Craig Garrett

Blog huh? I suppose since I won't be able to make the trip this summer for the reunion I should put together a brief (mayhap interesting???) sketch of my history/present.

Where to start.... I can't say I have overly fond memories of HS, couldn't wait to leave really. Soon as I got out I found out the real world was less forgiving. I managed to drop out of Yavapai College in Prescott after one semester (got kicked out would be another way to describe it if one was so inclined). I left with a lot of misgivings about college in general and a steady girlfriend, so there was an up side.

After my experience with higher education I decided the military was the place to go, and since the navy would teach me electronics, pay me, and move me up the ranks fastest, I signed up..... After bootcamp, I got through my first 6 months of training in Orlando Florida, then came back to Arizona long enough for aforementioned girlfriend to become wife #1. Then we were off to Great Lakes Illinios forthe second half of my training. About now I should mention that while I was in training ones academic standings were the deciding factor in the order in which we chose our first duty station. While I am the quintessential slacker, I am not stupid. I was second to pick, and I chose a station on San Nicholas Island off the coast of California. This also provided me with several more months of schooling in airfield radar and IFF equiptment, this time in Millington Tennessee. Before leaving Illinois my wife was pregnant with my son Patrick. Patrick was born in April 1991 while we we stationed in Millington. After leaving Millington we moved across the country to California.

California was definately not my cup of tea, too many people, and the commute by plane to an island twice a week and resultant time away from the family were wearing thin on the marriage. So after two years, I called up for new orders and took a spot on Adak Alaska. While remote and isolated from the world this was supposed to allow me to come home to the family every evening..... After the first year the families were all sent back to the states to further the decomissioning of Adak as a military site. So once again I was separated from the family. Adak was a great place to hunt and fish, and I did more than my share. I always liked Alaska, and it felt like home even in a remote military site.

One of the things I noted early in my military "career" was that everyone who told me what to do had a degree. I decided that I needed to get that college degree to get ahead in life, so I started taking eveing classes toward that end while I was in California and continued on Adak. After my tour ran out in Alaska, I requested and was granted (this was at the end of the first gulf war) 6 months off my 6 year enlistment so I could go back to school and start in the fall.

So it was that in the fall of 1995 I was back in Arizona at NAU taking courses toward a degree in electrical engineering. It took me four years to earn the degree, during which I was a single parent to my son more often than not (all that seperation while in the navy took its toll). I graduated near but not at the top of my class. The last summer I was in school I took an internship with IBM in Tucson, and the following spring when I graduated I moved to Tucson to work for them full time.

Shortly after moving to Tucson, my wife and I decided to get the long overdue divorce that had been on the horizon for years. I got custody of Patrick (9 at the time), and it was a "friendly" proceeding. Given my relative freedom, and the fact that I needed something to clear my head of about 10+ years worth of crap, I bought a Harley. I quickly realized the mistake and switched to a BMW, and spent a couple of years burning my free time on the road on two wheels.
It was during this time that I met Wendy. We met online and hit it off so I agreed to a date. We spent a couple of years dating and finally decided to marry in 2005. So she is now wife #2, and a wonderful mother to my son Patrick.

We continued on with Me working at IBM, and Wendy first in IT at the power company and then back in school for a masters in education and then teaching high school math.
Somewhere about 2007 (after multiple layoffs, and constant department transfers within IBM) I realized I was profoundly unhappy in the corporate world, and I needed a change. I started looking for a new job. Mid June, I was contacted by an old college buddy and he told me there was a job in Alaska. By the end of June I had quit IBM, and we sold the houses in Tucson, and by August the entire family was moved to Alaska.

I am now working for Halliburton (yes that is why the red coveralls) in Alaska, I do real time logging on oil and gas wells as they are being drilled. The last 10 months I have worked on the north slope of Alaska, south central Alaska, California, Colorado, and Wyoming.

We are living a what can only be described as our dream home in Palmer Alaska, and I work a schedule roughly two weeks on two weeks off (lots of time for getting out on the lakes and fishing).Wendy is teaching math at a local high school and working to get her certifications to teach science and physics as well. My son Patrick keeps busy with his garage band, marching band, and he is getting ready to start his senior year in high school.

Looking back at it all, if anyone had told me that at 38 I would be living in Alaska in my dream home, with a son getting ready to graduate and go out on his own. I would have told them they were insane. It has been a long strange road to get to where I am, and who knows where it will head next.

Like others I have read on the site, I probably had more fun at the last reunion than I did the whole timeI was in high school. Time it seems truly is a great equalizer.

Here's to the next twenty, may we all find in our lives what we truly hope for!