I have two more pubs to write about. Both have been written as among the best in the city. And both are in deep Gastown, unfortunately mere blocks from the nastiest part of East Hastings.
The Irish Heather was recently redesigned; its wood flooring is made from old Guinness barrels. It has some UK taps, including that brown stuff from Dublin, Kilkenny, and Strongbow cider, plus Carlsberg lager. In bottles, beers from some of my favourite Northwest breweries like Rogue and Fish sit next to UK brews like Newcastle Brown. It also features dozens of whiskeys from Scotland, Ireland and Wales, plus Canada and the US. And - the biggest attraction for me - it has the city's only cask pump. Some pubs feature a regular cask night, but this is the only permanent one - perhaps the only one in BC, or even Canada. It currently serves a tasty BC ale. I've been wanting to take a picture.
The Alibi Room has an even greater selection of beers. Taps pour BC ales but also a few Oregonians, often from Rogue. And in bottles are some fabulous choices from Belgium, the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, and of course the Northewst, and include a great Scotch ale I look forward to trying, plus the Paulaner Salvator I was unable to find in Munich.
Friday 31 October 2008
Things I'm Getting Used To
There are lots of details that I've neglected to write about. Their novelty has worn off and now I'm pretty used to them.
Some buses are doubles, but one behind the other, called "bendy buses" in London since they're articulated in the middle. It'll be nice to see up-and-down double buses in Victoria again. Newer buses have some neat features. As it pulls up, a synthesized voice announces the route and number on an external speaker, for blind riders. Inside, an LED reader board shows the next major cross street coming up; it's also announced by the synthetic voice. But, sometimes the buses get a bit trashy. I usually have to stand on the ride home.
It seems every intersection with a traffic light has pedestrian crossing buttons too. When it's time to cross, they'll either make a "bip-boop bip-boop" sound, or an LED will count down the seconds (usually 20-something; it seems to vary) while making a "beew beew beew" sound.
There are residential towers all over, not just downtown or in cities. Weeks ago I had an interview in Port Coquitlam, miles east of Burnaby (and we're miles east of downtown), and was amazed to see a dozen or so towers there. It seems they're spread all over the Lower Mainland.
Some buses are doubles, but one behind the other, called "bendy buses" in London since they're articulated in the middle. It'll be nice to see up-and-down double buses in Victoria again. Newer buses have some neat features. As it pulls up, a synthesized voice announces the route and number on an external speaker, for blind riders. Inside, an LED reader board shows the next major cross street coming up; it's also announced by the synthetic voice. But, sometimes the buses get a bit trashy. I usually have to stand on the ride home.
It seems every intersection with a traffic light has pedestrian crossing buttons too. When it's time to cross, they'll either make a "bip-boop bip-boop" sound, or an LED will count down the seconds (usually 20-something; it seems to vary) while making a "beew beew beew" sound.
There are residential towers all over, not just downtown or in cities. Weeks ago I had an interview in Port Coquitlam, miles east of Burnaby (and we're miles east of downtown), and was amazed to see a dozen or so towers there. It seems they're spread all over the Lower Mainland.
Losing Our Englishness
Last week I used the last of my Boots Men's Face Wash. Though I still have my Boots Shaving Gel, and my Fish "Born in Soho" Styling Gel. Plus Oral-B dental floss made in Ireland.
Sarah's English accent is almost completely gone. I sometimes wear my London dress shirts to the office, though there's no need to - I could as acceptably wear T-shirts.
We've also lost a bit of the English spelling I've become accustomed to. I still write labour and centre, but must now use realize and not realise. For some reason, I'm sad to give that up. Yet "z" is still pronounced "zed" here.
I'm relearning some words too. Instead of plaster, torch, and toilet, we use band-aid, flashlight, and washroom. I still use "mate" and "cheers" a lot, though. They're nice words.
And I'm re-adapting to the local pronunciation. Tomayto instead of tomahto; mobill instead of mobile.
I'm missing other European things. Last night we saw a film set in Europe and seeing narrow cobbled lanes made me a bit nostalgic for Medieval streets and ornate buildings.
Sarah's English accent is almost completely gone. I sometimes wear my London dress shirts to the office, though there's no need to - I could as acceptably wear T-shirts.
We've also lost a bit of the English spelling I've become accustomed to. I still write labour and centre, but must now use realize and not realise. For some reason, I'm sad to give that up. Yet "z" is still pronounced "zed" here.
I'm relearning some words too. Instead of plaster, torch, and toilet, we use band-aid, flashlight, and washroom. I still use "mate" and "cheers" a lot, though. They're nice words.
And I'm re-adapting to the local pronunciation. Tomayto instead of tomahto; mobill instead of mobile.
I'm missing other European things. Last night we saw a film set in Europe and seeing narrow cobbled lanes made me a bit nostalgic for Medieval streets and ornate buildings.
Thursday 30 October 2008
Sarah's school picture
Sarah came home with her school pictures today - and we got a digital copy too, so I thought I'd post it, although we will send hard copies out to grandparents etc also.
She also has a less favored version, which we didn't get prints of, but the view of all the lost teeth is pretty cute...
And that's it for today - we are in the midst of finishing preparations for Halloween and getting organized for the huge shopping trip at Ikea. Looking forward to being in our own place for Christmas!
Love,
Margo
Saturday 25 October 2008
Appreciative
Last week we got our first bill for BC health insurance. It pays us forward to February. The other day we got our health insurance cards in the mail. And it triggered a wave of appreciation for me.
The card's face says, in big letters, Care Card. On the bottom, it has my name on it. It seems to imply, "We care about you, MICHAEL PATRICK NELSON." And as a new immigrant, that means a lot. We've been busy (and still are busy) with all the details of settling - creating accounts, finding housing, finding furniture, finding work - so it's been easy to overlook the fact that, hey, we're living in Canada now.
So I signed the back of the card. I signed it carefully and joyfully. Then I let it sit to dry, being careful not to smudge it. I remembered way back when Hilary Clinton held up a prototype US health card, and thought, Now I have one. (Though the NHS in the UK is brilliant too - no card needed, and no bill either.)
This, and a few yoga stretches, contributed to this sudden onset of appreciation. A realization of, hey, we've spent a lot of money and filled out a lot of forms and waited a long time to be here, and now we're here.
I took time to appreciate some other tokens of identity and belonging. A coffee card. My Rogers Video card. (Okay, that's not so special.) And the currency. I happened to have a 5, 10, and 20 dollar bill each. And you know what? I've never taken the time to really look at them. And they're fascinating! Lots of colours. There's the face of a historical government figure on the front (except the Queen on the 20 - she's not exactly historical yet), plus a drawing of some feature of the Parliament buildings. And such fine patterns in the background! And a hologram strip! On the back are more drawings. One bill portrays a family, ice skating, happy and enjoying their Canadian lives.
The card's face says, in big letters, Care Card. On the bottom, it has my name on it. It seems to imply, "We care about you, MICHAEL PATRICK NELSON." And as a new immigrant, that means a lot. We've been busy (and still are busy) with all the details of settling - creating accounts, finding housing, finding furniture, finding work - so it's been easy to overlook the fact that, hey, we're living in Canada now.
So I signed the back of the card. I signed it carefully and joyfully. Then I let it sit to dry, being careful not to smudge it. I remembered way back when Hilary Clinton held up a prototype US health card, and thought, Now I have one. (Though the NHS in the UK is brilliant too - no card needed, and no bill either.)
This, and a few yoga stretches, contributed to this sudden onset of appreciation. A realization of, hey, we've spent a lot of money and filled out a lot of forms and waited a long time to be here, and now we're here.
I took time to appreciate some other tokens of identity and belonging. A coffee card. My Rogers Video card. (Okay, that's not so special.) And the currency. I happened to have a 5, 10, and 20 dollar bill each. And you know what? I've never taken the time to really look at them. And they're fascinating! Lots of colours. There's the face of a historical government figure on the front (except the Queen on the 20 - she's not exactly historical yet), plus a drawing of some feature of the Parliament buildings. And such fine patterns in the background! And a hologram strip! On the back are more drawings. One bill portrays a family, ice skating, happy and enjoying their Canadian lives.
Sunday 19 October 2008
My New Job
So let me tell you about my new job. I have joined CrazedCoders, a small consulting firm based in Edmonton. Much of its work has been with the Flex tool but they have taken on considerable back-end work in Java. Contractors and staff have handled the Java work in the past and I am the first hire to work on it full-time.
I work on a small office in downtown Vancouver. I can get there in a half hour by bike or bus. There's one other employee there, and occasionally we're joined by a contractor who mostly works at home. There's just a front room and a back room in the office. I have one of the two window seats.
Our office is on Pender at Richards and is nicely located: we're two blocks from the start of Water street and Gastown, and a block from shopping on Granville, and a few blocks further from Robson. So far I know of four coffee shops within a block, the closest serving Illy beans, right below us. I also know of a few pubs nearby. On our ground floor are lots of small cafes: one can get sushi, sandwiches, wraps, salads and pizza slices from several sources.
I work on a pretty herky ThinkPad laptop. It's got high specs, a screen resolution so high I need to wear my reading glasses, and is nearly indestructible with a spillproof keyboard and shock protection for the disk drive. At the office it connects to a second monitor, and I can take it home whenever I want.
I'm in that state you always start a job in, where you don't know the systems you're working on, you have new tools to learn quickly, and you feel dumb as a brick.
I like my coworkers. One of the Edmonton staff flew over last Thursday to deliver this laptop and spend the day doing knowledge transfer. We all had dinner that night, and I've started a tradition of pub lunches on Fridays.
It's nice to be working with a small team, but I wouldn't mind having a few more people around to meet and socialise with. I also have less opportunity to learn from others; I think I'll be spending more time online and in books.
It's great to be working again, to be busy. I look forward to getting more confident with these systems and tools and be cranking out great code.
I work on a small office in downtown Vancouver. I can get there in a half hour by bike or bus. There's one other employee there, and occasionally we're joined by a contractor who mostly works at home. There's just a front room and a back room in the office. I have one of the two window seats.
Our office is on Pender at Richards and is nicely located: we're two blocks from the start of Water street and Gastown, and a block from shopping on Granville, and a few blocks further from Robson. So far I know of four coffee shops within a block, the closest serving Illy beans, right below us. I also know of a few pubs nearby. On our ground floor are lots of small cafes: one can get sushi, sandwiches, wraps, salads and pizza slices from several sources.
I work on a pretty herky ThinkPad laptop. It's got high specs, a screen resolution so high I need to wear my reading glasses, and is nearly indestructible with a spillproof keyboard and shock protection for the disk drive. At the office it connects to a second monitor, and I can take it home whenever I want.
I'm in that state you always start a job in, where you don't know the systems you're working on, you have new tools to learn quickly, and you feel dumb as a brick.
I like my coworkers. One of the Edmonton staff flew over last Thursday to deliver this laptop and spend the day doing knowledge transfer. We all had dinner that night, and I've started a tradition of pub lunches on Fridays.
It's nice to be working with a small team, but I wouldn't mind having a few more people around to meet and socialise with. I also have less opportunity to learn from others; I think I'll be spending more time online and in books.
It's great to be working again, to be busy. I look forward to getting more confident with these systems and tools and be cranking out great code.
Margo's Laptop, RIP
Last night Margo started getting BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) on her computer. This morning I ran chkdsk and it found an orphaned file from the Avast anti-virus product. We uninstalled this but still got blue screens. I ran a chkdsk with all options on startup, and we still got them afterwards.
I suspect her hard disk is failing. For most of its life, her computer has been woefully short of memory. In normal use it took many minutes to boot, and the disk drive would be cranking away for just about any substantial tasks as memory was swapped to disk. So with all that constant disk activity, I'm not terribly surprised that it's finally showing signs of stress. We finally increased its memory severalfold a few weeks ago in conjunction with new software Margo was installing for school, and it seemed all was well until last night. At any rate, it appears the disk, OS, or both are corrupted to the point that it is no longer usable. Margo has lots of school work on her plate and requires a reliable computer.
So today we made a trip to Future Shop to make an unscheduled upgrade. She is now setting up a new Compaq laptop, and I am partitioning and formatting a terabyte drive we got for backups at the same time. Her computing needs should be well served for the next several years.
But her old Dell has served us well. It's gotten her through years of graduate school. Many gigabytes of research articles have flowed through its browser, and hundreds of pages have been written with its software.
And its list of wireless networks reads like a travelogue of European hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. It's been hauled into overhead luggage racks on many a train and plane. It's let us process pictures from our cameras and keep writing blogs on our travels. It's even served as a DVD cinema and as an iTunes music jukebox.
Its future is yet to be decided. I may put Ubuntu Linux on it and set it up for Sarah's use. Or we might wipe it and donate it to a nonprofit. But it has met our needs nicely the last few years, and we salute it.
I suspect her hard disk is failing. For most of its life, her computer has been woefully short of memory. In normal use it took many minutes to boot, and the disk drive would be cranking away for just about any substantial tasks as memory was swapped to disk. So with all that constant disk activity, I'm not terribly surprised that it's finally showing signs of stress. We finally increased its memory severalfold a few weeks ago in conjunction with new software Margo was installing for school, and it seemed all was well until last night. At any rate, it appears the disk, OS, or both are corrupted to the point that it is no longer usable. Margo has lots of school work on her plate and requires a reliable computer.
So today we made a trip to Future Shop to make an unscheduled upgrade. She is now setting up a new Compaq laptop, and I am partitioning and formatting a terabyte drive we got for backups at the same time. Her computing needs should be well served for the next several years.
But her old Dell has served us well. It's gotten her through years of graduate school. Many gigabytes of research articles have flowed through its browser, and hundreds of pages have been written with its software.
And its list of wireless networks reads like a travelogue of European hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. It's been hauled into overhead luggage racks on many a train and plane. It's let us process pictures from our cameras and keep writing blogs on our travels. It's even served as a DVD cinema and as an iTunes music jukebox.
Its future is yet to be decided. I may put Ubuntu Linux on it and set it up for Sarah's use. Or we might wipe it and donate it to a nonprofit. But it has met our needs nicely the last few years, and we salute it.
Monday 13 October 2008
Thanksgiving
Toonite it was Thanksgiving we had a big heavy turky,it was the smallest one they had. I ate a turky leg, it was pretty big
the picture of margo and I is when we were just about to eat Dinner,
it was very tasty . When we had all finished our Dinner we
ate desert ... it was pumkin pie and........
pecan pie.
MMmmmm...
The best part of Thanksgiving? Pumpkin pie for breakfast the morning after. Two slices.
Margo
Margo
Sunday 12 October 2008
Advice for Interviewers
Before I forget my recent interview experiences, I thought I'd write about them a bit in that some could have been improved greatly, in my opinion. So if I were to be holding an interview, I would consider the following ...
- Use caution with written tests. They might be useful in situations where you want a candidate to explain something, and it shows a candidate's writing skills. But I think multiple choice and true-false questions are a bad idea. They're inflexible, so a candidate has no opportunity to argue his/her case - a candidate might be quite close to the answer but is unable to demonstrate that. And by all means, don't rely on a written test as the only means of evaluation - that's so impersonal and rigid.
- Set a relaxed tone. Interviews are awkward, and can be especially so when engineers are involved. Try to get the candidate to relax and open up. Otherwise you might be missing out.
- Pose a problem. Ideally, a problem without a single solution, with no correct answer. See how the candidate thinks about solving it. I really enjoyed such exercises.
- Ask a bogus question. Make something up. Ask the candidate about it and listen for his/her response. I think it's important for a software developer to be able to say, "I'm not familiar with that" or "I don't know". Ours is a profession where learning is constant, and a candidate should not pretend to know everything.
- Don't expect all answers to be correct. A software developer can be expected to have at least some skills in lots of areas: database design, algorithms, object orientation, data structures, enterprise libraries, web frameworks, AJAX interactions, web design, usability, quality assurance, software methodology. No one person can be an expert in all these areas. I'd recommend asking about the things that are important to your organisation. Or alternately, come up with a set of questions no one person could possibly be expected to answer completely correctly.
- Follow up afterwards. You've made an offer, and a candidate has accepted. But don't forget the other candidates, especially the ones who've made it to the final round. Each has given you hours of his/her time; the least you can do is acknowledge this with a few minutes of your time. When you write those "no thank you" emails, don't be afraid to include reasons why you went with another candidate - this is helpful information.
New Dyson
I don't usually enjoy buying stuff, but there are some things that you enjoy using and you look forward to acquiring. Like my iMac, my bike, and now this Dyson vacuum cleaner.
You know how tidy I like to be, so I like to have a good tool to keep my environment clean. And ever since I got that used Dyson in Ipswich, I knew once we settled I'd be investing in a new one. Today was that day.
I asked Sarah to capture me with my just-assembled new toy minutes before its first use.
You know how tidy I like to be, so I like to have a good tool to keep my environment clean. And ever since I got that used Dyson in Ipswich, I knew once we settled I'd be investing in a new one. Today was that day.
I asked Sarah to capture me with my just-assembled new toy minutes before its first use.
Canadian Thanksgiving
Today is our first Thanksgiving in Canada and we are thankful to be settling well here.
As Mike posted on Friday, he has received a job offer and will begin work on Tuesday. He feels that the company is a good fit for his personality and skills, and I am pleased that he has flexible hours and the ability to work from home from time to time. This means that I do not need to worry about sorting child care arrangements on the days that I go to class early or return late.
Sarah has settled really well in her new school and is working hard and making friends. She likes her teacher, who is very kind and gentle in personality, a lot, but also acknowledges that her last teacher in England was a good fit because she was "very strict and old-fashioned".
Sarah has been in a phase recently of challenging the authority of her parents on a regular basis - either explicitly or through a strategy of sustained passive resistance (i.e. ignoring us, "forgetting," not "hearing" us, or retreating to her room and then ignoring us). Very annoying.
She recently employed a strategy that I remember well from my own childhood. When asked to clean her room, she showed us a very clean room and was released to go out and play. The next day, while trying to track down her school planner, I happened to open the closet door and encountered a small avalanche of books, toys, papers and dirty laundry.
An alternative strategy is arguing that as she is only 7 years old, we are unreasonable in our expectations that she clean her own room, keep track of her own school books, put away her own laundry and help around the house. We are ogres! She is the only child her age in the whole school who has to be responsible for such odious tasks!
We are also, apparently, (and sadly), no longer the experts in everything and the masters of the universe. Dang! I had hoped that we could stretch out the good times for a year or two more. We are responding to the insurrection by trying to judiciously mix redirection, discussion, reminders, and consequences, with mixed success, (although we are optimistic that the surge will be ultimately successful!)
School is also going well for me. I received my first paper back with high marks and have heard that my grant application was ranked highly before being sent off to the office of graduate studies for further ranking before (I hope) being sent to Ottawa for final consideration. If awarded this grant, it will be for 20k-35k a year for the duration of my time in the program, so it is a pretty big deal. I'll find out in the spring if I've been funded. I'm getting ready to submit my first independent journal article and hope that it is accepted for publication.
I am today preparing our first turkey dinner in a couple of years (our oven in England was too small for a turkey) and looking forward to consuming all of the fixings. This year's menu is traditional with no gourmet touches - Roast turkey, dressing, mashed sweet potato, green beans, butterflake rolls, gravy, cranberry sauce, pecan pie and pumpkin pie.
Canadian Thanksgiving is not the unrestrained orgy of eating that kicks off the excesses of the Christmas season ... that is the particular joy of an American Thanksgiving. My advisor lived in the states for a while and says that he never misses a year in America for Thanksgiving as it is more fun. Here it has traditionally been a liturgical festival. Although there is a national holiday on Monday, dinner is traditionally eaten on Sunday, according to my informants. So, that is what we are doing.
It has been interesting to participate in the immigrant experience in Canada. About 20-25% of Vancouver residents are immigrants, so I meet people everywhere I go who are recently arrived in this country. There is, at least in the newspapers I have read, almost no anti-immigrant sentiment expressed. This is very different from the US and UK and I want to find out more about it as one would think that the tensions involved with a large influx of people from different cultures, speaking different languages etc, would be similar.
I have been avidly following the US election on TV and in the blogosphere. We have elections in Canada this week and provincial elections in November, but many Canadians are more interested in what is happening in the US this year. I sent in my absentee ballot last week. Bush is in the last 100 days of his presidency, thank goodness. I am dismayed by the Republican vice presidential candidate and have
Sarah and I have been taking a family art class on Saturday afternoons and it has been a lot of fun doing that together.
Well, into the kitchen for me now ... pie crusts and potatoes to peel and a turkey to stuff await me!
Love,
Margo
As Mike posted on Friday, he has received a job offer and will begin work on Tuesday. He feels that the company is a good fit for his personality and skills, and I am pleased that he has flexible hours and the ability to work from home from time to time. This means that I do not need to worry about sorting child care arrangements on the days that I go to class early or return late.
Sarah has settled really well in her new school and is working hard and making friends. She likes her teacher, who is very kind and gentle in personality, a lot, but also acknowledges that her last teacher in England was a good fit because she was "very strict and old-fashioned".
Sarah has been in a phase recently of challenging the authority of her parents on a regular basis - either explicitly or through a strategy of sustained passive resistance (i.e. ignoring us, "forgetting," not "hearing" us, or retreating to her room and then ignoring us). Very annoying.
She recently employed a strategy that I remember well from my own childhood. When asked to clean her room, she showed us a very clean room and was released to go out and play. The next day, while trying to track down her school planner, I happened to open the closet door and encountered a small avalanche of books, toys, papers and dirty laundry.
An alternative strategy is arguing that as she is only 7 years old, we are unreasonable in our expectations that she clean her own room, keep track of her own school books, put away her own laundry and help around the house. We are ogres! She is the only child her age in the whole school who has to be responsible for such odious tasks!
We are also, apparently, (and sadly), no longer the experts in everything and the masters of the universe. Dang! I had hoped that we could stretch out the good times for a year or two more. We are responding to the insurrection by trying to judiciously mix redirection, discussion, reminders, and consequences, with mixed success, (although we are optimistic that the surge will be ultimately successful!)
School is also going well for me. I received my first paper back with high marks and have heard that my grant application was ranked highly before being sent off to the office of graduate studies for further ranking before (I hope) being sent to Ottawa for final consideration. If awarded this grant, it will be for 20k-35k a year for the duration of my time in the program, so it is a pretty big deal. I'll find out in the spring if I've been funded. I'm getting ready to submit my first independent journal article and hope that it is accepted for publication.
I am today preparing our first turkey dinner in a couple of years (our oven in England was too small for a turkey) and looking forward to consuming all of the fixings. This year's menu is traditional with no gourmet touches - Roast turkey, dressing, mashed sweet potato, green beans, butterflake rolls, gravy, cranberry sauce, pecan pie and pumpkin pie.
Canadian Thanksgiving is not the unrestrained orgy of eating that kicks off the excesses of the Christmas season ... that is the particular joy of an American Thanksgiving. My advisor lived in the states for a while and says that he never misses a year in America for Thanksgiving as it is more fun. Here it has traditionally been a liturgical festival. Although there is a national holiday on Monday, dinner is traditionally eaten on Sunday, according to my informants. So, that is what we are doing.
It has been interesting to participate in the immigrant experience in Canada. About 20-25% of Vancouver residents are immigrants, so I meet people everywhere I go who are recently arrived in this country. There is, at least in the newspapers I have read, almost no anti-immigrant sentiment expressed. This is very different from the US and UK and I want to find out more about it as one would think that the tensions involved with a large influx of people from different cultures, speaking different languages etc, would be similar.
I have been avidly following the US election on TV and in the blogosphere. We have elections in Canada this week and provincial elections in November, but many Canadians are more interested in what is happening in the US this year. I sent in my absentee ballot last week. Bush is in the last 100 days of his presidency, thank goodness. I am dismayed by the Republican vice presidential candidate and have
Sarah and I have been taking a family art class on Saturday afternoons and it has been a lot of fun doing that together.
Well, into the kitchen for me now ... pie crusts and potatoes to peel and a turkey to stuff await me!
Love,
Margo
Friday 10 October 2008
Hired
Ha! About an hour after writing that last whingeing post, the phone rang and I got a job offer. I'll write more details once it's official. Maybe I should have started whingeing earlier ...
Job Hunting
I hate, hate, HATE job hunting. It's not the application process, and I quite like interviewing. It's the waiting, and knowing that there's not much you can do to influence the process.
I've been particularly frustrated because it's taking me so long to get hired. I've had way more interviews - with about a dozen organisations so far - than it normally takes me to get an offer. I haven't had trouble getting interviews - in fact, most of the jobs I've applied for (usually a few a week) have asked me to interview. And I often get a second interview. It just seems that, after that last interview ... there's nothing. Sometimes I don't get contacted for weeks. Sometimes I'm not contacted at all. I've been told I've been a second choice on a few occasions.
I've had suspicions as to why, and today in an interview they were confirmed. The answer is simple: Vancouver has a glut of Java developers. This is a very attractive and desirable place to live, and it attracts a lot of software professionals.
This explains things better for me. Where I may have once stood out, I'm now merely average. And employers are in a buyer's market. They have no incentive to decide quickly - they can take their time to make the best choice for themselves.
I feel a bit of relief because I've been agonising over this. Asking myself, how can I be failing here when I've advanced more easily elsewhere? Is it me? Have my skills been in decline? Am I presenting myself badly? And so on.
It's been especially hard given our situation. We're new immigrants. We don't know anybody. We have no job history here, no credit history, no one who can vouch for us. This was the first time as a family that we've ever relocated without having a job waiting for us. I'm not too worried in the short term - we have enough cash to live comfortably for perhaps a year or more, and Margo should have an easier time finding work, and fairly soon. But it has been affecting me badly. I feel like I'm failing my family. And I don't have a role - I don't belong anywhere, so I still feel like a tourist sometimes. And in technology, time not working looks bad. I'm really eager to get working again, to feel like I'm part of something and contributing to something.
Since I'm getting invited to interviews, it tells me I have something to offer, and gives me hope that if I just keep at it, eventually something will come through. In fact, as I write, I have four opportunities that have advanced to the offer/not offer stage, and I expect to be notified on all four within days.
But given the glut, I may look into other options. I've been hesitant to do contracting, because I'd prefer to join an organisation and because I'm not too knowledgeable about the accounting and tax requirements, but that would be a great way to get working quickly. I may also apply for some less senior positions, or positions with larger organisations, both of which I've been mostly avoiding.
In the meantime, I've not been completely idle. I've been catching up on some areas of the J2EE universe I've been neglecting, like the EJB 3 specification and the Java Persistence API. I've downloaded JBoss Seam and have spent some time playing with it. I've been reading about the better aspects of the JavaScript language. I've also been reading up on LISP. I've spent time updating my Mac OS X environment with newer development tools. And I keep up on technology news by reading sites and blogs.
I also help around the house, doing small grocery shopping trips and running laundry. I'm often around to drop off and pick up Sarah from school.
And I've let myself have some fun too, with bike trips exploring the city, sampling a few cafés and coffee shops. I visit the library weekly. And I bought a Playstation for the chance to enjoy a few games I've been wanting to spend time with for a while.
And in the meantime, my job is, finding a job. With each interview I'm getting better, refreshing myself on any technology questions that I miss, as well as learning more about the local environment and market. So I hope soon to be writing the "I'm hired" post.
I've been particularly frustrated because it's taking me so long to get hired. I've had way more interviews - with about a dozen organisations so far - than it normally takes me to get an offer. I haven't had trouble getting interviews - in fact, most of the jobs I've applied for (usually a few a week) have asked me to interview. And I often get a second interview. It just seems that, after that last interview ... there's nothing. Sometimes I don't get contacted for weeks. Sometimes I'm not contacted at all. I've been told I've been a second choice on a few occasions.
I've had suspicions as to why, and today in an interview they were confirmed. The answer is simple: Vancouver has a glut of Java developers. This is a very attractive and desirable place to live, and it attracts a lot of software professionals.
This explains things better for me. Where I may have once stood out, I'm now merely average. And employers are in a buyer's market. They have no incentive to decide quickly - they can take their time to make the best choice for themselves.
I feel a bit of relief because I've been agonising over this. Asking myself, how can I be failing here when I've advanced more easily elsewhere? Is it me? Have my skills been in decline? Am I presenting myself badly? And so on.
It's been especially hard given our situation. We're new immigrants. We don't know anybody. We have no job history here, no credit history, no one who can vouch for us. This was the first time as a family that we've ever relocated without having a job waiting for us. I'm not too worried in the short term - we have enough cash to live comfortably for perhaps a year or more, and Margo should have an easier time finding work, and fairly soon. But it has been affecting me badly. I feel like I'm failing my family. And I don't have a role - I don't belong anywhere, so I still feel like a tourist sometimes. And in technology, time not working looks bad. I'm really eager to get working again, to feel like I'm part of something and contributing to something.
Since I'm getting invited to interviews, it tells me I have something to offer, and gives me hope that if I just keep at it, eventually something will come through. In fact, as I write, I have four opportunities that have advanced to the offer/not offer stage, and I expect to be notified on all four within days.
But given the glut, I may look into other options. I've been hesitant to do contracting, because I'd prefer to join an organisation and because I'm not too knowledgeable about the accounting and tax requirements, but that would be a great way to get working quickly. I may also apply for some less senior positions, or positions with larger organisations, both of which I've been mostly avoiding.
In the meantime, I've not been completely idle. I've been catching up on some areas of the J2EE universe I've been neglecting, like the EJB 3 specification and the Java Persistence API. I've downloaded JBoss Seam and have spent some time playing with it. I've been reading about the better aspects of the JavaScript language. I've also been reading up on LISP. I've spent time updating my Mac OS X environment with newer development tools. And I keep up on technology news by reading sites and blogs.
I also help around the house, doing small grocery shopping trips and running laundry. I'm often around to drop off and pick up Sarah from school.
And I've let myself have some fun too, with bike trips exploring the city, sampling a few cafés and coffee shops. I visit the library weekly. And I bought a Playstation for the chance to enjoy a few games I've been wanting to spend time with for a while.
And in the meantime, my job is, finding a job. With each interview I'm getting better, refreshing myself on any technology questions that I miss, as well as learning more about the local environment and market. So I hope soon to be writing the "I'm hired" post.
Saturday 4 October 2008
Beer Excursion: Central City Brewing
I've been good. Really, I have. Mostly. In the time we've been here, I've had maybe three pints of ale, less than a pint a week, which is much much lower than my UK average. I've been cycling steep hills, snacking on veg, and eating much less than an office worker might be tempted to. My belly is much smaller and I'm grateful for it.
But today was one of those days when you toss the rules out the window. I joined Margo and Sarah on their trip to their Burnaby arts class on the 129 to Edmonds Station, but I jumped off the bus at the Holdom SkyTrain station, took it to Columbia Station, transferred to the Expo Line eastbound, and got off at Surrey City Centre, the second-to-last stop.
I'd planned to walk to nearby King George Highway to visit a pub I'd read about, but by the time I arrived, in the rain, and looked up and down the street, all I saw were box stores, so I hiked back to the Central City office tower and shopping mall, near the station. And another destination, Central City Brewing.
I started with some samples of their red, their IPA, and their bock. I started with a pint of the Boomers Red Ale. I'm still getting used to the colder ale temperatures here. But my, the hops! It just makes a beer brighter.
Around this time, I thought another pint might be nice, but it might be prudent to order a bar snack to soak up a bit of the drink. I asked the bartender, and he procured a menu, but did mention that the special was fish and chips for $10. Now, if he'd said just about anything else, I'd have said, "No thanks, mate, I'm just not that hungry". But with that magical phrase - "fish and chips" - my reptilian brain kicked in and I said, "Aw, mate, that sounds great, no need for a menu." And next in the pipeline was not their IPA, which apparently CAMRA Vancouver declared the best of 2008, but its temporary replacement, an Imperial IPA stuffed with hops but a good deal of malt to, in order to weigh in at its mealy 8.5% ABV. (CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is a UK organisation for the appreciation of real ales, and I was nicely surprised to see there is a Canadian counterpart.)
So even though I arose late this morning, fighting a cold and with a pond's worth of frogs in my throat, I temporarily achieved a sense of blissful nirvana, which carried me on my trip home up to the point of leaving the SkyTrain station only to see my green light across Holdom turn amber, and the waiting 129 (with Margo and Sarah on board, no less) gleefully flooring it up the hill. So, instead of waiting another half hour for the next one, I decided to walk. Up the hill. No, up two bloody hills. In the rain. Did I mention it was uphill all the way? And that it was raining?
But today was one of those days when you toss the rules out the window. I joined Margo and Sarah on their trip to their Burnaby arts class on the 129 to Edmonds Station, but I jumped off the bus at the Holdom SkyTrain station, took it to Columbia Station, transferred to the Expo Line eastbound, and got off at Surrey City Centre, the second-to-last stop.
I'd planned to walk to nearby King George Highway to visit a pub I'd read about, but by the time I arrived, in the rain, and looked up and down the street, all I saw were box stores, so I hiked back to the Central City office tower and shopping mall, near the station. And another destination, Central City Brewing.
I started with some samples of their red, their IPA, and their bock. I started with a pint of the Boomers Red Ale. I'm still getting used to the colder ale temperatures here. But my, the hops! It just makes a beer brighter.
Around this time, I thought another pint might be nice, but it might be prudent to order a bar snack to soak up a bit of the drink. I asked the bartender, and he procured a menu, but did mention that the special was fish and chips for $10. Now, if he'd said just about anything else, I'd have said, "No thanks, mate, I'm just not that hungry". But with that magical phrase - "fish and chips" - my reptilian brain kicked in and I said, "Aw, mate, that sounds great, no need for a menu." And next in the pipeline was not their IPA, which apparently CAMRA Vancouver declared the best of 2008, but its temporary replacement, an Imperial IPA stuffed with hops but a good deal of malt to, in order to weigh in at its mealy 8.5% ABV. (CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is a UK organisation for the appreciation of real ales, and I was nicely surprised to see there is a Canadian counterpart.)
So even though I arose late this morning, fighting a cold and with a pond's worth of frogs in my throat, I temporarily achieved a sense of blissful nirvana, which carried me on my trip home up to the point of leaving the SkyTrain station only to see my green light across Holdom turn amber, and the waiting 129 (with Margo and Sarah on board, no less) gleefully flooring it up the hill. So, instead of waiting another half hour for the next one, I decided to walk. Up the hill. No, up two bloody hills. In the rain. Did I mention it was uphill all the way? And that it was raining?
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Boxes!
We finally got our shipment of boxes from the UK. Well, 8 out of the 9. The last one's due later today or tomorrow. These are the boxes that were supposed to arrive a week or two after we did.
Two of those were mine. It's nice to have winter clothing again - it's been getting colder here and, other than dress shirts, I haven't had anything with long sleeves to wear. Having winter coats is nice. So now we're no longer living out of suitcases!
About one in ten of my CDs got a bit munged, but only plastic cases - the CDs themselves are unscratched.
It's great to see some of these things again. Like our collection of flags, and my collection of beer coasters. And our Nelson coat of arms refrigerator magnet.
Two of those were mine. It's nice to have winter clothing again - it's been getting colder here and, other than dress shirts, I haven't had anything with long sleeves to wear. Having winter coats is nice. So now we're no longer living out of suitcases!
About one in ten of my CDs got a bit munged, but only plastic cases - the CDs themselves are unscratched.
It's great to see some of these things again. Like our collection of flags, and my collection of beer coasters. And our Nelson coat of arms refrigerator magnet.
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