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.