At least I'm not hauling nitroglycerine!

Most of you reading this may not remember (or even have seen, except on TV-Land) the show Little House on the Prairie, but for those of you that do, there were several episodes where Pa Ingalls had to take on additional work to make ends meet on the farm. Pa had to do that a lot, going away for months at a time doing all sorts of jobs. Caroline and the kids would wait for him to return, and just when it looked like he was never coming back, he would come home and all would be well. In this particular episode, he and Mr. Edwards had to haul nitroglycerine to a mine quite a ways from their home. The trip was dangerous under normal conditions and even more so with the explosives.

I tell my family and friends when they ask how I am these days, "Well, at least I'm not hauling nitroglycerine!"

I am one of the many "21st Century Pa Ingalls" in the global market. And this is my story (my humble apologies to Charles Dickens), "A Tale of Two Cities..." In this case the cities are Raleigh, NC, my home, and Troy, MI, my job. Why would I deliberately put myself 750 miles from those I love most? Aaah, now we have the beginnings of the story.

It all started with some investors, a bubble economy, and really bad timing...oh, and did I mention, this was not 2009. No, this story started a little farther back. It all started September 14, 2001, 3 days after one of the darkest days in US History. No bailouts, no forgiveness, just an economic nightmare that for some of us has taken almost a decade from which to recover.

- Ken