Ronald Szabo:  

Worked at one of the Potash mines after high school like many others who lived in our little community, I later got a chance to work on some oil rigs one of my first drillers was a buddy Kenny Poole who gave me a break and I worked for him six months as a floorhand for Delta Drilling. I probably worked on a dozen oil field companies sometimes with another old friend from Carlsbad Everett Hand. In September of 1978, I went into the U.S. Navy. I deployed on a WestPac aboard the aircraft carrier Coral Sea (CV43). I spent 102 days off the coast of Iran when the hostages were taken in Tehran. My job while in the Navy was working on avionic equipment on both the Prowler and the Intruder they are two A6 Grumman Jets. I was attached to VA-196 Attack Squadron out of Whidbey Island, WA they were a famous squadron some may recognize the title "Flight of the Intruder". I remember bumping into someone (one of the Quintana brothers) from Carlsbad on the other side of the world in a third world country (Philippine Islands) I was stationed at where I first got certified with NAUI open water scuba. It had some great diving and a scuba facility on Grande Island, located at Subic Bay, RP. I would sometimes play water basketball with some navy seals that were stationed at Subic Bay. I worked Port Operations for a period of time as a temporary duty assignment. I would later get my advanced open-water PADI in Southern California we did a lot of our open water dives off Casino Point on Catalina Island. This was one of the fun courses I took while working on a certificate program at Orange Coast College in Electronic Technology with my emphasis in Digital Processing. After completing that training I worked building UNIX minicomputers for a company in the Irvine Spectrum Area. I Lived In Huntington Beach area for quite a bit of that period. I always liked the ocean nothing like ocean sunsets. One of my fondest memories is spending sometime with friends at a bonfire at the beach sitting and partying in a small beach hut in El Segundo, CA. I worked on Platform Emmy off the California coast. I was flown by helicopter to work everyday going to work by helicopter was so much fun sometimes the pilot would drop down after clearing the helipad skim off the water about ten feet above the water going about 70 mph toward the shore it was very exhilarating experience. One of my first jobs after the service was working the logging season in Northern California in Amador County as a choker set. My cousin and my now deceased Uncle lived in the area my Uncle back in the thirties found a vein of gold in the granite mountains around the area so I really like the goldmine my Uncle worked it has a mine shaft that goes into the mountain a couple hundred feet the land around there is so beautiful it sits on sixty acres in the area known as the mother lode. I won a trip for some fund-raising I did for Leukemia Society of America and went to Waikiki on the island of Oahu I liked it there so I saved up my vacation time from work went back applied for jobs stay with someone I befriended from my initial visit and moved to Hawaii lived there for six years. While in Hawaii I got my ...Expand for more