At an early age I struck out on my own. I won't get into why, that's history now and best left in the past. But that's where my story here starts. I was age 14, knew nothing about how the world worked, but found myself in it... on my own.
One of my childhood intrests was woodland survival. With the knowledge I had gained, I took quite quickly to living alone in the woods for a while, since I didn't have much like for the city. This is where I called home until I found a job.
Due to my age and child labor laws, jobs were very limited. It's kinda funny now that I look back on it, the laws that are there to protect me, were the laws that kept me hungry and without conventional shelter.
But I survived. I must admit, it wasn't without its perks. I was very happy to spend my days fishing and collecting firewood. My nights were spent at my campsite hanging out with my friends around the campfire. During the weekends, they would bring cases of beer with them. I had the perfect secret campsite to party at. No cops, a huge bonefire, loud music, and probably the best time I could have ever had as a teen in the late 80's.

Then the day finally came, I started working for a traveling carnival in northern New Jersey at age 15. My hard working nature payed off quickly. I soon became the Scrambler forman, and remained that for many years.
I have many carnie stories about my life on the road, but it's way too much to tell here. So lets move on to even better times :)

During the carnival years, when we would close down for the winter, I would travel down to Florida and work on a commercial long-line fishing boat out of Madeira Beach. We fished the Gulf of Mexico doing 14-17 day Red Grouper trips. I was 18, finally legal, and ready to see parts of the world that few dare to venture to.
Spikes, teeth, poison, and a bad attitude was what to expect from every creature we pulled from the deep. As if that wasn't enough, as all the pissed-off creatures are trying to get you, the boat underneath you is slamming around in 15 foot seas, everything is wet from the occasional wave that comes over the side and soaks you.
It was just downright funny sometimes to be out there on the back deck.
Most fisherman called a life at sea," Work that'll turn the average man into a sniveling snotrag", but for me, it was one hell of a cool vacation. I was crazy enough to like it.
...and Yea, it was I that was the crazy bastard jumping into the water at 150 miles offshore. At lunchtime, while everyone else was inside the cabin, all you would hear was thump..thump...thump......thump............SPLASH!!
That was a fun part of my life and I have a lots of stories about sharks we caught, and high seas we barely lived through, treasures and mermaids but we must move on now.

At right about 20, I landed my first construction job. The pay was a lot better than anything I had done so far, and I seemed to be a natural at it and caught on quickly.
I did mostly small time demolition in the beginning, but soon I was doing roofing, carpentry, painting, landscaping, metal fabrication and anything else home owners needed done.
All the while I was gaining knowledge that I'll someday use to build my own home.

That was the part of my life when I took up extreme downhill mountain biking. Every weekend I would meet up with a small group of friends on the mountain top overlooking the old stone quarry. In the early morning light, we would watch the sunrise while we joined together for a toke from the hidden stash :) It was almost spiritual.
Then we would hit the trails with everything we had. 50MPH+ down tight twisting trails. There was always a wreck, and we're all lucky to be alive. Would you expect anything less from boys in their mid-20's?
...oh, and hey kid, trees hurt, put on your helmet!

Then 9/11 hit. I was 28.
I was living 17 miles outside of NYC working as a general contractor. As soon as the second plane hit, I knew we were all out of work. Really hard times soon followed.

I knew if I stayed in NJ, I wouldn't last long. I would freeze AND starve to death. But if I moved back to Florida, at least I would only starve in paradise :D That didn't seem half bad.
So 4 days of thumbing it later, I made it back to Madeira Beach, and the home away from home I had missed for so long.
I knew that I always had the fishing boats to run to, and with one mention of my old captain's name, I could get on any boat I wanted. That hidden ace in my sleave finaly paid off.
Christmas Eve 2001, twelve hours after arriving in Fl., I was leaving port on my first commercial fishing trip in 10 years. As we headed out into the erie blackness of night, I felt relieved.
For the next 4 months, I did 2 week trips on various boats and got to try my hand at shark fishing. It's a whole new ball game when the fish you are bringing in are twice the size and weight as you, 4x as strong, and 8x as mean.

As much as I loved working on the Gulf, fishing just isn't what it used to be, so with nothing more than the cloths on my back, I left and headed north to Clearwater Beach. A place I knew from many years ago.
Then one night, I was checking out the Pier 60 Sunset Festival here on Clearwater Beach. That's when I saw Edi (from like a mile away:), sitting there on a towel on the sand behind her tables where her art was displayed. She looked up at me, smiled the most beautiful smile, and said "Hi". I'm not sure what I said back, but I still remember exactly what I was thinking :P and it was a lot more personal than "hi".
That was mid June 2002. We've been together ever since.

I spent a lot of time at the Sunset Fest with Edi, and soon I found a hidden talent I could share as well. Sandsculpting.
Almost every night we would set up. Edi would sell her art, and right beside her, I would sculpt sea creatures out of sand. After I was done with the nights sculpture, I would finish it off with some Tempra paint color.

The "tips" from sandsculpting were good, but we started to suffer from a hard winter, so I got back into construction here in Clearwater. Of all things, roofing... in Florida.
After 3 years of baking my brain in the hot sun, I found something I may be able to retire too. I now build wine cellars and saunas for a small national company. I work with mostly red Cedar, but we also use African Mahogany, an All-Heart Redwood.