Cassie Fleming:  

Life I finished my BA at SUNY Albany in December of 1998 – major in Psychology, minor in Russian. I had been managing the men’s Ice Hockey team, and was living with 3 of them. I got a temp job with a commercial mortgage brokerage in February of 1999, and moved out of the ever-rowdier hockey house in May. I got my first apartment on my own, and continued to work at this commercial brokerage about 60 hours a week until May, 2000, when I went on vacation to Seattle. I gave notice 2 days after getting back to work, and two weeks after that, was in a van with my parents (Dad insisted on driving out there…) on I-90 headed west. I got an apartment in Queen Anne (a neighborhood in Seattle, near the Seattle Center) and had a couple of crappy jobs between June of 2000 and February 2001. I finally got a tolerable job at a commercial insurance agency in February, In July 2000, I resumed doing crew, coxing for Lake Union Crew. I did that until July or August of 2002, then decided that I needed to move on. I still miss it, but I don’t miss almost getting hit by barges on the ship canal at 5 am. My grandmother became very ill in 2002, and my parents moved her up to be closer for a while around Thanksgiving, and I came home for the first time in a little over a year, just in time – she died in January. I inherited some money and decided that I real...Expand for more