It all began NOT in a stable…
I was born at St. Joseph’s Catholic hospital in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday, January 27, 1959. Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 and I am one of them. I was raised in no particular religion or faith or denomination. My mother was a non-practicing Catholic. My father told my mom that he did not wish for me to be baptized into any particular faith and that I should decide when I was old enough. That is precisely what I did.
When I was 12 we lived in Orange County California (near Disneyland) for a time. Almost every single day we would meet born-again evangelical Christians that would ‘witness’ (tell about their life-changing conversion to ‘true’ Christianity ) to my mother. Most were young and had given up drugs and wild negative lifestyles. I listened to their words. We were literally living in the midst and middle of the “Jesus Revolution.”
Perhaps a year later in Northern California, in Burlingame, I asked the Lord Jesus into my heart. I was 13 years old. I immediately felt relief and happiness from guilt. Some of the guilt was from masturbation. I wish I had known that was a natural thing and part of growing up and becoming a man.
Near Christmas that year we met a youth group from a small storefront church in Redwood City singing at an outdoor shopping mall in San Mateo. They invited us to their little church at 51 James Avenue in Redwood City (torn down and now a mall). It was a small Pentecostal Church with an older woman Pastor. She was married and had a daughter a little older than me I think.
I attended their church several times. They told me that after becoming a Christian I could ask the Holy Spirit to come into me. They took me to a back room and had me lay on a table. Some elders and deacons surrounded me and laid their hands on me and began praying and then commanding in the name of Jesus that any evil spirits that were inside of me to leave (This was the time when many Charismatic and Pentecostal churches believed in deliverance ministries. They saw demons everywhere in people. Human desires like lust were called demons of lust. Even Christians could somehow be infected by these viruses, er I mean demons.) They asked that the Lord would give me the Holy Spirit. They were ‘praying in tongues’ then I started praying in tongues. No, they did not teach me to pray in tongues. No, they did not tell me to make the same sounds, syllables and words that they were speaking/praying. How did I feel? Probably a little overwhelmed, I think.
My mother would not attend this church. Probably being raised Catholic she did not trust little cult-like Protestant Churches even though she once took me to a Jewish Synagogue in Los Angeles which I remember had a unique huge movable wall for dividing the room.
One day my mother was outside the little storefront church in Redwood church waiting for the service to end (she would not come inside with me) and watched through the edge of the curtains at the congregation (and me) as we all appeared to be in rapt silence and obedience as the lady pastor preached. That was it! She forbade me to attend anymore and would not bring me back. She feared it was a cult or that something was wrong in the way the people followed this lady. There may have been a little bit of truth to her concern as I once asked a member how many other churches in the world believed like this one. The response was only 10 in the whole world. Hmmm, God’s truth did not seem to go far in the world!
I found out that some years later the church moved up to the gold country of California and the female pastor pastored the church for many years. Did not see any negatives recorded for the church or pastor.
For more than half of high school I was pretty religious and attended a small independent Pentecostal church in Sunnyvale, California named Calvary Gospel Temple. I wanted to be baptized in this church in their small baptistery but moments before my mother said no and I was not!
My life conditions changed and I moved in with a Christian Evangelical family and they started attending this same Pentecostal church. I later changed to attending a nice independent evangelical church in Cupertino. Where I met my high school (sweetheart and future wife #1). We attended the same high school and became inseparable and of course my relationship to religion and God waned.
After I had graduated and was 19 and just after my girlfriend turned 18 we ran away and eloped. On the way up to Nevada we stopped and prayed about whether we were doing the right thing. Obviously we had a lot of doubts. After praying we both decided the answer from above was a definite NO. And yet we continued our drive since we somehow thought that we could not have sexual vaginal intercourse until after God saw that marriage certificate paper. This is what our church had taught us.
Our marriage lasted 7 years. I don’t remember us attending any church. We were too embarrassed to return to our former church where we had met. The major problem was that she wanted to have a baby and I did not. Towards the end she thought she might be pregnant. I was spooked out. When she did the test and it was negative I was elated while she was very disappointed. I was incredibly selfish, inconsiderate and immature. Our communication with each other was not very good at this point.
Update to my lost contacts in February of 2022
I sent this out to people in 2021 that I had lost contact with and those that I had just got reconnected back with (with some security changes):
Let’s see where do I start?
I worked at AMD for 8 years as a Thin Films Associate Engineer and Cypress Semiconductor for 4 years as an Etch Process Engineer. I worked at Nanometrics for a total of 16 years until 2009. I was an Applications Engineer, Sr. Applications Engineer, Country Manager for the United Kingdom, Tabletop Metrology Product Manager, Stand Alone Product Manager and Inside Sales Manager.
Sheryl and I had 4 kids and got divorced in 2006 after being married for 20 years. They are now 22, 28, 33, and 35 years old. Only one is married and I have three grand dogs, no grandkids. My oldest daughter at 33 just got her BS in Radiology. She works at a Hospital in Northern California. My oldest son has a cyber security company. My youngest son was in the army for 4 years and would not reenlist. He is working on his Mechanical Engineering degree while working full time in Silicon Valley. In the army he was a mechanic for tanks and humvees. I did not approve of him joining the army but was willing to support his joining the Airforce or Navy. But I assume the government is paying for his education so that is good. I must unfortunately report that only my oldest daughter is the only one of my 4 children that communicates with me, and even that is limited. 
Robyn and I got remarried in 2010 out in Monterey Bay on a whale watching boat which we rented. We had a small wedding of ~12 people. We moved to Las Vegas, Nevada later that year.
Living in Las Vegas was an interesting experience! I worked as a Sales Application Manager for a company that sold LED Drivers for professional lighting manufacturers such as Philips, Lumenpulse, etc. I worked for 7 months at New York Life insurance company. I have had a NYL policy since 1987. They are a great company but I am not a salesperson and it was not a technical job. My last job was working for Verizon Wireless at a large regional call center providing customers with customer support and technical support. They were a good company. Only two of us from our 8 week training eventually survived. I worked there for 15 months until we left Vegas due to Covid.
When Covid became bad in early 2020 (I am diabetic, have asthma, allergies, have had pneumonia twice in my life, have A+ blood, and have controlled high blood pressure and I do NOT want to get Covid) I was thinking of leaving Vegas but not sure where to go. Robyn worked at a Walgreens on the strip for 9 years located between two large resorts. It was usually the most profitable Walgreens in the world for each week. People from all over the world came in. Many coughed and were sick and this was the situation before Covid! Robyn would often catch colds from the customers. I figured Robyn would catch Covid and then I would catch it from her but I would not survive. I had a VERY strong feeling about this! A certainty. Unexpectedly Robyn’s mom called us from her cabin in very rural Montana (not knowing my comorbidities) and told us she felt we were not safe and asked us if we wanted to come up and stay with her. We decided to do this and drove to Montana and stayed there for 3+ months. Shortly after we left Las Vegas, both our places of business were shut-down because of Covid. One of Robyn’s coworkers would die from Covid. No one at the Verizon center did but they were mostly younger healthy people. I was one of their oldest employees.
We decided to not return to Vegas because of their Covid rates (not knowing how case rates in future would fluctuate!) We decided to consider moving to Tucson or Roswell based on cost of living, Covid rates, temperatures, climate, etc. We also spent a couple of months in Silver City (the destination city in the great comedy movie RAT RACE), New Mexico. As soon as we drove away from Montana our closest city to the cabin, Miles City, started to have their Covid cases go up. Tucson had bad rates at the time. Roswell only had 2 deaths from Covid. Eventually we moved to Roswell. At least they had an active airport and of course the little aliens, which turned out to be great neighbors. They are literally out-of-this-world!
We live in a senior mobile home park. It was started in 1985 (and is the best in town!) We bought a new manufactured home that was built in 2020 by Solitaire. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It is all electric with central AC and heating. It was delivered and installed in our park. We moved in on August 28, 2020. We then had a deck, porch, carport and small fence around the backyard custom built.
I retired at the end of January in 2021 when I turned 62. Since retiring, I have taken online courses in Private Pilot ground, Instrument Pilot ground school, and a few Python programming courses. I have become busy. Robyn has taken a class in Microsoft Excel. She is also a great writer. She has now published four books on Amazon. Check them out. They are all short stories. A little spooky, a little like Twilight Zone.
When it is safe to do so, she will return to work in the secretarial/clerical field. We hope her daily physical exercises for her knee continue to help her. Time will tell. Her knee was injured when she was 15. Over the years it has been responsible for a lot of lost time at work.
Robyn turned 44 in December and I just turned 63 in January. We are fully vaxxed and boosted with Moderna x2!
A few months ago a space right across from us opened up (very unusual) and Robyn’s mom bought a new home manufactured in 2021 and is the same size as our home but with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths and it was installed. She still has her cabin and 20 acres in Montana and will visit it each summer but stay in Roswell in the winters. Eventually she will stay full time in Roswell. She is 72 and also fully vaxxed and boosted with Moderna.
I have become active on the new social platform Clubhouse. I participate in rooms where doctors, nurses, scientists, and front-line medical personnel are on stage answering peoples questions about Covid and vaccination. They do this after their work hours and do not get paid for this. These doctors have different specialties and do not work for any one employer and none of them work for pharmaceutical companies.
Now please read our attached 2021 Christmas Card Update we sent out in December. We send these out usually every year. It is attached.
Post Christmas 2021 Update
1) Robyn continues to do her exercises for her knee everyday. She feels like her knee situation has improved. She is often accompanying our dog Chase and I for our daily walks without any problems thus far. The proof will be when she starts working again.
2) Her 3rd book published. Here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Robyn+Jipp&i=stripbooks&crid=2QI3KDT1RRTFI&sprefix=robyn+jipp%2Cstripbooks%2C131&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
3) I will not be rejoining the workforce for now but I am working on a project for designing some banners for a company for their booth at a trade show in the near future.
4) 19 year old Zara Rutherford did make it back to Belgium to where she started. She is the youngest woman to solo navigate the world by air: https://fb.watch/a-0_9_BedM/
My personal pictures of Zara in Albuquerque: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWAHdc5
My collection of pictures of Zara completing her journey: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzzka3
Sooooooo….
WARNING!! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! TRIGGER ALERT!!
***IF*** you are a member of the Trump CULT, think Trump was a good president, or you think the January 6 attack on the US Capitol was “legitimate political discourse” ***OR*** you are an anti-vaxxer, someone that selectively trusts science, a conspiracist, or someone that only watches Fox News or Newsmax or even worse–then we will have a problem communicating since our ethics, values, understanding of science, understanding of statistics, thirst for truth and understanding of democratic ideals are on a different wavelength. But I am willing to educate/debate you by providing FACTS and TRUTH on these subjects.
Please tell me about what has happened in your journeys around our star. Tell me about your family, your life, your work, what you do each day?, your hobbies?, your beliefs?, your goals for the rest of your life?, etc.
Stay vigilant and safe!
-Shawn
My introduction to a group Of English learners in June of 2023
My name is Shawn Jipp. I was an engineer in semiconductor fabrication (making computer chips) in Silicon Valley in Northern California. I worked at Advanced Micro Devices for 8 years and at Cypress Semiconductor for 4 years. I then became an Applications Engineer and worked at a company called Nanometrics for 16 years in Milpitas, California. During my time there, I got to travel around the world and have been to 14 countries. I held different titles while at Nanometrics such as Applications Engineer, Senior Applications Engineer, UK Country Manager, Tabletop Product Manager, Stand Alone Product Manager, and Inside Sales Manager. After the 2008-2009 financial downturn happened, and after our company was taken over by another, I decided to move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2010 and find a different job/career due to the geographical area. I became a Sales Applications Manager in the commercial LED Lighting industry, sold life insurance and even drove for Lyft (competitor to Uber.) My wife and I moved to Roswell, NM in 2020 and I retired in 2021. I am working on a book of my memoirs and my spiritual journey through life. It is presently in website form and will be converted to a book in a few months. It is a work in progress, but if you wish to check it out go here: https://outsideoftime.space
In high school I took Spanish class for 2 years. After high school I took an additional 6 months of private instruction from a person from Argentina in anticipation of me going on a ‘mission’ to help with a Catholic Charismatic community in Mexico City. I never went on that trip and after many years forgot almost all of my Spanish.
I have wanted to become fluent in Spanish but never seemed to have the time. Right before the pandemic, I made some online friends in Argentina, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela and helped them with their English. We communicate in English and use some Spanish.
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