Chapter 1

Roger Boring walked slowly up Grant Street looking into the shop windows showcasing the Chinese goods that the tourists loved to buy. Grant Street is the main street for the millions of tourists that visit San Francisco's Chinatown each year. It has the typical faux Chinese architecture found in China towns across the United States. The shop windows display the Chinese knick-knacks that tourists love, Chinese foods, herbal cures, Oriental styled clothes and more Chinese Dim Sum restaurants than is required for the area. Most tourists don't realize or don't care that these buildings were built many years ago and little thought was paid to make the buildings earthquake proof. Chinatown could be a dangerous place to be if a large earthquake occurred.

It was only 7 o'clock in the morning so the tourists weren't out yet and the Chinese shopkeepers were setting up for the day's business Much of the merchandise was being put on the sidewalks in front of the shops in the hope of luring the tourists into the shop for the higher priced wares. As he passed a Chinese bakery, Roger stopped and stared at the baked goods being lined up by the young Chinese woman who kept looking at him as if he was going to stick his hand through the glass and steal the lotus rolls she was lining up.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. A Chinese man stood at the entrance to the bake shop. The man had on a jacket that was much too heavy for this day. The morning chill had not yet gone away but Roger was comfortable wearing just his light sweater. The man looked down Grant Street as if he was expecting someone. Once, when the man's eyes caught Roger looking at him, Roger thought that he detected fear in the man's eyes. The hell with him Roger thought; he's probably just some junkie or wino waiting for some day old freebies from the bakery.

Roger's mind began to wander. It was definitely not a good day for him. Hell, it had not even been a good year or even two years. Roger and his girl friend had decided to call it quits last night. Last night was the latest in what was turning out to be a routine occurrence. One or the other of them would say something that they thought was an innocent remark and then it would escalate. Basically the problem was money and the arguments always revolved around money; rather the lack of money. Since the start-up had gone under, Roger had picked up a few jobs here and there but it was never enough to cover the bills. They began to rely more and more on Ann's waitressing money to make the rent with a little left over for food. Often Ann would bring home food from the restaurant that someone had ordered but didn't eat for some reason or food that the cook had fixed by mistake. Roger suspected that the cook sometimes made a mistake on purpose so that Ann would have something to take home.

Last night had started out tense. Roger had stopped with one of his friends and they had a beer. The friend bought the beer because Roger had less than a dollar on him. Ann smelled the beer on his breathe as soon as he walked in and she blew up. Roger never got the chance to tell her that someone else had bought the beer. She got up from the table and shouted at him that he had better get a job because she was tired of supporting him. Roger let his testosterone get the better of him and said a few things he didn't really mean. The fight grew until Ann rushed into the bedroom, yelling at him that she had had it and that she was moving out, and locked the bedroom door. Roger heard her crying all night. He didn't get to sleep all night and, in the morning, took a shower and got out of the apartment before the sun came up. Roger knew that it was no sense trying to talk Ann out of it; it had been over between them for a long time.

Roger and two of his friends from Stanford had programmed a search engine that was far beyond what was being offered anywhere at the time. They were aware of other search engines being developed at Stanford but, as many young entrepreneurs do, they thought that theirs was the best and that the world would come beating a path to their door. Roger borrowed two hundred thousand dollars from his parents and the other partners did the same. A venture capital firm put up an additional five hundred thousand dollars. Their business plan had their revenue coming from subscriptions. They introduced their search engine on a subscription basis with generally good reviews from the computer magazines. A week later Google released their search engine for free with the revenues coming from ads. Google became the darling of the computer magazines.

The business never really got off of the ground and Roger's partners left before the year was up. Roger, as so many entrepreneurs do, tried to hang on and save the failing company but there was really nothing there to save. After the search engine was eclipsed by Google, Roger started taking jobs as a consultant and as a contract programmer. He finally had to close the doors of the company three years after it opened. His parents and all of the investors had lost everything.

There were jobs to be had in the area but Roger couldn't shake the black cloud of failure that hung over him. He got it in his mind that no one wanted a failure and he knew that interviewers could see that he was down and was having trouble getting back up. After a year he concentrated on trying to make a living repairing computers and doing a little programming but the money was sporadic at best. He had been working for three years now off and on at his, sometime and sporadic, career.