All my roads led to Simi???

I must say better late then never but I do agree get the last twenty years out in the blog and get on to more interesting conversation at the party! So here we go....

After graduation I continued waiting tables at this little Italian restaurant out in the Palisades and decided to attended Pierce college. Ahhhhhhhh yes that made my parents so proud. After two years at Pierce I headed down to San Diego State with Julie Herbst. Julie Vargo was already down there so with the two Julie's the incentive to get the hell out of dodge was doubled! I vowed never to return to the San Fernando Valley unless it was Christmas or Thanksgiving and then only to drop in for dinner. Yes I was free -but bite my tongue never say never.... remember that statement as I progress through this fantastic story.

I bounced around San Diego for fifteen beautiful years and I say beautiful because in case you didn't know on the 8th day God created San Diego. I graduated from SDSU and started to manage this little unknown microbrewery in downtown San Diego called Karl Strauss. Yes, I now know how to brew beer... so appropriate for a good little Catholic girl from Chaminade. Anyway I stayed with Karl Strauss for about five years - opening up restaurants throughout San Diego-when it finally occurred to me that working the "party" hours of restaurant life was going to get me nowhere fast- so I quit. But I quit without a plan - humm.....two roads diverged.

Fortunately for me though I don't always make great plans I do make loyal, life long friends. Two lifelong, entrepreneurial friends in particular (Tom & Brett) had started a little niche contracting business peddling bathtub refinishing while we were all in College and they needed someone to market and manage their customer base. Apparently this little niche business was growing from a little two man show to over 10 million in yearly sales and they were a bit unorganized. So in 1998 I was elected to market bathtub refinishing.

Bathtub refinishing you ask - ok here is the 411 and pay attention this is about all the information I received from my dear friends before they throw me to the wolves. Bathtubs can be repaired the same way boats can be repaired. Fiberglass tubs are captive molds meaning during the construction process builders install a tub and then frame the room around it. So if a tub is damaged, fiberglass cracked or porcelain damaged then the options are to tear it out or repair it. For apartments and hotels a tear out is not a very cost effective option so they all want their units refinished. Beyond repair we "refinish" (paint) the tubs to update or refresh the look. Along the way we discovered that we can also use this process for vanities, kitchen counters, cultured marble, Formica and tile we can even make them look like granite.

So that gig went well for awhile I eventually started running the crews, managed more of the day to day stuff and opened a new office for the company in North County San Diego. Then in Sept 2001 I bought a house up in Temecula - life was good.

I stayed working with the bathtub company until 2003 when we found out my mother had breast cancer. As soon as a man in a white coat says the C word - life becomes a pinball game and you are that little silver ball bouncing off all of the posts....I stopped working and started driving back and forth to Los Angeles for Doctors appointments. My mom decided she didn't want Chemo so we started this holistic, healing journey that lead us down to many paths to mention but in the end they just confirmed on Sept 17, 2007 that my mom is in remission.

Ok so I skipped a bit but remember when I said never say never....2003 mom gets cancer...2004 she asks me to move back to LA. UGRRRRRRR! How do you say no to someone who doesn't know if they are going to be alive next year. So I moved - got a job -an office job purchasing land for Griffin, a home builder in Calabasas. By the way I think I got the job because the Griffin's all went to Chaminade - yes it was a very unorthodox interview. Fun -I came full circle and I was back to the place that I said I would never, ever come back to. So I decided to move to Simi. HUMMM

The office gig kind of reminded me of high school, uniforms, bright ceiling lights, bad flash backs...since I had never worked in an office before it all was not working to well for me.

Re-enter the lifelong, loyal friends.

One thing that happens with the entrepreneurial types once they tackle one business they get bored and restless. So by 2004-2005 Tom and Brett had changed paths. Brett decided to go off into the mortgage business and Tom stayed with refinishing but now removed residential and only focused on commercial business. Tom wanted to see if he could franchise (evil word) the bath refinishing and had elected me the pig. I mean guinea. Again I quit my job but this time I sort of had a plan.

November 16, 2005 in Simi Valley, California Pacific Bath Refinishing was born. We hit the ground running and have been busy non-stop ever since. www.pacificbath.com
Tom decided there was to much liability in the franchising and further decided it was to hard to run a business in Simi Valley from San Diego so....TA DAH I went from being a general manager to being an owner literally overnight.

So now I am a contractor in a big, old boys club and even have the license to prove it - ha and I still get the usual rhetoric about being a girl or breaking a nail. I tried to run our office but that's better left to my mom - I am more effective out on the job sites. I have a bunch of young, awesome guys who work with me and I am lucky that both my brother and my mom work with me too.

The first year was hard - harder then I would have ever thought when life intervened again. I got a phone call from my step-mom in Philadelphia that my dad had passed away in his sleep five days before Christmas 2006 - he was only 59. This sent me reeling and over the last ten months I have been focusing on changing my priorities. More quality then quantity - living today because you are not guaranteed tomorrow.

So to talk about getting old - I can't say I remember alot about high school, I depend on Patti, Melissa, Beth, Julie and Julie to remind me of things that happened. I do remember having a ton of fun, getting into trouble and making some great friendships. Did we really have the nerve to have vodka, OJ and bagels in the morning before school? I remember more about the little campus probably because there was no alcohol involved. Mr Rauser throwing erasers and doing cartwheels in the classroom, John Apa complaining that I kicked his chair to much because I sat behind him in almost every class for years and years. Getting in a raw egg fight with Rob Bae on the school bus from the little campus. Hiding in the trunk of my own car with Patti Javier driving to get off campus for lunch. And I am still amazed that I can recite all the prepositions that Mrs. McDonald made us learn though I never could recite them for her? I know my mom remembers the guidance counselors telling her that I would never make anything of myself nor graduate from college. Man that lady lite Father Delong up like a Christmas tree for that little episode not to mention she already wanted to posion him for the kitten/cat scandal. I never did figure out the girls only uniform thing but I surely remember getting detention EVERYDAY for it. I of course remember my friend Anthony Butler what a great part of high school always making me laugh and drawing me tons of pictures. I still keep in touch with friends but its never enough time at least not the endless, nothing to do time we had when we were in school. I long for those days and wish someone had said "cherish it now because it will never be like this again."

Lisa, Carol, Amy, Dave, Dave, Lynn thanks for all your hard work on the reunion and letting me help with whatever little things I could do - you helped me get out of the house after my dad passed.I am so excited to see everyone this weekend - I want to hear more stories about our past together.

Julie Vargo-Madden your turn to blog!!!!

xoxoxox
Dora "THE EXPLORER" Atkinson