Whenever people hear that we plan to move, their first question
is always about when. Of course, that's also the hardest question
to answer. We used to make guesses, but since they always prove
to be hopelessly optimistic, I now just say "Eventually.
Don't rush us."
But while I cannot give you a timeline for the future, I can
talk about the past. Here's how we got to our current situation:
- Fall 2004: We announce our
intention to move, which we've been discussing with friends
and family since visiting
Canada that July. But where
should we go? Our initial straw-man candidate: Guelph, a
small city west of Toronto, in Ontario. (We later decide it's
too small.)
- Winter 2005: We've packed our first
30 boxes, and Looney
Labs moves their offices from the basement of Wunderland
to the attic of a friend who lives a few blocks away. We take
our second
scouting trip to Canada, and Hamilton becomes our new top
candidate.
- Spring 2005: Because people keep telling us how
great Montreal is, we debate the idea of going there instead.
But since only Alison speaks French we
decide against taking on that much of a challenge. The
100th box is moved into our off-site storage facility.
- Summer 2005: Kristin spends a
week visiting Hamilton. She makes more friends and learns
more about the city and life in Canada. I skip a couple of trade
show to focus on packing, and even hired
a high school student for a few weeks, to help me take a
detailed inventory of all our collection of 2000+ books.
- Fall 2005: The holiday gift-giving season (and the
months leading up to and immediately following it) are our busiest
time of the year, so work on relocating basically stops completely,
so that we could focus our energies on Looney Labs.
- Winter 2006: With the box count now over 300 and the
storage facility becoming full, we develop a plan for moving
to Hamilton in stages, starting first with a storage base in
upstate New York, codenamed the
Space Platform.
- Spring 2006: We spend a
week living in Hamilton. Then we visit Niagara Falls, and
are charmed by a house on Cayuga Island, just upriver from the
falls. We start thinking about the many advantages of living
right there in Niagara Falls.
- Summer 2006: The summer trade show season is our other
busiest time of the year, plus I invented several new games at
this time, so again we totally stopped thinking about moving
and focused on running the company.
- Fall 2006: We
decide against Canada. That sends us back to the beginning
as far as choosing where to go, plus we're still too busy to
work on anything other than work. But work is going well, and
eventually we'll have time to work on packing again. And someday,
after that, and after we decide where we really want to go, we
WILL move!
[Intro] [1]
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
[7] 8
