Questions for People Over 30

Got this from cahwyguy.

1. Do you prefer solicitors and service staff to address you by first name or by title+last (e.g. "Ms. Smith", "Dr. Adams", etc.)? Title unless I know them outside of their job, or have dealt with them numerous times in the past. I was at the bank the other day, and the guy I met with came out and said "Hi Graeme" although I'd never met him before. I didn't like that.

2. How many careers have you had? Just one – software developer.

3. How many jobs? How many employers? 6 co-op terms at three employers: 3 at IBM in Toronto, 2 at Sears Canada in Toronto, 1 at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. After graduation, a year and half at Corel in Ottawa. After grad school, three years at Comnetix in Mississauga, and just over nine years at iAnywhere Solutions/Sybase in Waterloo.

4. What was the best employer you worked for? iAnywhere, of course!

5. What was your favorite job? Some of the work I was doing at Comnetix was really cool, but the company itself had problems. I love what I do at iAnywhere.

6. How many companies, businesses or incorporated organizations have you founded? None.

7. Did you grow up to be what you wanted to be when you were 5? When you were 10? When you were 15? When you were 20? My parents tell me that I wanted to be a baker when I was a kid. Apart from the standard fireman, policeman, etc., I never really had any career plans. I didn't even know what I wanted to major in at university; I was in the math faculty, but was "non-specialist" until I picked computer science in 2nd year.

8. Have you published any books or academic papers? How many? A couple of technical articles at UWO, and an article in the proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Integrated Network Management back in 1994.

9. Do you hold any patents? How many? iAnywhere has applied for a patent for our web-server-in-the-database-server technology, and my name is one of four on the patent application.

10. Are you licensed or certified to practice a profession(s)? If so, what? Nope.

11. Ever served in the military? What branch and how long? Nope.

12. What's the largest number of employees you have ever managed at a time? I've supervised several co-op students, and I think I had two at the same time once or twice. None in the past, oh, five years or so though. I have no interest in being a manager.

13. How many countries have you lived in? Canada my whole life, except for four months (September to December 1991), when I lived in Redmond, WA, USA, while working for Microsoft.

14. How many times have you been married? Once.

15. How many kids do you have? How many grandkids? Two sons, born 1999 and 2002. No grandkids for at least another 15-20 years, hopefully.

16. Whom do you observe Thanksgiving with? Usually my parents and Gail's parents (on different days). This year, we had some non-Thanksgiving-related things to do that weekend, so we stayed home.

17. How many parents have you had? Just the two...

18. How many of your parents are still alive? How close are/were you to them? Both are still kicking. I talk to them a few times a month, and we see them maybe every other month or so. My sister talks to them almost daily.

19. What's one way you were surprised to find out you turned out like one of your parents? Can't think of anything. I'm more like my dad than my mom, but not in any way that surprises me.

20. What's one way you expected to turn out like your parent(s) and were surprised not to? Again, nothing comes to mind.

21. Do you own or rent your home? If the former, how many years on your mortgage, if any? Own. We bought in 1997, so we have 16 years left.

22. Do you have roommates (i.e. non-family adults living with you)? If not, how long has it been since you had roommates? No. I lived with three other grad students in 1994 at Western, and moved in with Gail right after that, and we got married the next year.

23. Have you ever sat on a jury? Yep, though it resulted in a mistrial, so we never really got to do anything. Details are here (Day one), here (Day two), and here (Day three).

24. Have you ever run for office? Held office? Nope.

25. Are you a member of a political party? Do you volunteer with it? Do you donate money to it? No, no, and no.

26. What's the nicest restaurant you've been to in the past year? We've been to Milestone's in Burlington a couple of times, including last Saturday for our 11th anniversary.

27. What's the nicest item of furniture you've bought? (Gifts don't count!) Our entertainment center. Holds our 36" TV and all the stereo equipment. The only problem with it that if we ever decide to go plasma, it's useless.

28. What kitchen appliance are you most happy you bought? (Gifts don't count!) Our side-by-side fridge, though the water dispenser does not have a pump in it. It uses the water pressure from the pipes, which isn't very good, so it takes forever to fill up a glass of water, and the ice cubes it makes are hollow. We don't use it (the water dispenser) anymore because of that.

29. Do you have a preferred airline? How many frequent flyer miles do you have? Air Canada. We have a few hundred thousand Aeroplan points, which we may use next year for a trip to the Big Apple, or we may save them for a couple more years and go to Hawaii.

30. Where do you like to go to vacation? Our trip to Fern Resort is always fun, and we've been to the Carribbean twice (once to Sandals Ocho Rios on our honeymoon, and once on a cruise. I would love to go to Hawaii or Australia. Gail wants to go to Paris for her 40th birthday in a couple of years.

31. Women: Do you wear skirts or trousers on the job? N/A

32. Men: Do you currently have facial hair? No. I've had both a full beard and a goatee in years past, but Gail's not too fond of them.

33. Do you have grey hair yet? If so, do you try to hide it? Yes, around my temples. Never tried to hide it.