I'm glad connections were made by more than one. Thanks. In response to Kendall's question - a valid point - I wrote a big spiel about my own life, then deleted it. I've been relatively lucky. It's like that song, Sinatra used to sing: That's Life. Since, someone mentioned the company, I thought I'd share these stats instead:

In 2006, ExxonMobil made $39.5B (that's billion) in profits.

That breaks down to:
$1,252 per second,
$4.5M per hour,
$108M per day.

While you read this, ExxonMobil made another $15,000! (SL 2.02.07)