Sometimes you may have something that you know is gold but everyone else thinks it's not. If you believe in what you have strongly enough, it is your duty to bring it into the world.
The Harry Potter series has sold over 400 million copies. If you count the series as 1 book, it is the third most popular book of all time (#1 is the bible - and #2 is required reading for every Chinese citizen).
Despite that, guess how many publishers turned the book down?
The answer is 12, and even then, the publisher told the author "Don't quit your day job".
How can the most popular series of all time be turned down by 12 publishers?
Think about that next time you are feeling down on yourself.
Keep on keeping on!
--Ben
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Monday, 21 July 2008
Building momentum
The wheels of motion are starting to really turn now. The Microsoft job seems to be all wrapped up. I have a signed contract from them now. I will likely be starting to work August 5th. I am really looking forward to the job mostly because I want to meet new people and hopefully make some friends over here. I will likely sign up for the soccer league on my first day there.
In this downtime before my job starts, Julie & I have booked a trip to Bulgaria for some sun bathing and lots of eating and drinking. Sounds like food and drink are very good and very cheap over there. I can't wait! We have a place very close to the beach. Hopefully the weather will be warmer then Dublin :)
We are so pumped to move out of this place now into our new awesome apartment. Our new place is downtown with everything you could possibly want at your doorstep. And, it has a rooftop patio! I've posted a few pictures I took earlier of the place. Sorry no pics of the master bedroom yet. Notice how the washer and dryer are in the kitchen, that seems to be the style over here. Here is the link to the pics.
We are starting to accumulate some Canadian debt now. The Euro is so strong withdrawing any money from Canada is painful because it's multiplied by about 1.6 in Canadian. Fortunately once we start getting some Euros coming in, we should be able to pay off Canadian debt fairly quickly because the my 1 Euro will then equal 1.6 Canadian dollars. Also, hopefully we will be able to get some credit in Ireland so that we can stop converting money if we need to borrow some.
That's all for now, I will post some more pics of our place and our trip to Bulgaria soon.
--Ben
In this downtime before my job starts, Julie & I have booked a trip to Bulgaria for some sun bathing and lots of eating and drinking. Sounds like food and drink are very good and very cheap over there. I can't wait! We have a place very close to the beach. Hopefully the weather will be warmer then Dublin :)
We are so pumped to move out of this place now into our new awesome apartment. Our new place is downtown with everything you could possibly want at your doorstep. And, it has a rooftop patio! I've posted a few pictures I took earlier of the place. Sorry no pics of the master bedroom yet. Notice how the washer and dryer are in the kitchen, that seems to be the style over here. Here is the link to the pics.
We are starting to accumulate some Canadian debt now. The Euro is so strong withdrawing any money from Canada is painful because it's multiplied by about 1.6 in Canadian. Fortunately once we start getting some Euros coming in, we should be able to pay off Canadian debt fairly quickly because the my 1 Euro will then equal 1.6 Canadian dollars. Also, hopefully we will be able to get some credit in Ireland so that we can stop converting money if we need to borrow some.
That's all for now, I will post some more pics of our place and our trip to Bulgaria soon.
--Ben
Friday, 18 July 2008
Thursday, 17 July 2008
I got the Job!
On Tuesday Microsoft invited me in for a 6th interview (yes you read that right, #6) to read and write some code. I read the code very well, but I thought I wrote some very bad code. As I was walking home from that interview, I thought I blew it... I thought there was only a small chance I would get the job because the code I wrote wasnt very good.
but somehow, I got the job!
Yipee... Microsoft has offered me a software test position in the mac group! It should be lots of fun and I will get some great experience out of this role. Mac, windows and Unix experience as well as more automated scripting experience. The salary is good too. I start with 25 vacation days! that's 5 solid weeks of vacation plus stat. holidays.
Microsoft has lots of other perks too... they have all the standard stuff like health care, pension, etc... but also stuff like subsidized cafeteria, discounts on bus & rail transportation, and I think they even have free sodas!
I am looking forward to playing some soccer (football) and Foosball with the company... sounds like they have games going on almost every day.
They are letting me choose my start date. Julie & I will likely take advantage of this gap to travel a bit. Not sure exactly where yet. I will likely start in 2 weeks from today.
On the 24th we move out of this tiny apartment we have into an awesome place downtown. I can't wait to get out of here. Our house right now is basically 1 big room... A house should have more than 1 room... its just not right to have anything less.
Julie is doing a test right now for a temping agency. Its testing her fluency with MS office. Don't tell anyone, but I've helped her on a few questions :)
I will post more pics soon.
--Ben
but somehow, I got the job!
Yipee... Microsoft has offered me a software test position in the mac group! It should be lots of fun and I will get some great experience out of this role. Mac, windows and Unix experience as well as more automated scripting experience. The salary is good too. I start with 25 vacation days! that's 5 solid weeks of vacation plus stat. holidays.
Microsoft has lots of other perks too... they have all the standard stuff like health care, pension, etc... but also stuff like subsidized cafeteria, discounts on bus & rail transportation, and I think they even have free sodas!
I am looking forward to playing some soccer (football) and Foosball with the company... sounds like they have games going on almost every day.
They are letting me choose my start date. Julie & I will likely take advantage of this gap to travel a bit. Not sure exactly where yet. I will likely start in 2 weeks from today.
On the 24th we move out of this tiny apartment we have into an awesome place downtown. I can't wait to get out of here. Our house right now is basically 1 big room... A house should have more than 1 room... its just not right to have anything less.
Julie is doing a test right now for a temping agency. Its testing her fluency with MS office. Don't tell anyone, but I've helped her on a few questions :)
I will post more pics soon.
--Ben
Friday, 11 July 2008
Tim Hortons in Ireland.
Check it out:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28327&l=5bee5&id=502577840
crazy eh?
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28327&l=5bee5&id=502577840
crazy eh?
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