Chapter 1

I guess before I get to the heart of this story I'd better tell you a little bit about how I got in this mess. I had no intention of being the caregiver for a teenager; Hell, I'm only thirty-five myself. I still sometimes wonder just what happened.

My name is Tom Orson and I am one of those childhood prodigies that never had to study in school and I could pick up anything even remotely related to computers just by reading about it and then playing around with the computer for a while. When I was in my early teens I would scout the dumpsters around the computer stores and the big box electronic stores for old computers. I would mix and match parts until I had a working computer. I made a ton of money, at least for a kid, doing that. I skipped seventh grade so I graduated high school when I was seventeen. I took computer science in college and finished in three years. When I was sending out resumes I found that many HR people refused to believe that a twenty year old kid had a degree in computer science. I finally took a job that I was way overqualified for at a salary that was a little better than working at some burger joint.

I went back to college in the evenings and took some business courses and then went for my MBA. It was a breeze. Most of the stuff was just common sense anyway. All of my friends asked me why I wanted a computer science degree and an MBA. To tell you the truth, I don't know. I've always had a natural affinity for computers and business fascinated me.

I landed a job at AOL. Since I was a little bit older then, they assumed that my computer science degree wasn't a fluke and that maybe I did know something about computers. As soon as they saw my grades I was hired. I didn't even have to mention my MBA. At the time AOL was flying high and it was the internet company to work for. The salaries were high and they were always giving stocks and options as bonuses. Someone recognized that I was pretty good on computers and I was given pretty much free rein to do whatever I wanted. A lot of what you see when you log on to AOL is stuff that I worked up.

After I had worked at AOL for about eight years I happened to look at my stocks and the options that I had and was shocked to find that I was worth a little over ten million dollars. God bless AOL; at least then.

One morning I heard a big hub-bub outside of my office and I poked my head out the door to see what was going on. The whole office was abuzz. AOL and Time-Warner were merging into a huge media company that would turn the media industry on its head. There were people in the company taking out mortgages on their homes to buy more AOL stock. People were walking around the office saying that AOL was going to absorb Time-Warner and it was soon be the AOL Corporation. I closed my door and started to work on the project that I had started a few days before. My mind kept wandering. Something just didn't sound right. AOL and Time Warner... why? Where is the synergy in a deal like that? I logged off of the project and logged onto the Internet. I pulled up everything I could find about Time-Warner. The Internet is a wonderful thing and holds much more information than some people want you to know. I wound up spending five days pulling up information about Time-Warner. I didn't print anything out; I just sent it to my home computer. After I felt that I had all of the information that was pertinent to this merger, I pulled up everything that I could about AOL. I sent this to my home computer also. By the way, my home computer has five hard drives.

I took a week of my vacation and went home to digest everything that I had learned about the two companies. What I found was that the fit just wasn't there. It was going to be a battle for the front office and the new AOL/Time-Warner was going to suffer; at least the shareholders were going to suffer. I felt that Ted Turner was going to be the wild card. I really wasn't sure how he was going to play out his hand in this merger. He had a lot to lose; he had thrown in with Time-Warner a few years before and he was making it known that he wasn't too sure about this merger.

I went in Monday morning and resigned; effective in two weeks. I exercised all of my options and was just about to call a stock broker when my supervisor came into my office. He asked me to sell him my stock. He felt that if I sold it to him in a private sale that it wouldn't affect the share prices on the stock market and he wanted to buy more before the price went up. Naturally, I agreed. Hell, I saved the broker's commission and the sale was quick. I had the money in my bank account the next day and my supervisor made about five percent on the stock that day.

I sat in my office and tried to work on my project. Honest, I really did. My mind just wasn't thinking about AOL that day. I began to think about the rest of my life. Now I'm not the type of guy that thinks that to be somebody you have to drive a Ferrari. I am quite content having just enough to make my life comfortable. Lord knows how long I was a millionaire before I realized it. The fact that I was a millionaire just meant that I didn't have to worry about money anymore.

What did I say... I don't have to worry about money anymore? As I said; I have an MBA and I know a little bit about investing and how to make money work for you. Ten million dollars is more than most people make in a life time. The way that I lived, there was almost no way that I would outlive those ten million dollars. I figured that I could support myself by trading stocks.

Just then AOL made a terrible mistake. The project manager that was in charge of making sure everybody did their job on the particular project that they were working on stuck his head in my office. He was apparently pissed that I was quitting. He said to try and finish the project before my last day. There was a nasty tone to what he said.

I looked at the door after he slammed it shut and then I stood up and walked out of the building and I've never been back to that building since that day. I received several phone calls, and a registered letter, saying that if I didn't come back and finish that project that I would never get a favorable job recommendation from them. Oh well.

Looking back at what AOL/Time-Warner has done since the merger, I guess that I got out at the right time. Wall Street was not too happy with the merger from the start and the merger never blended the companies together like everyone thought they would.

But enough about AOL, I took my money and decided to build a home for my self. My family had vacationed in the Appalachians several summers and I had always loved the ruggedness of the area. I decided that I had enough of the Maryland-D.C.-Virginia area where a ten minute drive could take anywhere from ten minutes to four hours. The area was getting to be elbow to elbow people. Although I had always lived in an apartment ever since I got out of college; I have always been fascinated with the back to the land movement. I had subscribed to Mother Earth News, Home Power and Backwoods Home for years. Now that I had the money I decided to build an ecologically sound home. After looking around at the available property in the part of the Appalachians that I liked I decided that a home dug into the side of a mountain was the best type of home for the area. It wound up being totally dug into the side of the mountain. Only the front of the underground home, which is all glass and facing south, is visible above ground. The home sits three hundred feet from the state road but most people drive right by and don't even know that it's there.

Anyone that thinks they can build an ecologically efficient home for cheap is out of their mind. I found out quick that it costs at least twice as much as a normal home. The top of the home, which is covered by dirt naturally, holds an array of solar PV cells costing about fifty thousand for the complete setup, The well had to be dug extra deep because of the mountains. I found that a septic system would be out of the question because of the rocky terrain so I had to put in a gray water filtration system-it cost big bucks. The toilets in the two bathrooms had to be composting toilets.