Wagons East?

This is getting silly. The cost of living in Cowtown is going up, up and more up as time goes on. It's getting impossible to afford the basics and still maintain my swingin' bachelor lifestyle. Okay geekin' nerdling lifestyle.

Seriously: rent up 15% (and more than likely 50%+ next bump); parking up 25%; gas up 20%; utilities up 15%; and everything else going up due to the price of gas, utilities and skyrocketing rents/property values.

This time last year I gave up on being able to squirrel away enough for a down-payment on a condo. Now I'm worried I may have to move to an even smaller place for more money. No hope of getting something at my current rent range. Both of my brothers have moved to new places in town this month and are paying $1000+ for one-bedrooms.

What with the reunion in July, one of the goals was to "check out" Toronto as a viable place to work and live in. Rent is about on par, but I noticed everything else was cheaper, even with the provincial sales tax. My bro's girlfriend owns a condo that she is renting out in T.O. and it's coming available soon. May be a perfect opportunity to move (I hate apartment hunting). Only thing I hate worse than moving is job hunting, but there's a plethora of opportunities out there and it wouldn't take me long to find something to at least pay the bills. Add to that, it turns out that I like my family and it may be time to get reacquainted.

So the only thing really holding me back is my lack of project experience with the latest and greatest in programming technologies (.NET and Java) which I should be able to get where I am. The caveat is that I've been in this situation before and have been pulled because they needed someone with my experience with the legacy systems. The other factor is that salary reviews occur in September. Basically, if they have a 5% cap again, it's time to go.

And no, it has nothing to do with the lap dances. Okay not alot to do with the lap dances. Those are bloody expensive.

Additionally, I will no longer be answering my land-line phone. The number of telemarketing calls is getting stupendously annoying: sometimes six times a night. So I left a message on my machine saying I simply will not answer the phone anymore. I'll be disconnecting it soon. This is what you get for actually making a charitable donation: no good deed goes unpunished.