Thanks for all the help Faisal!
Currently, I am living in the Toronto area (originally from North Bay, ON). Through some networking (small town, everyone knows everyone else!)I managed to get my resume at the top of the pile at software company in North Bay, but unfortunately they just aren't hiring right now. Hopefully that will change soon.
I will definitely check out the oil and gas companies as I was trained in databases using Oracle. In fact, in one of my classes, we developed an entire system using an Oracle back-end and Oracle Forms & Reports for the front end.
My personal interests are mostly in Java, specifically J2EE stuff like servlets, JSP, EJBs. I would like to play with EJBs more but I don't have anywhere to host and run them. Right now I am working on a complete online system for a soccer league(they took pitty on me and wanted to give me some experience to help me find a real job!). Anyways, it should be fun as they would like it to integrate with the province-wide team & player database which uses Lotus Notes.
Other than Java, I know VB, some basic C++, MySQL, Oracle, DB2, javascript, some UML, etc.
I am also in the process of learning more about EJBs, and XML.
I'll browse the CJUG and EJUG sites some more...already found a job posting on EJUG for a junior Java Developer. It was posted by a new startup that is a spinoff of Bioware.
Anyways, thanks again for the help. I wish I could make it to Calgary right now, seeing as though the stampede is on. I have a couple of close friends who live in Calgary and they are ALWAYS raving about how much better Calgary is than Toronto and that I should move out there. We'll see what happens!
Thanks!
Steve