Autobiography

...

me. This is where I have been able to build all my relationships with my friends and meet everyone I know and talk to till this day. Most of all the friends I know now I have known since eighth grade. I got my first job here in Scottsdale at The Sports Authority in the Pavilions in November 1997. I met one of my good friends, John Alexander, working at Sports Authority. During the Summer of 2000, I went with John and his family to California. We first went to San Diego, and stayed at Point Loma Nazarene University. Johns dad, Tom, went to that school so we were able to stay there in the dorms. Graduates of that school are were able to stay and use the dorms during the summer. It was fun staying there because the school is by the ocean. We also went to downtown San Diego one day and met one of Toms friends who had a sail boat. We went out on Mission Bay in his sail boat. That was really cool because I had never been on a sail boat before. During our trip to San Diego we spent the day in Tijuana Mexico. We went to The Hard Rock Café there and ate. We also walked around and checked out the stores. That was my first time in Mexico. After we stayed in San Diego for a few days, we made our way up to Anaheim. We spent the entire day at Disneyland. While walking around John and I ran into a few girls from Salt Lake City Utah. We decided to spend the day with them and walk around and ride the rides with them. At the end of the night we ended up exchanging phone numbers and email addresses, and have been friends with them since. In December of 2000, it was Johns birthday and he had the idea of flying to Utah to see our friends. So with the money his mother gave him for his birthday, he called and bought two plane tickets to Utah for later that day. We ended up spending two days and two nights there. We were there for New Years. That by far is the most interesting New Years I have had.

I have also made a lot of friends through the many jobs I have had throughout my life. One of the coolest jobs I had was working for America West Airlines. I started there in June of 2001. I was working there during the tragedies of September 11th. My friend Ricky and I were actually supposed to be in New York at that same time that all took place. Thankfully Ricky was not able to get the extra day off he had been trying to get. A month later on October 11th, Ricky and I made it to New York. I had a friend that lived in Brooklyn Heights so we stayed with her. The next day we had gotten on the subway and were headed to ground zero. I remember sitting there and all of a sudden there was this smell I will never in my life forget. I asked my friend Heather what that was, and she said we are close to ground zero. The smell was horrible. It was a mixture of jet fuel, debris, bodies, and anything else that was still burning. We got as close as we could get. We saw the skeleton of the fallen buildings and all the dust all over the surrounding buildings. That has to be the most unforgettable trip I have ever taken.

My family has also moved a lot since being here in Scottsdale. They never really have been able to stay in one place for too long. During my High School years is where I really developed more of an interest on becoming a Police Officer one day. As a little kid I wanted to because of my father was one and wanted to do what he did. Which brings us to me working at Casino Arizona for the past Five years. There I was able to kind of see what its like by being able to develop people skills and how to talk to and handle certain types of people, whether they were mad, intoxicated, involved in a verbal and or physical altercation. And also by being able to work along side a lot of the Officers that were there on calls. So now I can proudly say I am an employee of the Salt River Police Department and look forward to doing the absolute best I can and graduate the academy and become an Officer to help better serve the community.