THE GOODS BLOG: Supplemental

Well THAT escalated quickly...

Remember how in my last entry I was saying that Tim had gotten all disgruntled with BioWare and that he was starting to apply for jobs elsewhere?

BIG NEWS... We’re moving to VANCOUVER!!!

He applied to a few different companies and I was suspecting that we may end up going to Toronto, if anywhere. But that’s not what happened.

You might recall that back in October 2015 Tim was offered a job at Capcom Vancouver, which we turned down after much discussion. Ultimately, it just didn’t feel like the right time. I even posted a pro & con list in my blog at the time. Here were the pros:

REASONS TO MOVE TO VANCOUVER:

~ IT’S VANCOUVER. ‘Nuf said.

~ Ideal utopia of dreams.

~ Best city in Canada.

~ The west coast is the best coast. We 100% DO intend to live there in the near future.

~ Everything that we love. Mountains, ocean, big urban city, Vancouver Island, Whistler, snowboarding, surfing, beaches, camping, glorious nature, major yoga culture.

~ We could live in Kitsilano!

~ No more sometimes-challenging French situations.

~ Closer to my family.

~ Amazing friends in Vancouver, and closer to friends in Edmonton.

~ Tim gets paid more money.

Almost everything on the con list doesn’t really apply anymore. The biggest one for me back then was:

~ We would lose Tim’s 7 week paid sabbatical which we intend to use in March/April.

But now that we’ve done that, the only thing that made this decision difficult was:

~ Closer to Tim’s family.

~ Closer to friends in Ottawa and Toronto.

Anyway, Tim’s first boss at BioWare was a guy named Tony and Tim really liked him. Tony now works at Capcom. So Tim sent him a casual FB message asking how things were going at the studio there. Next thing we knew... Tony was offering Tim a job. It all happened extremely quickly. They didn’t even interview him because they still remembered him from when they wanted to hire him before. Except now they’ve offered him even more money! Tim got the official offer letter yesterday... And we’ve decided that this time, the timing is right. This is what we’ve always envisioned for ourselves.

He is taking the position of Principal Cinematic Animator. And he gets to work under Tony, who he really likes. He’s really excited about the company and doing something different after being with BioWare for the past decade.

It all happened so fast that I’ve barely had a chance to wrap my head around it!

We’re going to move in mid-August. And we’re going to sell our place in Montreal. We’ll have lived in Montreal for three years and seven months by that point. I really enjoyed living (and eating!) here a whole lot and I’m so glad that we did. In that short amount of time we bought our first home, traveled all over the world, and had a baby. That’s a pretty incredible slice of life right there.

We’re planning to buy a place in the Greater Vancouver Area, and are looking at the Port Moody/Coquitlam areas. See this handy map that I made!

We cannot buy a place right in Vancouver proper because that’s where everything costs over a million dollars. I would LOVE to live in Kitsilano, but we simply could not buy there and we’d rather not have to go back to renting. We also want to stay north of the Fraser River, so that Tim won’t have to cross any bridges in order to get to/from work. I love living right in the middle of big cities where it’s all hip and stuff... But I also wouldn’t mind living in the woods by the sea. From the area that we’re interested in, Tim’s commute to work would be about half an hour, which is about the same as it is now. We’ll be heading out to Vancouver sometime soon to house hunt.

So that’s the news!!! I feel a bit hassled about having to move all the way across the country again, but also very, very excited about the kind of new life that we’ll be able to lead.

Please keep this information on the down-low. Tim isn’t going to be telling BioWare about this until June so it needs to be kept quiet until we make it public knowledge.

As usual, you guys are the first to know (apart from our families)!

Wish us luck!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!!