My Story

Short Form of My Story

I’ve only worked for 6 different companies in my lifetime. Company #6 for more than 20 years now. When the day comes, my plan allows me to inform them that their micro-managing, self-important, number-chasing dictatorship will cease to be a part of my life, just a piece of my story. I will no longer be subject to their goat rope circus. That will truly be a Glorious day.

From that point on, my story will start a whole new chapter. One where I turn my time into making my own money. Disclaimer: Note to the IRS, Uncle Sam, and the US Treasury: Clam down! Clam down! I will not actually be “making” money.

By June 1st, 2024, I will do what I do best: Writing, Blogging, and DIYing the What Now Ranch while adding to my story.

All Things You, Home, and DIY

The Long Form of My Story

All my life, I’ve always felt there was something more for me “out there.” Finding the location of “Out There” has been a journey in itself. Not to mention being able to recognize “Something” as being my “Something” in the “Out There.” There have been a few times that I thought I found something, but it turned out to be nothing in the middle of nowhere.

What I’ve come to realize is that “Out There” isn’t a destination, only an adventure. As for the “Something”, it isn’t physical. It is a self-created, self-manifested state of mind. My life is what I make it. It is up to me! My failures, my faults, and my success are of my doing, my decisions, and completely in my control.

After spending the last 20 years working for the same company, I have decided that I want to build a business for myself. This decision came about after stumbling across a video on YouTube. The guy doing the video was Bob Proctor, talking about “How to Change your Paradigm”.

Ultimately, that one video mentioned a book…a book that revived a hunger in me that had been lying dormant since 1995. I’ve always known that I could do anything in life. I just need to decide to do it. Somehow, I just slipped into complacency and contentment, settling for life as it was. Getting caught up in the daily grind. It was time to add a new chapter to my story.

By the way, the book Bob Proctor mentioned was “Think and Grow Rich By Napoleon Hill.” I wish I had known about it when I was in my 20s.

Though it was first published in 1937, this book is amazing, and if you’re like me, it will slap you in the face, screaming, “Wake up dummy”! What are you doing with your life? Is this all you want? My answer to that was, “Hell NO”! I want so much more for my life, for my family. I’m DONE trading my time/my life for a piece of someone else’s money. I’m just pissed that it took me 28 years to wake the hell up!

So here I am. I have a plan, and staying at my current job is not part of it.

Nike, with “Just Do It,” says it all. As far as I know, I’m only getting one trip on this big blue marble. Time is not waiting for me to be “ready” or “the right time.” The right time is always right NOW! My future is up to me, the life I live is up to me, and the wealth I acquire is up to me. The only reason I will fail is because of ME…And I’m not going to let that happen today.

I will leave you with a quote from one of the people who has inspired me along this journey.

~Sean Ogle, “There are 7 days in a week, and Someday isn’t one of them.”

Taking a Rusty nail under the kneecap!

My story of pain, horror and pain. Think back…it was the height of that little thing, you might have heard about it…um, what did they call it…Oh, that’s it, the PANDEMIC, aka COVID-19. Yes, there I was on vacation, mid-morning, the sun just coming up over the trees in the front of our property. The bright sunlight, not very hot yet, was washing down upon me as I worked in the yard.

Enter a loud record scratch, SKREEERRRRWWRCCCCHHHHHH! (if you don’t know what that sounds like, here’s a link) Wait, you say you were on vacation? Correct, what part is in question? I’m a DIY-Guy baby! I vacation like all die-hard, saw dust-slinging, hammer swinging, prybar carrying, leathermen toting DIY’rs who live in old houses do. I take “REPAIRACATIONS”!

Now, back to the story, at least as best as I can recall it…it did have a few blurry parts. I digress

I DO and MUST take full responsibility for the actions of the day and for the invocation that summonsed down upon myself the cursed…Mr. Murphy himself. Beloved reader, please pull your head out of your hands and read on. Yup, I told my Beautiful wife when she left for work that morning, “Ok, the goal is not to end up getting hurt and have to go to the hospital or urgent care, especially with this COVID thing going on.” It was too late; the caulk was out of the tube, and there was no way to avoid it.

All I could do was accept my fate and pray to the home improvement gods, Tom Silva, Norm Abram, Bob Vila, and Tim Taylor. WHAT? Damn-it! Second mistake! Tim Allen, really, how did Tim Allen slip in there? In my haste to correct the invitation of Mr. Murphy, my brain went to “Home Improvement” and Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor slipped in there. Doom surely lay in wait.

Out in our yard was a children’s playscape. It was a three-family hand-me-down, for whom the original children it was bought for were probably parents themselves by now. Well, the old girl was slotted for decommissioning, and that was my project o-the-day.

Now, being the frugal material-reusing DIY-zer (that’s DIY and Mizer combined) that I am. Mixed with the Michigan Governor banning the sale of home & garden items, haircuts, and freedom at the time. I decided to salvage what lumber I could and give it a new life in another project someday.

Being an older playscape, much of it was held together with NAILS.

Despite being old, that California cancer-causing children’s playscape lumber held up extremely well. Wait, maybe it was the lead paint that preserved it? Either way, much of the lumber was still usable. I just needed to remove the nails from it. I didn’t want anyone getting hurt from a rusty nail sticking out…Safety First.

PSA for my fellow DIY’rs out there: Keep track of when you had your last Tetanus shot, and stay current with it. No need to get stuck with a needle because you can’t remember when the last one was if you don’t have to.

I took the lumber to a spot in the yard to enjoy the sunshine. Grabbed my Eastwing hammer and 15″ flat prybar and went to work. Many of the nails were about 4″ long and holding like a rabid chihuahua guarding a taco.

As the day started to heat up a bit, I changed into my signature home improvement garb. Lace-up work boots, white socks showing out the tops, cargo shorts; one can never have enough pockets, a tee shirt, and my working man’s cowboy hat…

Ok, I must say some of these nails were stuck in the 4 x 4’s stupid tight. So I grabbed my 15″ prybar and started working them out with that. In fear of smashing my hand as they spring loose, I think…I use that term loosely…that if I use my foot to push down on the prybar I’ll get more leverage. Awaken Mr. Murphy. Bam! those suckers are flying out, it’s a good thing I wear glasses.

About three nail extractions later, Mr. Murphy arrived to collect his dues…

I positioned the prybar under the nail head and pushed down with my foot…

The prybar flexed under the weight of my foot…but the nail didn’t budge…

I repositioned myself and pushed down harder, this time with the assistance of my dear friend Mr. Murphy…It Snapped! as if being fired from a gun. The prybar bounced from under my foot as the lumber gave up its hold on the nail. I thought the prybar smacked me under the kneecap, and as I looked down to access the damage from the blade of the prybar…

I see a rusty, broken nail lodged into the soft tissue under my kneecap, compliments of Mr. Murphy. I reached down and grabbed my leg, reenacting every scene from every movie ever shown where the actor pulled the dagger from their flesh in true theatrical form. I grit my teeth and scream through them at my own stupidity as I extract it and drop it into the grass. (I did go back later to find it.)

I hobbled into the house, holding pressure to stop the blood. I was able to make it to the bathtub and douse it with peroxide. I wrapped it with gauze, found my covid mask, climbed my newly Murphy-educated ass into my manual transmission car, and headed off to urgent care to get repaired.