One year ago March 2nd we took posession of our new home in London. A year ago today we made the long commute from Ajax to London for one final time, closing the old house and taking over the new one. It’s been a year, and a ton of things have changed for us in that time. Work is challenging and awesome, I like where we live, and having my parents close by has given us the opportunity to go on a vacation without the munchkin.

I have to admit I had several panic attacks around this time last year. Did we make the wrong decision? Were we moving our family into a potentially bad situation where I had less job prospects if my current one didn’t work out? Did I really HAVE to get away from TSN.ca? Could I be happier working elsewhere? Would Kaylin really be better off?

Luckily it’s all worked out so far.

Kaylin went from being the sickest little dude I knew to being the healthiest little ox on the block. She’s only been sick twice in the past year, the most recent one a couple of weeks ago. She also gets to hang out with her new friends Jacoba, Cordellia, and Emelia whenever she wants.

I really enjoy my job. It’s challenging, and because a couple of the big things I did paid off large dividends, I’m allowed more freedom than ever before. Being respected for the stuff that I’ve advocated for the last decade is incredibly rewarding. Getting to prove that the stuff I’ve been advocating for actually works is even more rewarding.

I also manage a great group of people. We get to do all of the really cool projects (because the web just rocks folks), and we got treated like rock stars when we busted our asses on one project that took two months of ridonkulous overtime.

Not to mention that my work is just a freaking cool place to be. There’s an energy at Info-Tech that I really like. It feels similar to the energy that TSN had back in the Netstar days. The fact that the company was named one of Canada’s best employers to work for is icing on that particular cake.

Char seems to enjoy her new role as well. Not only does she get to be the best mom that she can possibly be, but she’s making a difference on the Mother and Caregiver magazine as well.

I’m closer to my friends too, Ryan and John live within 10 minutes, while Rich is just 20 minutes away. Compare that to Ajax where other than Donnie (10 doors down), my nearest friend was about 40 minutes away! The fact that we can get together just for lunch whenever we want is pretty awesome.

So’s coming home for lunch when I want to.
Our new house feels more “home” than the last one did. We’ve made some significant improvements to this one, a fence around the back yard makes it more usable (this summer we’re going to do stairs and a patio), and I’ve nearly got “the behemoth” finished in the office area, which will make this an incredibly cool room to be in.

My garage rocks, it’s got a great organizational system going on, and this summer I’m going to seal the floor and paint all of the walls, which will make it even better.

I might try to start tackling the basement this summer too, hopefully I can begin framing some of it, and take some time over the winter to do wires, walls and floors.

I do wish that construction here was a little quicker. It’s been a year, and there’s no end to the number of trucks whizzing up and down our street. Our block is 90% mud right now, and getting over to the park is a little treacherous. This time next year hopefully most of this will be behind us.

All in though, I’m incredibly happy with the decision. If you asked the 2008 Brian if he’d go back to being 2006 Brian, the answer would be “Heck no!”.