Last summer was one of the most interesting of my entire life. It all started with Nitro Circus at the former APX building. My friend Garrett Frame got me interested in selling for APX. To make a long story short, we ended up going to Charlotte, NC to sell alarms with Garrett and his wife Kaela, some of our closest friends. As it turned out, Charlotte wasn't such a great place to be selling. Garrett's dad just happened to be a few states away managing construction projects for a company that does major storm damage repair. In April, there was a severe hail storm in the Knoxville, TN area causing millions of dollars of damage to the area. Garrett came over to our apartment in Charlotte to talk to us about the opportunity to go out there and completely change our summer plans. It took me about 2 minutest to realize what a great opportunity it was. My wife, Mindy, took a little bit longer to convince. About a month actually. And I can't say I blame her. It's not easy to pick up everything and move to a new state and start doing something completely new. And this would be the second time in a month.
So a couple hours of packing and driving later, we found ourselves laying on air mattresses in the basement of Garrett's uncle and aunts house in Knoxville. I spent the night trying to reassure Mindy that it was a good decision and that everything would be alright. We did some apartment hunting and realized it would be way much cheaper to share a townhouse with the Frames. And thus the foundation was laid for what turned out to be the most adventurous and exciting summer of my life.
A little about the job. Garrett and I went out for a few days passing out flyers to houses that had sustained major damage. The next week or so our phones were off the hook with distraught homeowners wondering how they were going to get all the damage repaired with the money that insurance had given them. So my job consisted of signing contracts with homeowners, negotiating a fair price with stubborn insurance companies, overseeing actual work by subcontractors, and trying to deal with all the complaints from homeowners that seemed to care way too much about things that they know nothing about. I bought a cheap truck from some redneck that didn't have A/C, but it turned out to be a great truck and I was sad to part with it. So Garrett and I spent about 8 hours a day doing pretty stressful and sometime physically taxing work. But it has turned out to be well worth it.
As hard as we worked, we sure found fun things to do. We would take walks down the river, go fishing, have BBQs, go swimming every night with the Frames, go on lunch cruises up and down the river, go to movies, play Call of Duty with Garrett, play amazing Kinect games in our apartment, dinner with the missionaries, eat at Waffle House and other new places and so many more things. Mindy's parents came out to pick her up and drive back with her. It was awesome to have them see what we had been doing all summer and to stay at our little apartment.
We also spent a lot of time at Garrett's uncle and aunt's house eating food and talking. They were such an awesome family and it was hard to leave them, knowing we would probably never see them again. They have the cutest little son, Thomas, who was always the source of entertainment. He would make up songs and sing them while performing acrobatic stunts. That family was definitely a highlight of the summer.
So all in all, I learned a few things in the short few month of the summer. First, prayer and revelation is the most important tool in making big decisions. Second, living on the other side of the country from anything or anyone familiar built my relationship with my wife more than anything. Last, make everything an adventure and have a positive attitude and anything can be fun.
