I am an invalid.  I cannot walk.  My ambulatory choices are crawling like a dog, hopping like a bunny, and crutches.  This is expected to last nine weeks.  It was the right ankle that broke, so I cannot drive - at least, until I can get a “left-foot gas pedal” adaptor for my car, which will take several weeks.

Since the only employment I can ( Read more... )

My five years of Hell continue.  I have no job and no chance of ever getting one.  In June I applied for a position at the Post Office.  It took two months to get through the aptitude test, the security check, and the various scheduling delays.  When they finally granted me an in-person interview, it turned out I never could have done the job, ( Read more... )

My membership card arrived today!  I am now a "card-carrying Liberal".  And I still have my membership card for the Free Software Foundation, so I remain a "card-carrying CommunistAt this month's meeting of the riding association, they voted me onto the board of directors!  Since we're now in the off-season for Canadian elections, becoming a ( Read more... )

I got a telephone call yesterday.  The caller ID said "GoC-GdC".  I know who that is!  That's "Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada".

This is at least the third time they've called me this year.  I did not pick up the phone the previous two times because I did not want to talk to them.  The message on the answering machine asked me to ( Read more... )

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I got only 100% on my citizenship test (because there are no extra-credit questions).  Now I have to wait 1-3 months for the oath-ceremony.

This was a long time ago.  And this was even longer ago.

Now if only I had a Canadian job!  Recently I went to a seminar on SR&ED.  Half the attendees were CEOs at local startups.  I was the only job-seeker ( Read more... )

I didn't do much today.  The wind-chill was nasty all day, but most of the things I was supposed to have done were on the telephone.  One item: I was supposed to call one of the local "Chamber of Commerce" type places to ask if they know of any other Job Fairs like the one they held a month ago.  (They had 55 vendors, I handed out 5 résumés, went ( Read more... )

Suppose you need to convince a client to buy your company’s product, so you ( Read more... )

It was about Emacs!  And stock-trading!  And the people I was speaking to didn't like any of it!  And I sort of knew that would happen before I even started!  I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment, because I keep trying to tell people things I know they don't want to hear.

Anyway, here is a transcript for my talk, which you should definitely ( Read more... )

Yesterday I did something a little different: I attended a meet-up for software developers.  It was sort of like a furry meet-up in that most of the people present were of the feline persuasion and very few of them said anything.  Basically, a few people played "exhibitionist" and showed off their naughty bits software code to the people playing " ( Read more... )