I always find that talking or writing about myself (About Us) is difficult. I’ll begin with my age and then proceed to my education, career, jobs, and current activities.
I am 87 years old, retired, and live in Las Vegas.
My name is Craig W. Michel. I grew up in Pacific Palisades, California. At that time, it was a small community northwest of Los Angeles. My parents owned and both worked in a family restaurant in town. I literally grew up in the kitchen. About 9 months ago, the Pacific Palisades community was devastated by the largest and most expensive fire in the United States. My childhood home, grammar school, church where I was baptized, and the building that housed my parents’ restaurant burned to the ground.
I graduated from high school at 17 and moved to Hawaii with a friend to surf. We both worked on the beach, giving surfing lessons, and earned enough to support ourselves. I returned to California after about a year and got a job as a draftsman at Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica. I got married when I was 19 and had a son at age 20. I returned to school in 1959 as a married student and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, majoring in Electronics. In 1972, I received my Master’s Degree in Engineering Management, which is more like an MBA than an engineering degree.
Upon graduation in 1963, I began working for McDonnell Douglas in Santa Monica. After about five years, I was transferred to a field station in Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, for three years, which changed my life. I became very active in SCUBA diving, primarily deep-water diving on WWII Japanese shipwrecks and one particular German Destroyer, the Prince Eugen, as well as engaging in a lot of sailing after work. I decided I no longer wanted to work in the field of engineering.
Since I had been sailing for most of my life, when I returned to the United States, I left McDonnell Douglas and opened Aloha Yacht Sales, a sailboat dealership and boat brokerage, in Marina del Rey, California. I thought I had found my ideal vocation. I could be outside, sail, and make a comfortable living. It went bankrupt in 1980, when interest rates reached 22%+, and nobody could afford to buy a boat. I then started a new, 35-year career in Commercial Real Estate.
When I retired, I moved to Carmel, California, after living for 15 years in Marin County, North of San Francisco, and 5 years before that in Bellevue, Washington. In 2018, I bought a home on a golf course in a Retirement Community in Summerlin (Las Vegas), Nevada, with the intent to play golf, travel a little, and enjoy the remainder of my years doing things I enjoyed. In 2019, my life changed again. My entire retirement savings and investments in commercial real estate were part of a massive Ponzi Scheme, and I lost everything. I had to start over at age 87.
Fortunately, I found the Performance Blogging System (PBS), much like many of you. I received a phone call introducing me to this wonderful Online Community after expressing interest in earning money online. I couldn’t support myself on Social Security alone and needed some supplemental income. This Group has become one of the best things that has happened to me. Excellent online support is available from the program’s Principal Creator, Rory Ricard, as well as numerous active members. We all support each other in what we call “Paying it Forward.
In September 2025, my wife was admitted into the hospital with a severe lung infection that was affecting her breathing. Then she caught COVID in the hospital and had a second mini-stroke. She ended up spending five weeks in the hospital and another six weeks in a rehabilitation facility. She is home now and unable to walk and requires full-time assistance. Hopefully, with time and physical therapy, she will regain some of her walking and hand coordination.
Christmas is next week.
-Craig Michel