New job, and observations about Canada
I haven’t posted anything about this to the blog yet, but I took a new job in Vancouver, Canada at Smallthought systems. Our product, Dabble DB was one of my favorite Web applications almost from the moment it came out, and I am thrilled to be working on it and with Smalltalk. The transition to another city and country has been difficult. I like Vancouver a lot, and I like the job and my coworkers, but I find myself missing my friends and family at home, and of course my girlfriend Ariel.
Some observations about Canada, in no particular order:
* Prices are confusing between the sales tax and currency
exchange. At home, I know what things cost and what it means,
and in Canada it's just different enough to confuse me. The US
dollar is on the upswing again, which makes it even more
confusing.
* Canadians are as nice as people say. I am accustomed to being
uncommonly nice, but this is not true here.
* Canada is much more progressive than the US in general of
course, but there are some of the same political problems. I
read a letter to the editor in a local weekly which was all
about how HIV is not a real virus, implying that the AIDS
epidemic had supernatural causes. It just shows to remind me
that there are crazy people in every country.
I’ll try to keep posting as more exciting things happen. Please come and visit! You can reach me at ben@matasar.org.
