Excerpt: She left me for an outlaw biker

I had always feared that this part of my history would catch up with me. In my youth, being badly advised, and with the wrong kind of friends to influence me, I have found myself caught up in the wrong racket, and ended up in University. I got no time off for good behaviour, and four years later found myself free on street with a degree in electronic engineering. I found a half-way house at a fairly good company, but I didn't keep to the straight and narrow, and found myself behind the ivy for another year or two, and I completed a master's degree in semiconductor electronics.

Then the bosses found me, and with their help, and regularly going to the meetings, I've gone straight. I have not been inside an academic library for years now, and although I have had to solder because of the odd job I was sent on, I never inhaled the smoke. No, I've been good and clean.

So far nobody here has held my past against me, and for that I will be forever grateful. But now it was time for reckoning, it seemed.