Thursday, August 11th 2005

by the Writer's Guild of Wunderland

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Last night, Kristin returned from a week-long visit to Hamilton, Ontario, the town we've decided we're moving to. She had a great time, she made some more friends, and she's learned a few more things about the process of moving to Canada. She's also figured out what part of Hamilton we're going to shoot for moving into: a neighborhood called Westdale!

Meanwhile, Alison is back at camp, on staff for Third Session; she's having more adventures very much like those she described in detail in her report on Second Session.

So with Kristin and Alison both out of town, I've had the place to myself and I've been able to focus on packing. With the help of my packing assistant James, I've now just about finished boxing up and storing our massive collection of books. Yesterday I filled up Box #200, and I've been focusing exclusively on books ever since Box #126. That's 2094 books so far, and I'm still not quite done! (After the books: Videotapes!)

Anyway, since my week has (obviously) been rather dull, I'm gonna do like I did 2 weeks ago, and devote most of this page to a report on the adventures of one of my traveling companions. Unfortunately, Kristin's already gotten sucked back into work, so I wasn't able to get her to write this report for me. Instead I'll be relating to you what I remember from our conversations.

OK, to begin with, this is a picture of Jacy, which Kristin took while hiking up the Bruce trail, which runs along the Escarpment in Hamilton. Jacy has 4 kids (that's her youngest, Talon) and it sounds like it was a pretty fun household to be staying with for a week. We became fast friends with Jacy when we first met (at the Aquarius game day we held at the Cafe Aquarius in another really cool Toronto satellite city, Guelph) and I started referring to Jacy as "President of The Get The Looneys to Move to Hamilton Campaign" after she got a bunch of kids in her homeschooling group's group classroom to write us a bunch of thank you letters that urged us to choose Hamilton when we move to Canada. Anyway, it sounds like Kristin got on really well with them and their friends and we're already starting to feel like we're getting to know our new friends and neighbors even though we won't be getting there still for many months.

Jacy is a full-time mommy so she was able to spend lots of time showing Kristin around the different parts of town, and Kristin had this folding plastic map with her, and made a point of asking everyone she met specifically where they lived, and what they thought of that part of town. Answers varied of course, since there were lots of personal biases involved... Jacy for example thinks we should buy the house right next door to her, which happens to be on the market at this time.

But when you add up all the opinions, Kristin got a clear and resounding WESTDALE as the answer to what neighborhood we should choose. It's got lots of pluses for us: it feels a lot like a quaint little college town -- which is exactly what it is, being a village right next to McMaster University -- yet it's in the city of Hamilton, with a population of 500,000 people. It has a wonderful little town center area, and lots of cool houses just off the edges of it where the gaming coffeeshop we dream of building -- in the ground floor of our home -- would fit in perfectly. Which brings up another really important factor: most of the neighborhoods surrounding the Westdale downtown strip are Zoned H, which is what we need in order to have both a residence and a business in the same building. At least one other promising neighborhood was ruled out, after a trip to City Hall and the City Zoning commission lead to the discovery that the surrounding streets just off the main drag are strictly residential and fiercely protected as such by the local community. But Westdale is zoned just the way we need it!

Westdale sounds perfect, and I couldn't wait to go see it for myself. But hey, thanks to satellite imagery, I can look at the town from above! I've set this link to point directly at the Westdale Village town center; scroll to the left to look at the university, scroll up to see the surrounding parkland, and the lake beyond, and zoom out and then back in to see this really cool view of Niagara Falls, to the east.

Other things Kristin learned on this trip:

• We should have no trouble getting in. All 3 of us easily qualify to immigrate as Skilled Workers, which will be MUCH easier than coming in as business immigrants, which is what Kristin had previously been thinking we would do. The paperwork is almost ready to submit! We just need to track down addresses for every place we have each lived since we turned 18...
• The people in Hamilton are so friendly! Kristin says it was great meeting you (Steve, Bartek, Bob, Ines, Whitney, Karen, Chris, Tina, Lunchbox, Jason and everyone else whose names she has forgotten) and we look forward to moving to your city!
• If we decide (after 3 years) to become citizens of Canada, we can do so without having to give up our US citizenship. We had not been sure of this - but the answer is yes, we can in fact be Dual Citizens! Yay!
• Kristin really can work from anywhere. Through email, SuperFRED and AIM, Kristin was able to keep in touch with her new sales department and the rest of the company, despite her being off in another country!
• One of our Canadian distributors, Everest Wholesale, is just down the street from Westdale in Ancaster, and Kristin had great talks with them about a "flooring" deal which would effectively give us our own local warehouse, instead of having to set up a Canadian warehouse of our own. Cool!