Cal's Quirks and Personality Page
I was born on the 19th day of September, 1973 in Sunrise Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada. My mother, Linda, was 25 years old at the time. I was second of three children. I had an older sister, Barbarina, and a younger brother, Ryan. I grew up in my mother's child care center, so there was always plenty of other children for me to play with. In the spring of '79, an unfortunate chain of financial events led to the closing of my mother's center. Things have been tight from that day on, but I had a very pleasant childhood even with all these misfortunes, simply because my mother loved us all so much.
I didn't meet my father until I was 18 years old. My mother finally caught up with him after searching for a very long time. Prior to that day, I never really cared who my father was, my mother always filled that gap quite effectively. I am glad I finally got to meet him nonetheless. He and I don't have too much in common, but we are very much alike in some ways. I have a half-sister by him named Laurie whom I haven't seen in years, I wish her the best in whatever she is doing.
When I was about 7 years old, my mother married Bob Adkinson. A year later, my family was graced with a new baby boy. My little brother was born in Houston, Texas a few days after my birthday on September 23rd, 1981. Unfortunately, my mother's luck with men took it's usual turn for the worse and we became a fatherless family once again. I was so elated when my brother was born I could hardly contain myself. Not only did it mean I had a brand new baby brother, but that there was now equal numbers of men and women in the family. :)
Life was extremely rough after '79. We moved almost every 6 months for some reason or another. We lived in some of the scummiest places I've ever known. In all that time, I was smart enough to never join a gang, drink, smoke, or do any kind of drug. I was the classic nerd throughout elementary, simply because my mother kept me away from the bad elements of our surroundings. She also taught me the dangers around us, and how to avoid, or if need be, fight them. She was, and still is, an extremely resilient human being, and it was because of her that me and my family are in as good a shape as we are despite our environment. There was a number of times that things went awry when I was young. I started Rancho High School in Las Vegas in the fall of '88. This was the "ghetto" school of Las Vegas, and there wasn't a day that blood didn't spill on campus. Gang violence, robbery, assault, and even rape was a common occurrence. It was a tough school, and the weak were weeded out fast. I decided that I'd rather not be one of those, so I played the role of a tough guy. Unfortunately, I didn't know any tough guys to model myself after, so I mostly looked like a nerd acting like a tough guy. :) The turning point of my life that opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn't invincible happened one afternoon as school was letting out, days away from Christmas break. I was walking home along the stone wall across from the school (Rancho was across the street from a cemetery, how appropriate) a car full of gangers goes flying by and splashes some water on me. I was obviously miffed, so I yelled some simple profanities in the general direction of said car, not thinking I could be heard. Well, I was heard. The car swung around and they actually tried to run me down. I managed to avoid having myself crushed between the wall and the car, but I didn't get away from the 3 guys that jumped out of the car. I outran them for a few minutes, but they caught up with me just as I got to the chain link part of the cemetery fence. I got popped quite a few times before anyone even said anything, then they decided to interrogate me. They asked what gang I was with, where I was from, and who the hell did I think I was. After about 3 minutes of not saying a word, which I thought my wisest choice, they tried to beat it out of me. I stayed clamed up, out of sheer defiance. They got tired of this so ganger #3 gets out his butterfly knife and sticks it about 3/4" into my stomach. That was when I realized this was no longer an act. I jumped and grabbed as high as I could on this chain link fence and vaulted over the top, tearing my clothes and my hands on the barbed wire on top. I ran balls to the wall, with this butterfly knife sticking out of my gut. I finally couldn't handle it any longer and collapsed behind a dumpster. My grievous wound (scoff) didn't even penetrate the muscle layer, so i wasn't really hurt, but I was bleeding like a stuck pig (no pun intended). I went to a friend of mine's house, got cleaned up, changed into one of his shirts. I then proceeded home, hoping my mother would never find out how freaking dumb her child was... she eventually did find out a few years later when she overheard me relating this story to someone else. I should have told her back when it happened. Needless to say, I never returned to Rancho High School. I started Bonanza High upon returning back from Christmas break. Bonanza was approximately 7 miles from my house in the upper class side of town. I fit in about as well as a moustache fits on a drumstick. I had a rough time during the remainder of that semester, with no friends and unsympathetic teachers. My luck is fickle, and runs about 50/50 on the good/bad. Well I was on the positive side of that 100% when my sophomore year hit. The school introduced a new program, JROTC. I was already a big time military buff and amateur gun mogul, so here was someplace where I might find a few people that could see past my inability to afford Z Cavericcis. My confidence skyrocketed. That year I also joined the Wrestling (mediocre) and Track (exceptional) teams. From this point on, it all went uphill.
When I turned 16, I went to work with a friend of mine in a hole in the wall place called Shakey's Pizza. I worked there for about 3 months before I just couldn't take it anymore. I never have, and never will, work in the food service industry again. From there I went to work for the Republican Party Office in town. That is where I learned that I wasn't really a Republican at all (not to say I'm a Democrat either, I'm closer to the Elephant than the Jack Ass). I did that until I graduated in '92 with an ROTC scholarship and quite a few awards to boot. Instead of diving headlong into college, I decided that I wanted to serve as both Enlisted and Officer. So I joined the Army as a Combat Engineer. Because of my scholarship, JROTC, and near perfect ASVAB test scores, I was immediately promoted to PFC in Basic Training. I lucked out in going to Ft. Leonardwood, MI in the dead of winter, from 11 Nov '92 to 18 Mar '93. I have never been so cold, tired, uncomfortable, and miserable all at once in all my life. From there, they sent me to Mannheim, Germany. While stationed in Germany, I had the misfortune of being deployed to Bosnia for our "peacekeeping" efforts. I was attached to a small refugee camp/POW camp as an anti-saboteur. In early December we were attacked by some suicidal nationals looking to wipe out those in our care. We lost an American in the fire fight. I was more fortunate, I only took a single bullet to the hip, but we lost over half of the refugees. I blame the loss of that American on poor judgment, we shouldn't have been there in the first place. From there they sent me to Ft. Lewis, WA to serve in our cushy little stateside Army. As much as I believe in a standing army, I feel that the combat arms units could be put to more efficient work. I did nothing but "area beautification" and field duty for my last year in. Needless to say, when I was given the opportunity to reenlist or get out, I got out. I was looking forward to college in any event. I got out of the Army at the end of August, 1995. I immediately went home and joined the Nevada Army National Guard. At least here, I felt I would be doing something for my country without being a wasted commodity. I've been doing that ever since. I got out a few months early so that I could get home in time for the fall semester at UNLV, but unfortunately, my paperwork wasn't in all the proper order, so I missed going. I got a job with a local protection agency called B'more security and personal protection. I took a few courses in guard techniques and went on to make damn good money as a body guard for the high roller tourists we leech dry everyday. :) I was living with my girlfriend at the time, so when the spring semester rolled around I missed it. I couldn't take the cut in hours and pay. I didn't want to miss anymore school, so I started working for a pawn shop as their resident gunsmith up until the summer semester. By this time, my relationship was heavily stressed and we agreed it was better to live apart until we could reconcile our differences. I got a little place that I lovingly called "the bell tower" with my best friend, Mark (also known as Voltaic). It was cheap and big enough for the two of us. I was living off my scholarship and worked teaching for the Community College on the side. I started to lose my love for teaching after dealing with stupid people all day, so I decided to give it a rest. I was unemployed for a short time during which time I managed to get my hands on a house. I used my savings to get in and pay up a few months and rented a room to a guy I knew from high school. Unfortunately, I lost the house due to circumstances beyond my control, but it taught me a valuable lesson. It was around this time that I stumbled onto the greatest job a guy like me could ever have.
Mike Callahan owns a small company he calls Bounties Unlimited. He hires his company out to bail bond companies to catch bail jumpers. His company was enjoying rather substantial success when I walked through his door. This is a job usually left to two or three guys working for takes in the bounty. Mike's approach was much different. He decided that it would be so much more effecient if you had specialized teams to perform more specialized tasks. He hired two UNLV students (one was studying psychology in hopes to going on to law school, and the other was studying English, also in hopes of going on to law school). This was his research team. Both are computer wizards and have made leaps and bounds in aquiring contacts and moling out information. To date, we have only had one name totally allude them. He then had on contract a P.I. team that he would call in for our surviellance work. Their prices are kind of high, but they are definite professionals at what they do. And finally, a four man capture team. This was the team that actually made the arrests. He was looking to expand. Due to some family matters, I had basically went in to ask for a favor, to my delight, I got a job instead. He put me on as "fifth man" on a the capture team. He sent me to six seperate tactical classes and even had us all trained in various life saving techniques. Our team is absolutely invincible. Highly trained and highly tuned, we have only missed once in the year I have worked there. We caught up with him shortly thereafter.
Prior to joining the Army, I was dead against drinking. I thought it was evil and ill purposed. But it is amazing what thirty guys, and the realization that your allowed to do anything you want, can do to your morals when you have no bastion of fortitude to flee to. By the end of my tour in Germany, I was beginning to worry that it was becoming a problem. I was still under twenty one so I decided to quit drinking until I was old enough. This time I was unturned by my peers and managed to stay off for the 3 months till my birthday. I went home for my twenty first birthday and got completely sloshed. When I woke up the next morning, I realized that it was the dumbest thing in the world to do. It had no purpose other than getting sloshed. So I gave up hard core drinking for good. I'll have a drink once in a while when I'm out with friends as long as I'm not driving, but that was the end of my drinking days.