I found a room on Craigslist, put three bags in my car, and moved to Seattle (but in Sheridan, Wyoming, my car died, and I sold it for $450 to a scrapyard), where I had no job waiting. I just wanted to be around tech-forward folks, and Seattle had those in spade, plus great trees and an active volcano. 

The year was 2006.

Having spent my last dollars on a rental car to finish my journey, I needed money ASAP, so I handed out granola samples (you can't make this up) at Whole Foods in Bellevue for three months while I interviewed. Funny enough, when I landed a job at a fast-growing dot com, I could see the Whole Foods from my new desk.

On my recent visit to Seattle, I swung by the Whole Foods because startup folks are, if nothing else, experts at romanticizing the past. A broke granola slinger living with strangers I met on the Internet.

(The granola was really good, though.)