For most of my working life I have done freelance and contract work, sometimes as a supplement to a full-time job. From 1969 to 1988, I worked primarily in publications: newspapers, magazines and books. I was variously a columnist, reporter, news editor, typesetter, graphic designer / art director and production manager.

From 1988 until I retired in 2016, I did freelance and contract work in the following areas:

• Web design and coding
• Teaching chess
• Computer programming and writing
• Composing cryptic crosswords

By the time I retired, I was doing nothing but the crosswords for Good Times ("The Canadian magazine for successful retirement"). Now I spend my time reading and playing with websites (my own, cfaj.ca and the pub quiz league site, ci.cfaj.ca).

The hospital where I was born in 1949.