Crazy Dave’s Crew – About Us

Hi, I’m David Wheeler, otherwise known as Crazy Dave.  So you want to know something about us.  Well, I am a middle-aged man, who grew up in a small farming community in Northern Middle Tennessee. During the first two decades of my life, my family spent time working on my grandfather’s farm, growing a large garden of our own, and working with cattle. For leisure, we would go on one vacation a year, usually to a beach somewhere, and camping on many of the summer weekends. It wasn’t a bad life, but I was so glad when we moved and I had no intentions of going back to that life.

Oh, how life will change you!

If at first you don’t succeed…

Failing at my first attempt at college and marriage, I spent several years trying to make ends meet as a single father of my two wonderful daughters. I finally decided to start moving forward again. I managed to get enrolled in an opticianry program at a small community college seventy miles away from home. It was difficult to work a full-time job, attend school full-time driving over an hour each way, while attempting to be a good father, but somehow, I did it!

Along the way, I managed to find the time to start dating again and found Laura, my wonderful wife of over fifteen years. Laura grew up on the outskirts of our state’s capital, Nashville. She was raised a little differently than me, in a suburban neighborhood by a real estate agent and a homemaker.

About a year after our marriage, Shelby, our daughter, came along and then eighteen month later, we had twin sons, Dave and Nick.

How did we get here?

Through a long list of unusual events that I will not bore you with here, we found ourselves in the Chattanooga area.  We bought a home and started settling into our lives.  Over the next few years, we had to deal with almost losing our daughter, Shelby, an experience that helped grow our faith in God.  It wasn’t long before we ended up in a serious financial mess, due to the medical bills.  So bad, in fact, we almost lost our home.

We finally started regaining our footing, when Laura was diagnosed with a disabling disease called Myasthenia Gravis, causing extreme weakness and fatigue.  Although not curable, this disease is treatable, but sometimes the treatment is as bad as the disease.

Starting over?

It was about this time, I decided to change careers and enrolled at Chattanooga State Community College to earn an Associates degree in information technology.  After graduation, I went to work in the IT department in the banking industry.  I still have this job today.

This is when Laura’s father became weak and unable to take care of himself anymore.  We decided to move him from his Nashville home into our home.  We spent the next couple of years caring for him until his death in 2013.

This was the same year I completed my Bachelor degree in the IT field.  Yes, I was working full-time, caring for my disabled wife and elderly father-in-law, while working toward my degree.  I guess you could say I like a challenge!

We became Crazy Dave’s Crew

Speaking of liking a challenge, early in 2014, we found a new challenge…geocaching.  At first, I was just curious about the meaning of the word geocaching after hearing it on the radio.  I researched on Google and then went out to find my first cache.  I was quickly hooked.  And this is how Crazy Dave’s Crew was born.  When geocaching, you have to have a username to log your finds and we wanted to make it a family adventure, so we decided on a name that included the entire family.

Later, I decided to create blog to tell you about us and all of our fun adventures.  It was easy to come up with a name.  Crazy Dave’s Crew is all about us, our adventures, our memories, and pretty much anything we get involved in.

What you will see here

I will offer you all sorts of advice on geocaching and even entertain you with some of my geocaching mishaps.  Cooking, working around the yard and garden will likely be included along the way.  Sometimes I use the Crazy Dave’s Crew website to get a few things off my chest.  Politically Incorrect will be the place for political rants and Christian posts.

You are very likely to read about our experiences homeschooling our three younger crew members, dealing with an incurable, but treatable disease, and all about sewing, quilting and embroidering when Laura gets to writing.  If you’re interested in seeing her work, check out Crazy Dave’s Yard Sale. Most of the items are made in our home.  Laura is a history buff so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she likes writing about her memories in the Whistle Stop on the Train of Thought section.

Shelby is an aspiring artist and writer.  She has already shared the beginning of a fictional series and several drawings on Crazy Dave’s Crew.  She has also delivered a few inspiring poems.  We hope to see more from her soon.

Dave and Nick seem to be more interested in gaming than writing blog posts so when they do write, it will probably be connected to gaming in some way.

Our latest projects

Recently, we have started getting back to my roots.  We have six hens that should start producing wonderful fresh eggs any day now.  We have just planted a fairly large garden in our back yard, but not as large as I remember from my youth.  I have even built a fire pit in the backyard.  I figure this is the closest I will ever get my suburban wife to camping, but we will see.

In keeping with my field of study, I have also started designing websites for others.  When I realized the church we started attending about a year ago, Ooltewah Church of Christ, needed a website, I was more than happy to offer my services.  It is still a work in progress, but everyone keeps boosting my ego by telling me how great it looks.  I hope you like it.

And the non-human Crew members

Let’s not forget our non-human members of Crazy Dave’s Crew.  We have managed to add four cats and six chickens along the way.  Although, they will probably find their way into the blog post from time to time, I don’t think they will be doing any of the writing.

The Cats

Jack Jack joined our Crew first.  He was the tiniest little grey ball of fur when we rescued him from likely starvation.  I’m not sure what happened, but he is no longer tiny nor grey.  He got his name both from the “Pirates of the Caribbean”, because he, like a parrot, always wanted to be on our shoulders, and from the baby in the “Fantastics” because he was so hyper.  He can’t sit on our shoulders anymore

Phineas just showed up on our door step one morning as we were heading out to the dentist.  He was very loving, but we didn’t have any time to deal with a stray cat at that moment.  I told the kids, “If he is still here when we get home, we might can keep him.”  He didn’t get the memo.  He was supposed to be gone when we got home….he wasn’t!  Phineas has a gorgeous dark grey coat of fur and is poly-dactyl. He was named Phineas by the kids because they were all into the “Phineas and Ferb” show at the time.

Sweetie showed up when we were working at Laura’s dad’s house in Mt. Juliet preparing to move him to our house.  She had a very friendly demeanor and really seemed to want to be indoors.  We left a chair in the garage for her to sit on and left the garage door up.  When it was almost time for us to head back to Chattanooga, we had to run to the gas station to get gas.  I told her if she was in that chair when we got back she could go home with us.  As we pulled back in the drive way she quickly jumped back in the chair.

Oh, Max!

And then there’s Max… Oh, Max.  Max was a stray found by Laura’s brother, Ed.  Laura begged me for a week until I couldn’t take it anymore.  Max came to us on Ed’s next visit.  At first he seemed sweet and gentle, but he likes to explore.  Soon we realized he had more energy than Jack Jack when he was a kitten.  He soon earned the name Max because he does everything to the max.  He plays to the max, sleeps to the max and causes the Maximum trouble, but he is still sweet and loving.

The Chickens

As I mentioned earlier, we have started raising chickens.  I don’t expect then to do any writing or artwork for the blog, but I believe they will provide us with plenty of material.  We started with six hatchlings which have grown into health young hens.  We have two Buff Orpingtons, named Caz and Nugget, three Americanas, Tiger, Black, and Angel, and Ginger, a Rhode Island Red.

Well, You asked…

You arrived at this page because you wanted to know about us.  I have tried to give you a pretty good idea what to expect but if you want to know more about us, Crazy Dave’s Crew, you will find out more as you read from our blog post, it’s all about us and our adventures. Enjoy.

Thanks

Crazy Dave