally we are living on our own again. After 2+ years of living with other people, it was about time that we were on our own.

2. We got new cars! I got an 2006 Nissan Altima. Very nice. Trisha got a 2007 Suzuki Forenza. It's nice to have nice things again. Both of our cars were starting to fall apart.

3. I got laid off at Mstar. It wasn't much of a surprise, but I was pretty upset about it initially. It was just really bad timing... (refer to So Far This Year, Number 1 and 2.)

4. Started a job with a VoIP provider in Lindon, Utah called Alianza (http://www.alianza.com/). I'm a Sales Engineer. I assist the sale's guys to prove to potential customers that our product works and that it will work in their network environment. I love it. It's the perfect fit for me as far as my desire to be both technical and professional. The people that work here are especially awesome. The work environment is unlike any I have ever seen. Free snacks and drinks and I travel occasionally. It's been fun.

Today

1. Trisha woke up with me and made me breakfast. It was really nice. I had 2 egg-McMuffin type things that she made. She also made me a lunch. This is a part of our effort to save as much money as possible because Trisha is no longer working full time. It has been a bit of a strain on us financially, but we're going to make it work.

2. I started a blog, and I wrote this blog.

Tomorrow

1. I want to go to the shooting range to get in some more practice with my 9mm. I need to be more comfortable with handling it in high pressure situations. There was recently a bad fist fight outside of my condo and based on the commotion, I thought someone was getting robbed. I dispatched my weapon, and realized that it has been too long since I've used it, so I need to go use it again.

In the Next Year

1. I'll start back up with school at Western Governor's University (http://www.wgu.edu/).

2. I would like to start making progress about getting out of debt. It has been a challenge for us, and it's certainly not getting any better.

3. I hope to be able to go to Lake Powell later this summer. We'll see if I can get the time off. Not to mention the money required to go. It's not looking good.