Prologue

I was young once, and when I was young I joking told my best friend that I hoped to wake up from a drunken stupor, in my mid-thirties, and say, "Whoa, that was one hell of a ride." We had a good laugh about that one. It wasn't so funny when it came true, albeit a few years earlier than I had predicted, and I didn't think it was one hell of a ride, I only thought it was hell....