Il y maintenant près d’un mois que j’ai joint l’équipe de Thornley Fallis. Quelle merveilleuse expérience! Et je ne dis pas ça pour être « téteuse ».  En effet, mon passage à la fonction publique, quoique de très courte durée, fût un peu monotone. Au mauvais endroit au mauvais moment? Fort possible!  Enfin me voilà bien installée dans mes nouvelles fonctions et même partie intégrante de ce blogue. Vous me permettrez d’ailleurs de pouvoir m’y exprimer en français, ma langue maternelle.

Pour ceux qui rigole au sujet des mes exploits de marche athlétique, veuillez je vous pris consulter ceci!!

• Press Attachée, Office of the Leader of the Opposition
• Senior Special Assistant (Communications and Parliamentary Affairs), Transport Canada
• Press Attachée and Special Assistant for Quebec, Department of Justice
• Press Attachée, Canadian Heritage
• Press Attachée, Industry Canada
• Special Assistant for Quebec, Department of Justice
• Special Assistant, Senate of Canada

Bill Gates was speaking this morning at the National Arts Centre about the coming decade of change in the world’s ongoing digital revolution.

It was a very good presentation, and the speech was very well received.  What impressed me as well was that he said he’d speak for 20 minutes, and then he did.

Twenty minutes on the future of technology and its impact on our lives.

The lesson for me?  If that only took 20 minutes, then odds are good the longest any speech should be, ever, is 20 minutes.

The event started on time, ended early, and Mr. Gates is now the proud recipient of an Ottawa Senators jersey to boot.

Welcome to Ottawa, Mr. Gates — please come back soon.

Thornley Fallis’ partner company 76design is looking for a full-time web developer with a minimum of 3 years professional experience to join their talented creative talented team.

They need a smart and responsible individual who is ready to be a key contributor on exciting projects. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable talking to computers and to people. He or she is proficient in multiple programming languages, but is also deeply engaged with the social aspects of web culture.

Their ideal candidate knows what’s happening today and what’s coming down the pipe tomorrow, and can’t wait to get there. He or she is driven to achieve, but is also comfortable working in a collaborative environment, and is bursting with ideas and skills, just like 76design is.

The core technical skills they need are expertise in:

• PHP
• mySQL
• HTML

Knowledge of one or more of the following is also necessary:

• ColdFusion
• CSS
• JavaScript
• WordPress
• Ruby on Rails
• Ajax
• SEO
• podcasting
• advanced web metrics

If you think you’ve got what it takes to join the 76design team, email your CV to jobs@76design.com.

A great news release from Transport Canada — the Jolly Elf is in flying form!

Santa ready to take flight

OTTAWA, Dec. 21 /CNW Telbec/ – Santa Claus passed his medical test with flying colours, announced Transport Canada today. Although his physician suggested he eat fewer cookies this holiday season, his blood pressure is fine and his eyesight is very good. Regular medical tests are part of the requirements that pilots need to meet to obtain and keep their licence.

Another requirement for pilots, including Santa Claus, is to show their flying ability and knowledge through a number of manoeuvres. This is done through a flight simulator test and/or a check ride. Santa Claus also passed this requirement.

A Transport Canada inspector travelled to the North Pole to conduct Santa’s check ride. Santa made sure the sleigh was washed and the reindeer were clean. The inspector checked the equipment by walking around the sleigh, checking the harnesses, the landing gear and even Rudolph’s nose. He also verified Santa’s logbook and made sure all of Santa’s paperwork was in order.

While his fire-engine-red sleigh is powered by nine reindeer, Santa has installed a new instrument panel for enhanced safety. Since the sleigh is certified by Transport Canada, the department approved modifications to the sleigh’s design, so Santa Claus can take advantage of newer technologies such as GPS, in case Rudolph’s nose malfunctions.

As a result of Santa passing his tests and getting his sleigh modifications certified, Transport Canada is pleased to announce that Santa Claus is ready to take flight this year.

For further information: Lucie Vignola, Communications, Transport Canada, Ottawa, (613) 993-0055; Transport Canada is online at www.tc.gc.ca. Subscribe to news releases and speeches at www.tc.gc.ca/listserv/ and keep up-to-date on the latest from Transport Canada; This news release may be made available in alternative formats for persons with visual disabilities.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2006/21/c9699.html

For my first post, I thought I’d celebrate what is perhaps some of the best writing ever: Francis P. Church’s editorial from the 1897 New York Sun.� This editorial and was reprinted annually until 1949 when the paper went out of business. When it first appeared, it was an immediate sensation, and became one of the most famous editorials ever written.

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

“I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Happy Holidays, everyone.