My Story
Sometimes God sends us on journeys not of our choosing. Mine was such a journey.
I went to work one morning an ordinary citizen, husband, father, successful professional, and came home that evening a violent felon to be sent to prison. My crime was an automobile accident with no serious injury.
Back Story
I spent the last 33 years of my career working too much overtime and going to night school to earn 3 college degrees. Needless to say, there wasn't time for such things as marriage and children and I had pretty much come to terms with that fact when I chose to retire to Sedona, Arizona after suffering multiple mysterious blackouts in San Jose, California. I was "burnt out" the doctors told me and I needed to rest.
In Sedona, I met two people who would forever change my life. The first was Dr. Robert Eggert, a world-renowned economist who is best remembered as the man who named the Ford Mustang and the man who founded the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter that has become the most famous economic forecasting newsletter in the world.
To me, Bob was the grandfather I never had. I literally spent hours several days a week debating economics and finance with him for the next two years. I was his driver when he needed to take the two hour trip into Phoenix and became a member of the Phoenix Economics Club and the Phoenix Economics Roundtable through his kind recommendation.
With a Master's Degree in Finance, I had made forecasting the future of businesses my profession. Bob taught me to take it farther, to forecasting the behavior of people and politicians, to predicting what their last behavior's true intent was, and what their next behavior was going to be. He taught me to look at America with the eye of an economist and read the economic signs strewn about the financial landscape.
The other person who changed my life in Sedona was Becky. I fell in love with Becky the moment I saw her, but didn't want to admit it. We were married a short six months later and she gave me two wonderful children. A dream I had long ago given up.
Becky and I moved to Phoenix soon after the birth of our first child. After all, I couldn't really stay retired with a family, so I needed to return to the working world. I quickly found a job as the Chief Financial Officer at a local defense contractor and life was good for our little family.
Two years went by quickly. In 2003, Becky was pregnant again and we had bought a home in Mesa. We moved into our new home in July 2004 and that December our second child was born. This baby had a bit of a tougher time of it than had our first and after eight sleepless months we were both sleep deprived to the point of exhaustion.
What Happened?
Being a father at 55 years of age is a wonderful experience, but the exhaustion did take a toll on me physically. The symptoms I had been experiencing at the end of my long career in Silicon Valley, California began to return, but I was too exhausted and otherwise occupied to make the connection.
Then, in the blink of an eye, my life changed dramatically. I was indicted for two violent felonies and faced life in prison with mandatory minimum sentencing of 10 years minimum. Fearing that my family would lose all without me, I accepted the one plea arrangement offered and pled guilty to Aggravated Assault.
That agreement thrust me into a world of violent abuse and human disregard that I had never witnessed before. I saw the side of politics, the economics of it, in a way that others could not grasp. It almost killed me, but instead it made me stronger. I spent the next year helping others to survive and studying my new environment.
I've written a book about the experience. It's a shocking book about politicians preying upon the people they purport to serve. It's filled with examples and stories of ordinary citizens turned into violent felons.
It's a story written from first hand experience of the economics and politics used to turn Arizona into America's first Prison State.
