About Me

Work History

1996-2000: Winona State Computer Labs

  • Computer Lab Technician and Supervisor
  • University Email Trainer (Lotus Notes, Outlook Express)
  • VAX/AS 400 Email Admin

2000-2003: Honeywell Laboratories, Minneapolis MN

  • Helpdesk Technician
  • NT, Exchange and Network Server Admin
  • Quake III Warrior

2003 – 2006: Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN

  • PC Technician
  • 3rd level Outlook Specialist
  • Messaging Support Team
  • Migration Project Leader

2006-2007: Multimax/Harris IT

  • Helpdesk Technician
  • Windows 2003/Network/SharePoint/BES/Exchange Administrator
  • Remote/phone/desktop Technician

2007 – Present: Call That Girl Tech Support

Professional Accomplishments

2002: Honeywell Green Belt Certified. New Hire/Termination for Honeywell Labs

2008: Founder of Project Pay It Forward, LinkedIn. Offered free training to 1000’s of people hit by the recession

2010: Owner of LinkedMinnesota, largest LinkedIn Group in Minnesota

2010: Woman of the Year, SCORE Minneapolis

2017: Presenter, American Bar Association TechShow, Chicago IL

  • Faculty, 2 presentations, Maximizing the benefits of Microsoft Outlook and Office 365 versus Google apps

Online Publications

Learning

Podcast Call That Girl’s Office 365 Show 110 episodes

Articles and PowerPoints | Click on the link to download

Videos

Reading

  • Call That Girl’s Guide to Remote Support
  • Call That Girl’s Guide to Microsoft Exchange Migrations
  • Call That Girl’s Guide to Social Media
  • Call That Girl’s Guide to SEO for WordPress
  • Call That Girl’s Manual of Operations

 

Social Media Channels

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/callthatgirl

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/callthatgirl

Facebook personal: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.hendrickson

Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/callthatgirlhelpdesk

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/callthatgirl

Read my memories since 2007 below

Welcome to my about me page! There have been a lot of changes in the past years and I enjoy telling all of my stories. I’ll start by saying that I am the sole owner of Call That Girl (CTG) Technology Support. I offer remote support technical assistance. My core services include: general technology support, Outlook, Hosted Exchange, Microsoft Office 365 and I dabble a bit with helping small businesses set up simple websites to get ranked in Google with blogging. I am working hard to find new talent to assist with growing CTG to offer our Premium Level clients a referral for any need that may arise.

In my free time, I enjoy writing eBooks.  I have some for sale, but some I offer as free downloads.  I have always enjoyed writing and especially creating technical documents. To read more about these click here.

In regards to social networking, I have approximately 50,000 contacts via LinkedIn, Twitter, G+, Facebook and via my newsletters. LinkedIn is my favorite and I own the largest LinkedIn group in the state of Minnesota, “LinkedMinnesota”.  I am very active online and love sharing my stories and technical blogs.

Call That Girl Time Line

How did I get into computers? Easy answer. I had heard of the internet in 1994, played on AOL chat rooms at my aunt’s house, but didn’t really grasp it. I had a friend who wanted me to get on “Email” and bugged me to buy a computer to do email with him. I had no idea what email was, but in 1995 I was going to college and I asked an instructor if the school did email and they sent me off to the computer lab. The lab told me that I could have email if I had a computer class. I wasn’t happy with that answer and told a friend who went to Winona State University and he told me that every college student got email for free, so off to WSU I went the next quarter.

The day I got to WSU, I found the lab and fell in love. Between classes I was in the main computer lab and could not stop learning about Macs, Telnet and the old school internet. After just a few months, the students in the lab started asking me to help them with their issues because they thought I worked there. I eventually asked the lab manager to hire me on work study because I was helping so much. So in 1996, my love of doing tech support began.

After graduating, I chose to not work in my field, which was criminal justice, but rather stay with tech support. I found out I was suited for “Helpdesk jobs” and applied for many positions, eventually ending up at Honeywell for the R&D division. I worked at Honeywell from 2000 to 2003, where I trained in Unix, Six Sigma and earned a  HR Terminations/Hiring Green Belt. Yep, I championed that one!

2003, the dream begins when I was between jobs. After spending the summer looking for the next great job, my best friend and I collaborated thoughts and put together the first attempt at CTG.  The name “Call That Girl” came from my past corporate helpdesk jobs I had when other employees would always say “Just call that girl at the helpdesk”…as I was always at my desk and ready for the next ticket to come in. My work ethic has always been fast, get it done and learn so I can support more.

With my website in place, business cards, logo stolen from Microsoft Clipart, I was off and running with my first marketing effort. I sent flyers to the Curves locations in the Twin Cities promoting my home visits for the ladies. After 8 clients serviced, I was off to work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

2004, after finding the employees and physicians of the Mayo Clinic needed home support, CTG came back to life. I signed up with the state of Minnesota as an assumed name and sole proprietor of CTG.  I worked with an east coast designer, created business cards and posted an ad in the Rochester Women’s Magazine. In 2006, I left Rochester with 40 clients and then moved back to Minneapolis to work at my final corporate job supporting a contract for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) working for Multimax/Harris IT.

2007, After Multimax was acquired by Harris IT, I opted to move on and restart my career by going on my own and building up Call That Girl on a full time basis. During the first five months of being on my own, I ended 2008 with just five clients. These first five months were full of new marketing ideas, networking events, and constant brainstorming on how to grow CTG.

2008, in January CTG launched at the Women’s Expo held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Investing $2400 turned out to be a large win for CTG, almost immediately after the event, I started getting calls in on a daily basis, thus growing my network and started the beginning of “personal networking” as my main stream form of marketing. Soon after the women’s expo, I started utilizing LinkedIn as a new marketing tool to find new clients. Summer of 2008, I was brought on as Manager of LinkedMinnesota. During the summer of 2008, Call That Girl found its first “home” on the corner of Franklin and Nicollet in downtown Minneapolis.

Fall of 2008, the recession starts and I found a need for the laid off professionals to see hope and learn how to network via LinkedIn. I founded Project Link It Forward and began my six month adventure of hosting free one hour classes at Camp Get-A-Well-A. Shortly after the project began, it gained momentum and the Star Tribune picked up the story.

First week of 2009, My story was featured in the Star Tribune on the front page of the business, the first edition of the New Year. The project was a hit and even though I wasn’t full-time busy with clients, LinkedIn was keeping me very busy. My pro bono efforts would pay off in the summer where my business was starting to grow organically through word of mouth, social media and my community stewardship. In the summer of 2009, Call That Girl moved to the suburb of St. Louis Park. CTG closes with 450 clients.

2010:

I took over as owner of the largest LinkedIn group in Minnesota, LinkedMinnesota. I also decided to make a bold move and move my personal life down to Rochester, MN. Without publicly announcing this move, I worked for six months traveling back and forth from Rochester to Minneapolis until it got to be too much. I opened my Rochester location in September and was still outsourcing hardware and home visits if I could not make the appointments. I also started the year off with writing an eBook on Social Media that was published in September of 2010. CTG closes with 850 clients.

2011:

This was a year of growth for Call That Girl. With a fresh fully trained intern that was moved to full-time employee status and a FT employee in the St. Louis Park shop, I was ready to move ahead. Just a few months into the New Year, it was decided that Call That Girl would enterprise quickly and plans were in action to open a store in Winona, MN. The team secured a large contract and after four months of renovations, the Winona Service Station was fully functional in July of 2011. In November, I also moved to a new store in Rochester. Client count 1350.

2012 updates:

This was the year that CTG grew and grew like crazy. The whole team was working on a contract that helped them grow to 16 employees that supported 3 shops, 22 stores in 4 states. But just as soon as the growth was about settled down, in the summer of 2012, the company we contracted with went in house and the business found out in the 3rd quarter that people weren’t so excited to have hardware fixed when buying new was so affordable and with the explosion of smart phones and iPads, thus leaving the stores not making enough money to stay open. Winona was sold, and preparations to close St. Louis Park were underway. Client count was 2500.

2013: 

This was the year the company slimmed down; I closed all of the stores and went remote support only. In the middle of 2nd quarter, I realized that I was building the wrong company.  The one I wanted to build was one that aligned with my dreams and desires. I wanted it to be focused on what I loved doing, which was remote support. I wanted to focus on Outlook & email, Hosted Exchange, Microsoft Office 365 and business applications. Client count was over 3000 and well over 5000 jobs on the books.

January 2014:

All was going quite well at CTG! Rebuilding my dream team and business services was just what my company needed. I was doing better than ever. My core helpdesk services are still very stable and growing, but my Microsoft Office 365 migrations and transition work are really where I am excelling. Not many companies have migration/transition projects available without a managed IT contract, so small business clients are enjoying getting work done without committing. Although, most do buy the support tickets for helpdesk assistance and other IT administrative functions. This year started off strong!

April 2015:

Wow, over a year went by without an update! And I did a lot during this time! I’ll start by talking about first quarter 2014, the business was remote support only.  Making this decision not only took a drastic marketing change, but change in our processes and services as well. The marketing continued in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, but then I found a secret within Google. I started blogging more about my day to day fixes, created videos and changed my social networking.  I backed off doing marketing via social media to focus on Google. The main reason was so I could market my services on a national level.  At the end of first quarter, I was seeing results from my hard work and I started supporting national clients. Which is huge for any business!

In the middle of 2nd quarter 2014, I changed my antivirus protection to not support a product, but rather a service. I found that many clients were calling in for a virus removal and then would need a great service to support their computers, keep them protected and monitored. This is when I created the “Daily Protection Plan” (now renamed “SuperMaxx”. Sales were awesome the day we launched and sales are still great even to this day.  I have 100’s of happy clients on my system! I also was doing a lot more Exchange migrations, so many in fact that I had to restructure my migration processes. When a business has to revamp processes, that’s a good thing!

In the beginning of 3rd quarter, I decided it was time for a life change, so I packed up all of my belongings and headed south for a few months. I proved a few things to myself, mostly that I could run and manage a business 100% remote, this is a goal for many business owners and not only did I do it successfully, I grew the company. In the fall of 2014, I finished my 5th eBook and started working heavier on YouTube videos.

By the end of 4th quarter, everything was going well with the business, I added on a QuickBooks Expert and started to see 2015 as the year that my business would completely make a difference for the good of CTG and all small businesses looking for support!

In the past few months, I moved back to the Midwest and found a small town in Iowa to plant myself at for awhile. I was there for a few weeks and I finally settled in. Small town life is way different than Minneapolis, Rochester or Florida.  I am in awe that I can run this business anywhere in the world. Is the world my oyster? Maybe! Either way, I am very happy with where everything is in my business, the expert level service and support I have (Btw…I just added on a Business Contact Manager Expert and Trainer) to offer.

June 2015: 

I made a major decision to start slowly ending the tech support side of Call That Girl (Windows fixing, virus removals, etc.) After many years of doing tech support, moving to just Outlook and Office 365 consulting is happening. Leaving tech support was not an easy decision for me, but after thinking about how much tech support I was doing compared to my niche work, it made sense to just focus on the few things I really want to do and do it well. Deciding to end these services took a long time to close up, so I had to refer new clients to a local computer repair shop.

August 2015: 

July was probably the best month I’ve ever had! Relieving the business of the tech support was probably the best thing I could have done. There were a few things I had to figure out, but moving into August with those things figured out, has made this month awesome. Right now I am in Tulsa, OK, en route to Las Vegas in Sept. Had to take a break of the traveling to work on some large projects. They will be done before I leave!

btw…August 17th is the 8th birthday of CTG. Started in 2007.

June 3, 2016:

I closed 2015 with moving to Las Vegas and getting to know a new community. The last 8 months were great in the fall/winter/spring, I only wore my hoodie just a few times, otherwise the weather was great. As I update this, it’s now 100+ degrees everyday, something I am now used to. The hotter it gets, the more used to it I seem to be OK with it. Never thought I would do that, but in the past the hot areas I lived in was water states and the desert is the desert. I am not an outside person anyway so aircon and me are friendly. I home office right now and it’s just making sure I pay the electric bill to keep me happy. Business is going great, with the new business changes, I have found many new referrals I need in my pocket. I get the weirdest requests and guess what? I know people to have help you. My spread of experts is getting bigger and new relationships are forming day by day. Doing niche work is a lot of relationship marketing. It’s been very fun I have to say. I only like doing so much and so much I get is outside my normal.

Cannot complain, I have all my processes down pretty tight and all procedures, awesome clients and a good day to day. Capital venture clients are asking if I am ready to grow and I have to say no. I’d rather work on something else that I can give back to my clients and community of Outlook lovers. New videos will be released this summer. Very affordable, fun and good learning. Stay tuned!

Update Sep 17, 2016

The business I have found is turning out to be mostly now small business clients. One person companies who have Outlook issues. Many of them I turn over to using Microsoft Exchange. Their issues usually always include some type of syncing problem. Moving to Exchange fixes everything. I also have been helping small businesses with Office 365. Either full setup or aftercare. If they had another company do their migration, they hire me to help with quick issues. Also I have been working on more data recovery for Pc and Mac. Business is going well, might be time to think about adding on a junior tech, not sure yet! I love how my business works for me as is. I’ve also been helping more computer techs and MSP providers with Outlook. I’ve been doing so much work that I’m working on a Kickstarter campaign to help teach techs Outlook and Office 365. Very exciting!

Personally, I made it through my first Vegas summer and wow, it was brutal. Thinking I will go up north next summer! That’s it for now! 🙂 Lisa

Update April 28, 2017

Call That Girl is in it’s 10th year of business. I finally figured out that I’m good with staying with Outlook and Office 365 support but am looking for what I can take to the next level. Considering offering a managed service for my clients doing maintenance and such, but just toying with the idea right now. There are a lot of changes with Office 365 coming up, new products galore. I am testing the Teams, Bookings and Planner right now. Those seem to be the most popular ones. Bookings doesn’t work 100% yet so I am not recommending it for those that support outside of the US. I had a guy in Australia test it and he could not see his time zone. Other than that, just still staying busy with the side projects and business is just fine! I love helping new clients all around the world and learning new Outlook issues everyday.

In the past year, I also have created over 130 videos and 4 training courses. Doing training got addicting I think because after I would complete one, I dove right into another one. Finally in March I closed the door on making new training videos. I found as much as I loved making them, people don’t like watching them, even if they’re free. People would rather just Google an issue as it pops up.

In March of 2017, I went back home to Minnesota for a few days to feel the cold and I saw a fresh dump of snow. Felt pretty good, but not good enough to want to move home. Then I continued my trip and went to Chicago and spoke at the American Bar Associations TechShow. I did two presentations, “Maximizing the Benefits of Outlook” and “Office 365 versus Google Apps” both went well and I had a great time. I networked with a couple new colleagues and met new clients.

With all the training done and the big speaking events, I was looking forward to the rest of the year with an open plate of new ideas for marketing, business and sales!

April 2019:

I was told by a new client that they read my about me page and I hadn’t updated since 2017. Time flies! Time to update! I am now in my 12th year of business. I have stayed in the Outlook Expert/Office 365 consulting wheelhouse. I found that offering managed services and other products was too much for me to offer as an entrepreneur. I personally enjoy working with clients on their issues, offering prepay tickets and continuing on with doing Exchange migrations. Outlook changes so fast, it keeps me busy!

Since 2017, Teams has really taken off but sadly, not with the small businesses (1+ person). It’s too confusing, even for myself. I have since found a Teams trainer I work with. Same goes for many of the Office 365 products. I have a nice group of referrals for my clients if they need something outside of my area of expertise. SharePoint is still a product I work with on a daily basis now and of course, OneDrive. Bookings is a product I still am not using, it’s not up to par yet with my online scheduler program that I love.

At the end of 2018, I decided to take a break from doing any side hustle work, such as training, creating eBooks, videos, etc. I am taking some time to work on personal goals and moving back home to Minnesota. After five years of traveling, it’s time to head home and will be attending grad school in the fall of 2019, working on my MBA. I have wanted to continue my education for many years now and no better time than the present.

For now, Call That Girl is still doing what I do best, supporting Outlook and Office 365, using my referral partners and most importantly…working on more personal education, online backup and other computer related tips for my clients. As I said, Outlook is changing so fast, I be sure to take the time to help clients understand what is going on.

Oct 26, 2019.

Well, I’m a grad school dropout. Wasn’t for me! I’m glad I didn’t waste much time figuring that out too. I’m the kind of person who loves something and goes all in or gets out. I decided to focus on working a technical certification from PMI. This certification is not a walk in the park but I think it’s better for my career goals and I’ll be better positioned to assist with larger projects that come my way.

It’s now fall and I’m about to hit my first winter in five years. I bought my truck a remote starter and have the nice little forever house all prepared for snow, blizzards and of course, more travel! I will always have itchy feet my mom says.

August 2, 2020

Almost a year since I updated, but of course….many changes! Last November I decided that the gray cold skies of Minnesota were not for me. Considering I had been in Florida and Vegas during the winters, I wasn’t used to it and it depressed me. I started looking for a 2nd home in Florida so I could escape winters. I found one in Fort Myers and signed the papers on Christmas Eve. I packed up and flew down there on Jan 20th and moved in my turn key house. On Jan 21, I opened all the windows and it was like I had a second life. My house was so bright and I could see palm trees everywhere! A week later, I decided to sell my house in MN and become a FT Florida resident. I figured I could travel back to MN in the summer, but now with Covid…not doing that. I’m in the hot summer Florida life, it’s not bad, but I can’t wait until September!

Business has changed a lot since my last update too. I was on a roll in Jan, Feb and March, then covid hit. I thought I would be in a bad place but actually made it through April/May fine in fact, better than I thought. Then the covid hangover started. Many of my clients were losing clients and I saw a significant drop in June/June. This gave me time to think about the next level work I wanted to do after I dropped out of Grad school. I didn’t start the PMI cert testing either, I don’t think I like tests lol. I do like working on projects though and since this summer was slow, I have moved to trying to land more tech projects. I created a new page on my site here called “Professional IT Services” and I ask all clients to read this and help spread the word about what else I can help with. https://callthatgirl.biz/professional-it-services

Other than that, Outlook is constantly keeping it’s promise to be confusing! Be sure to call me if you need help or before you Google!

Sep 12, 2021 

This update is a bit longer but it was a long year for me.

Reading back,  I’ve had quite a year since my last update. It’s mid September and I made it through my second summer in the Florida heat, all was well this year! It wasn’t that hot or I am just used to it lol. And thankfully, no hurricanes have come our way yet.

If you read my last update, you can imagine what I was going through with that list of professional IT services I created. While it may seem that I was stretching for anything, in reality it was a great exercise for me.  During that time, while helping a coaching client, we got talking about work after the lockdown and how many businesses had lost a majority of their clients. I told her that I was thankfully doing fine financially but was feeling a void. I told her my struggles of wanting to do more outside of my core services. She told me I was not alone, and started telling me about the “Great Pause” others are experiencing. It hit me hard as I was right there. While making the list of everything else I enjoyed doing, the fact was if I wanted to do anything else but what I do now, I had to relearn and learn how to run another service business. So there I sat, kind of lost. And then got angry.

Microsoft was driving many changes with their accounts and the repairs were very rough on us technicians. Every day I had the same calls of problems and I was ready to just get a corporate job and escape. I made the move to stop supporting some services, but that was almost impossible. Finally around the fall, thing were smoothing out with the Microsoft issues but I still was looking for the “What do I want to do with the next 20 years of my career”. Frustration turned to fantasy. What else could I do if I tried instead of quitting?

I had tried marketing my training in the past and I never got too far with that. I had tried offering social media too and didn’t get far, so feeling defeat was something I was quite used to. This time it had to be serious, my stress levels of being a technician needed to be lowered right now. I moved to making some changes with the business, all for the better. I created an onboarding system that worked great with the Microsoft changes. I learned how to manage the new expectations that came along with these problems I would encounter. I raised my rates to match my level of expertise, by the start of fall of 2020, I was feeling pretty good about my new space. Still pondering though what move to make next.

In 2019, I joined a professional speaking membership association and with that came a Facebook group. I paid attention all year and as it was on my list of things I knew I could do well, I started considering moving to professional training. I came across a former client who was doing coaching for just this and contracted with her to train me how to do what she did. She was also an Outlook Trainer, so it was perfect fit.

Late fall of 2019, I happened to revisit my list of things I wanted to do and for some odd reason, one became important for me to work on right then. I dropped focusing on the training and told my coach that I had to follow what was happening. She agreed and we moved the training coaching aside and worked on business coaching. I had a good lead from a client to do some email investigation work, so from Dec 2020 to Feb 2020, I started up my Outlook email investigation service line. You can see that here at www.agent99.email

In mid spring of 2021, training came back to focus as the requests were coming in for it. Not group training as I thought, small companies wanted me to do full configuration and setup with Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. A few years ago I wasn’t into Teams but in the summer of 2020, during the Great Pause I put plenty of time into learning Teams so I could train it. So the opportunity arose again and this time I grabbed it. My coach agreed to move back to training coaching.

Since last spring, the focus is a mix of my core services and training. As mentioned before, marketing a new service is not easy but I’m in for the long haul. I’m doing all the things you need to do, SEO, LinkedIn, Groups and storytelling. Requests are slowly coming and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to do both. I love staying up with the repairs and configurations and teaching.

May 2, 2023

Apparently I’ve forgotten about this page or been too busy to update. Either way, lots has happened since my last update. Since my last update, some of those ideas I had was wishful thinking and most of them, got forgotten. I decided to focus on my core services and get better at them. With that said, I’ll skip the rest of 2021 and Q1, Q2 of 2022. Nothing exciting but general work happened. In the late summer of 2022 is when everything went nuts. The last week of Sept, Hurricane Ian was forecasted to hit the gulf side of Florida. We all watched hurricanes form and pass us in the past few years so we didn’t put much thought into Ian to be honest until it was literally right under us. When Ian was gaining strength around Cuba, we started discussing the “what ifs” and this was just a few days before we knew what was happening. The chatter in my neighborhood was pretty standard “Ah, it’s heading up to Tampa, so we’re not worried” or “It’s going to head to the panhandle”, very common to hear. But on Sunday Sept 29th, it got real, real fast. Ian was heading right up the coast and while still predicted to hit Tampa directly, we had to make decisions as it was going to pass right over us or very close at least.

My friend Sheila called me and said, “We are all heading to Okeechobee tomorrow after lunch, you’re coming with me so get packing”. Sheila owns a business online and so do I, so leaving would at least give us power so we could work and just in case, have a good nights sleep. I spent all day Sunday prepping to leave the house for a few days, not to prep for a hurricane. But I was smart, I filled up about 25 water jugs, tubs and anything that could fill water “just in case”. I also got a few items at Walmart that didn’t need to be refrigerated, just in case we came home with no power. Jerky, granola bars, stuff like that. Simple things.  Filled my gas cans for the generator too.

Sheila also had decided to adopt a 12 week old kitten named Gilbert on Saturday, so Gilbert was along for the ride too.

Monday Sep 26, 2022: After packing up a couple days of clothes, my laptop and electronics, Sheila and I headed out to Okeechobee after I was done with work. This was almost two hours away and literally the closest hotel we could find outside of the Fort Myers area. Monday night Hurricane Ian was starting to come up to the US after hitting Cuba and was just being targeted to be an Cat2 level. Still not many in my area were worried, in fact…many people stayed. Cat2 hurricanes don’t require evacuation and to the locals, it’s just a lot of wind. We were already used to some heavy storms, so it was not that big of a deal. But that didn’t last long, Ian grew stronger and while expected to kind of go around Fort Myers, people were still not that worried as it was not a direct hit for us. Tampa was the hit but not many on the news knew about the protection Tampa has. “Local legend has it that mounds built by the Tocobaga tribe hundreds of years ago, protected the area from major storms for centuries”. I heard about this but didn’t think it was real. Weather people knew more than local legends yes?

Tuesday Sep 27, 2022: All day we were talking to our friends that stayed put in Fort Myers via text, phone and Facebook. All the updates were the same, Ian was heading to Tampa, winds were picking up, some were thinking about evacuating to local hotels for a safer place than our homes (manufactured home park).

Wednesday Sep 28, 2022: Hurricane Ian had turned and hit Fort Myers directly. Sheila and I were freaking out the entire day, trying to keep with what was going on back home. Slowly everything just got quiet, no one was responding, cell phones died and power was out. Friends were home alone in the safest part of their homes, most likely the hallways and inside bathrooms waiting for an entire 24 hours of howling winds, hearing roofs being torn off, linais being thrown around like nails on a wall, carport roofs flying about, cars, golf carts and all outside items becoming hurricane missles. Those that took shelter in hotels had the same experience, no power, no phones, no Facebook. All we got was news and reports from Wink weather on Facebook.

But the fun was really just beginning for us. The winds were picking up quickly and each hour, getting stronger. I was quite amazed to feel the power of this hurricane so far away. By the end of Wednesday night, we were in 100+ mph winds and of course, the transformer for the hotel was hit, blew up and we had no power. I use a CPAP machine and can’t sleep a bit without it. Wide awake and no power source for my phone, I was in pitch black, can’t breathe, listening to YouTube music trying to sleep. I got zero sleep.

Thursday Sep 29, 2022: Winds were gone, but we had to find another hotel. Going back to Fort Myers was a no-go, we had to head even more east. Found some hotels in Port Saint Lucia and left. I got some reports from a friend who was in Fort Lauderdale and drove to Fort Myers to help others. He was sending me pictures of park and all the destruction and told me that my house, truck, golf cart and everything was untouched. I was beyond thrilled to hear this, Sheila’s house had her roof torn off and damage to her linai. Some folks were online again with their phones, sharing on Facebook pictures and some videos, it was bad.

Sat Sep 31, 2023: Sheila decided to buy a generator and bring it home so at least we have spare power. We left Port Sant Lucia Saturday morning and headed back to Fort Myers. Half way home, we started to see the destruction. It was a lot of “Oh my god, look at that” and “Holy shit, this, that”. We started to see the gas lines and traffic, power and line trucks, the beginning of clean up pretty much. As we neared Fort Myers, it hit us both very quickly how bad it was. The drive to our park was getting worse with damage and as we turned into our park, we both felt this heavy feeling of the hurricane. Before we even got to the gate, we noticed all the palm trees with branches broke, ripped off, metal stacks, debris, and the worse, Styrofoam. We drove up to my house and yep, looked like nothing happened. It was so eery to see my house just fine and everyone else’s house had damage. I instantly had survivor guilt and didn’t even know what that was until that moment.

Sheila dropped me off and I felt so powerless. I got inside my house and it was hot. HOT. End of September and no air conditioning is like instant death in SW Florida. The house may have seemed fine outside but goodness what would I find when I toured the house. Yep, no damage but I had one wall that looked like it got shaken up a bit, nothing serious. I opened my fridge and about died. Closed the door and decided to not open again until I was ready to find my pandemic mask and clean it out. Back to feeling powerless, I had no idea what to do next. Figure out my generator? Get power rolling and setup a camp for myself on the couch. I found a neighbor who helped me figure out the generator and get all the electrical inside my house plugged in. I just sat there on my couch in disbelief. I felt so guilty sitting there doing nothing when so many neighbors needed me, but I was about to start the worst week of my life after that.

Sunday Oct 1 to Wednesday Oct 5th: Not much changed, no power, no food. All the grocery stores were closed, everything was closed. We started to hear about government trucks handing out water and MRE’s, food shelves opening and Sheila and I drove around these 4 days finding all of the above, plus gas. The park was full of clean up crews driving all over, the stacks of metal were literally in front of everyone’s homes, power lines down and nails all around the streets. Eventually a large pile was started in a back lot for the metal and styrofoam. Three stories high and only in the first few days. I recall driving around and seeing roof damage on every single home and feeling a very heavy sadness that would never leave me.

Wednesday evening my generator died and I went to Sheila’s for some relief. Before we went to bed, I told her to turn on the ceiling fan, there were talks of many power trucks telling us they were heating up the lines, so power would be up soon. I woke up at 4:00 am to a ceiling fan spinning, Sheila coming out to the living room to celebrate. I went back to sleep so happy, I could go back home to power and get my life back in order.

Thursday am I went home and started to try to get back to normal. The power surges were often and power went out all the time for many days and weeks after it was back on. I had two boxes of MRE and was continuing to eat these as food was still sparse. As I could work, I did and with some hiccups I was back in business. I had to leave the next week for a trip to NY for a week and while nothing was wrong with my house, I still could not escape survivor guilt. I couldn’t really help with much in the park, everything people needed was for construction crews or heavy lift operators.

I had a planned event in NYC for a week, so at least I had a get-away for a bit. I came back on Monday Oct 17, 2023 to feeling very sick. Yep, you know  it. After 5 days of feeling horrible and testing negative for Covid, I got it on Saturday officially. I had Covid a full week and then a week of Covid hangover. Sheila had plans to go back to her home in update NY to get treatment as she has Cancer. She was my closest friend, so with the darkness of hurricane aftermatch, a wicked Covid hangover and no friend around, I was getting in a sad place. Our pools were also damaged so I couldn’t swim and while it was sunny and nice outside, it didn’t look nice.

A month later, Sheila decided she had to move back to NY due to her Cancer and I was so sad living in Fort Myers. It all changed for me, my natural energy is uplifting so I knew that a change was coming. I decided to put my house up for sale and move to Nashville. I needed new younger energy. My home was built in 1977 and built to survive hurricanes so it sold fast, in fact in one week. The person who bought my home lost hers as she was closer to the beach. I sold it 75% turn key, so she could just move in.

Jan 2, 2023: I packed a 6×12 U-haul and took off for Nashville.

Jan 6, 2023: Toured a new home, put in offer and next day bought a new home. Since this day, I have been very happy, back in my happy business mode, doing the things that bring me joy. Business is better than ever, lost 20 lbs and making new friends. I’m up for a sponsorship with an online tech forum to go to 365EduCon, a big Microsoft workshop camp in Seattle. Looking to get some great training in. Focused on email migrations too, reworked my processes for smaller businesses. I also hired an assistant for a few hours a week to do some admin work I need done.

Feb 18, 2024

This last year went in a different direction that I didn’t think would happen but if you’ve been following this post, you know I have itchy feet (my mom tells me that all the time) and Nashville didn’t last long. In the early summer, I decided I didn’t want to try to build a new life in Nashville but would rather move home and be near my family. I also knew I would probably need knee surgery so it was best to move back home so family could help me with that and get back to having family outings and time with them. The house I bought online (family went to see it for me), turned out to have mold in the house. Luckily, I was renting until the close date, so I could cancel the contract. I was deadly sick for 10 days and for a few weeks after recovering. I swear it last until Christmas though! I found a new home and I’m all moved in and really happy.

As for business, it was pretty steady with clients wanting more Outlook synching with their phones, Exchange migrations security setups and Teams configurations. I also did a lot of training, even though I don’t market that as a service. I closed the year with a lot of learning and changed a few processes for 2024. Technology has been changing so incredibly fast, it can be tough to keep up with. Security is for sure, it seems every single thing I do online needs 2 types of security and sadly…when I help my clients, they are on their cell phone and security is a bit harder to setup on a phone, when talking on the phone.

In January of 2024, I found out that my long term 365 partner closed off all partner relationships and I had to move on to find a new vendor. This was a bit surprising to be honest, I have been with them for 13+ years. But Big Tech will do what is best for them and I was out. My clients know I have their back and will do what’s best for them in terms of support and service. I will be supporting a new vendor this week and will update this if you want to check it out.

Otherwise, I’m pretty happy where everything is sitting in life, business and personal goals. Down 50 lbs now, starting to see it in my videos. If you’re reading and wonder what I’m doing, just eating less and expecting slow loss. I lose 1 lb every 4 days or so, or longer. It’s not as fast as people hope when you’re playing the long game. The fast weight loss programs never worked for me, but I eat what I want, just less. That’s it folks, see you next update! Maybe I’ll start exercising lol!