Where it all began

When you work in politics moving every 6 months isn't outside of the realm of possibility, and when you are willing to move anywhere for any job your experience, resume, and connectivity expands by leaps and bounds. So after college I agreed to go anywhere to work on campaigns or for organizations. I started out as a finance director helping candidates raise money, but in my free time began experimenting with online media - this was right after the House Dean email fundraising year in 2004.

As the technologies expanded so did my perception of how to use them to help candidates. I used MySpace to target rural and minority communities in 2006 and when Facebook opened up in 2007 I began to use it to help elected officials connect with their constituents. Now... online media is the standard, and blogger outreach is a must for any Democratic candidate.

In 2007 I had a great opportunity to work in a family foundation in the Bay Area, that specifically worked to increase the outreach to young people in politics. Youth trend more progressively, and in 2004 they were the only age group to vote for John Kerry. If we wanted to win the White House back in 2008, youth outreach was a must. In 2007 I started working on becoming an expert. I studied and wrote about the Millennial Generation, I looked closer at demographics for social networking sites, and I experimented with previous candidates and current elected officials I'd worked with before as a volunteer to see how we could use these technologies to help be more accessible and transparent.

And 2008 became the election of technology.

During 2008 I had worked closely with several campaigns in the Midwest that didn't understand technology outreach. I hammered into their heads what this could do and how it could be effective. The result was several converts who have now also become genius technology people always looking for what's next. After the 2008 election we all developed an online media and marketing firm in Kansas City called Mixed Media.

But in the spring of 2009 we got our first out of state client - which was also the biggest client we have in Oklahoma - where I'm originally from and where my parents and family live. In efforts to expand Mixed Media beyond Kansas and into the rest of the Heartland I moved back home and began work with our clients here.

When I did that was when the "adventure" began. I had planned on staying with my grandfather, who I lived with in my late teens before I went to college in Kansas. He and my grandmother bought their house in the old part of downtown Yukon, Oklahoma in the early 1980's. They loved that house, my grandmother especially. My entire childhood she worked on making it better. They built out part of the attic into a large room on the 2nd floor, they wallpapered, re-carpeted, painted, everything... But in 1987 she was killed in a head-on collission on Route 66 when her car slipped on a piece of ice.

Her death left my family devastated, my grandfather especially. Since 1987 nothing changed in the house. Well, I should say, very little changed. In 1989 he caught the kitchen on fire while making french fries for me and a friend that were playing in another room. It caused about $50,000 in damage and the kitchen was remodeled, wallpaper was redone, and everything was freshly painted and cleaned.

Living Room mid 1980's






















Random event Dinning Room mid 1980's



This is someone being silly at a gathering in the house. This room, however, is the upstairs room they had just built out into the attic. Lots of great sloped ceilings in this room.


But basically since 1989 - nothing has changed. Twenty years later the house was falling apart. It was dirty, infested, molded, saturated, and a complete disaster. Oklahoma had some flooding in 2007 and while his house didn't flood - the 40 straight days of rain took its tole on the house. With rooms closed off moisture festered and mold grew on furniture. My grandfather never turns on the A/C so there was no way to de-humidify the house, especially in rooms that he'd closed off.

The roof of the porch was falling off because at one time there were two skylights that had leaked - while the roof had been fixed the ceiling of the porch had rotted wood hanging down with critters crawling around above it. In 2003 there had been a major ice storm and a tree fell on the detached garage causing it to lean pretty substantially. My grandfather put in an insurance claim and used the money (which of course couldn't pay for a new building) - not to rebuild the structure but to "fix" the structure. The entailed tying a big thick rope around the whole building and tying it to a tree. I'm not kidding...

The house was infested with bugs, mice, fleas, ants, ticks, and at one point in 2008 a opossum crawled under the house and died leaving a stench that lingered for months.

With me living full time in Oklahoma, and invested at least until the close of the 2010 election I finally convinced my grandfather to make some major home improvements. We began with the little things that I could do, having ZERO experience in home remodel. My grandfather had been working part time at Staples but technology wasn't his strong suite and he went to work next door at Lowe's. For someone with 100% experience in tools and fixing things, not to mention a certification as an electrician apprentice he was perfect to work for them... and it resulted in a 10% discount on anything in the store and 10% above cost on all special orders.

It seemed the universe was telling us this was the time to save the house.

(last year I lost my hard drive, but I know I have the pre-renovation photos somewhere... I'm looking)