Vizualize my resume

There's a rather neat web site called vizualize.me, that allows one to create a visual representation of their resume. I found it particularly helpful because my work chronology is not straight-forward. It also has a cool feature that allows one to upload their work history, etc. from their LinkedIn account, avoiding needing to type in all that information *yet again*.

The screen shots below are hyperlinks to my actual resume. Feel free to pass them out to friends, family and pets that may be looking to hire a software developer!

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Plus temps avec mes amis

I'll have to figure out how to provide an easy auto-translate, but until then, you can copy-and-paste into translate.google.com for a fairly intelligible translation.

J'ai allé à Toronto dernière semaine, pour le centieme fois ce été. :) En mercredi mon ami, Pete, dit que nous ne pouvons pas encore naviguer, parce que il y a avertissments de tornade! Mais nous avons aller à jeudi, et il faut trés bon: le soleil brillé et nous avons une magnifique brise de "mer" (dans la Lac Ontario :) ).

J'ai revenir en Saint-Sauveur maintenant. Je suis penser peut-etre je vais aller le Montagne Vert étape course, òu je vais avoir écrasé. Donc j'ai essayer garde la form. Aujourd'hui j'ai aller courir avec mon ami Seb avec notre velo des montagne. Il pleut mais c'est tres bon. Seb gagner lui dernier course et il a formidable compétences de manipulation de vélo. Cherchez-toi au dessous:

Decisions, decisions

I had these to choose from when heading out for a ride last week. Part of a very good week!

More tanning, more crashing

This weekend I was back in Toronto. It's entirely possible I would have done less driving this season if I lived in Toronto! But there's only so many times I can ride Keele St to Holland Marsh... Stopped a couple of days in Ottawa to catch up with Paul and Bets, and see Nige's team have a great run in the Canadian Ultimate Championships, until their worlds bid came off the rails in the semis. Great showing, boys.

On Sunday, Nick, Matt, Jordan and I converged on Niagara for the Niagara Classic. Probably 300 racers in various categories, and get this: after subtracting the entrance fee, the winner of my Elite 1-2 race got to take home $20. Good thing we don't count on prize winnings to eat (one could also point out that I would still starve if the winner got $1000 for every race I do... ;) ).

Nick got in a two-man break from kilometre 3, and had a tough 120km of suffering out there. He won the KOM competition, by cresting the Effingham hill first, 6 out of the 10 laps, but unfortunately hadn't heard them say before the race they'd cancelled it. Aw.

Jordan got in a 4-man break that caught Nick and co, but they failed to work as a unit and were separated in the last couple of laps, and ended up 4th and 8th. I need to figure out how to choose the right break to go in - I ended up chilling on the front of the peleton for the last 25km, chatting up a storm with my fellow riders and working on my tan-lines.

Afterwards, we figured Nick needed to check out The Falls, being just a hop, skip, and twenty vineyards away.

Fortunately he resisted straddling the barrier, unlike the unlucky girl half an hour later!


I was pretty stoked to get hooked up with a factory tour on Monday with our bike sponsor, Norco, and a 2012 model CRR to ride for the remainder of the season. Following that, we headed over to Joyride 150, an indoor bike park for BMX and MTB, partly sponsored by Norco, and got some more VIP treatment. The facility was super cool, with ladder-bridges, BMX pumptrack, an 800 metre XC trail, and plenty o' jumps...oh, and a foam pit!

Of course my 'push it till it hurts' attitude was once again my undoing, and I got to bond with

an ice pack for a while. While I was sitting/lying around, trying not to pass out or bleed on my t-shirt, a little dude comes over - he can't have been more than 10 - and said "did you do that trying to do a back-flip?". haha Unfortunately honesty got the better of me and I pointed out the jump (smallest in the whole place) that I ate it on.

After a trip to the Markham Stouffville Hospital and another scar to add to the collection, Nick and I mixed it up with the big rigs on their late night run to Montreal.

Catch up on BC Superweek and the aftermath

High time I hammer out a post to get caught up.

BC Superweek went poorly. Abysmal. DNFed every race (other than the 2 minute hill climb! haha), broke my bike and had no spare in the correct size, less than ideal team dynamics. Ugh.

Hurting a lot, but not quite making time cut for final circuits
Photo: Donna Marie

Afterwards I took a week off to hang with my buddy Sean in Van, then went to Calgary for another few days and met up with lots of my awesome peeps. Raced the Gran Fondo in town, with much better results: got a bro in the break, then worked a lead-out so that we ended with 3rd, 6th, 9th and a nice payout.

Back to St Sauveur for the last couple of days of July. Rocked some BMX pump-track with Seb, then back to Toronto to race a little event there. Results weren't ideal, but things were coming back together. More time with Toronto homies, and finally my head is back on straight. Chilling with everyone in Van, Calgary and Toronto all helped, but this last little email I got was the icing on the cake:

"Seriously good to see you - hope you had fun. Now go train & kick some french ass."
Don't know why, but that was what made it all click. I love my friends!

Back in Quebec, it was time for more Lachine crit madness. Nice and warm for the start, but spitting rain. By 10 laps in, we were in a full-on downpour. Riding behind someone (basically essential, because we get up to 50kmh every straight, before slowing for each corner) was like having a firehose blasting dirty water in my face. Actually kinda fun, in a sick and twisted way, since it was still pretty warm. Unfortunately I took a spill and now have road rash on my right knee, hip and forearm that match my Superweek grazes on the left, but this time it was a low speed corner crash, so not too bad. Good thing I bought four feet of Second Skin in Van! hehe

Our team is winding down now - money is done - so just a couple more little races for the end of the season. I'm giving myself August to learn French, and September to find a job.