Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew Read Free

in life was to commute to work, say hi to Sally the secretary, sit in a cubicle, and pretend to be happy for eight to ten hours a day just for the security of a fixed income. I guess you could say my mentality was like Peter from Office Space (although I would’ve loved to work with Milton and steal his red stapler). There was no risk, no edge-of-your-seat leap of faith into the unknown, no joie de vivre . It just wasn’t me.
    As you can imagine, dropping out of college was an instant sore spot with my father, especially after such a promising high school career. He couldn’t understand my desire to do something that at least had the potential to be dangerous. I moved out, trying to find what I was looking for. I didn’t.
    Instead, I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, with my mother and stepfather trying to find . . . something. I got a job as a mobile DJ MC’ing a lot of weddings, and although I didn’t really care for the job, I recognized that it was an important day in many people’s lives, so I took it seriously. Plus, I loved music too much to turn it down (though to this day I can’t listen to “Celebration” without feeling nauseous). Music has always been a powerful influence in my life, and I have earbuds permanently embedded in my skull to prove it.
    In Vegas I tried college again (this time Community). I did well, but found nothing but restlessness when I was accepted at UNLV. Reason told me I needed to get a degree and be a model citizen, but ambition always got the better of me.

    I decided to move back to Detroit, and that’s when things got dangerous. 1998–2002 were the roughest years of my life. I was trying to figure out who I was and I held lots of crappy jobs, including selling urinal screens and sanitary services, being a valet, party host, landscaper, and DJ again. I was just waiting for something to happen and until it did, I focused on physical challenges.
    It was during this time that I got hooked on mixed martial arts. Some people know it as cage fighting or ultimate fighting, and many are quick to label it as brutality. To me it’s the ultimate contest of skill waged by men who respect each other more than in any other sport. I traveled with my friend Dave Vitkay to many MMA tournaments, and I soon started training on my own. For the record, if I ever have to defend myself, I prefer to take a fight to the ground and pound my enemy out. It’s a natural fit for me.
    The other natural fit in my life was weight lifting. I was always a skinny kid, but for my fifteenth birthday I got a set of push up bars and went crazy on them. I did a hundred push-ups a day and I suddenly started getting a chest. I started noticing that this skinny kid was getting stronger and was building confidence. Even my friends in Detroit noticed my physical gains. I weighed 175 pounds but could lift more than my 225-pound friends. Physical strength fueled me. All my life I had been suffering from panic and anxiety disorder, and my physical activity helped me battle them.
    But despite these releases in my life, things were still going downhill. My friends weren’t problem starters, but we always seemed to end up in trouble and fights. I’ve never started a fight in my life, and in fact I don’t like violence, but trouble always seemed to find us. It wore me down, and my train was completely off the tracks and ready to plummet over the cliff. For over a year I’d been working at an AT&T Wireless store selling cell phones (I still can’t believe I stuck out a retail job that long) and just wasn’t happy. I couldn’t find myself and it was the darkest point in my life.
    Suddenly, my mother enrolled me in the Motion Picture Institute of Michigan. Mom understood me. She could see that I needed something more. I fell in love with the art of documentary filmmaking and graduated with honors in an elite class. I went completely overboard with my final project, which was supposed to be a two-minute film that I turned into a