There's startup, and then there's start up. There's bootstrap, and then there's boot strap! This is about bootstrapping a startup.

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If you're a family person this will make sense to you. So when I set about sorting out the divorce what I saw was this: my little blonde wife. X-wife. In a big old house on the hill with 5 kids, 3 cats, 2 dogs, 1 big horse, 1 little pit pony, a nasty old goat that was somehow always sneaking into the livingroom to eat books, a bunch of chickens, a few hens ... 3 rigs, for the Canada Post contract ... a fine old house overlooking apple trees and a running brook, with a great view of the Bras d'Or Lakes ... and precious little chance of income.
I don't know if you're familiar with Cape Breton, but a part-time job in the Graham Bell Museum for the summer was a major score. A $300 week doing silviculture or cutting pulp in wet snow and freezing rain was a good week.
Hi-tech? I was qualified enough to land a few shifts now and again as MCR tech at CBC Radio. But that sort of thing was rare. Thin pickin's. So "child support" really didn't sort things.

I had to leave everything except a couple of suit cases of clothes and a few books. One of them goat nibbled.

One big hi-tech job (tech_docs for avionics R&D) got me out of debt enough for me to move to Halifax and start contracting. That got me through the 90s well enough fitted out so I could re-adjust: a four year degree in clinical cognitive psychology was just the ticket.

In 3rd year:
Enter three crack-heads ... home invasion ... violence ... safe escape from the room ... fall to the side-walk.
Exit feet. Exit university. Exit finances.

End of the play? Let's call it the start of the third act!

After recovering I straightened out my affairs ... fully 20yrs in Nova Scotia ... and came back home. With heh a couple of suitcases full of clothes and a few books. None of them goat nibbled.

:-)

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