I went to bed one Wednesday night in September 2011 and as a final note of frustration before my eyelids really sagged that evening, I did a search on Monster.com (the jobs board) on my iPad. The search was "iOS developer."

Wow!

The results floored me. There were half a dozen gigs in Boston alone, and they were all fresh opportunities too. I went to sleep committed to revisit this result and to take positive action on career. Waiting for a shoe to drop just seemed a little unproductive.

On the otherhand, the software engineering scope of mobile device software development really got my imagination boiling and I was hooked. The next day, I rewrote my resume to include my apps and what they did, my education without the year of graduation and my contact details. One page. That's all. Nice.

By the time Friday rolled around, I had two telephone interviews scheduled for the Friday and another on Monday. It was outstanding interest in my iOS development skills.

But, then the recruiters started asking questions:

• Where did you learn your iOS skills?
• Are these apps for a firm?
• What did you do before you started coding?
• What was your pay in your last assignment?

Many of these questions seem so logical now, but at the time they seemed a little hard to appreciate what the recruiter was after.

Then I applied at apple.com/careers and checked out technical roles in Retail in central MA. Eureka! The store nearest our home was hiring a 'Genius.'

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In concert with the time for self-improvement career-wise, I took the steps and effort to improve my body.

As my business was growing in early 2008, I took it upon myself to walk to our local gym and ride their stationary bicycles while watching TV. This was I combined the practice of news-entertainment and self-information with the monotony of riding. I'm not sure if I lot a lot of weight this way, but I sure did build up my stamina for exercise.

After a year and just as the recession began, I looked for extra costs to eliminate and the gym membership was one of those casualties. Instead, I decided to use the stationary bike I already owned. Although not as sophisticated as those in the gym, it was plenty robust and functional, especially when placed in front of the TV.

Nevertheless, I found that after an hour of TV watching while cycling, I was hardly sweating so I decided to run up and down the stairs before riding. Counting the cycles up using a counter on my iPhone made my exercise consistent and certainly sweaty. After 20 and then 30 cycles, I would ride the bike for 45 minutes watching the news.

This worked great during the New England dark times (December through March) where it's just too cold and too icy to go out running. As spring approached, the stairs-bike combination was getting dull, my son suggested I should run for a short distance (1.3 miles) around our neighborhood. I did. It felt great. After a few months, I simply changed my route until today, where I'm running either 4 miles if I'm in a hurry, or 5.3 miles if I have the time and feel the urge to go a little farther.

Through diet (no carbohydrates like pasta, bread, potatoes) control and this excellent exercise regime, I've lost 40 pounds in a year and feel great. So at the very least, I've made a great personal improvement as a result of this terrible recession.

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Late in 2009, I woke up in a panic. I dreamt that one of my grandkids (I have no grandkids) asked me, "Hey Opa, what did you do during the Great Recession?" I didn't like the answer I had in my mind, which is why the dream impacted me so profoundly.

I decided that I was responsible for my life and decided that consulting and market research in my area of expertise was dead. I was going to have to learn some new skills and technologies or die (figuratively of coure). I wanted to write iPhone apps, and promptly bought a book about writing iPhone apps for dummies. These were good for me because they're a paint-by-numbers style. If you follow their method, line by line, you will get working code.

Of course the downside is that you will get the app they're thinking of, and not the app you are thinking of. So afternoon finishing one Dummies book, I bought a second and a third and a fourth... all to help me write apps for iPhone.

Then, in early 2010, Apple introduced the iPad. This new device class would change everything. I bought books about writing for iPad, and bought an iPad for myself. Powerful stuff.

The big breakthrough, though, came when I integrated learning about iOS into my daily exercise routine.