Mark Butler:  

Life I grew up mostly in Creswell Oregon. That was pretty much accomplished on autopilot. Everyone who knew me during that time would agree I was not an active participant in the direction my upbringing took. I eventually ran away from home when I was 21. I got a job in Kemmerer Wyoming working on part of a natural gas refinery. After that I moved up to ditch digging for a cable TV company in Bolder Colorado. I followed that up by moving back home and joining the Navy. While waiting to go to boot camp I was a Kelly Girl working in light industry. That was fun. Then I went to boot camp in San Diego. I learned three useful things in the three months. The only two I can remember right now are the phonetic alphabet and a really cool way to fold T-shirts. I then went to ET-A school in Great Lakes Illinois. And because I was at the top of my class (really) I followed that by a stint in Fort Gordon Georgia learning Sat Com maintenance. Then it was on to my horrible duty assignment in Wahiawa Hawaii at the largest satellite earth terminal in the world. (I’m kidding about the horrible.) While there in Hawaii I met and married Shirley T. Shirley celebrated our sixth week anniversary by going out on a date. (Yes, with someone else.) When she did it again the next week I knew it was over. (Duh!) We were divorced after six months and a day, net. I sure learned a lot from that one! Shirley wasn’t really that bad of person but, I don’t know, someone has to take the blame. After I got out of the Navy I moved to Puyallup (pronounced “Pew-yawl-up) Washington where my dad and brothers Doug and Larry were living. I looked for work as an electronics technician but only half heartedly because I’d learned in the Navy, and at other jobs, that I don’t like to do maintenance. I like to do “building”. I worked for my dad with my brothers in his real-estate work order business for a couple of years. Eventually my dad bowed out and my brothers and I proceeded to ru...Expand for more