Daniel MacKay

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February 1990. I was freelancing - something like what we'd now call Desktop Support and communications ("which version of kermit do I use to move this file to our Calgary office?" "Can you make us a cable from this computer to this printer?") I had a LOT of few-hour-a-month clients. My daybook, which I used for billing, lists: Service for Sexual Assault Victims, Lavalin, Rosovsky Law Office, Nova Scotia Museum, a company that I've totally forgotten called LASMO in Founders Square, Critics Choice Video, the Linda Joy Busby Media Arts Foundation, Geotechnologies, Sunrise Lighting, and MSVU for that month.

One day with no 0.5-hour-here, 1.5-hours-there entries, I attended an IT trade show -- at the World Trade Centre, I think. The swarthy and hypnotically smiling [[Mike_Martineau?|Martineau]] was prancing back and forth in a booth like a frisky colt, offering pamphlets and rhapsodic prose about how TCP/IP was going to lead Nova Scotia kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

It was a time when X.25 was king and ISO heir-apparent, and I perched on the other side of the table and declaimed to one and all that TCP/IP was hardly the way of the future, and that really our province should be looking at something other than twenty-year-old technology for this kicking and screaming business. Instead of drop-kicking me and having me dragged away by Security, Martineau asked for my résumé.

My daybook picks it up from there:

9 February: 10:00 Mike Martineau 101 Ilsley Ave "NSTN" 20 February: Interview w/ John Sherwood, Peter Jones & David Trueman re NOC Manager job 21 February: MSVU All day 22 February: got the job! Called John Sherwood @ 18:00 - said to come in tomorrow AM for finals! 26 February - 13 March: Hawaii

I wanted to get back from that vacation more than any other in my life!


Sometime in '92 or '93: [[Jim_Saunders?]] and I were doing a presentation to teachers and possibly some students for the Learning Connections project.

I wanted a couple of jokes to lighten up the mostly technical presentation. At the time, there was a newsgroup just for really stupid jokes, "eunet.jokes". (for instance, "Q: When is a duck?" "A: Becase one of its legs are both the same!") I brought up "nn" the newsreader and pulled off a couple. Before our presentation, I gave Jim a small piece of paper with two place names on it, and said, "When I queue you, say the first word. Later on I'll queue you again, and say the second word." Jim looked horrified but I didn't explain any further, knowing that for him, a smooth presentation was paramount.

About a third of the way through the presentation, while I was talking, I turned to Jim and said, "Jim, you know, my wife went to the West Indies last week." nodding in the direction of the piece of paper in his hand. Several emotions washed over his face plainly readable as, "I know you don't have a wife, Dan" and "You're lying" and "How does this relate to Serial Line Internet Protocol?" But, he looked at the paper and read "Jamaica??" and I said, "No, she went of her own accord."

At the next third mark, I said, "Jim, you know, my wife went to Indonesia last week." and again Jim's normally calm and cheery face flashed horror and confusion at the now inconsistent lie. I motioned to the paper, and he said, "Jakarta?"

"No, she went by air."

Jim makes a GREAT straightman.