RNG

I wasted my youth going to school. I ended up with a Ph.D. in chemistry, but unfortunately graduated about 4 months after the US pulled out of Viet Nam and suspended the space-race. So the western world's R&D died and I was virtually unemployable. After two years as a post-doctoral fellow (less wages but more status than welfare) I started applying for jobs without any restriction, and the first one to offer me something that wasn't a total joke was an oilfield service company.

Then through the years I advanced myself to the point where I was functioning as an engineer. I did lots of neat stuff. I drilled the first multi-lateral horizontal coalbed methane wells in Canada. I worked on some of the first steam thermal recovery schemes. I was involved in the first oxygen fireflood recovery pilot. All great stuff.

Health issues forced me to greatly curtail my work, and forced me to move to a warmer climate, and since at my age I couldn't afford health insurance, it was greater Vancouver rather than Arizona for me.

The one good thing about it is that now I have the time to pursue my passion for politics.