My History (WARNING!! This is long!)

FAMILY

I was born December 4, 1968, in Lafayette, IN, to Daniel and Gail Sites. My Grandparents were Lloyd and Dorothy Schwieger on my mom’s side and Forrest and Lillian Sites on my dad’s side.

My grandfather Forrest passed away 12 days before I was born, but I was able to grow up knowing my remaining grandparents into adulthood. My Grandma Sites lived long enough to see my daughter Brittany on a couple of occasions. In Grandma’s last few years I tried to write to her every so often just to see how she was doing and occasionally ask questions about Grandpa. I also tried to call every once in a while just to talk. I hadn’t done this before, but since I was married and Brittany was on the way, my family really took on new meaning.

My Grandpa Schwieger lived a long and wonderful life. He and his wife started the Bettendorf Christian Church in their home. He preceded Grandma to Heaven by just a few years. Grandma made her journey a couple of months ago. They were inseperable. My grandparents had 8 dates in 28 days and got married back in the mid 1940’s. They acted like teenagers in love until their passing. I grew up near them throughout most of my life and made sure they were around to visit any time I went to see my parents.

Each of my grandparents influenced me and I am grateful to have known them.

My parents were greatly influenced by them as well, as that is who raised them. There is more to it than just having them as parents, though. My parents were raised in the church. They grew to know God and made their own decisions to follow a Christian lifestyle. My parents met at Lincoln Christian College and got married in the summer of ’67. My father is a preacher and my mother has always had a large role in the church. My parents are still greatly in love and if you know them, you know they are truly one.

I find myself thinking more like them the older I get.

WHERE I'VE LIVED

I grew up in several different towns due to Dad’s calling as a preacher. My brother Brian was born in Iowa City, IA in 1970. My brother Brad was born in Murfreesboro, AR, in 1972. We also lived in Marceline, Sedalia, Middletown (2 different homes), and Mexico, MO (3 different homes).

I started Elementary school in Sedalia at Washington Elementary. In the middle of 2nd Grade I moved to Middletown and attended the Middletown/Wellsville schools. Halfway through 4th grade we moved to Mexico and I graduated high school there.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

While in high school I took part in the Mountain Top Experience with Central Christian College of the Bible. This was a trip to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado during the Autumn before my Freshman year. I was part of Highest Praise for 3 years through Ozark Christian College. This was a Summer music touring program.

In high school I took part in the musical Oklahoma as a Freshman and was the Pirate King in Pirates Of Penzance my Senior year. I was also in the play The Night Of January 16th my Senior year as well.

I took part in a community theater play of The Ugly Duckling as the stand in for the prince before my Senior year of high school.

WHERE I'VE LIVED Part 2

After high school I attended Ozark Christian College for one year. I was asked to move off campus after 8 months since I had quit attending classes after 7 months, except for my radio class. I performed in the Fall Fiesta in Joplin, MO, which is a 4 state talent show and received first place. I finished out 1988 and briefly brought in 1989 in Joplin, MO. I then moved back to Mexico for about a year and a half and then moved to Kansas City. I moved away from KC in September of 1995. I moved to Malloy, IA, on September 30, 1995. In the summer of 1996, I moved into Mt. Ayr, IA. I lived there until September of 2000 when I moved to Des Moines, IA.

While in KC I married Penny from Mt. Ayr in the Grandview Christian Church. This was November of 1994. We had Brittany in May of 1995, which spurred our move to Iowa. While living in Mt. Ayr, Penny gave birth to our second daughter, Paige, in June of 1998 at the Creston Hospital. Penny and I separated September of 2000 and the divorce was final in February of 2001.

In Des Moines, I have had 3 different residences. The first two were apartments with different roommates and now a house with two roommates.

FAITH

I was baptized in 1976. Brittany was baptized in 2004.

I grew up in the Christian churches that my father preached at and as an adult I have sporadically attended church at Grandview Christian Church, Blockton Christian Church, and now regularly attend Fort Des Moines Church Of Christ. I just started on with their church softball team, too.

MUSIC CAREER

I’ve been in several bands over the years, starting with a 4 piece band in high school that performed one song at the Spring Concert for my high school. The song was one I had written called “No, It’s Not Too Late”. The band consisted of my brother Brian playing an electric piano, Matt Penn on guitar, and Tracy Littrell on drums. We were the only group that received a standing ovation that night.

My second band was called The Boom in Joplin, MO. We played 2 gigs. The first one was in a club that got raided as we started our second set. There were apparently too many underage people there and there was a line waiting outside to get in. I lost a book of lyrics I had written while at this club. The second gig was just a small one in some downtown building. We had a guitarist, drummer, and a female bass player who also sang a couple of songs. Our songs were along the lines of classic rock with some REM, Poison, and U2 in the mix.

When I moved back to Mexico, MO, I auditioned for a band called Zombie Zoo. Those guys had played together in various bands before, but wanted to do something different. They were based out of Montgomery City, MO, so I would stay with my Grandma and Grandpa Schwieger in Middletown on the weekends this band practiced and played. This was my first steady gigging band. We played in Hawk Point, at a wet T-shirt contest, and even a New Year’s gig in Belleflower. The guitarist, Trey Teinter, and I became friends and enjoyed putting on a show since we were the younger two in the band. The name Zombie Zoo came from Tom Petty’s album of the same name. We did 4 songs off of that CD. The rest were a blend of old and newer rock. We did several Seger tunes as well as Poison. Our keyboard player, Gary, enjoyed R&B so we did a couple of songs that he sang as well as one that he wrote. We did a couple of my originals, too. This was a fun band to get started in because everyone knew their role and performed well. I still have video of that New Year’s gig.

When Zombie Zoo ended due to our drummer’s health problems, he recommended me to some friends with a band called Third Degree. This band was similar in style, but had no keyboards. We only played a few gigs and the drummer just didn’t like me for some reason. I kept in touch with the guitarist even after I moved to KC, but the gig in Third Degree didn’t last but about 3 gigs.

After Zombie Zoo and Third Degree, I started a band in the garage of a keyboard player named Dennis. We had Sam on guitar, Brett Anderson on drums, and Mike Goslin on bass. We moved to a rehearsal space in Centralia, MO, and used the name Stiff Kitti. We played gigs at the Villa Inn in Mexico and a New Year’s Eve party in Centralia. We also opened our rehearsal doors to anyone who wanted to stop in and listen.

After Stiff Kitti, I tried putting together a couple of projects with another guitarist and keyboard player, but then moved away to KC.

In KC I first heard about Karaoke and entered several contests. I won almost every time at Hollywood’s and Tavern On The Grand in Grandview. I would then perform at Manhattan’s in KC, but never got beyond third place there as it was more pop oriented and I always performed rock tunes.

While perusing local newspapers, I found an ad for a singer. It was Ken Whisler’s ad. He was putting together a band and was waiting to find the right players to determine the direction. I asked him to come see me sing Karaoke at Hollywood’s. He and his wife Mary arrived and saw me perform Signs and Wanted Dead Or Alive. I had a slightly sore throat that night, but hit all the notes. My tone just sounded a little different due to the scratchiness I felt. Ken said he would keep me in mind, but wanted to look further. I believe that he hired a female singer, but Mary soon vetoed that after hearing about this singer’s reputation. Mary suggested that Ken have me over for another audition with the band. I went to his house and we jammed with Jon on drums and a bass player whose name escapes me. I have pictures of him and he looks like Father Time. The audition went very well and this was the beginning of Brett And The Hitmen. This took place at the beginning of 1991. We started performing Labor Day weekend of 1991.

We lost our bass player when it came time to perform for New Year’s eve 1991. Father Time asked for more money than we knew we would get to play. We then started auditions for another bass player. We chose Addison, but he decided to play for another band. We hired the former bass player for the band Missouri. He played a 4 night stand at The Flamingo in Raytown, MO. During this stint, Addison showed up and told us that he wished he would have chosen our band. After that week was over, we hired Addison. Since Addison’s addition changed our sound to a more hard rock vibe, we changed the name to Rat Race.

Rat Race performed in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska until September of 1995 when Addison and I called it quits. By that time, we had a female guitarist named Sara who had been in Bandit out in LA. Our drummer was a young kid who had trouble coming out of fills into the same rhythm he had started. It wasn’t real obvious, but it did make things more work than play. We had several guitar players fill in at various gigs. We also hired two other guitarists along the way, but one had tone problems (too reliant on effects) and the other had drinking problems at our second gig with him and was arrested in Hutchinson, KS. We fired him the day we returned to KC after we had him help us unload the equipment in Addison’s house. Since I was moving to Iowa anyway, it just seemed like a good time to call it quits. We had gigs booked through December of 1995, but cancelled everything from September on.

After I had moved to Iowa, I received a call from a band called Weatherhead, based in KC. They were going to be performing in Trenton, MO, for a Halloween gig and asked me to sing. I performed this and two other gigs as a fill in singer for them.

EARLY JOBS

I’ve had several diverse jobs in my life. I started out as a paper boy for the Mexico Ledger. I believe I was in 6th grade when I started this job. I would deliver papers on the north end of Jefferson street and the last division off of it to the east. During this job I handed out business cards for mowing lawns. I took on several yards and my dad taught me basic accounting for this business. One of these mowing jobs led to my employment at Hickman’s Foodliner when I was 16. I worked there throughout high school.

When I went to OCC, I worked briefly as a janitor in my dorm. After only a couple of weeks, I bent over to clean a toilet and could not stand back up. It turned out that I had some muscular problems in my back for a few days, but my chiropractor recommended that I not return too quickly. This was the first back problem I had ever experienced and it was just due to not bending over correctly. I did not return to this job. I tried working at Taco Bell for a few hours, but that didn’t work for me. My hair was like wire when I got home from my first day. After I moved off campus I went to work for Murphy’s IGA on Main Street. I was promoted to Frozen Foods/Dairy Manager after the retirement of a long time employee. This only lasted a couple of weeks and I was fired without reason given. I was under the impression that it was due to the owner’s son not being able to take on the responsibilities of the individual who retired and he wanted his old job back.

After Murphy’s IGA, I got my favorite job in the world! I worked for Camelot Music in the mall on Rangeline. I loved that job and even put in time off the clock sorting albums, cassettes, and some new form of media called Compact Discs. I spent a huge chunk of my paycheck’s on music. The manager was a bit intimidated by my work ethic and thought I was after his job. Before my 90 day probationary period was up he decided to fire me. When I asked for a reason, he said that since my 90 days hadn’t been completed that he didn’t need to give me a reason. I heard later about him being worried about my aiming for his job (he was just a few months older than me) and that the Regional Manager told him it wasn’t a good decision to let me go.

I worked for Star Mart for a couple of weeks and then decided to move back to Mexico, MO. My dad came to pick me up since I didn’t have a car and took me back to Mexico.

I soon got a job at the Mexico-Audrain County Library and soon after took a full time job as a delivery driver for O’Reilly Automotive. I know nothing about cars, but all I had to do was drive a truck and deliver parts. When I started having to work the front desk, I got lost and hoped to find other work. I had the library job and would go straight from O’Reilly’s to work at the library in the evening. When I left O’Reilly’s, I kept the job at the library, but not for long.

I became the Produce Assistant at Hickman’s Foodliner. They were constantly on my case to cut my hair or wear a hair net, which I never did. I inadvertently hooked my Produce Manager up with a married woman in the bakery, too. It turned out that her husband had been cheating on her with her sister. My Produce Manager ended up getting married to this woman last I knew and he had previously sworn that he would never get married again. I left that job after about 6 months and took a paycut to go back to work at the Mexico-Audrain County Library. I then started at Aardvark Video and worked there for a month or so before moving to KC.

JOBS IN KC

Moving to KC was a fluke. I took a short trip up for a couple of days with a couple of friends to see what the city was like. While there, we each had job interviews. We each had interviews at JC Penney and KC Design. Bryan got offered a job at JC Penney, while I got offered one at KC Design. Jason didn’t get any job offers and was pretty dejected. Bryan and I were asked to start work the next week so we went back to Mexico and made plans to move to KC right away. We stayed at a friend’s home in KC for a couple weeks and then got an apartment on 87th and Blue Ridge in KC.

I didn’t realize the gravity of my situation until I started work and was working on commission. KC Design sold perfume knockoffs. They were very good knockoffs and I was very good at selling, but it was hard to make a living off of the commission and I spent weeks in other towns doing my selling. I did pretty good for a while. We had a third roommate move in and he ended up not paying rent. I couldn’t afford to cover him so I moved out. This left Bryan holding the ball and I ruined that friendship. He took my entire CD collection that I had at the time and a bunch of cassettes in order to sell them to make up some money. I’m not sure whatever became of them or Bryan. I do know that Bryan went to DeVry for a while, though.

I moved in with some co-workers who didn’t last long at KC Design, but while there I quickly moved up to be Mr. Zimmerman’s Vice President at KC Design. This meant I got a greater commission on my sales and also got a cut from every bottle that was sold through that office. I really did have a great time training sales people and taking trips to college towns to sell perfume and cologne. I met a bunch of great people and worked my tail off making what I could. I did lose my car while on one of the trips. I left it in the parking lot at the apartment complex and they towed it since it hadn’t been moved in a while. It had a water pump that went out and would have been cheap to repair, but I was out of town so much I didn’t have time. What a waste of a perfectly good car.

Our office did so well that Mr. Z wanted to retire early. He had two people from Chicago come down to take a look at our business model and they ended up buying in or buying the company. I didn’t know all of this was occurring at the time. I was just under the impression that these guys were only there temporarily. One morning, the younger one called himself the Vice President of KC Design in front of my sales staff. They were as shocked as I was. That morning meeting just proceded to get worse. They made my sales staff come up to the front and read from Penthouse Letters with their mouths stuffed with Hershey’s Kisses. It caused one of my guys to cry and my ex-girlfriend (she was in charge of hotel promotions) tried to laugh it off, but was obviously peeved. I went in to talk to Mr. Z about it and he mumbled something about those guys taking over. I went into a nearby office, placed a phone call to a girl who wanted to date me, and asked her to pick me up ASAP and take me back to my apartment. When she got there, I just left my work related materials and hopped in her car. I didn’t look back and didn’t care less what went on there anymore. I heard that the very next day the entire sales staff walked out.

I was applying for other jobs after that and found another perfume company very similar to KC Design. This woman hadn’t been with the company for a month and was already opening up her own office. She hired me to act as a sales trainer. My second week there we planned a trip for the sales staff to head to Dallas. They had a huge office in Dallas that was supposed to provide some great training. I never made it to Dallas.

Our first day was supposed to be spent in Joplin so we left early. We were to work a territory there to make some more cash for the trip. I was in charge with a kid from KC Design that had started there, too. We split into 3 groups and worked various areas of Joplin. While there, I just had one girl training with me and I told her that I needed to get some laundry done while we were out. We stopped at the Laundromat and started my stuff and then went to work apartments and stores in the area. We stopped in a beauty shop and I made one sale there. That was the only sale since they came to pick us up early. Apparently, everyone else chickened out or decided it was just too hard to stay in their area and work it. With sales, you have to talk to everyone and you have to keep at it. You can’t give up. I had made the only sale of the day.

We left Joplin after I chewed them out for not staying in their area and working. Apparently, a few of them were upset that I was doing my laundry and they couldn’t find me when they were looking for us. I didn’t think it was a big deal since I had made a few bucks so we hit the road. We got to the intersection of Highway 69 and Interstate 44 and all that was there was a truckstop. Brian, the other guy in charge, went in to call the girl who ran this perfume company. He came out and said that she wanted to talk to me and that she was upset. I went in and grabbed the phone to see what was going on. She started yelling at me that I should have been in plain site for the others to find and that I shouldn’t have been doing my laundry. I explained to her that I was the only one to make a sale and that in sales you have to stick with and work your territory. We had an agreed time and place to meet and I expected the others to keep that agreement and work as planned. She yelled that I could have my friends come pick me up and hung up on me. I went out side and found my bags alone in the parking lot and everyone gone. What a stupid woman.

I grabbed my bags and started to walk north on 69. I got a couple of rides and made it to the border of Kansas and Oklahoma. At the border was a factory and there were a few people heading to work there. I sat down on my suitcase frustrated knowing that it was dusk and would soon be dark. I was drained.

Suddenly, a car went by and then stopped. The guy backed up and stopped to let me in. He explained that he had suddenly been questioned with “what if it was my son?” and felt it was God telling him that. I accepted the ride to his parent’s home, which turned out to be about 30 minutes from Fort Scott. In Ft. Scott lived my youngest brother’s girlfriend and future wife, Brenda. I was able to reach her mother and they came and got me and took me to their home. I slept on their couch and the next morning started walking Highway 69 again. I got pulled over (imagine that when you are just walking along the highway in a pair of nice slacks, dress shirt, and carrying a suitcase, carry bag, and hanging clothes) by the local police. They were just making sure I wasn’t a vagrant or hitchhiker and I explained my situation. Another officer pulled up and then left. The first officer waited until the other left so that he could offer me a ride to the edge of Ft. Scott. When I got in the car, he asked more about me and I mentioned where I had stayed the night before. He said he knew Brenda’s mom and went to church with her. It was very kind of him to take me further down the road.

It took a total of 9 rides in 24 hours and I was back at my apartment. Now you would think that the story stops there, but nobody was home and since I was living with friends, I didn’t have a key. They weren’t going to be back until the next day, Sunday. I was just going to sit on the step and wait until the next day. This wasn’t a great neighborhood, but I thought I’d be safe. It was quite chilly outside, though, and I didn’t have a coat. Fortunately, a guy that lived below us happened to see me there and offered me his couch. The next thing I remember was waking up to my friends telling me they were home.

Needless to say, that job didn’t last long. I then tried to find something else. I worked for a mowing business for a while, but it was tough to get back and forth so I left it. I then was able to find work for a dry cleaner on State Line Road. That was the best dry cleaning business I have every seen. They were picky and worked very well. Their customers included a couple of different Royals 3rd basemen (Kevin Seitzer and Keith Miller), the President of Firestone, a woman who could afford Barbara Streisand tickets in Las Vegas and then walk out of the show (she had us press her sheets every week), and some locals that were very important to the community.

A NEW JOB

This job was a good one and I was working my way to more important duties, but then came an offer I couldn’t refuse. Mary Whisler knew that I had no car and that I could use more money. She is the wife of Ken, my guitarist in Rat Race. Mary told me that if I came to work for her the next Sunday night that I would be taken to shop for a car after work. Mary owned Weaver’s Donuts. She needed a baker to make the donuts. I had never done this before and she was sure that she would be able to train me to do this. I had my doubts, but jumped at it feet first. I started the following Sunday, went car shopping on Monday, and Mary just took my car payment and insurance directly out of what I got paid.

This was great for me…until that car broke down on me after just a few weeks. It turns out that the car had previously been in a big accident and someone welded the axle back together. We were sold a lemon. We didn’t have much recourse, but Mary paid to have a few repairs done and we traded it in for the best car I ever owned. It was a little red, four door, 3 cylinder Geo Metro. I could go for a couple weeks without buying gas. It rocked! I kept that job until I moved to KC. I would work 6 nights a week at the donut shop and if the band played Friday night, Mary would work that for me. She also covered other nights during the week when the band played.

It was sometimes rough, but it paid well working nights. There was a two week stretch when I tried working another full time job at a bagel company. I just did that to earn extra money after I got married, but that was too much.

JOBS IN IOWA

After I moved away from KC, the plan was that my wife would work and I would be the stay at home dad. This would just be a role reversal since we were moving to her home town and it was easy for her to find work. The deal was that in order to move, she had to make as much money as I made in KC. That meant including the car payment and insurance that were deducted from my check as well as the money I made in my band. Well, I got suckered and it didn’t work out that way so I had to find more work.

I found a job at an Easter’s grocery store in Creston, IA. They hired me as a donut maker in their store. They had no idea how to make good donuts. A good cake donut is supposed to come together so that the middle looks like a belly button. They made cake donuts with huge holes in the middle like their glazed donuts. This was unacceptable. I had a small reputation since I had been bringing donuts up to the Mt. Ayr area and I wanted to maintain that as a good donut maker in case I found that line of work.

I tried several things for various amounts of time while living in Mt. Ayr. I also went back to work in Mary's shop in KC on the last two nights of the week for a few months. I worked for Bunn, a coffee machine maker, on their assembly line in Creston. That lasted all of 3 months and I just walked out one day. It was driving me nuts. I also worked on a hog farm for about a month or two. My wife was pregnant during that time and it drove her nuts. I just quit that one, too.

PAUSE FOR A FUNNY STORY

I do have a funny story from working at Bunn. Any time you get an injury, no matter how great or small, it is to be reported. Well, we worked with small things so getting a small cut was bound to happen to me. When I went to the nurse’s station to report it, I was given a small slip of paper to fill out. I had a few lines for allergies at the bottom of it. I put “dust, pollen, country music”. I did this as a joke, not really thinking of the consequences. The nurse looked at it and said that the slip had to be filled out as a serious document. With my best face, I told her that it was very true that I was allergic to country music. I told her that it was not just a preference, but that it had been scientifically proven. I explained that the steel guitar sound used by most country music is playing on a specific frequency. I asked her if she had seen studies about how animals behaved when certain music was playing. She said she had heard of that. I explained that my ears were sensitive to higher pitched frequencies and that it created a high level of stress. She asked why I hadn’t brought that to her attention before and I told her that since I was new, I thought someone would just laugh and not take me seriously. She said it was unusual, but that it did make perfect sense since we worked with such small materials and already had a higher level of stress at the assembly line in trying to turn out so many coffee makers a day. The next day there was no radio playing at all. Word got out about this, but nobody brought it up around me. They were all sure it was a joke and it made them very upset. Well, it was a joke and I didn’t have to hear any country music playing while I worked! I believe that nurse’s picture is next to the word gullible in the local dictionary.

MORE IOWA JOBS

While in Mt. Ayr I also worked at a hog farm. The first two days of the week I really enjoyed. I just went into a couple of rooms in overalls, goggles, and a hose and proceded to hose down the entire room. It was great! Nobody to bug you. You just cleaned the room and moved on to the next. Granted, it was hog crap, but I wasn't getting it on me. The next couple of days were the worst. I did things like inseminate sows, walk the boar while someone else did the thing with the tube, clean out the dead babies, run the sows from one place to the other, and clean out the rooms. Those rooms were horrible to clean. They had stall and curved feeding doors that would spray the water right back at you if you didn't aim just right. Fortunately, this job only lasted a couple of months.

It was while I was in Mt. Ayr that I also started using a computer. I couldn't stand computers growing up because we had a Commodore Vic 20 and I couldn't understand all the programming that went into it. When I took a Word Processing class in high school, we used an Apple and had to learn all the function keys. What a pain!

Since I still had my mixing board and some equipment from my band days, my brother Brad called to see what I would sell it for. In jest, I said that I would trade it for a decent computer. A month later he actually took me up on that deal. I started with a Windows 95b PC that was 120MHz and had 32MB RAM and a 1.2GB Hard Drive. He included a monitor and a printer, too. I told him that since I had made money with my sound equipment that I wanted to make money with a computer. Of course, I had in mind accounting style work and typing for people.

I took such an interest in it that I started learning the hardware. Brad even came up to visit and teach me a few things about the inner workings of the PC. He's great at putting it in terms I can understand and I caught on fast. Within the first year I started advertising myself for computer sales and service.

In such a small community, it doesn't matter how much you advertise. You only get business by word of mouth. It took a while, but pretty soon I could see a trail of customers and how they were referred. My business took off and I started getting customers that were previously customers of the only other computer place in town. I was even called out to fix their mistakes.

I called my business S&S COM, but I'm not sure why. It just sounded good. The S could have been for my last name. It could have been meant to include my ex-wife. I'm just not sure. It just sounded good and really didn't have any definition. I used the COM because it sounded like an internet thing. I would get mail all the time where they tried figuring it out. It was Computers, Communications, Company, and only occasionally, just COM.

As the computer business took off, I still had to hold other jobs. The best one I had in Mt. Ayr was at the local community owned grocery store. I was hired on when they first opened as the dairy and frozen foods manager. It took a while, but I got the hang of it. I was so picky as to how it would be set up when they were putting the store together that I got on a few nerves. Most of the original staff didn't last and even I was gone after several months. It just wasn't working out well for me. I eventually got hired back on as a night manager for a couple night a week and this worked out fine since my computer business was bringing home more money than my ex-wife at her full time job. I held that job until moving to Des Moines.

Best Buy was the first to call me back when I moved to Des Moines. They had a part time job at their tech bench open and I got right in. I loved that job. I was also the best at many aspects of this job. My main forte was customer service and sales. That bench quickly became the number one tech bench in the company due to our leader and the things I brought to the bench. I'm not saying it was all me, though. We had a great team and our supervisor made some good hiring decisions. It got to the point where he would train the business aspects and have the employees spend time with me learning the sales and customer service side. We used our strengths and those of the employees to make that a strong bench. Even today that bench ranks high in the company because our fearless leader is still there and making sure that all of the things we worked so hard for are still in place. He encourages teamwork and is good at getting the best out of people.

When I started at Best Buy, I was only part time. I soon went to work for Principal and worked nights for 3 months there. That job was nice, but it was difficult to stay awake and still work at Best Buy part time, too. It took such a toll that I only lasted 3 months at Principal. Best Buy then offered me a full time spot and I jumped at it. I stayed there for 3 and a half years and had some of the best times there. Best Buy didn't know it at the time, but I still did my S&S COM work on the side. It was a conflict of interest, but as a single father, you have to make ends meet.

Six weeks after Best Buy, I got my current job. I have a blast there and get my weekends free to spend with my children. I also have a set schedule so there are no surprises week to week. I love the job and don't have to take any of it home with me, so I'm grateful for that.

WRAP UP

Well, that is a general overview of who I am and where I've been. I may amend this later to include more, rephrase things, or add stories that I've left out. I'm thankful for where I've been and it's made me who I am. I'm also thankful to those who have influenced me. There are plenty more stories and I hope to make a book out of this when I get it all out here.