Summer 2006: This was the summer after my freshman year of college. As time passes more and more of the memories of this summer slip away. It was the first of two summers I spent in down in Austin / San Antonio Texas selling pest control. I worked for a start up company named White Knight Pest Control. It was their first summer in business, and was owned by a guy that would eventually become a good friend of mine named Chip White. Tyson and I both decided to sell pest control this summer in order to fund our way through school during the year. The goal was to make enough money to not have to work as hard throughout the school year, and also (for me) to make enough money to buy a new car. Our first few weeks on the job were spent learning how to sell with our fellow pest control sellers Emerson, Brendan, Tyler, Kimberly, Nick, Micah, Abinadi, Ruth, Rachel, Radge, and Jesse. It turned out to be a pretty fun summer with them, though it was really hard work. Tyson and I shared an apartment and were a few of the guys that were the most successful (albeit moderate success) and hardest workers on the team.
The memories of this summer include playing basketball with everyone from work every Wednesday night. Late night runs to Whataburger with Chip to talk about selling, BYU sports, etc., Micah stealing Tyson's first sale, JR coming down to Austin to visit, hurting my ankle really badly playing basketball, drives to the area with Ruth and Rachel, "20 kisses", "I like Brendan...", watching movies with Tyler and Kimberly, floating the river, going to Six Flags, watching the World Cup, and the best ribs I have ever eaten sent down to us by Tyson's mom. There was also the time Tyson and I decided to start naming things that were wrong with my car "Snoopy", and within a minute we had gone from A - N of things that were wrong with it, without even having to really think of anything. It was a fun summer, but not necessarily one I would want to go and do again. I do miss my friends from that summer, and I can still picture in my mind walking down streets and through neighbourhoods with Tyson that we sold in, but it was a tough summer of selling. Not an easy job by any means, but a great learning experience.
The music from this summer is basically Cartel's first EP and "Chroma", as well as the first Angels and Airwaves LP "We don't need to whisper". I remember listening to a little bit of Taking Back Sunday's 2nd album "Where you want to be" as well.
Summer 2007: My second summer of selling pest control was a very different experience from the first one. This summer I went down to sell by myself. Tyson needed to stay up in Provo for the summer to take some classes for school, and I really was not good at recruiting anyone to the work myself. I did meet up with Tyler, Kimberly, and Radge down in Austin / San Antonio again, and I met some new friends, Trenton, Joseph, Kimball, and TJ.
There are not a lot of memories that I have from this summer. I remember Watching movies again with Tyler and Kimberly, going out to sell with Kimball and TJ, and a lot of having to go sell by myself. It was a very rough summer from the motivation perspective, as I was frequently one of the only people going out to sell every day. I become better friends with Emerson and his wife that summer, and through facebook I was able to keep up with my friends back in Provo (Lu, Jenna, and Michelle). We had another fun Six Flags trip at the end of the summer, and Tyson came down to visit towards the end of the summer and we went to Schlitterbaun the water park down in New Braunfels. It was a hard summer, but I don't remember being too bummed out about it at the time. I remember having conversation with Ben over the phone when he told me that we were no longer going to live at Branbury the next year, but that we would be living in what turned out to be a super ghetto apartment complex (Lion House), and I remember hearing from Tyson about some of the new friends he was making up at school (Sarah, McKell, etc.). This was also a very rough summer for me because it was the summer that I lost my great grandparents Lohnes. I was able to travel back up to Utah for the funeral of my great grandpa Lohnes and it was good to be with my family at that time. I will miss them, and I still do.
Most of the music from this summer was a random assortment of things from my iPod. I remember listening to Day at the Fair frequently, as well as Taking Back Sunday. This was also the time that I discovered Spitalfield, and it was really the time that I got into Senses Fail.
