Here I was, after years of working like a dog, and I'm filing in Flint Bankruptcy. It is a hard thing for your ego to endure.  Especially because I had worked so hard not to ever be in this kind of position.  I had gone to school and studied, I had made investments, I had worked long and hard a job that I tolerated, and to end up this way takes a lot out of me.  I could blame others, or the economy, but the fact is, I did this myself.  I wasn't on guard enough, not careful enough.  I had not been watching the signs in the economy, like I had when I was younger.  I had gotten sloppy.  I had purchased a number of houses, and rented them and then started rehabbing other ones.  Plus I worked at my job.  I had the world by the tail.  I was going places.  I was set — so I thought.  Suddenly I couldn't find renters for the houses, and got behind in the loans.  Then I couldn't sell the houses I was rehabbing.  I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, but I was managing to keep afloat, until I lost my job.  I had criticized the local advertising campaign for the hotel, which featured a kind of home town hero, Michael Moore.  We had catered mostly to business visitors a the hotel, but with the auto industry and after market industry doing poorly, we had to branch out to vacationers.