I’d like to thank beer-drinking hockey fans for making possible my sabbatical from school in the fall of 1997; your contributions were significant to my young life. My older colleagues deserve some credit for helping build my self-confidence (I was once a timid field mouse).

Because my brother was a Theta Chi, I achieved an honorary frat brother status in my high school days (note: I got Greek life out of my system by the time I arrived as a student at SJSU); my brother also worked at Spaghetti Factory and Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. Therefore, I had some connections to the service industry. In the fall of 1996, I landed the job at the Tied House Brew Pub on San Pedro Square. I made significant cash as a busser, especially off the pre-gaming Sharks fans who regularly flooded that establishment.

I saved up enough money in a year to pay my own way for a 2-month journey to 11 North American cities (early September thru end October 1997; it should be noted that my parents paid for school and half my rent and, with the promise that I’d return to school in Spring 1998, were cool with me taking a semester off). I got promoted to waiter not long after I got back from that journey. And I started saving for my first car.