The 
ight House
About Me (1998-Present)
About Me • 1958-1967 • 1968-1977 • 1978-1987 • 1988-1997 • Testimony
My problem with getting another job was that the CAD system that I was trained on and knew very well was CADRA which is a very rare system. Not many companies use that system. The industry standard is Autocad which I had no training in at all.
Early in 1998 there was an opening at TRW in Hawkins County, Tennessee for machine operators. The position only paid $7.00/hr to start and I was making over $9.00/hr as a Draftsman at TPI. Yet, I decided to apply for the job. My reasoning was that TRW used CADRA as their design software which meant the next time they had a need for a designer, I would stand an excellent chance of getting the position because they fill positions from within the company whenever possible and I had the CADRA experience that would be required. Also, there was the fact that TPI had not been giving pay increases in several years, so even it would take a long time for a designer position to come available, I could probably pass my current wage by working at TRW even if I remained a machine operator.
I began work at TRW in May of 1998 as a machine operator. The work was very physical and hard. I had spent (20) years making a living at a desk and so it was challenging for me to work in this position at first. We got a raise every time we learned how to set up a new set of machines. In a few months my pay had caught up with what I had been making at TPI. I was selected to be a training coach which increased my pay by another $0.50/hr.
Joan and I had been wanting to move from Bloomingdale for quiet some time. Our Bloomingdale home had gotten too small for us. We had no basement and no garage. I desperately wanted a work shop... a place to indulge my desire to tinker with stuff. I also desired to take up woodworking, but did not have the facilities for that hobby. We had always wanted to live in Carter's Valley. The thing we liked about Carters Valley was that it was outside the hustle and bustle of the city, offering a more country style of living while being only a few minutes from town. TRW was located such that living in Carter's Valley would also be closer to my work, so we started to look for homes in that area. We looked at a lot of houses but had a difficult time finding what we wanted. Then we saw a house in the Marshal Estates sub division that was exactly what we wanted. The problem was that it was outside our budget. We kept looking, but our hearts were set on that home in Marshal estates. We tried and tried to figure out a way that we could afford the home, but it just didn't seem feasible.
A position became available for a Quality Analyst. The job required a knowledge of reading inspection gages and instruments, reading blueprints, writing reports, and a working knowledge of Statistical Process Control which I had taken a course in while working at Columbus Electric. As a former designer, I had knowledge in all the required areas, so I applied for the job. I got the job and became the Quality Control Analyst for third shift in January of 1999. This new position provided me with a significant pay increase. In fact it was significant enough that we could now afford to buy that home in Marshal Estates. We made offers and they were declined. Then when we were about to settle on another home in Marshal Estates, we decided to make one more on the home of our dreams. This time we told the owners that this would definitely be our last offer and if they refused it, we had another home in their neighborhood that we would be buying. They accepted our take it or forget it offer and we moved into our new home at 600 Old Hickory Circle in Marshal Estates on May 23, 1999.
Click on any of the photos below for a larger image of our home on Old Hickory Circle
I had been working as a Quality Analyst for less than (6) months when I saw posted on the bulletin board one day, an opening for a designer with CADRA experience. I was very excited! I applied for the job and was hired as a Designer. I began work as a Designer in August of 1999.
When we first looked at our new home I had no idea that the church steeple that rose above the distant horizon behind my house was attached to none other than Freedom Baptist Church of which my brother-in-law Andy Sensabaugh was pastor (he is the pastor married my wife and I in 1982). I had never attended church as an adult except for an occasional wedding or funeral service. I had promised Andy way back when he married Joan and I that I would come to church. That was (17) years earlier and I was yet to make good on that promise. I was reminded of that promise every time I looked out my dining room window and saw that
church steeple. The Lord was dealing with me. Eventually I decided I would "try church out" so I attended a service. The messages brought conviction to me and shook me up. I continued to attend church but not every service.
Sometime in the year 2000 I woke up one morning and my eye sight was suddenly a lot worse. My histoplasmosis had spread into the central area of my vision. I had to start car pooling with a friend. This friend and coworker, Mark Skelton was one of those passionate on fire for God Christians. in the course of our car pooling, Mark taught me a lot about God's word and clarified a lot of things for me which I had misunderstood. Through Mark's witnessing and the messages I was hearing in church, conviction finally became more than I could bare and I surrendered my life over to Jesus Christ and was born again on January 7, 2001. You can read much more about my journey to accepting Christ by clicking here, or on My Testimony at the top of this page.
In March of 2001, I was laid off from TRW in a "reduction in force" move. My eyesight had worsened just prior to this and I had started to make mistakes in my work because of it. I knew it would be very difficult for me to find work with my condition and even if I could, simply driving to work would be a problem. Therefore I decided to apply for disability benefits. After a lot of forms and doctors, I was granted disability benefits. My career as a Designer had come to an end. The amount of money I received from disability was approximately only a third of what I made as a designer. It was questionable if I would be able to keep my home. I figured the Lord had placed me in this home for a reason. I did not think it was a coincidence that I lived so close to the church that I would walk if I had to (driving was becoming more and more difficult). By making some lifestyle changes and some budget changes, we were able to pay all of our bills.
The law says that a person on disability is allowed to earn a limited amount of extra money so long as the work they do is not to the degree that they could do the same work to earn a living. I decided to see if I could make a few things in my workshop to sell. I made a few flower baskets out of landscaping timbers and made some lawn silhouettes out of plywood in hopes that they would sell well enough to give us a little extra spending money. I guess I made a total of about (12) flower baskets. They all sold, but it took a long time for all of them to sell. Also, the amount of work that went into making one of these flower baskets was much more than I had
anticipated. Each basket took many ours to make There were a lot of miter cuts to make and then the pieces had to be assembled to make rings using several wood screws and glue. Then each ring had to be stacked and secured to the other rings using woodscrews. There was also a lot of material that went into making the baskets. When the time and material is considered I was barely making any profit at all. It would be good for a hobby however because the baskets did look really great.
I also made several lawn
silhouettes and found that they just like the flower baskets, were fine as a hobby, but not worth creating as a source of income. You have the expense of the plywood and paint which is not cheap, and then the time of cutting them out, transferring the pattern onto the silhouettes for painting, and then the task of painting and sealing them. After all of that, people want to pay you $20 for or so for them. So I decided to find something else to do.
I considered the business of judgment recovery. This is a unique business where you provide a service
to people who have won cases in civil court but have been unable to recover their judgment The service involves a lot of detective work and includes such actions as garnishing wages, liquidating bank accounts, taking possession of automobiles, etc.. in order to recover the judgments. It is a self employed type of operation where you are paid a percentage of the judgment recovery. The detective work involves such tasks as actually picking up trash late at night from the home of someone who owes your client a judgment By going through their trash, you may find bank account information, social security numbers, etc.. which may be valuable to you in locating recoverable assets. It also includes spending a lot of time at the county court clerk office viewing records, also to find valuable information. Well, after learning all of this, it just didn't seem like something I would be interested in (sifting through garbage is a major negative for me). Also trips to the court house and late night "garbage swiping" runs meant driving was required which was a big problem for me. After researching it thoroughly, I decided to abandon this idea for a source of supplement income as well.
My next big idea for a source of supplemental income was to build and sell bunk beds. I ordered a business package which explained not only how to build the beds, but also how to market and sell them. This seemed like a great idea at the time. I have a fairly large workshop with a table saw and a sliding compound miter saw which are the two main power tools required for building the beds. The beds are much more sturdy than the traditional bunk beds found in furniture stores. They are constructed entirely out of two inch thick construction lumber. Each piece is sanded and stained before assembly. I built the jigs and templates and then built my first bed. It looked really great and I figured it would sell very quickly and then I could begin work on the next one. However, it took nearly (18) months to sell that first bed. I was very disappointed. I then decided that building bunk beds was not the answer either.
Actually, I do believe building these bunk beds could be a profitable business if someone had a store in a good location where they could put several on display and sell accessories like quilts, pillows and comforters along with the beds. It's just hard to build and sell one at a time in a basement workshop located in the country.
Click on any of the images below for a larger image of my workshop
My next idea for earning supplemental income was to design web sites. The biggest problem with that idea was that I knew nothing about designing web sites. I also needed an office. I do enjoy working with computers however, particularly working with computer graphics. This seemed like a great idea. It is the first of all my ideas which would not require any driving. I could operate completely out of my home. I built an office in my basement. I had never undertaken a construction project anything of this magnitude before. I had never added on a room nor even done any major remodeling in my home. I knew how it was suppose to be done in theory, but I did not have any actual experience It turned out better than I expected. With some help from my friend, Mark Skelton, I did the work myself except for the electrical, putting in the drop ceiling, and putting in the heating and cooling system. I took a correspondence course with "Education Direct" and graduated in the fall of 2005. Soon after I began work on this web site. I figured I should design my own web site before offering my services to others.
Click on any of the photos below for a larger image of the office Mark and I built in my basement
I hope this plan is the one that works out for me. I hope to specialize in designing web sites for churches, gospel singing groups, and other non profit organizations as well as designing personal web sites for individuals and families.
This concludes my biography. For more more recent and more detailed information, click on "Journal" here or at the top of this page.
