Captain Mike now
Rm 108 - Sophomores
Jim Goodheart, Mike Griffin
& George McClure
Job Title - Building Inspector
Current Location - 569 Summerholly Dr., San Marcos CA 92078
Telephone - (760) 510-2069
Email Mike at Mgriffi1@aol.com
Attended Radford Freshman and Sophomore years. Air Force Family. I'm "learning all the stuff they should have taught us at Radford...the hard way!" After leaving Hawaii my family was transferred to Victorville in the Mojave Desert, (completely wrecking my pre-pro-surfing career, but it got me into playing my guitar...go Ventures!)
So, I completed 4 drying out years in the desert before returning to Hawaii where I worked for Aloha Airlines until the Draft caught up with me. To "beat the system" I enlisted in the Army (for 4 long years as an Intelligence Analyst). During that time I got married, shipped off to Vietnam, became a father of 2 boys, and totally disinterested in a career with the Federal Government.
After leaving the Army, my wife, Becky, and I and our 2 boys returned to Hawaii, but we soon separated, and, after she took the boys back to New Jersey, we divorced. I stayed in Hawaii and put in a couple of years at UH, (while living right on the water at Diamond Head, and driving taxi for Love, Charley's, and SIDA). I finally fell in love with a lady from the Napa Valley and ended up finishing my BA in Psychology at Sonoma State University in CA. During that time I also spent 6 months hitchhiking around the USA, (doing my "Hippie-trip"..i.e. many adventures).
Working as a Carpenter, and following my heart, I spent 5 years in the Napa Valley and Santa Rosa CA, (while doing a couple years grad-study in "Organizational Development"...what else are you going to do with a BA in Psychology from "Granola State"?). I eventually became a General Contractor and, like many of my Brethren Contractors I eventually lost my shirt in a couple of bad bids. So it was time to head south.
This was the "lean years" of the early eighties, so I took whatever work came my way, including being a "head-hunter" in the oil and gas industry for 6 months, (until the bottom fell out of it from the S&L scams going down in Texas). After roaming the South for a few months I ended up in San Diego for couple of months before returning to Honolulu to get work fixing up Kauai after "Hurricane Eva".
Following that I worked at Pearl Harbor and bought a house in Haleiwa. I made money on the house and tried to double it by buying a fixer-upper in Nevada City CA, (a wonderful little tourist-town in the foothills of the Sierras, north-east of Sacramento). My goal was to make enough to travel a bit in Europe, spend some time on Kibbutz in Israel, and finally settle in Australia. Well, I broke even on the house, saddled up and visited my lady-friend in England a bit before spending 6 months roaming Western-Europe in a VW camper. After selling the camper in Germany I hopped a train to Greece, and toured Crete, Rhodes, and Cypress before embarking on a tramp steamer for Israel.
I found that, at 40, I was "too old" to work on a Kibbutz. So, after exploring Israel for a month I flew to Brisbane Australia...to become a dinkum-di Aussie. I managed to get a job as a "consultant" in Sydney and moved into a great shared-house overlooking Sydney Harbor. I was doing fine trying to figure out the Aussie-mating system (so I could marry an Aussie lass, and stay in Australia-legally). Then, wham-bam, I fall in love with a gal from Cincinnati! No, gentle reader, I didn't follow her to Ohio..no way! We dated a bit down there and then my funds ran out, and it was time to return to the good ol' USA (Hawaii, again), with a 2-week stop-over in New Zealand, (where I got caught in the midst of a military coup...another story).
After working as a construction manager, (remodeling a mansion 2 doors down from Tom Selleck's place), I gave up on Hawaii and returned to California. First working 7 months as a youth hostel manager in San Clemente, then 3 1/2 years as a facilities director for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, (where the gal from Cincinnati finally caught up with me and we tried to live happily ever after). That job ended when "Operation Desert Storm" came along and all the Marines shipped out. Luckily, while I had a steady job, I bought a 30-foot sloop, and moved aboard. After a year of living aboard I got a US Coast Guard license to become a charter skipper.
So, for most of the 90's I ran my nice little charter-sailing business out of Harbor Island in San Diego Bay. Since most of my customers were travelers out of the youth-hostels in San Diego I didn't make much money, but I had a hell of a great few years and met some wonderful people from all around the world, (plus: I gathered quite a repertoire of jokes). Since my charter business was somewhat seasonal I also did some odd-jobs like work as a Hotel Night-Auditor, a youth-counselor, an Airport shuttle-driver, and I spent 8 months working on tug-boats in the Gulf of Mexico, out of New Orleans.
All good things...so I eventually had to sell my Charter business, (due to insufficient income) and got back into construction work; first as a framing-supervisor, then as a building inspector, which I've been working at for the past 3 years, (including 8 months as the Building Inspector for Rio Vista, a nifty little town on the Sacramento River between SF and Sacto).
I've just returned from 8 months in Honolulu, trying to help care for my aging parents, and seeking decent work. I bought a Cal-39' sloop, "Kalani", and fixed her up beautifully, and was in the throes of getting a charter-sailing business going there when I got recruited by the County of San Diego to work as a Code Enforcement Building Inspector in San Marcos. I've just moved into a condo, in San Marcos, that I share with a San Diego City cop who never seems to be home, and I'm heavily into getting my middle-age act together trying to prepare for "the Golden Years", (and making a determined effort to get decent on the Irish Fiddle and Mandolin). Wish me luck...as I do y'all!!Back to Top