I had a conversation with a farm kid the other day. He an I own adjoining property and we are working together to pipe my irrigation water under the driveway he was building. It turns out that last year he blew a fortune to get his helicopter private license. His goal was to be a professional but he quit at the private.

He went on to tell me that his instructor one day laid out for him the next ten years of his life as a pilot. He told him that if he was "lucky" he would instruct for a few years then move to the south to fly for the oil rigs and eventually be able to move on to something else. All the while living in tents and making low wages.

He did not know my background as an airline pilot when I asked him "why he decided to quit". He then told me that he could not understand why he would go through all that to make such miserable wages when he could stay home and continue to split land and make far more money while doing much less. It just did not make sense to him.

Besides all that he told me that he still needed another 50 to 80K or so to finish. Why he could "buy another 20 acres with that", he said.

SkyHigh