Newbie Life at WA

The Draw

I know that many of you have heard this story of mine by now but just to make sure I will quickly run through it again.

I have a wife with a broken back due to a fall from a 3rd story window. As much as she tries to ignore it or wish it away, the reality is that she is only inches from a wheelchair and/or serious surgery. She cannot work at this time. She has a heart of gold but to date she can't walk on water...yet. Next you will find the Superstar of my first attempt at a business website. He is an intelligent, sweet 16 year old who has been afflicted with SMA (Spinal Muscle Atrophy) via some bad genes.

Finally, we care for my 89 year old mother who has dementia. I have had her for about 18 years now. I should be so healthy!

I am 70 and now the only able-bodied person in the house. It is time I came out of retirement to provide for my family. I obviously need to work from home because I am essentially "on call" 24/7 here. Thank God that aside from a very slightly bum knee, I have better health than many half my age.

Fortunately for me I was a Senior Developement Engineer geek on an airborne radar and weapons control system. I ended up at Edwards Air Force Base in California for about 15 years. In that position we did a lot of flight test on various military aircraft which required a substantial amount of data analysis. It was either carry on in the old-world tradition of manually leafing through mountainous stacks of wide green bar printouts or come up with a better idea.

I started taking some programming classes and wrote a multitude of programs (in Fortran, C, C++ on an HP UNIX system). That actually saved my job when the flight test sequence was completed. The US Air Force saw my work and invited me to come work with them for some new missile testing in Georgia. What a life saver! I stayed there until I retired in 1998.

At that I became the typical bored retiree. I only had my teenage daughter (note my gray hair) living with me and two sons who lived on their own, both out of ASU, one of which eventually became a dentist and the other a Prophet.

I originally came to Phoenix with a job waiting for me as the Project Manager and Senior Software Engineer at a firm in Tempe, Arizona. That company died due to some poorly planned short sales of stock. It sank completely only 4 years after I started. Once again, I became the bored retiree.

A year later I started selling insurance and annuities. Good money but I hated the business. I retired from there in 2010. I married this lovely woman shown above and have not been bored or gainfully employed since then but we have been blessed every day.

In the mean time I tried this and that but found nothing profitable or fulfilling at least at the same time. This was when I decided to fill the empty time I spent on my PC, cruising' the internet, with something productive. I started looking for a legacy income that I could pass on to my wife and step-son. You know something that would provide well for them in perpetuity after the Lord calls me home.

That is when I discovered this business and began my search for training and opportunities in affiliate marketing, eCommerce, and digital consulting. Wealthy Affiliate was just the ticket. I am sure that most of you can agree. Like so many others I wish I had started this 10 years ago. Then I could have afforded to become a bored business owner on a nice beach somewhere by now.

I am quite encouraged by what I see here at Wealthy Affiliate. Being a control freak, married to a control freak I plan on learning everything I can about this business and putting it all to work. Fortunately, my step-son is a computer and gaming geek too. I I feel that he will be joining me well before he graduates from high school.

This business is exciting. It is great brain exercise and it is hard work. We all know that if we work for something it becomes much more valuable and important than if it was just a walk in the park. Picture the rich kid whose dad gives him a Corvette in high school. Then picture a hard-working kid who saves and buys himself an old beater for his first car. Who do you feel that appreciates their car more?

Well, I had better get back to work that will make us some money, the other control freak is standing in my office doorway, arms crossed and frowning because she thinks I am playing or shopping. See you soon!

David

p.s. The header is a view of Phoenix from the Verrado foothills about 20 miles of downtown.