I heard Mark Twain picked cotton, captained a riverboat, and failed at gold mining before becoming a full time writer. The only thing I've picked recently is my nose and my ex-wife says I'm not even good at that, but I have had some rather spectacular failures. I spray painted trucks for a spell and inhaled a fair bit of overspray, which I account for the oddness of my thinking. I also swallowed more than a few gallons of fish piss cleaning aquariums for a pet wholesaler (I got the siphon going by sucking on a hose). I'll do the math for you - I cleaned 100 tanks a week for a year and failed to get the damn hose out of my mouth about every tenth time. That means I gargled with over 500 mouthfuls of fish poop during my career - enough to make anyone a little kooky. But it sure made my hair grow. Timing was never my strong suit, so I never should have tried playing the stock market, because what little money I had was lost there. After that, I guess I got a little lost too. That was a while ago. Now I write some and just try to keep high and dry while I captain my cosmic riverboat up the big river. I'd be happy if you came aboard for a visit.