Life of Brian
2007
Think back to being a young kid. Days filled with going to school, doing homework in the afternoons, or late at night if you were a procrastinator. Then the summers came along, and you'd have three months of freedom. That freedom usually encompassed an area that you could walk to. With most of our parents working, the only way to get around was either by bicycle or your legs. The thing I find interesting, is the mindset I had when I was young. I did have a bike, and I did use it to ride around from time to time, but for the most part, I'd entertain myself with just my brain. I'd find things to do around my yard. This included finding a stick in which I'd pretend that it was the handlebars of a motorcycle. I'd run around making motorcycle noises like I was on a motorcross track, jumping over rocks and speeding up in straight aways. It was a simple form of fun and required zero money, and zero electricity. I actually remember doing this with my cousins out in New Mexico on one of our visits. We were all outside having a blast. Currently, I have quite a bit of time on my hands being somewhat retired. With technology, humans now tend to spend much of their free time looking into a computer screen. Even young kids. I honestly think that the smart phone has drastically changed our society, and not for the better. If I could go back in time, I'd keep my kids away from these devices until the age of 17 or 18.
Two thousand and seven could have been the year I left Armored Transport. I honestly do not remember the exact year I left. I know that when I told the company I was leaving, my former boss who'd transferred to the Las Vegas branch, was a little perturbed. He was the one who'd recommended me for the position, and now I was leaving. He didn't understand the dynamics however, and I did not feel bad for leaving. As I mentioned last post, the Ventura branch was a dead end. Not being able to move to another branch, I was destined to be assistant manager forever. That was not intriguing to me. I would have stayed on the day trucks if I had known that. A couple of the day route guys had left to a shredding company months prior to me quitting. Right around the time I was going to quit, they returned to Armored Transport. They mentioned that the pay was better than Armored, but they ended up not liking the job. Knowing that there must be two openings, now that they had quit, I applied. RSI shredding was run and owned by a woman named Susan. She was a wealthy businesswoman who'd run this shredding and recycling business for quite a few years already. She had a fairly large customer base built up that covered an enormous range. We'd drive all over southern Ca. From Lancaster all the way down to Corona, into San Bernadino and all the way south to just about Moreno Valley. We worked in two- and three-man crews. We'd drive a thirty-foot box truck to a variety of customers and shred their paper on-site. The trucks had a big grinder built in towards the front of the truck. This grinder was run by hydraulics. Once you turned on the PTO's, the truck engine would speed up in rpm's and give power to the hydraulics running this big grinder with massive teeth. Think of your home shredder on steroids. These grinders were big enough, and beefy enough to grind up metal toys. We'd dump trash cans, like the kind you set out for your weekly garbage, full of paper into these grinders. The teeth would slowly grab the paper and shred it up. While two of the crew would go into the customers location and retrieve the paper to be shredded, the third employee would operate the shredding machine. There was a camera that you could watch the process happening and sometimes you'd have to reverse the teeth to clear a blockage. Once a year, three of us would drive down to Rancho Cucamonga and spend all day shredding expired scratch-offs for the Ca State Lottery. They would have nine pallets or so of out-of-date scratchers that they needed to be destroyed. This usually occurred in the summer months, and it was generally very warm in that part of Southern Ca. These scratcher packets were fairly thick so two of us would climb up into the truck and hang out watching the hopper while the third employee hoisted trashcans full of the things into the grinder. We'd actually have to stand on top of the pile of cards sometimes to get the teeth to grab them and begin the shredding process. Not OSHA compliant by any means. Those grinders would easily have shredded an entire human body if given the chance. It would have been a very painful and very slow death! But the job had to be done. We'd make sure that our shoelaces were tucked away so that nothing could be grabbed by this massive eating machine. The bonus of participating in this particular job was that we'd take what we had shredded and recycle it. Our boss in the beginning was allowing us to keep the money we'd get from the recycling company for these scratchers. When she figured out we were getting over three hundred dollars recycling them, she quickly changed her mind! Before that occurred, we were pocketing a hundred dollars each! We understood why she changed her mind; she was a good boss, and she was very good to us. She would on occasion take everyone out to an early dinner and pay for everything. She also threw some very nice Christmas parties. Even though this was a highly physically demanding job, I actually enjoyed it very much. I went from being stuck in a building with one window and a ton of responsibilities, to driving a truck all over Southern Ca and having fun working with my friends who'd also left the armored car business. I also didn't mind no longer wearing a bullet proof vest everyday as well as a gun belt. My new uniform consisted of cacky pants and a comfortable button up Dickies shirt. On some days, our truck alone would shred well over a ton of paper. Sometimes, this was from just one customer!
Shockingly, in 2007, home prices in Ca actually went down! Prices dropped from around $554,000 to $488,000.00. As I had mentioned the housing market bubble had burst in 06. Jumbo loans were no longer being distributed. If you lived near the coast however, you would not have seen as big of a decrease in pricing. The average amount paid for rent in Southern Ca was around $1439.00 a month. I believe we were paying around $1200 a month for our two-bedroom duplex. Today, in 2025, renters are paying $2000.00 a month for a one-bedroom duplex. That's probably on the lower end as well and hard to find. Average cost of a new car was in the $30,000.00 range. This also had decreased from 06 when new car prices hovered around $32,000.00. Gasoline cost you $2.60 a gallon in Jan of 07. By Dec of 07 that cost rose to 3.53 per gallon.
Top five movies of 07 were: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Top T.V. shows included Chuck, Mad Men, Californication, and Criminal Minds. Top songs of 07 included "Irreplaceable", by Beyonce, "Umbrella", by Rihanna. Fergie had two songs in the top twenty, "Big Girls Don't Cry", and "Glamorous". The Plain White T's had the most successful song by any band with "Hey There Delilah".
Two thousand seven was a good year. I had a new job that was very physically demanding but fun. Sarah was working hard for NHH in Santa Barbara. We had three healthy little girls. Sarah and I really liked living in our duplex. We got along with our neighbors. These were good times for sure. I was glad to have left the Armored trucks. Funny thing about that, years later, the Ventura branch would actually close and the operations were moved down to the Sylmar area. If I had still been Asst. Mgr. this would have been the nail in the coffin anyways. Working out of Sylmar would not have been an option for me.
"I really am not the kind of guy that sits here and says, 'Oh gosh, I'm worried about my legacy.'"
- George W. Bush
43rd President
