I guess I should post a bit about myself as long as I'm responding to other folks this thread. I'm 43, single no children, and living in Silicon Valley. I've worked in the software biz since getting out of school and in my current position I'm managing a user interface development team at a down, but not quite out dot-com company. Lest you think that Silicon Valley startups are (were) a sure fire recipe for success, Ill be happy to set you straight ;-).
During my time at college (2 stints, 2 degrees), I supported myself selling audio equipment at several mid-fi audio stores in L.A. and Santa Barbara. I'm not sure I can say that sales was an especially good fit for me, but being able to spend that much time with music that I loved was absolute heaven. Very often, when Im looking down the barrel of a high stress, frantic production schedule, I think back on those days with a great deal of fondness.
Over the years, Ive had a number of reasonably modest, nice sounding audio systems to support my love for music. A couple of years ago, thanks to an extraordinarily generous Nasdaq, I was able to manage a full upgrade to my audio system, which not so coincidently, was about the time I started conversing with the great folks here. I enjoy a pretty wide variety of music, which in recent years has included a lot of classical, jazz and folk, and every now and then a bit of good, hard edged rock (I've mellowed a lot with age, but not completely).
Cheers,
Ken
