I worked as a city planner for several municipalities: The City of New York (Bronx Office of City Planning); City of West Hollywood (California), Department of Transportation, the City of Santa Monica (California), Department of Transportation, and the City of Glendale (California), Department of Urban Planning.
Eventually, I changed course to design and manage litigation discovery databases for Gibson Dunn and other law firms. It paid well and was very engaging.
For a while, up until recently, I provided full-time care for my aging parents, may they rest in peace. Placing my career on the back-burner came quite easily to me. While care-giving, I discovered the joys of Linux, the zen of vim, and I retooled and super-charged my computer skills.