After a long wait - I'm back!

Okay - I once decided to start a blog because I thought it would be fun, I would be able to get on the computer, give my opinions, make fun of my wife's and her friends blogs, and just have fun with it....until I was mistreated and abused by the said friends of my wife who said that blogging was girly and it was nice to see that side of me - so I deleted the blog and vowed to never blog again.

Then I became a big boy and decided that this was my thing I was going to do and that's that!

This should also be good for my poor little wife - I have a lot of my own opinions and views that I like to share, but unfortunately for Nicki, she's the only person I get to share them with, and if you know Nicki, she's not one that has a lot of patience to listen to somebody rambling on about anything, but she loves me enough to pretend to listen, and I love her for that, so now she only has to read about it (or pretend to read about it) and life should be better for her!

So why do I think the way I do? Where do I come from and what insight do I have...let me give you a bit of Jeff's life lesson history.

As I think of how I came to my views I realize that I used to think that the things going on both locally and nationally didn't have much effect on me - I thought as long as I went to work and paid my bills the way of life I was accustomed to and worked towards was going to be pretty much quaranteed - then I learned about this thing called real life, and I was slapped in the face with it. Years ago I had one of the best friends of my life (other than my wife) talk me into leaving a job that I enjoyed to get into the mortgage industry, I found quick success in what I was doing and it seemed to click with my personality - and things were going well, until I got my first tatse of mortgage fraud...another one of my friends had been extremely successful in mortgages, he was closing 25-30 loans per month, making close to $90,000 monthly, I really looked up to him and wanted to follow his example and make my family that kind of money, until we learned that the money he was making had taken over so much of him that he was using my name, my best friends name, and his own family's names to forge documents to get loans done, just to make that extra $2K or $3k, and we called him on it, but he didn't stop, so we turned him in to the company, and they didn't stop him, so finally we did what we had to do, we left the now defunct company and he did time behind bars...that was life lesson #1 that has defined where I am today. Money can take a tight grip on you and appear to be success, when in reality it can be a down fall.

When me and my buddy left, we went to a mortgage banker and opened our own branch there, this was great, we weren't giving away half of our paychecks to a broker that did nothing, and I learned a lot about how a business is run, from the ground up - all the mortgage banker did was provide a license, we did everythign else, from cleaning the office, to originating and processing loans, to human resources, we did it all. things actually went pretty well for a couple of years, until once again money came in a grabbed a hold of another friend. We ran the branch as a partnership, when we got a loan application from somebody we would discuss what type of loan to offer them, this was during the time that subprime loans were coming out strong and people all over requested them, we passed on a lot of them up until the prime loans started to dry up and everybody was asking for an adjustable rate loan, I would give them to those that ask, but would never sell them to anybody, but my buddy had a different idea. There was a guy in our ward in Las Vegas, his name was John, in fact, I was the Scout Master and he was my assistant Scout Master, he had a small family, just starting out and wanted so badly to buy a house. I ran his numbers and told him that right now probably isn't the time for you, but my buddy and business partner took him in, told him he could buy a home in Uath that was double the price of what he had been looking for and would be able to afford the payments because he can get this new amazing adjustable loan that was fixed with a super low payment for 2 years - John was sold. My business partner and I had arguments about this loan, big arguments about it, as well as other loans that had been done with the same scenario, it wasn't right, after all we had been through with the first company we were screwing people in almost the same way, we weren't breaking any laws, it just wasn't right. I felt terrible, it wasn't until just 18 months ago that I learned that John was going to be foreclosing on is house because he could not refinance, I haven't talked to him since then, and I still feel responsible for not doing anything about it. It was stressful when I realized that all I had worked for had to be re-evaluted, and re-figured. The friendship with one of the best friends I ever had came to an end, and the business partnership ended terribly. This was life lesson #2, speak your mind, take responsibility, and dont let personal or business relationships get in the way of whats right, if what's going on is wrong, then it'll come back to get you anywhays if you don't.

I decided to go out on my own, I knew I was a hard worker, I had learned how to start up a business and knew what it took, and with the help of my Dad, and the support of my wife, I started a mortgage processing company. This was a great success - I to answered only to myself, I loved the work, I made a lot of money doing it, and I had the vision that the company was going to be big one day. I'm not saying I had it perfect, there was a lot of trial and error, with more error than success, but it was fun to me, it was mine, and it supported my family and lifestyle. Nicki didnt agree as much with me on this, I was working a lot of long hours and neglecting the family, so I scaled back and re-focused on what was important. I thought this was life lesson #3, but it wasn't - in August 2007, the first major mortgage lender failed. This was a huge blow to my business, but not something that I couldnt overcome. I recovered just in time for the next failure, and then the next one, and the next one, by June 2008, the mortgage world had changed so drastically that my business was facing closure. This wasn't because of anything the company was doing wrong or anythign we could control - the markets were failing, the economy was in a downward spiral, and I was a victim in it's path, not the first, and not the last, but a victim none the less. It was when I decided I had no choice but to close the business that I realized this was life lesson #3, things going on locally, nationally, and globally had a direct effect on me and my family, going to work and paying our bills isn't a guarantee that the status quo we are used to will continue. Its our responsibility to know whats going on around us and do what we can to change things for the better - even if you think it has no effect for you, it may effect somebody else. If I had stepped up a bit more to John, or my buddy that did his loan, done something to voice my concerns or share my views, where would John be now? Would he have still taken the loan and foreclosed? Maybe, I'll never know that, but knowing what I know now, I should have done something, if not for him, then for myself.

Whith this life history, hopefully you can get an idea of where I come from, and where my views and opinions originate. Most of my posts arent going to be this wordy or long, and even more will have much less thought put into them, but for now - here's my view...