Dot com stuff was great. In my case, lasted til near the end of 2002 (but hey, look at all the time now I have to fly!
) and the company is still going. They just decided it didn't make sense to keep an office open in one of the most expensive places in the country. I understand, Santa Cruz, is more expensive than podunk Utah, so I can't fault them for that.
I've still got enough $$ left from those days, that I've been living on since Sept 2002, nearly at commercial from 0 time, and enough to finish through CFII and cover living expenses for a couple more years, without even dipping into the stock investments I made in those days (which have done well enough I'm looking at spending $60k or so on buying a plane for myself).
Don't see any bomb in that, and in fact, a lot of the companies over in the valley are starting to hire and build up again. Just not in the insane numbers, and useless building of 5 years ago.
Josh
BTW, I use the Jepp bags that came with the books I bought. The small one and the larger captain one or whatever it is called. Small one for 99% of flying. Big one when I do ground work, need all the Jepp charts, FAR, etc, plus headsets, kneeboards, etc. so it rarely actually goes in the plane with me