HOW I LANDED HERE; "FROM AN ORPHAN TO A FARM BOY... TO AN AFFILIATE MARKETER."
At the age of 18 I joined the USAF as a Aerospace Ground Equipment Technician and served for 6 years, 2 in Germany, 2 in the Dakota's and 2 in Texas. My first civilian job was as an electrician at the nuclear plant in Texas while my dream was to have my own Landscape and Nursury business. After saving for a couple of years I took a course on Golf course construction and eventually Began Stevan's Landscape repair.I spent 3 years building Thouroughbred racing stables for a Millionaire that was eventually caught up in the Texas Savings and Loan frauds and I moved on. After several more years in Landscaping the collapse got me while I was planting $13,000.00 worth of flowers around a mall to find out that the developers accounts were siezed and I would only be able to collect 10%.At the advise of a friend I sold off all of my equipment and accounts and I took off on the road building fiber optic networks for Corporations like Ameritech. GTE (now Verizon) and of course The Southwestern bell group. Layed off from Time Warner Telecom in June of '01 when the Telecom stock market crashed just before 9-11. I had spent 17 years on the road building this Internet through Fiber optic rings around Detroit, Chicago, LA, and a 976 mi. ring around Texas.I restructuring my old landscape business, landed a contact on 600 acres of native stone, and started building ponds and waterfalls around the Fort Worth/Dallas area. Fuel cost were rushing towards $3.00 a gallon and moving 23 tons of stone at a time wasn't cheap. When my supplier found out I was also selling to local rock yards around the city for a 20% profit, he immediately decided to cut himself in on the profits and raised the cost of the stone. I made some phone calls and he can't sell a grain of sand today. Its been 6 years now and his dad is still waiting on that 600 acre lake his son promised from the sale of the rock.I decided to return to my original USAF skills of being a Generator mechanic and took a job at a local equipment repair company. How nice! Not! I was hired to repair RV generators in motor homes and a few portable units, until the welder repairman went on vacation. So I covering for a couple of weeks no big deal. Then the outside plant standby generator tech is fired and I'm on the road to nursing homes and hospitals servicing 2ok- 80k stand-bys for a few weeks, THEN- I'm approached with this Idea of putting generators on 18 wheelers so they can save fuel when Idling. You Know me I can't say no! 3 days of training at the factory later, I'm under trucks. They arrive at 8 am out by 5 pm the next day. Until, the schedule gets mucked up and they need me to do a truck a day for 2 days. Now I'm screaming NO NO NO ! "Will you do it for an additional 100.00 per truck"? The owners asks! I can't say no to money, "Just this once!" Ok just this once. I stayed until 9 pm both days and grabbed the cash. Over the next 30 days it became the norm, only part is the Money wasn't the norm! I was even promised moneys ($50.00 cash bonuses) when drivers made specific comments like "Steve took Exceptional care of my truck not to scratch the paint or soil the carpet, great mechanic", Or Steve is the "Apu King". All that money never came, but the trucks came every day. Months and months went by and helpers came and went.This doesn't even mention that I was beginning to have 4-6 trucks coming in for repairs I had to attend to each day, while I was still responsible for meeting the installation of the APU scheduled for that day. The crunch on time to install an APU in one day meant sacrificing quality time at testing,(not to mention the Quality that was lacking from the factory's because of thier high production rates as a result of the demand for the units), now the trucks are returning for repairs within two to three weeks plus new customers looking for a good repairman. Drivers are upset, I'm upset, this job isn't fun any more, I've been counseled twice for a bad attitude. I had to go to the doctor with back problems as a result of climbing in and out of these rigs 20-30 times a day(helper quit) and getting up and down from a creeper, and all the doctor can say is "There's only so much I can do for you, you've got to do some things for yourself. I had already given notice on Jan.1st this was Feb. 14Th.Oh yea that's when I was counseled for my attitude and given 3 days off without pay.Here it was Feb. 14th and I return from the doctors office to say I'm here for my toolbox.Oh no you can't quit our replacement mechanic (who's been here for 45 days of training) has been trying all morning to put this APU on this truck and cant figure it out. You must help us! Again I can't say NO. I end up staying and in the end I got counseled about my attitude and gave another 2 weeks notice.I finally walked out on Jul 7th after almost 300 APU installs. I met a lot of great Truck drivers over those 18 months and have kept in touch with many of them from California to Georgia. These people put up with alot out on the open road and I understand them because of my 17 years of travels in the Telecom field.Guess what? I'm not entitled to Un-employment because I quit! My employer said I didn't give notice and no employee on in the shop will testify against her in my un-employment appeal.
So here I am; I started looking, as many of you have, at how to make a living on the Internet and found many avenues all of which required more and more money as I got deeper and deeper into establishing my affiliate network. I resisted putting out any more money and decided to wing it on my own. Through the various blog sites I have heard the same stories over and over and I've been approached by a hundred or more " here's a product that will make you rich from facial cremes, to vitamins, to juice, to selling "how to get rich revealing the secrets of how to get rich". I spent two weeks writing 7 articles for E-how only to earn $1.21(July 1, 2009 revaels $7.96) and trip over a blog site where someone was booted after 30 daysof writng because he discovered the secret of promoting his articles to boost his earnings. I still write, but now my parachute is less inflated. I built my affiliate website since I didn't have a typical 9-5 job and am sending resumes all over the world. I spend the other half of my days tightening the financial belt cutting costs and playing Mr. Mom to our 9 and 16 year old sons.Now I sit here night after night blogging with all the other lonely souls out there reading there woes and realizing I haven't got it so bad after all. Now if I could only convince my wife and kids! Here in our home we all have our health and with the exception of a rebelling 16 yr old who thinks he needs a new 370z as a first car; all is good.
Give me your scoop. Sorry for the ranting and raving, but I read another blog today and decided to do a little of my own.Visit http://www.pamperedpetsandpals.com/ for free pond construction and free vet advise. Stop by and chat when you can. I can use alot of advise. At this point I am not able to shell out the cash for advertising with Google or Yahoo and have turned to Tweeting up followers as my sole source of advertising. I do believe in word of mouth as It has built both my landscaping business's and the APU business (for someone else).
I have another web site that was built from the Gas and oil excavation Boom http://www.gotwelder.com that "was going on here in Texas until Chesapeak pulled the plug on that project when gas and oil prices plummeted from $100.00 dollars a barrel back to $50.00. This site provides all the essential SAFETY gear, parts and Manuals required to repair and maintain a welder. Regardless of your status as an amateur or Professional welder this site will save you big bucks on price mark-ups. You can track me with Twitter or Google srgrimes or (stevan grimes google profile) and It will paint a clear path to where I've been and where I'm headed.........http://twitter.com/stevegrimes
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