Happy Canada Day!

I love Canada. There's no place in the world I'd rather live and while I've only travelled a little in my life I can safely say we are very lucky people to have the lifestyles we have here. Even the poorest people (that are not on the street) have much more than the lifestyle's and living conditions in some of the far corners of this planet. Be thankful, to your God, for life we have, the freedoms we have, and appreciate the responsibility we have as Canadians.

This is a 3 minute clip of the fireworks at Chincousey Park in Brampton, Ontario:

And some photos I've shared in a Picasa Web Album.

Canada Day at Ching

Is this to code?

Maybe it's just me, but I find this installation to be rather sloppy.

The water heater was replaced today because there was a combustion issue which caused soot to build up on the side of the tank, they came today and while they were very quick to come to check the tank, and were back this afternoon to replace the tank. Quick... but...

The pictures here show the installation. My concern lies in the stressing of the pipe, bending it rather than using the extra joints, etc. to install the pipe properly. They charge $150 for the first 10 ft, and $10 per foot after that. They quoted and charged $180+GST ($189), though the pipe run is barely 13', it's more likely 12'

I'm not worried about $10, that one foot, it's the installation. What do you think? Would Mike Holmes be happy?

Career focus is important...

I was applying for a position with Rogers today, using the Taleo web-based system and got to an interesting question (right). It seems that what you might expect to be check boxes are radio-buttons. They may be truly interested in you having extreme career focus, I had a hard time choosing.

The only thing I haven't had experience with is Mobile telephone switching, but I hope they can appreciate my affinity for IP networks, but not to the exclusion of my other experiences.

What I've learned in my years of exposure to software development is that you need to cut people a break, not be too critical. Systems are complex and we're only human. We can't excuse quirks and errors per sé, but we can appreciate that complex systems are difficult to perform quality assurance on, especially if you need to QA your own work. You are far less likely to see your own errors.

The Lesson Learned From Unemployment...

I have learned one thing through this process. No one knows the right way to get a job, they simply have opinion and speculation. I have had comments right, left, and centre from people willing to offer advice, they have all had some valuable information but the end result is that not one of them KNOWS, they simply think they know.

The real and absolute key is, never give up, and stay positive throughout the whole experience.

Creativity helps me...

I can't draw terribly well, so I use my computer and Fireworks to create what some might (kindly) consider art. Sometimes it's just for fun, other times it's to serve a purpose. Today's efforts were to serve a purpose:

Now my intent was to create a logo that I can use when I do web work, but as I continued it seemed to become almost an ad, or a very short résumé. I like it and if I find out where to post it maybe it will lead to something, but the intent was simply to create a unique (albeit inspired) logo.

I have it shared in my Picasa Photo Galleries under Wallpapers.