I've been going to Toronto the last few weekends to look at condos for sale and apartments for rent. To make a long story short, my dad has been schooling me on the global economy crisis and strongly encouraging me to rent for 6-12 months. Ultimately I decided to buy because I was able to find exactly what I was looking for, am able to make affordable monthly payments, and can see myself living there for 10+ years. As long as I can stay employed, I don't care if the housing market crashes and prices plummet.

Below is some of the criteria I gave to my real estate agent:

• Queens Quay area (waterfront)
• New building that allows small dogs
• 1 bedroom + den for home office
• Breathtaking views of lake and city where I can see the CN Tower
• Walking distance to subway
• Walking distance to parks, boardwalk, restaurants, bars, etc.
• Balcony
• Ensuite washer & dryer
• Dishwasher
• Modern interior (granite counters, nice finishes, etc.)
• etc.

We looked at about 9 condos before we found the perfect one. I had to go back to my bank several times while making offers to see how much higher over my pre-approved amount I can go. The seller wouldn't budge and I ended up paying close to list price. Still, I'm very pleased with my purchase and move in the day after I move out of my Orillia house.

My dad is pretty disappointed that I didn't wait 6 months, and thinks I'm going to bankrupt myself. He doesn't realize that the mortgage payments are affordable (within my gross debt ratio), otherwise the bank wouldn't have allowed it. The bank is making me pay my car off with some of the profit from the sale of my Orillia house. I don't have any debts other than the mortgage. I will have almost the same amount of left over money at the end of the month as I do here in Orillia. If the housing market crashes, so what. The payments will stay the same for 5 years. All the websites I read and people I talk to seem to think that Toronto condo prices are going up this year. If a unit like this were any more than it was, I probably could not have afforded it.

Below is a picture standing at the door of the bedroom (larger than my current bedroom!). The second picture was taken standing near the bedroom window. The view from the living room is exactly the same.

A couple guys came by tonight to buy my home theater at full asking price. They also wanted to buy my couch, kitchen table & chairs, and microwave! I sold it all to them except the kitchen table & chairs. If they pay what I want for it, they can have those too. Now I get to start with fresh decor.

Last week I put my house up for sale. Before the sign went up and before the agents tour, my agent asked if she could have three potential buyers come through. They came, they saw, they bought! After the first viewing there were talks of an offer. Two days later they put in a near asking price offer, but wanted an April 8th closing date because they sold their house with that closing date. I accepted the offer and decided to rent a condo in Toronto for 6-12 months instead of buying one. That will give me time to learn Toronto's areas and also to see what happens to the housing market.

Yesterday I took the day off work to view a few apartments. The first was a nice 2 bedroom condo in a new building. Allows pets, in unit laundry, A/C, forced air natural gas heating, balcony, granite counter tops, parking space, storage locker, 5 min walk to subway, etc. WHAT A VIEW. From every room you can see a beautiful Toronto skyline including the CN Tower. Allowing pets, and the view are the most important things to me. What I don't like about this place is the location. It's at Bloor/Lansdowne which is a bit dumpy with a handful of brand new residential developments. It's a 20 minute walk to High Park, and 5 minute walk to subway. He'll let me do a 6 month lease then go month-by-month after that. I saw a second larger unit in the same building that is $100 more, and min 12 month lease.

The third place I looked at was High Park Village. One company owns about 7-10 high rise apartment buildings. The location is beautiful, it's across the road from High Park, lots of great shopping and restaurants within walking distance, 5 minute walk to subway, allows pets, etc. They have multiple vacancies but could not show the one with a city view without 24 hour notice to the tenant. I looked at another without a view instead. The building is 40 years old, parquay floors, no A/C, dated looking balcony, and some really old kind of heaters along the base of the walls. It costs an additional $85/month for parking, more for storage locker, more for access to shared laundry facilities, and if I want a 6 month lease instead of 12 month I have to pay an additional $200/month. This is a lot of money.

I'm going back on the weekend to check out some places in Queens Quay, and maybe by The Beaches. I'm most excited about Queens Quay because this is going to be close to what I will eventually buy. I want a great downtown view, newer or completely renovated interior, pets allowed, nice places to walk the dog, shopping within walking distance, etc. From what I hear, Queens Quay has it all.

What concerns me is that I can't figure out how I will set up my living room furniture in any of the units I've seen. Most units have small living rooms. My furniture fits, but not properly. I need a 10 foot or larger wall for my entertainment center, and the couch needs to be parallel to it. In these units my couch would be in the way of a doorway no matter how I place it. The only way around this is to get rid of my home theater and buy something that will go in a corner. It can be still be large, but it can't take up a 10 foot wall! I'm going to see if I can sell my home theater, but if not I'll find a way to make it fit.

Today my agent emailed to say that the deal has been finalized and the SOLD sign will go up tomorrow.

A few times I year I post a general update on life. I'm a bit overdue since several things have happened lately. In August I sold my first car (1998 Subaru Forrester) in record time: 2 hours. I put a for sale sign in the window and parked it in the parking lot at work. The guy who owns the business across the hall from us bought it to use as a "winter beater" :/ I bought myself a fully equipped 2004 Nissan Murano SE with leather interior. Here's a picture of what it looks like:

I like buying used because I paid about 50% the cost of a new Murano, it runs great, and still looks new. The other day I saw my old Subaru in the parking lot as I was backing out. The owner had backed into a parking spot so it looked like the Subaru was watching me, jealous that I traded it in for a better look'n young thing. Then I remembered that cars don't have feelings.

Another big change is that I have decided to move to Toronto in the spring of 2008. I got permission from my boss to work from home, an estimate on what my house is worth from a real estate agent, and pre-approved for a larger mortgage from the bank. I'm going to put the house up for sale at the end of February. Once it is sold I'm going to ask for a long closing date (up to 3 months) so that I can find a place to live in Toronto, buy it, and choose the same closing date for an easy move. I want a high rise condo in downtown Toronto with 2 bedrooms, balcony, allows pets, etc. I have a list of requirements, and know that there are places out there within my budget.

Another big change is Ryco Technologies. I have had a burning desire to start a software company since I was 12 years old. I didn't have a clear vision of how it would happen, but always knew that it will happen at some point in my life. I've been gaining work experience at IJW for the past nine years, and never stop thinking about Ryco Technologies. This year I finally got a vision and am taking the first two steps to get there. I convinced my boss to lay me off Jan 1st 2008, and to hire Ryco Technologies as a subcontractor. Initially I'll be gaining experience managing my books with guidance from IJW's financial administrator, while continuing my regular programming duties. Shortly after I move to Toronto I hope to be ready to invest some money in a small side business. IJW knows about this and we have agreed on how I will handle support requests for the side-business during regular business hours. Later in 2008 I want to start work on the first of 4 fairly large business applications on my own time which will become Ryco Technologies' first software offerings. I'll be enlisting the help of two industry experts that I know personally (they don't know who they are yet :) for valuable guidance, requirements planning, and possibly help with marketing. I hope that in several years my four applications plus the other service will grow Ryco Technologies into a profitable business with multiple employees. If it flops, I will have gained valuable experience that I can apply at any company and will be happy that I tried.

I'm very fortunate to be able to work a stable job where I can apply and improve my skills while simultaneously making all of my dreams come true. I'm very thankful to my employer for that.

Tonight I attended my first Java User Group meeting in Toronto. It seemed like there were nearly 100 developers there, and I made my grand entrance 15-20 minutes into the presentation :) I didn't know how much time it would take me to get there so I tried to give myself 2 hours. Unfortunately I was a bit late and had 1hr 45 minutes. With the stop and go traffic all the way down 401 and DVP, plus having to drive great distances to the center of the city to get there, buy parking from a meter that didn't seem to work, find the right entrance and room etc... oh well, nobody seemed to care.

The guy behind me looked so much like James Gosling (original creator of Java) I thought it really was him until I looked again. Everyone in there seemed to be older than me. The presenter was from Gigaspaces, a grid computing company. Their product looks really neat, but it also seems like you can't really make use of it without spending lots of $$$ on consulting hours to get going. I got the impression you write your app, then pay their consultants to help gridify it. When done properly the results are unbelievable, both in performance and reliability.

At the end most people packed up and left. A few stuck around to ask questions. I was a bit surprised, but didn't really know what to expect from the first meeting. The Barrie 2600 meetings and probably the Barrie Linux Group are more of a social event. The JUG seems more formal, where every month they have a professional speaker from some vendor there to hype you about their products. This may seem bad to some people, but I think I'm ok with it. That kind of exposure to a variety of products and architecture is important to a career programmer.

I'm sure after a few meetings, if I talk to some people I'll make some new Java guru friends.

I recently tried to sell my old KVM switch and cables on ebay. A local guy from Orillia won. I used to have a really old dying monitor from the early 90's attached to it and saw the same kind of lines you'd see when pointing a video camera at a monitor. I thought it was the monitor but to be sure, I tested with my new LCD screen. The dam scan lines are still there, so it must be the KVM. I emailed the guy and said he could have it for free because I didn't want to keep it and didn't want to see it go in the garbage if replacing the KVM cables might solve the problem.

Today I dropped it off, and while there he gave me a tour of their server room. It was neat, because the entire ISP was basically one server cabinet with a bunch of stuff it. The room was the same size as our server room. I got to see where the old Encode Online BBS used to be, and one of the remaining BBS computers. He says now the guy maintains the BBS from his home.

Well hopefully it works out for him, with high quality KVM cables. If not, he didn't lose any money on it.

In just a few hours I leave to Toronto for my first class in the Professional J2EE Web Application Development. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I'm focusing the future of my career on java web applications. Hopefully the months of reading I've done beforehand will make it easier for me to get through this course.