1957: Smoke Rings and Ducktails

The summer I was thirteen, we moved to Wood Dale, Illinois, and it didn't take long for me to find my way into the wrong crowd. I met a kid named Ken, and we quickly started hanging out together. He was a smoker, and wanting to feel like one of the group, I gave it a try. Bad idea—that didn't work out well for me. My parents found out a while later and were absolutely furious, which was a bit rich considering they both smoked themselves.

Our little group was a mix of boys and girls, and with our raging teenybopper hormones, kissing and a few other things were just part of the territory. I won’t go into any more details! But looking back, I was definitely on the wrong road, heading straight toward more trouble.

Eventually, starting high school broke me away from that specific crowd, but the rebel persona stuck around. I walked away keeping the "hood" attitude, my classic duck ass (DA) haircut, and a significantly less-than-desirable interest in learning. It would take a few more years, and an enlistment in the Marine Corps at age eighteen, to finally trade that ducktail haircut for a high-and-tight and straighten out my direction in life.

1975 -The Century 21' and the Giant Wave

Selling my Larson Ski Boat was stupid. The boat was wonderful, and we loved it, but it needed some expensive motor work. Georgia and I went to a boat store and somehow let ourselves get sweet-talked into buying a bigger, faster, brand-new Century 21' boat. The kicker? That new boat cost ten times the estimated price of just fixing the Larson.

However, the Century did have its perks: it held more people, and it was actually built to handle the open waters of Puget Sound.

One day, there we were, sitting right in the middle of Puget Sound. We were enjoying a beautiful, peaceful view of the City of Seattle, right up until the moment I saw a giant wave heading directly at us. Relying on pure instinct, I quickly turned the bow straight into the wave. We went straight up, practically vertical. The girls were screaming, and I was absolutely determined to keep us from getting swamped. We somehow made it to the crest and then dove straight down the other side. Thank God for the boat's design—it allowed us to hit the bottom of the trough and instantly level off.

I still don't know where that wave came from, or why there weren't any more behind it. But surviving that vertical drop in the middle of the Sound? Shocking.

1978: Resigning from Sony

By 1976, business was absolutely booming for Sony, my distributors, my key accounts, and myself. We were all doing incredibly well. Sometime in 1977, I received a phone call from my boss, Rahl. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to transfer to the New York headquarters to work with the marketing department on some new product ideas.

I was surprised and honored by the offer, but I needed time to talk it over with Georgia. We had to decide if walking away from the wonderful lifestyle we had carved out for ourselves in the Seattle area would really be worth it. The next day, I called Rahl and told him we’d prefer to stay in Seattle, if that was okay with him. He understood and agreed.

Turning down New York wasn't a bad idea, but later that year, I got a little too cocky. I made the decision to resign from Sony and start my own company, NorPac Marketing, acting as an independent representative for companies needing specialized service. Not good! A year or so later, the economy went completely into the tank. Thanks to the government’s lack of control over the economy, we were forced out of business and into bankruptcy.

1995 - Developing a software program called ePal.

Opportunity gone bad. I had an idea when email and the internet were just beginning to go bonkers. It was called ePal, which was a reminder tool and much more. After investing money to get a patent, it failed because a big company had already patented our idea. YUK!

E-Pal by: Christian Horvath.  Somehow, making mistakes make us stronger if we keep a positive attitude, and enjoy the journey by looking through the windshield and not the rear-view mirror.