After a few wandering years studying physics, computer science,engineering and philosophy in Montreal in the seventies, the author entered the industrial world and spent more than a decade designing optimization software, telecommunication protocols and real-time controllers.

He left Bell-Northern Research, the best geek playground in Canada, tobecome the oldest student in the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Waterloo and attach the three letters Ph.D. to his name.The intention, at first, was to return to the *real world*. But a few years misspent as mathematics and computer science instructor at Waterloo, Wilfrid-Laurier, and finally Oakland convinced him of the appeal of academia.

Since then he has wandered as far geographically as Melbourne and as far culturally as l'Ile de la Reunion, mostly teaching and consulting, with the occasional foray into research, guiding a couple of doctoral students through the painful process of dissertation.

His current research interests still bear the stamp of practicality enforced by years in industry: algorithms for semidefiniteoptimization, scheduling, feasibility and the related numerical linear algebra and analysis.