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My Breakneck Story
Gimpman Continues: 2011 Edition
Gimpman Continues: 2018 Edition
My Testimony
Gimpman Continues: 2018 Edition
Wow! No update since 2011? Well. Everything is the exact same now as it was then.
Ok fine! Life is so much better! The most important update of which is my marriage to my wonderful wife Tessa Sommer Campbell! You can read a little longer recap of our courtship here or explore even more recent posts on that blog for additional details. But as for a synopsis, Tess found my inactive LdsPlanet dating profile and emailed me (the most forward thing she has ever done in her entire life) February 2014, and we went on our first date that Valentines day. I was smitten, and pursued her almost nonstop for the next 2.5 years until I convinced her to marry me, and we've been happily married for over a year and a half now. We live in a condo I purchased in Bluffdale where I also serve on the HOA board. We build Legos and play Minecraft and watch shows and sing at our piano and so on... oh and my wife beats me. At board games.
After graduating from college the very end of 2010 I got a job at a company that makes software for car dealerships. It was a great first experience, and I mostly maintained their single big legacy cash cow product, and helped migrate it to a more modern architecture. Two years or so in the high management changed and the company culture shifted from caring about their employees to caring about anything else, and about 3.5 years into having that job the last straw was when they moved their office 45 minutes away to the other side of the point of the mountain. So I started job hunting and ended up at the Lehi Vivint office, and it's been amazing. They have a full cafeteria with free lunch every day, they care about their employees and their customers, and except for a brief spat early 2017 they even are serious about having a good work life balance. Unlike my first job where I only maintained an old thing, at Vivint I've been a part of various from the ground up projects, and have learned all sorts of things about all sorts of things. Currently I'm the technical lead of a solid dev team and I feel very valued where I work both by the way everyone treats me and by the salary they pay. It's a great place to work, and Tess and I can afford to live on just my salary, even with all the extra expenses that come with life in a wheelchair.
I've had two interesting shifts in caregiving since graduating college. While I was going to college I had no personal income and thus was eligible for social security income. Funny enough more important than that though was receiving SSI meant I could be on Medicaid, and Medicaid pays for daily home visits. So all I had to do was find an agency nearby to fit me in getting me in and out of bed every day (15 minutes), and do bowel care and shower 3 times a week (90 minutes). Once I started working though my income went above the poverty level (in 2018 that means I'd need to make less than $18,000 a year) and I lost both those benefits. I actually still go to battle every year seeing if I can get insurance to pay for some portion of home aid but because I can drive a van I'm not considered "home bound" and so I'm only eligible for like 60 home visits a year which isn't even enough to cover my 3 day a week routine. So! I started finding local angels I could pay out of pocket to help with the long routine stuff, and paying part of my room mates rent in exchange for their help in and out of bed. I HATE searching for new people to replace these roles, it's hard to feel exciting about asking someone to come at 5AM 3 days a week and helping you poop, but so far every person who has accepted the role kept doing it for at least a year (with the exception of one temp person who went on a mission) and all of them have been great experiences for me. The room mate thing also worked out great. As I saw the potential of marrying Tess, and knowing I didn't want her to takeover where 3 different room mates used to help, I started paying neighborhood kids to get me in/out of bed, and have had great experiences with that too. So now I survive on the neighborhood help strategy, and I'm so grateful for everyone who is willing to serve me in this way. I do pay, but it's not a ton, really it's primarily a service to me.
I've had various church callings over the past 8 years. Sunday school or Elders quorum teacher, ward clerk, activities committee, self reliance facilitator (current at time of writing). But the most interesting was Elders Quorum President in a YSA ward. I'm sure this calling was just to humble me. We had gone through a few presidents pretty quickly and I thought I could do better, so when the thought hit me I might get the calling I was excited, and not surprised when the bishop called me in and extended the calling. At first I called a couple counselors I barely knew, and it was great for 6 months or so. We got all the administering in order (home teaching assignments, EQ teaching assignments, getting reporting, etc) and I was feeling pretty good about myself. However as time went by I learned how much more ministering I really needed to do, and I've never really felt I have a testimony that makes other people want to have a testimony too. The more people who I learned were struggling the less successful I felt, and by the end of my calling I was pretty burnt out. I did do a pretty good job at setting up 15-30 minute visits with an elder or two a week (not just the inactive ones either, everyone) and I feel like doing that was probably the only ministering type thing I did well as an EQ pres. Whatever the case I have much more empathy for all leadership positions in the church, and while I'm not always a 100% home teacher now I'm much closer to that end than the 0% end now. Currently my dream calling is being a ward clerk in a YSA ward, the calling is all administrative and has clear "you did the whole job!" endpoints, but still allows you to be involved in leadership and volunteer to do extra if you want. And while I don't miss dating even a little bit, YSA wards are just more fun and I miss that a little. I'm happy to serve wherever the Lord needs me though.
Right now my life is a wonderful routine and I feel so blessed (spoiled really). I leave the house about 7AM every weekday, read scriptures in the car for a half hour, then go inside to work about 8. We have a group of 8 or so people who play Super Smash Brothers during lunch every day. Then I work hard and leave about 4:30PM to beat traffic. Tess has a bunch of college degrees and works part time but she's still tying to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. We usually have a family lesson on Monday, we facilitate a self reliance class one night a week, we try to invite people over once a week (friends, ward members, etc), Friday night is date night, and we serve at the Oquirrh temple 2-6 Saturday afternoon. Besides date night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, Tess makes the meals. She usually makes 2 or 3 early in the week and we rotate the leftovers for the rest of the meals. We go to Tessa's parents to play with her siblings (Tess is the oldest of 6) every Sunday except the 2nd Sunday when we go to my parents for a traditional sibling dinner (now involving 15+ grandkids, so it's crazy). With the remaining evenings in the week Tess and I usually just play video games or board games or build Lego's or puzzles or whatever relax activity we feel like. Financially we have a 6 month emergency savings, I put away a good percentage of my income towards retirement, and I also have like 12 small saving funds that take out a small amount every month for things like buying a new laptop or phone or whatever when such expenses come up. Our financial goal right now is to never sell this condo but keep it as a rental, and still have a 20%+ down payment on whatever home we move into next. Life is so wonderful.
I wish more people would ask me when we're having kids, because I love to say "hopefully 9 months after last night! Eh? EH!?" to make things awkward. Although the real answer is we're not sure it's the right time yet. We have already looked into in vitro as the likely option how we'll go about it, and we already have a "baby makin'!" fund set aside to cover the cost when the time is right.
I've had a few adventures. I've gone skydiving, Tess and I went to Mexico for a week on a service trip, we went to the Shakespearean festival for both our honeymoon and our anniversary and plan to keep that tradition for a while.
Anyway this is just a small glimpse into my life, we of course have sickness and challenges too but no more than anyone else, all things told life is amazing :D.
