"IT" happens

After my tour in Doha, I came back to the states and lived in mom and dads house that they bought in Tucson.  They had been renting it out and the renters had left recently.  I agreed to stay and look after the place.  During this time, I got work at a plumbing supply company called Winnelson.  I was a truck driver / delivery guy.  It was good work but I was becoming tired of warehousing duties.

One day during a delivery run. I happened to come across ITT Technical Institute.  They offered electronic training in several areas, and Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) was one of the courses.  I had also seen their commercials on TV.

The next day, I went in to see the place.  Before to long, I had signed up for the course in CAD.  The school offered a 2 year Associates degree in one year at the cost of $10,000 dollars.  I got the school loan and started.  I stayed at Winnelson working the day shift and went to school at night.

It was pretty cool.  I started by learning the basics of drafting and doing hand drafting on the board.  We moved up to learning how to design printed circuit boards, theory, design, Etc.  By the time I had gotten to the 4^th quarter of school, I found a job at Southwest Circuits making P.C. boards.  Now I was getting somewhere.  It was 1986 and I was 26.

I worked my way through every phase of P.C. board manufacturing and soon I was approached about starting a design room in house for the company.  This meant more money so I jumped on the idea.  $8.00 an hour wasn’t to bad for Tucson.  I was glad I had free rent at mom and dads house.

It was during this time that my life changed for the better.

Tanya when I met her in school at ITT Tech.

There I was minding my own business in school.  During class breaks, I would get a soda and walk the halls or stand outside and talk with friends.  There was on group of girls that took these opportunities to walk around the school building for exercise.

One girl that would joke around with the guys was Donna.  She and I would talk a during breaks.  She had a friend that I personally thought had to be stuck up and looked to have money because of the way she dressed.  Always classy.  Somehow, this girl, Donna, and I started talking more and more during breaks.  This other girls name I found out was Tanya…Debbie…Tanya…Debbie…something.  I found out that she was recently divorced or separated and was going through the process of having her name changed from Debbie to Tanya.  She always hated the name Debbie.  Her mom named her that even though her Grandmother had wanted Tanya.  So…

One day, Tanya…Debbie…Tanya and I were talking when she asked if I would like to get a drink sometime.  That was good for me.  We met at the Circle K up on Orange Grove and ended up going out to the Black Angus for dinner, drinks, and a movie.  She showed up in a skirt, belt and a black satin top that was…OOOOHHHHHH BABY!.  I of course was dressed as always in my classy jeans and a plain shirt…I was out classed.  She was beautiful.  I don’t mean to brag, but during my time I’ve known some pretty girls, but this woman was Gorgeous.

Anyway, to say the least, I had a great time…I don’t know about her.  Was I suave? Debonair? Handsome? A stooge?  She talked to me the next week at school so I guess I did ok.  In fact, I did so good that we started dating.  I was 27 and actually dating.

I was just about to graduate school.  Tanya was one quarter behind me in a different class.  After I graduated, we would see each other after work and school every night.

She lived on the South East side of town in a house with her two boys J.P. and Grant.  J.P. is short for Justin Peter.

 We won’t get into specifics about their dad Ray except that Tanya and Him were divorced.  As a side note, throughout the years, Ray, Tanya, and I have gotten along very well and in fact Ray has gotten married again and has a daughter named Grace that Morgan likes to think of as her sister.  They visit quite a lot and we all have a good time.

Anyhow…Tanya’s graduation finally came and we celebrated.  Now what?  There wasn’t anything holding either of us in Tucson.  Tanya wanted to sell the house and see other places.  Mom was back in town and looking for another renter so that left me free to go.  We discussed and hem hawed around and decided that we would go to Reno Nevada.  Why? I don’t know…it was there.

By the way, this was a big step for both of us.  We hadn’t known each other for more than 6 month’s and we were going to move to Nevada together with her boys.  We didn’t have jobs or a place to stay either.  We just planned on getting an apartment when we got there and then look for a job.

It took nine weeks before a got a job.  It wasn’t a big job either.  I had sent out hundreds of resumes around the area.  Finally a company called and wanted me to help design an annunciator panel for a casino in town.  It was easy enough and it paid a lump sum at the end of the project.  While I was working on it, the owner happened to come by to see how I was doing.  He was impressed at the work and offered me a full time job for more money as a CAD Drafter.  Of course I took it.

I was at the company for a month or two when the word went out that they were looking for another drafter.  I immediately told them about Tanya and she was also hired on.  Things were looking up.  It was while we were in our apartment that we started up “Dumpster Diving”.

Dumpster diving is just that.  You go around to different apartment complexes or industrial complexes, find a dumpster that looks inviting, make sure there is no people around to see you (embarrass you), take a strategic stance, run over, climb up, and jump in…IF its not to full of regular garbage gross stuff.  You would be very surprised at what people in apartments throw out.  Think about it.  When you have to move for whatever reason, you have to move.  People in apartments seem to have disposable property like beds, couches, toys, clothes, Etc.  For whatever reason, the easy thing to do when you’re in a rush is to make use of the readily accessible big dumpsters that the apartment complex provides.  We furnished our first apartment with Dumpster dive goodies.  We would find chairs, kitchen tables, sofas, bed frames, dishes, and once we even found clothes with the price tags still on them.  What you couldn’t use, you could garage sale and make money.  We were living the high life for sure.

Grant and J.P. did the daycare at this time.  Grant was different from the day I met him.  The one big thing he did was when he got mad, he of course would scream like little kids do, but he would also grunt and growl, push you away when you tried to get him…In fact he still acts like that…he’s just taller now.  Tanya would have to grab him, sit down, and hold him down with her legs, arms and body while he wiggled around growling and grunting and tried getting away.  What a pain in the butt!  He always wanted his way.  Tanya would be all calm and talk real soft while he did his thing.  Soon he would give up and just lay there like a wet towel…all done.

J.P. liked to have dreams and sleep walk.  He did this until…maybe he still does that?  Anyway, he would come into our room and start talking (2:00am).  He would talk about the dinosaur by the bed or the little men running around and then would get scared and start shaking.  We would talk to him and ask him about what he saw and what he was doing, and basically laugh our butts off.  Then we would get a real cold washcloth and put it on his face.  Pretty soon he would stop talking.  When he figured out that he was awake and in our room, he’d go back to bed.

Well, the job we had didn’t last long.  One day the secretary came in at 15 minutes before closing time and told us that we were laid off.  Thanks for the notice.  We were out looking again in no time.  This time Tanya landed the interview with a company called Bruce Industries just outside Carson City, which was about 50 miles away.  When she went for her interview, I tagged along as the driver.  When they called her in, I walked upstairs with her and started doing the small talk along the way to the boss.  By the time we arrived at the conference room, they wanted to talk to both of us.  We were hired that day.  Tanya got more money an hour since she was the initial contact, which didn’t bother me at all.  This was our first real good paying job at $14.00 an hour.

We started as hand drafters on the board doing a very large military contract called JSIPS.

This stood for Joint Services Imaging Processing Systems and consisted of 6 pieces of equipment.  When we saw the scope and magnitude of the job, we instantly suggested using AutoCAD.  Only a couple of people used it at the time but we insisted on getting more stations to speed up work.  They agreed and Tanya and I were off and running.  Unfortunately, all but one of the original engineers on the project quit within the next month.  This left Ron Harvey, Tanya, and myself.   Not a problem.  We snagged some of the other draftsmen that weren’t busy, hired a few more, and got busy.  Tanya was the head bean in engineering, Ron was the engineer, and I ran back and forth between manufacturing, and us.  We did everything from designing each part, to painting the camo paint on the finished product.  The whole project took us 3 years to complete.

        During this time, we purchased our first house together.  It was a nice place (kinda small) on the north side of town in a place called Stead.

        Stead consisted of a few neighborhoods, a quick mart, a gas station, a school, and an industrial area.  Our house was located on a circle in one of these neighborhoods.  It had a large backyard with tiers on the back fence and was big enough for a garden area and dogs.  The front yard was small but perfect.  The house needed some fixing up but we got a good deal on the price and were eager to start doing some work on it.

I never really saw the neighbor to the left of us.  They had weird hours.  The people to the right looked like he was a mechanic of sorts and had vehicles everywhere.  She was a schoolteacher and in fact ended up teaching the guys at one point in time.  We slowly started to get to know each other and through the years, ended up being best friends.

One night while watching the news, A story came on about a rescue that had taken place.  Washoe County Search and Rescue was the team that was doing the rescue.  It looked interesting so the next day I called about information on it.  After a few calls, I was put in touch with the main guy.  He told me the requirements for joining.  I went to several meetings and in few months, I was voted into the team.

When you were on the team, you were issued a pager and a radio.  This meant being on call 24 hours a day.  Most of the calls came in the early morning hours or late at night.  It seems like I was running all the time.  The team averaged approximately 30 rescues or searches a month.

After a year or so on the team, I brought my vehicle in to the unit.  To have a vehicle, it had to be 4-wheel drive and pass the teams inspection.  You then had to pass a driving test and go on a few rescues as a driver to be evaluated.  Once you passed, you had to paint your vehicle white if it wasn’t already.  Then you received the emblems to put on the vehicle.  Every one wanted to have a vehicle and be a driver.  I had a Suzuki Samurai at the time and with my neighbor’s help (the mechanic) I had it lifted and ready to go.  Everyone on the team would give me a hard time about it being a “Rice Rocket” or being a tipping hazard.  They did until they saw what it could do.  Because of the small wheelbase and power, it went a lot of places the big trucks and jeeps wouldn’t fit.  While other people were breaking things on their jeeps, I went on my way.

 My vehicle on the Rubicon Run up in Tahoe

 My badge as a Search & Rescue member for the Washoe County Sheriff Dept.

Soon, My neighbor (his name is Gene by the way) joined the team.  We were attached at the hip.  Since we lived next door to each other, we always went on searches together.  He drove a CJ7 that blew everyone out of the water…it was huge and went everywhere.

        I would get into detail about some of the rescues and searches, but that’s boring stuff.  On to something else.  And the fact that we responded to 30+ calls each month, I could tell stories till my face turned blue.  The most memorable rescue was responding to the Stolpha family.  I probably misspelled this.  They made a movie out of this rescue called "Snowbound".  Look it up, rent it, watch it.  Our team got em.

My buddy, the shark

Anyway…as I said earlier, we started work a 4:00am and worked until around 8:00pm.  We were afforded a 3 hour lunch most days which was nice.  Until we got water on site, we would shoot down to the beach and dip our tootsies in the water and relax.  We would watch the people walk by or just nap.  I still couldn’t get over the fact that everyone was dressed in full clothing.  It had to be hot.  If one of the locals would want to jump in the water, he just left his little nighty on and dove in. 

 Typical Arabic garb worn at all times…even swimming

The sun didn’t set until around 9:30 each night so after work, we would sit around the compound area on the steps of the Hooches and talk.  Sometimes we would throw bits of food out into the center in the dirt and watch the rats come out from under the Hooches and eat.  These things were as big as cats.  At one point, there got to be so many that we had to get rid of them.  They were starting to chew on the underneath of the Hooches and coming up through the floors.  Dad made us all blowguns out of copper pipe and we went to work.  It turned out to be quite the entertainment. Getting rid of them after the kill was no problem either.  The Eresca crews liked to cook them like kabobs…rat-kabobs.

We had separate eating quarters in the compound and Eresca’s cook also cooked for us.  We were served after the others so we had a later lunch.  After all there were 300 of them, 10 of us.  When we did eat, we had a choice of succulent food and beverage…Chicken, grilled cheese, and warm water.  The chicken was prepared by first slamming a plucked chicken carcass on the table and hacking it to pieces with a clever in small bite size chunks…bones and all.  This pile was then scooped in a bucket and dumped into a vat of boiling grease to fry.  It was then scooped out with a net and placed in a bowl.  Finger food.  If you preferred grilled cheese, that was available.  This was two pieces of bread with cheese in the middle, which was also thrown into the vat to fry, scooped out and then stuck on a piece of bailing wire which stuck out of the wall so it could drip dry for a few minutes.  The grease pots were never changed…just re-filled when they started getting empty.

I figured that this was just part of the customs that I would have to get used to.  That is until I saw what Eresca was eating.  A solid door that locked separated the eating quarters.  The kitchen had another entrance.  One day the door didn’t shut to well and we all took a peek.

Salad bar, fish, meat, fruit, deserts a veritable smorgasbord of tasty treats.  What’s with that?  We got the feeling that Eresca didn’t like Americans to well.  I ate there for a week.  After that, dad and I made our way into town to the local Souk, or market place.  Here one could get just about anything to eat.  Dad and I ended up trying some of everything over time but had decided that the Schwarma was the best thing around for about 50 cents or 4 Riyal.

This little beauty started as a camel that was hung upside down on a pole structure in the butcher / deli shop.  Its head was turned upward and tied back so it didn’t hit the ground and people would trip on it.  You would go up and point to an area that you wanted to be cut.  After wiping the flies and dirt off with his shirttail, the butcher would cut off a chunk and put it on a small spit to cook.  After it was cooked, the meat was then sliced up and put into a pita bread with a mixture of salad, potatoes, pickle slices, and topped with Tabasco sauce and Tahina.  Two of these and a warm Coke would hit the spot, and if camel meat wasn’t your thing, you could opt for goat or monkey meat as well.

The Souk offered other services as well.  You could go down and rest your feet in a smoke bar and have a big round of water bong with the boys and play cards or talk.  You could have any type of writing or documents translated on the corner next to the Koran seller.  You could buy Koran’s in different languages.  Monkeys were a favorite and cages full of them lined the streets.  Gold shops showed their wares in huge glass windows and doors.  Carpets and rugs were laid out in the dirt streets and alleyways for people to view and drive on.  The good quality rugs held up after a lot of this abuse.  Colorful plastic bowls, cups, pots, and utensils hung under every awning so low that you had to push them aside when you walked on the sidewalks.  There were also Tailors from India who could whip out a perfect suit for you in any color in an hour.  Homeopathic cures, herbs, and healers were a big trade as well as acupuncture.  To keep the kids entertained, (and us), the local hypnotist could be found playing to basket full of Cobra’s. My favorite handy item was the “Mecca Meter”.  Only one vendor sold this.  If you’ve seen a compass, you’ve seen a Mecca Meter.  The only difference is that almost 100 numbers are imprinted on the face of the compass instead of North, South, East, and west.  A booklet that comes with the compass has these numbers along with countries and capitol names printed inside.  An example would be Qatar, Doha, would be number 32 in the booklet.  You find this number on the compass face and turn the compass until the magnetic needle is over 32.  You then look at the painted red arrow on the compass face to find which way Mecca is…Cool.  This item would come in handy later on.  These things went like hotcakes.  Don’t Muslims know where Mecca is?

Then there was the flat bed truck that would make its BI-weekly rounds picking up dead beggars from alley’s and doorways.  Beggars would always hang out in front of shop doors begging for food and money.  These were great locations since people were in and out all day.  Unfortunately, the whole country was poor so not much money was to be spared by the locals.  Most shops here depended on tourist or non-locals who would for some reason come down from the main stream area to walk around and shop.  You had 3 classes of people here.  The super rich (2%), who wouldn’t be caught dead in the Souk, the poor, which was 97%of the population, and the beggars (1%). 

  

 This is a typical gold shop showing its wares.  The bangles on the left were $5.00 a piece for 18k gold…not a bad price

Another place we would go was the beach or a small island that was in international waters off the coast.  I don’t remember the name of the island but a lot of British people went here on the weekends so they could “let their hair down”.  You could also bring alcohol here without any problems.

The island was probably as big as a football field and had low shrubs and rocks on one edge.  The rest was white sands and Brit. women with no tops on.  I never looked myself but I hear it was rather astonishing to view.  The Arabs would run their boats and ships out and tie off a few hundred feet off shore and scope them out with their binoculars.

We would go out and do a lot of snorkeling and messing around.  There was an old shipwreck on the East shore that was fun to go to.  One time, a friend of mine and I were out by his boat snorkeling.  We were about 50 yards out when we noticed a fin going through the water.  As we dove down in about 15 feet of water, we saw the rest of the fin…a 7-foot great white.  It was small but it made us a bit nervous.  My friend had a “Bang Stick” with him that he used to dislodge coral from the bottom.  A bang stick is a pole with a 12-gauge shotgun shell in the end that you can shoot if you apply pressure to the end.

Anyway, We were making our way back to the boat when the shark decided to get a better look at us by swimming in between us a few times.  After a few sweeps, my friend gets to nervous and puts the stick into the right eye of the shark.  Unfortunately for me, when he did this, the shark reacted by spinning his head left and up into my side.  I was not amused.

The shark was dead and started floating down to the bottom.  I went topside screaming like a banshee at my friend asking him what he thought he was doing…I think it was appropriate don’t you?  We made it to the boat, took a break, and assessed the situation.  When you bleed in water, it always looks like more blood than there really is.  Between the shark and I, you would have thought someone had butchered a steer in the water with all the blood.  I got one good cut on my side and a bunch of little cuts on my arms and hands but that’s about it.  My arm and ribs hurt like a sucker though. 

We went back down later on and drug the shark back to the boat.  Back at the compound, we snapped a few photos and let the Eresca guys have it so they could make shark steaks out of it.  I took the head and boiled the teeth out and drilled holes in them so I could put them on a chain.  I still have them somewhere.  We never did see anymore shark or to much other marine life for that matter after that.

Me and my buddy, the shark

Only one other minor incident that happened…we Americans couldn’t have drivers licenses in Doha.  Don’t ask me why.  Unfortunately, we lived 5 miles from the job site.  What are you going to do?  We all drove our company trucks anyway without the emblems on the doors.

Well, one day in my second year there, a patrol car came in to the compound.  I was delivering concrete bags to the site and was just returning to the warehouse when I was stopped.  I was on the job site and no where near a public road by the way.  The two police officers had me get out come with them…in cuffs, to their car.  As we were driving out of the job site, my project manager was DRIVING BY IN A TRUCK by the way, so I stuck my hands out and waved goodbye to him.  I’m glad he saw me.

3 days / 2 nights I relaxed in heavenly bliss in my new lavish accommodations which were made possible by the local police.  I swear from the first day I arrived, these guys didn’t like me.

I shared my lovely dirt floor cell that had no toilet or water with 3 other gentlemen of Muslim faith who argued constantly about which direction Mecca was…remember I told you my meter would come in handy.  You have to understand that Muslims must pray to Allah 5 times daily facing the proper direction.  They all chose a wall and prayed then argued, over and over.  I however sat in silence…on the wall, which faced east.  Who knew?…heh, heh, heh.

After the third day, the “toilet corner” was getting a bit ripe.  Without a good shovel blade, you just couldn’t put enough dust or dirt over anything.  I guess that the Emir found out that the only guy that could purchase, get, and deliver his materials to his project, was sitting in jail doing nothing.  Again the phone calls started coming in and yelling commenced.  I was again yelled at…(this time understanding every word) and hastened out of the front door.  Man did I have to pee. (Please reference “no toilet” in the cell)

Other than this, nothing much ever really happened here.  Just standard boring living stuff.  We were always too busy to have much time to mess around.  I’ll throw in some photos in here so you can see some of the sights or things that went on.  This way this Autobiography will look bigger than it really is.

While I was in Doha (2 years), I took martial arts from Pons, focusing on the staff and short sword

 Rats?...yup, we had plenty of them.  They would chew through the floor of your "Hooch".  At night we threw food in the square and, using copper pipe, foam, and nails, would shoot them with our homemade blowguns.

I took up Sand Yachting on my time off.  Thats me with longer hair

This is the entrance to the alley which led to Mannan's house.  GOOD PARTIES down in that area