My story begins March 20^th, 2020, the day we were to start a family vacation across Montana with a destination of Yellowstone National Park. On this day our nation was plunged into a COVID  19 pandemic. Across our route every state park, museum, and hotel were shutting down. Too many unknowns marred the planning of the trip. We cancelled.

Up until that fateful day I had been working as an independent contractor inspecting commercial buildings and businesses. After five years of doing this work seven days a weeknight and day I was burned out and needed a change.

In fact, I had been working my own business since 2011 when I left the insurance office to raise kids when my wife wanted to go back to work full time. There was an interim period where I pursued a dream of getting my Class B commercial driver’s license. I arranged employment with a charter bus company using school buses to take groups on local excursions. Turning a 40 foot yellow school bus into a charter bus required taping over the “School Bus” lettering on the top front and elsewhere. Remove the wide blue masking tape and the vehicle is ready for a football game and school outings to museums and events.

One such event required me to take a bus load of second graders to a local museum near downtown San Diego. I looked at all these little heads popping up over the seats. Precious cargo with parents hovering around with great interest in you and the safety of their children. I was nervous and scared. On the way back I recognized that a fleet of cars were following us on the freeway. I took the onramp with a left and a right turn to a designated parking area. I shut the bus down and released the children to their parents, but my nerves were shot. I could only imagine what an airline pilot feels in the cockpit starting and taxing a jumbo jet, taking off into the sky. They must have nerves of steel.

I still have my Class B drivers license. It transferred with all my endorsements including air brakes and passenger when we moved to Washington State in early 2015. But back in San Diego I realized that I did not enjoy driving a large school bus where the rear swings out on turns like the tail of a dinosaur. I ended up driving a smaller school bus taking mostly autistic children to their special school in the morning and picking them up in the early afternoon. This is called a split shift.

On one assignment that lasted the horse racing season Del Mar I drove a commuter bus to pick up horse trainers and associated workers and their families from the Del Mar race track to the grocery store about a mile away, back and forth. The worker’s housing is located adjacent to the race track. Their accommodations were humble to say the least. These workers were mostly Mexican nationals. One guy secretly lived in the tack room. What a shock it would be if the average wealthy attendee would see the squalid conditions of the housing area. Prior to each race the workers walked the horses through lengthy back channels to the track, their their horse handling skills on display. In time the workers go on to the next race track to live in work. This could be cross country or to nearby Santa Anita in Arcadia, California.

Driving the buses were a career low. I was bored and depressed. Soon enough, the care necessary for three young children required more of my presence at home while the wife worked. A car accident had prevented her from working full time. As she mended she went from part time to full time as a nurse. I went into full time stay at home daddy.

My first act was to get the children’s teeth cleaned and looked at. Then to the doctors for all necessary shots. Then I took them out of their private school and set them up in a charter school near Old Town San Diego. I drove them to and from school, met with teachers, and worked with them on their homework. Their previous school had put them back a grade or two. So they were a year or two older then those in their class. The Old Town school would not advance them to be with the grade that corresponded with their age. I contacted another charter school whose principal was sympathetic. He had me write letters explaining the situation and he would present to the school board. The letters worked and I placed the kids in a new charter school where they stayed for two years.

While I was playing stay at home daddy, I started an export business on a whim. I needed some way to earn money from home. The year was 2012. I created a company and listed it in several import export websites. One of which was Alibaba. One night as I sat on the Alibaba chat room, a fellow named Anito entered the chat we began a conversation. He said he was looking for someone to source and quote medical equipment from the United States. We took the conversation offline and did our first deal. The deal was simple. I located the equipment in the U.S. and quoted it including my markup and shipping costs. I created a homemade invoice and other export docs. We communicated by email. He wired me the money and once received I took care of the purchase packaging and shipping to the Philippines. We did over $100,000 the second year. In early 2015 I did our last deal. I told Anito I was moving to Washington State and would be folding up the company. We said goodbye.

For the first five years in Washington I did insurance inspections on commercial buildings, many bars, condominium complexes, old brick buildings, restaurants, boat rentals, vacant land, farms, and apartment buildings. From roof to basement I knocked out over 700 inspections in the five years. By March of 2020 I was through. And then we refinanced our house.

Covid had hit hard and we met with the loan signing agent in our backyard at the round patio table. He payed little attention to the paperwork and tried to cross sell me on a reverse mortgage. I was intrigued by the reverse mortgage. Then he turned to me and said I’d make a good loan signing agent and that I should get my notary commission. I could do seven mortgage signings a day and make a good living.

We parted and seed to get my notary was planted in my fertile mind. I had thought of notary work in the past but never seriously. After a day or two of contemplation I started the work to get my commission. In Washington state there is no test, just apply, pay the fee, and start the background investigation. At that time when Covid was spreading and interest rates dropping there occurred a great need for notaries experienced or not. I came across a job add Craigslist for notaries to be trained to do loan signing. I kept that ad and planned to contact them the moment I got my commission.

In June of 2020 I became a commissioned notary with the state of Washington. I ordered my stamp, logbook, and obtained errors & omissions coverage and a bond made easy and cheap on the internet. I then contacted the person in the ad. Turned out I’d be trained by someone at Chicago Title in their beautiful Columbia Center office in downtown Seattle.

Prior to meeting at the office I signed a contract and sent them the commission certificate and proof of insurance and bond. He sent me the most brilliant training device ever devised by man or woman for training a no nothing into a confident loan signing agent. He video taped himself going through each document on a loan package. The camera came in over his shoulder and he filmed each document with his hand and pen going through the document point by point document by document. I still use 70 percent of what he taught in these videos. He had been working for Chicago Title doing signings for 10 years and knew his documents. At the Columbia Center I watched as client after client came in and he went through the stack of documents with them. Once he was in a desperate rush and I witnessed him trying to rush a client who was steadfast in reading every word of ever page of every document. A tough situation for any notary in a hurry.

At the end of the first day I did my first loan signing. It went well. I went home to study my notes, review the videos and practice the script I would state for each document. It was hard at first to quickly read the document heading and instantly produce my script smoothly verbally.

I came in the next day after heavy studying. I asked my training when I would be on my own. He said when I thought I was ready. I sat down for the next signing while he watched. I was going to hit this one out of the ball park. The client sat down and sat across from me. A plexi-glass plate separated us since we were in the midst of the pandemic. I started the signing with the settlement statement as usual. Then things fell apart. I took one look at the form and my mind went blank. Desperate, I stumbled through each document confused and dismayed that the script I had studied so hard for alluded me. Was this the tax consent form or the escrow account disclosure. I took one look at the document and drew a blank.

When the signing was over I stood up and faced my trainer. I know my face was ashen and demoralized. He took one look at me, without hesitation, he smiled and said, “I told you you could do it.”

That was my last training session, a day and a half with about three actual practice signings with my trainer. On July 1, 2020 I performed my first loan signing session out in the field at a large 2-story home in an upscale neighborhood. I hid my nerves and went forward knowing that I must get through this signing. It went well except that a document either appeared twice as a duplicate or I mentioned it twice by mis-stating a similar document. In any case, it appeared he was signing the same document twice. He was a big guy and a bit gruff, “I’m signing this one again?” he stated. I nodded assuredly and dodged the bullet. I’ll never forget entering the house, the man and his comment, and leaving the house. The first three years of loan signing I would do exactly 1,000 signing on my anniversary of July 1; a strange coincidence and remarkable consistency. One thousand in 2020/2021, one thousand in 2021/2022, and one thousand in 2022/2023. In 2024 I fell about 150 short. I continue to average 20 signings a week. Lately, I’m no longer doing nights, weekends, and I’m taking most Fridays off.