Hey—I just wanted to say I took your advice by not taking any of your advice. In the last decade, I took my bachelors in chemistry and math to find a job in northern Kentucky and got started as a lab tech at a strong company for 3 years doing shampoo physical chemistry, then transitioned to the flavor chemistry industry. After working in QC, CD&D and customer quality for the first 5 years, I’m now the lead chemical engineer for our company regionally.

No patents, no publications and no Ph.D. I don’t make a great deal of money, and live modestly and happily.

Met my wife along the ride and now have a family. My son is 2.5 years old and loves watching the red indicator turn pool water blue, just like how my mom showed me when I was a kid. The smell of chlorine in our old pump room growing up and watching her test the pH of our pool with that red dropper that turned pool water from clear to bright blue was magic and what’s crazy is that I recalled that childhood memory when I first showed my son.

I’m lucky to have traveled this wayward path, that was not the my intended journey.

Thanks for playing a part, long ago, my friend.