November, 1973 30: Born in Mississauga, Ontario.
September, 1978 Began school at St. Clare Catholic School in Mississauga, Ontario.
September, 1982 Began Grade 3. Was placed in Mrs. Smiley's gifted class because I was too bored in math class and a few others. Introduced to Games Magazine.

Thank you, Mrs. Smiley, on both counts.

1985 Taught kindergarteners in their classroom math and logic from a kit called "What's in the Square". My first teaching gig.
September, 1987 Placed in St. Jerome's School in a gifted class for students from around the whole area for Grade 8.
June, 1988 Graduated from grade school. No ceremony.
September, 1988 Began attending St. Ignatius Loyola High School in Mississauga, Ontario.
October, 1989 Family moved to Oakville, Ontario. Began attending White Oaks Secondary School.

I wasn't put into the local Catholic high school (which, strangely, was also called St. Ignatius Loyola) because the school focussed too much on athletics for my parents' tastes. As a result, the one half-credit in physical education that I'd received in my first year of high school in Mississauga was essentially worthless: in Ontario, you need a full credit, and my new school didn't offer half-credits in anything. Most kids like me took their first year and ran far, far away. End result: to save me from being put in a school full of jocks, I had to go into a class full of them.

December, 1989 In Grade 10, I tool the Pascal Grade 11 Math Contest from the University of Waterloo, and got the 11th highest score in Canada.
May, 1990 Attended ceremony for the year's scholastic achievements.

My 11th-in-Canada finish is glossed over. Most of the ceremony is focussed on athletics. Although I continue to be honoured for highest achievement in math in my grade, my family and I stop attending the annual ceremonies.

July, 1990 Winners of various math contests attend seminars at the University of Waterloo.

I decide that this is where I want to go to school.

June, 1992 Graduated as an Ontario Scholar. Did not attend the graduation ceremony. See next entry.

June, 1992 24-28: Competed in the inaugural World Puzzle Team Championships in New York City. Achieved second-highest indivdual score at the event.

I got around 560 points, I believe, and my roommate there, also a Canadian, beat me by 5 points. I beat the person in third place by less than 10. I got my photo in the accompanying article of Games Magazine.

September, 1992 Attended the University of Waterloo.
October, 1993 30: Competed in the second World Puzzle Team Championships in Brno, Czech Republic. Team Canada got third place overall.

I tanked on one of the questions myself, which greatly lowered my score for the event. In later years, I did not compete because I either qualified for the team, but didn't have the money to pay my way, or I didn't qualify and didn't have the money anyway. This was my one trip outside of North America. So far.

Saw the magazine for the National Puzzler's League for the first time.

January, 1994 Started a puzzle column in mathNEWS, the U(W) mathematics student newspaper. Followed by a biweekly cryptic/American-style crossword dual puzzle in later years.
May, 1997 Graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics. Did not attend convocation in May, 1998. See next entry.
May, 1998 Moved to Vancouver, British Columbia with two friends. Travelled by car.
September, 1998 Worked in Chapters at Robson & Howe in downtown Vancouver. Was not at work for the night of hostage-taking. Seasonal work ended in January, 1999.
February, 1999 Worked at International Travel Maps and Books, as retail clerk and producing their catalogue. Uncomfortable work environment ended in December, 1999.
July, 1999 22-25: Attended my first NPL convention in Big Sky, Montana. went on harrowing whitewater rafting trip that convinced seven of us that we were all gonna die.
Autumn, 1999 Downloaded Font Creator Program and started making typefaces.
October, 1999 Began taking day courses at New Horizons Computer Learning Centre in various pieces of software.
December, 1999 31: Demonstrated great faith in humanity by spending Y2K night in the Washington, D.C., area, where theoretically the bulk of old Russian nukes were aimed.
January, 2000 Began doing various temp jobs. Placed in banks often because of my math degree. Did mostly arithmetic and typing there.
July, 2002 11-14: Co-hosted the annual NPL convention here in Vancouver. Was approached to be webmaster for the NPL.

Also helped to create the multi-puzzle extravaganza that year. My picture later appeared in Games Magazine for the second time as Mountie Banque. (You had to be there.)

January, 2003 Created Arithmetricks exhibit for Science World along with fellow Vancouverite NPL mathie, Jonathan Berkowitz.
March, 2005 Taught math (statistics, financial, calculus) at KTC Learning Institute, an ESL school, teaching the GAC program to a group of very frightened students. Welcome to the real world.
June, 2005 Finally got to go to a graduation: my first class's. It was worth the wait.
July, 2005 Got traded to a second ESL school, the Canadian College of the English Language.

Taught math, science, computer studies, personal development and Intermediate English. Exhausting work environment ended in December, 2005.

August, 2005 1: First book published.

Sit 'n' Solve Commuter Anagram Puzzles is compiled from material that I used for the JumbleTime website. It costs only $4.95 US / $6.95 CDN, and, to my great relief, it is not in the shape of a toilet seat. You should check it out. No really, you should.

March, 2006 Working as a workplace educator, teaching math to apprentice tradespeople and creating and editing teaching materials. Unfortunately underfunded work environment had to let me go in December, 2006.
Today Now: Working as an instructional tutor at a community college, tutoring math, physics, chemistry, biology, ESL and writing, both in person and in instant messenger format.