Wow, it's been how long?

Okay. It has been forever since my last update. A lot has happened since my Superheroes quiz thingy. Let’s start with where I left off…

In September I made mention of an opening in the SEACOR Vancouver office that I applied to. Well, As of December 1, 2006, I have been an employee of the SEACOR Vancouver office. It was somewhat of a stressful time after I applied. Tanya applied to the Richmond School District as a TOC and then received an interview. I was told around the end of September that the transfer was a done deal and that all that needed to be done was dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s. However, that took a whole two months which actually was sort of a good/bad thing. I got a chance to work on a lot of cool projects in Nanaimo and work my way up to starting the whole project management aspect of being an engineer. Tanya’s interview went well such that we were starting to contemplate what our future scenarios would be.

1. I get the transfer and Tanya doesn’t get hired by SD38. We would move back of course but perhaps in the Spring of 2007 to give her more time to make money in Nanaimo and to reapply to other school districts.

2. I don’t get the transfer but Tanya does get the job with SD38. This was the worst case scenario because we really didn’t know what to do. Thankfully it didn’t happen.

3. We both get hired. Well, it happened. Actually Tanya got hired first.

Yup, Tanya had her interview and then on October 31st, she called me to tell me that SD38 had called to hire her. She asked them for a day to think it over as scenario 2 seemed to be happening. So I called my boss in Nanaimo to ask him about the transfer since I hadn’t officially heard from Vancouver and well, frankly I would probably move with Tanya and look for a job with another company which he didn’t want to happen (I’m a hot commodity you know. But Tanya is a hotter commodity). He called me back in the afternoon and told me that I got the transfer and that I’d be moving at the end of November. Wow. That fast!!!

So the moving part was the next step. Finding an apartment which we did in North-central Richmond thanks in part to my mom checking the Richmond Review paper. Great location and really bright apartment (Tanya wanted bright after living in our Nanaimo Cave). We actually got the apartment the first weekend we went back to try and look. Very fortunate that the owner liked us and our references checked out. Thanks Brad!

So the whole packing process came next which was difficult since Tanya already started working with Richmond mid-November. She ferried back each week and came back on the weekends. It was a good time to do so since I was out in the field which posed a problem for packing. Surprising how much “stuff” you accumulate in 2.5 years.

The next big problem was the weather. Moving in November isn’t very fun. However, living on the west coast, you usually only have to contend with rain. Not this time though. It snowed. End of November in Vancouver/Nanaimo and it snows with a vengeance.

My brother unfortunately couldn’t make it out to help us move but Jeremy didn’t care about the risks of traveling so he caught a bus to the ferry terminal and we picked him up which was great because we would have flipped out having to move ourselves without his help. We were also grateful to our friend Brad who came out for a couple hours to help us load up the truck. So, after packing up in a downpour of snow, we handed in our keys, made sure the carpet cleaner arrived and then caravanned it to the Duke Point Ferry Terminal arriving just before the big snow storm hit. Nanaimo treated us well, but it was time to move back to Vancouver!!!