Christos Kalantzis’ Blog

Another piece of home that cannot be found in the Bay Area is ketchup flavored chips.  Chip flavors have always been regional.  The south likes things sweet and spicy.  The mid-west likes savory flavors.  The east coast likes vinegary flavors.  Salt & Vinegar flavored chips can be found all over the east coast.  However, Ketchup is where it is at!  I have only been able to find that in Canada.

The lack of Greek pastry shops in the Bay Area means that one cannot get some classic Greek deserts, such as a Bougatsa.  Its a sweet, cinnamony custard wrapped in philo dough and topped with powdered sugar.  Its was originally a peasant dish.  Like all peasant dishes, today they are considered delicacies and are highly regarded and sought after.

This is a taste of Greece that one can only get in a heavily populated Greek area, such as Montreal, New York or Chicago.

I flew back to Montreal last Saturday (April 4th, 2009) to visit my family.  This is the first extended trip back since I left last year.  So what do I think?

The weather sucks!  However, I didn’t come here for the weather.  What really sets Montreal apart from Silicon Valley is the grittiness.  Silicon Valley prides itself on its vast diversity.  What it misses, is the grittiness that characterizes each culture.  Greeks are loud.  Italians are full of themselves.  The French are rude.  In the Valley each culture is a mere shadow of themselves, conforming to socially acceptable behaviors of that area.

Of course, this is a personal choice.  I prefer experiencing a culture to its fullest, instead of just getting a whitewashed version of it.

Stay tuned for tastes of Montreal.

I have resigned from Intertrade. Its a funny thing when you are hired because you are the only person qualified to fix something. Once its fixed, you have nothing left to do.

I was hired to stabilize their DB2 server, then to increase the database’s performance, to migrate them from AIX to Linux and finally to set the ground work for their new EDI platform. All tasks where completed successfully and for the last month or so, I have been twiddling my thumbs.

Tenrox came knocking on my door and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse . So I took it and I will now be the new Senior DBA and Ops Manager at Tenrox.

Rest assured I still plan on blogging (anyone reading these things?) and keeping you all up to date.

Cheers!

OK I am back and I got things to say! Mostly, I just wanted to continue to blog, and pour all this stuff in my head onto some kind of canvas.

Hello friends and family that read this blog.

As you might have read in the last entry..I am working hard on themysqlguy.com.

So I am going to take a bit of a hiatus from posting here…then again, not like I posted that regularly anyways.

When I do get back…its will be more personal/family posts, then anything else.

Come visit my at the other site!

Not gonna talk about much today. Just wanted to say hi and just get the first Blog entry behind me.