Chapter 2

My love life during my formative years was nonexistent as there were hardly any girls near my age in school, and for the longest time, until the summer between my junior year and senior in high school, I was just a short, skinny kid with braces. Then over the summer I worked on a ranch and I put on about forty pounds, mostly muscle and I grew nearly three inches in height too. When I came back to school in late August I was 6'-2, weighed 155 lbs and had a deep tan and muscles bulging just about everywhere. Girls that I had never seen before, flocked to me and I turned them all down flat. They had ignored me then, so why should I bother with them now. I did get to end my virgin status with another geeky girl who was underweight and cute, but not beautiful. She was the girl most picked on by the 'in crowd' and I really wanted her to know I cared about her. She also changed over the summer before her senior year and she sent me pictures of her senior prom. She looked so nice. She thanked me so much for everything I had done for her my senior year. We explored each other as well as the whole sexual world known to us and we found we both liked sex, but we knew we were not destined to be together forever. We parted as friends and went on with our lives.

My sex life in San Diego was ok, not great. I dated several coeds from San Diego State and a couple of the Navy girls I knew. Each of them knew it was not long term, but more of a relief of the pressures of built up hormones than love. Once back in Texas I was really too busy trying to finish my master's degree to worry about girls and then getting started into the general workforce I was too busy then too. The same happened when I was starting my own company, RHR Consulting.

I was up in upper Michigan doing a website for some law firm up there when I decided that I needed to play the lottery in every state that had one, if I could play it being a non-resident. Michigan had such a lottery so I played the Mega Millions and the state Lotto both for the week I was there. Before I left I checked my numbers and found I was a sole winner of one hundred, twenty two million dollars in their Mega Millions jackpot. Actually it was $122, 036,958.67 total, but with the 25 percent federal tax and the 4.35 percent state tax, I actually only won just over $87.5 million resulting in me getting $2.9 million a year for the next thirty years. Not bad huh? But then when I got back to Texas, I checked my power ball numbers and I won another 60 million as the sole winner there. I settled for the whole 31 million in a cash payoff. But with the Federal taxes taking a huge chunk of that, I ended up with only a little over $23 million in real income. Because I had paid all of my federal taxes on the money it was now tax free, except for the interest or gains I made on my principal. I gave about half a million each to two of my favorite charities, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart association. Then I gave a half a million to the Dell Children's Hospital in Austin. These were great charities, all three of them.

Now what to do? I had all the money I could ever want, I had just turned thirty and I really loved my job. What should I do? Well that turned out to be the sixty-four million dollar question. I looked around for a new place to live. I hated the winters and the bad storms around Dallas so I wanted a place not far from Warren, down in Pflugerville. He knew of a real nice place that was for sale out near Taylor Texas. The farm, of forty-five acres, had been for sale for about two years and the bank was getting anxious to sell. I could probably get the place for about half a million. The house was an old two story but it did have its own septic system and electricity, water and gas was already at the property. There was also a barn and a couple of outbuildings. It also had a stock tank with working windmill and a fenced off section of almost thirty acres, enough to let cattle graze or horses to run.

I got with my accountant and had him look into the place. Telling him I would remove the house and probably the other buildings and build my own in the next six months as soon as I contacted a local architect. I wanted about a four thousand square foot house and a server room attached. Then I would need at least a five car garage, with room for a motor home and workshop in the garage. I would need a T-2 or T-3 fiber optic line put into the place. I would check that out myself as he was not well versed on that aspect.

My accountant, Sherman Dresser, said he would contact the bank and see what he could work out. He called me about an hour later and said he had talked with a Paul Roberts, president of the bank in Taylor and they worked out a deal for $476,327 for the property. Paul said that a T line could be run out to the property as that area had just finished an upgrade to fiber optic telephone and cable. Paul also recommended an excellent architect of Donald Lang, who could build whatever I wanted and would guarantee his work for twenty years. I told him to do it and when would I need to meet with this Don Lang to begin preliminary drawings for the house and garage and new barn for horses. I decided I wanted to raise some nice horses and maybe have some longhorn cattle too. The cattle could graze and didn't need any shelter, but I wanted some shelter for the horses.

Sherman said he would get back to me on it. In the mean time I called Warren back and thanked him for the tip. I was going to buy the property and move down close to him when I got the house built.

Ok, now you are wondering what kind of wreck my life was in now. It seemed that I had it made, right? I had all the money I could ever want, I had property, I had a great job I loved, what else could a guy want? Love, that's what, pure and simple, I had given up a lot of love and sex for this, and now it was my turn to be loved and have plenty of sex. This is where I pretty much ruin my idyllic life. I had everything, but I was thirty years old and had never really known love. Sure I had my parents love until they were gone, my siblings could care less about me, they never knew me, they were gone during my formative years and we never had the chance to bond as siblings. I had male and female friends and a couple of fuck buddies, but no one to love. I had visited Warren and his wife and two kids, his mom and dad and his brother Hank, but I guess I was jealous of him and his life. I needed to find me a girl I could love and who would love me, not for my money, but for me.

So I looked in bars, in church, everywhere. I had attended church as a Methodist growing up, and continued as I grew older. I even did that computer matching thing and all I found was desperate people trying desperately to connect to someone, almost anyone. I gave that all up as a lost cause. I would try the scene in Austin, maybe I could find someone there I could relate to.

After the sale was completed and I could get away for the weekend, I drove down to Taylor in my new 3500 Dodge dually four-door pickup with the Cummins diesel. I made good time and decent mileage for a Friday afternoon. I figured that since I now owned a ranch in Texas I needed to act like it. I found a nice motel there in Taylor and looked around the area. I drove out to my new place in the early morning and drove around and looked at everything. It was perfect, there were some very nice old oak trees on the west side of the old house and some more scattered all over the property. The fencing looked in decent repair, but the buildings were in not that good of shape. The barn needed painting, but why, I planned to knock down all the buildings and reuse, if possible, some of the lumber for my floors and the doors. They were very good solid panel doors and they looked to be in great shape, just needing some TLC. The house was set about two hundred feet back from the road and there were some bushes along the front part of the property which gave it some privacy. The driveway was dirt and gravel, but that could be remedied pretty quickly.

I then drove out to Don's home, punching his address in my GPS navigator. I was surprised that the house looked so big, then I realized it was just one story high. Wow this would be kind of like mine, I think.

I met Don when I knocked on the front door. I was invited in and shown to his home office. I marveled at his house. "Who built this house Don?"

"I did, well my company did, and I drew up the plans and then helped in building it. Why, do you want something similar?"

"Yeah, what is this 5,000 square feet?"

"Nah, just over 3,800. But I can build you anything you want. Now what is this about a separate server room you want?"

That got the two of us getting down to business. We did the server room first, complete with raised floor and separate ac units outside that were dedicated to the server room and the separate suite of bedroom and half bath.

"What about auxiliary power for the servers, we have a few storms around here and if you need the servers running all the time, then I think we need to have additional generator for power when yours is down. Now we can go two ways with this. A separate diesel generator of about 10 to 12kw with an automatic transfer switch rated for 100 amps for each circuit should be enough to do the trick. How many servers do you have now and how many do you think you will need later, Bob?"

"Well Don, I have ten now but I think I may go as high as twenty, why does it make a difference?"