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a late night class, only to find I needed to find my daughter.

The more I considered this, the more determined I

was to be home. It was with great resolve, and much

trepidation about our finances, that I submitted my

resignation from the evening school, not knowing quite

how we would make ends meet. I did know that no job

was as important to me as my daughter.

Making ends meet was a challenge. My wife did

everything she could to stretch our income, and I was able

to pick up some contract work programming for a

government contractor. I worked from home, on the most

part, only having to meet with the rest of the programming

team one day every other month. But the work wasn’t

steady, and we were constantly concerned whether we

could pay our bills.

Then came an unexpected opportunity. It was the

time of the dot-com boom, and many people in Information

Technology were making millions. My skills put me in a

wonderful position to take full advantage of the new

Internet era. An up-and-coming company offered me a

lucrative job with huge benefits. With the stock options

alone I would likely be a multi-millionaire within a couple

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