Share your story since high school.
You've got to be kidding!
OK, well, I am often long-winded, so I'll try to be brief, though I can't guarantee anything
I graduated, worked at IRS, went to Weber State for a couple quarters, joined the LDS church, went on a mission to California (which included parts of Oregon, Nevada, and even TOOELE, UTAH (how embarrassing!) at the time), met Sherrie Amundson at the end of the mission, dated her at BYU, married her in 1970, moved to California until 1975, had five children before 1980, attended BYU and finally graduated in Electrical Engineering in 1978 (we moved to a townhouse while at BYU, and discovered we were neighbors of Kim and Beth Barrus; you remember Kim Barrus, CHS class president, right? we became friends, I served with him at Church etc., until we graduated and he went to L.A. and I went to Oregon...), worked for Hewlett Packard, Tektronix, National Semiconductor, Evans & Sutherland, started my company in 1980, lost it to the turmoil of the personal computer markets in 1987, started up two or three more companies, walked away from all of them because I'd acquired investors and partners whose ideas of ethics and honesty were, shall I say, in need of serious reform?, and I did not wish to hang around and go to jail with them (some of them actually DID go to jail!).
After that, having exhausted myself, I spent some time recovering, then moved my family to Northern California where I went to work doing data encryption products (they scramble information so it cannot be read by anyone you don't want to read it; it was used by the federal reserve system, CIA, NSA, and a lot of other initials of organizations that probably don't mean much to most people). The company was sold to a Canadian company, and I was sent packing. I had become ill by then anyway, so I returned with my family to Utah. Then, I looked into starting up a new company (I didn't have a lot of luck working for others; they always seemed to lose my projects somehow, leaving me without much to do and, hence, not a lot of job security, so I wanted to work for myself, since I could probably count on myself giving me a job that would last!). I wanted to avoid the mistakes and problems which finally did in my previous companies, so I spent a couple of years developing plans and technologies to build a company which would have its own proprietary products (products which others cannot just buy and sell at a lower price to compete with you) and was managed using decent, ethical processes, didn't "cook the books", etc.
Unfortunately, some genetic tendencies began to emerge in me at this time, and I started having health issues. I lost sight in one eye (which was my "good" eye) after failure of six eye surgeries due to a detached retina, and had to get by with the reduced vision in the remaining eye, which had not fully developed due to amblyopia ("lazy eye blindness"), which I had as a child. I then also developed problems with the balance of hormones and "chemistry" in my body and brain, which required me to take medications which had quite bothersome side effects, such as severe weight gain (100 lbs!!!), perverse sweating attacks when the temperature is above about 68 degrees, sleep problems, kidney problems, etc. I had to quit working completely, and my wife had to go to work to support us, and we have lived very modestly since. Fortunately, our children were all grown and on their own by then; in fact, they actually have helped support US! Great kids.... continued to have various inherited health problems. Had severe pancreatitis in 2007 (just a few months before the reunion) and was lucky to survive. Resulted in diabetes and some other problems, as the pancreatitis was severe enough to leave some permanent damage behind. Now I seem to have developed a problem with the inner ear which the doctors cannot figure out, and even if they could, there isn't much they can do with that part of the body. So I suppose I would have to say my general situation is "disabled", though I have a hard time accepting that. In fact, it is almost embarrassing; many relatives did not accept that I was "really" sick when all this started, though I've never figured out what they were upset about. I am the only rocket scientist in my family, so I don't think they knew how to deal with the myriad of problems that dropped on me like a five-ton ton of bricks! They think I am a genius (I don’t think I am) and cannot understand that doesn’t mean I can control matter, energy and time as if I were a god! Ugh—relatives!
That has been my situation since about 1998. Fortunately, since I am an engineer, I can still do work even if I am bed-ridden, which I was for quite a while, so I continued to work on the technology for the new company during the years I have been too ill to work. It is a complex technology, and is difficult to do with such limited resources and under the conditions I have experienced. I am near completion now, though, and will file for patents when I am ready and able to actually start up the company. I didn't expect to be "starting over" at age 60, but I am sure there are lots of people who could echo that statement (after a fire burned up all his work, Thomas Edison started over at age 69, when a friend told him to quit wasting his time sleeping!) , as well as people who WISH they could start over!
This isn't as brief as I thought it would be when I started, but I will end here. It is very difficult to condense a lifetime of interesting experience into a few paragraphs; at least it is for me. It would take more work and time than I have to do it right, so I hope you'll forgive my rambling style, and lack of a continuous time line, as well as any parts you didn't like or were boring. Perhaps anyone who would want to know more would be at the next reunion (45 ? in 2012?), and we could talk about whatever I didn't say here. Or even better, I can find out more about what others have been doing; I am sure there must be more interesting stories than I can write here!
