Canada

[stimpy]

Well I had to reply to this thread because I am Canadian.Born and raised.Would not even think of living anywhere else than British Columbia.Sure go check out Ontario,but if you really want it all, come to B.C. The oceans ,the mountains,one of the most beautiful world class cities in the world....Vancouver. 30 minutes from Vancouver you can find some of the most spectacular scuba diving at Porteau Cove,(on the way to Whistler) We are of course the host city for the Olympics in Feb 2010, so another good reason to come here!!

[Vivweaver]

Darc,

Sorry to hear about your woes. Let me guess, is that part of the Six-Sigma crap that's been gonig around? They did that to my company and I left a week afterwards. IT always suffers when management has some stupid idea of giving department directors a bigger bonu....i mean saving money.

I think you should go where your hear tells you to go. I know alot of Canadians and they are the nicest people I've ever met. There's rich history in Quebec, as it's older then the US. You can drive cars that aren't legal in the US (NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R). But overall, you can easily move to an oil based economy like Denver or Dallas, and do well in the IT field; especially if you have experience.

I'm an IT person myself, and I keep getting certs to stay a cut above the rest of my competition. Have you considered getting your CISSP? There's also a strong demand for Project Management, and as long as you have a degree and some experience which it sounds like you do, then you should have no problem. Good luck to you Darc, I hope my opinion was worth reading.

By the way, thanks for all the vivarium advice : )

[Vivweaver]

Lol, you shouldn't go where your hear tells you to go, go where your heart* tells you to go

[Epiphile]

I don't do either of those two things (diving or climbing) personally, but I would imagine that you could find people doing both here- southern Ontario's not really mountainous per se, but the Niagara Escarpment would probably provide a worthy face or two, and amidst a lovely bit of scenery to boot. I know that quite a few people dive the lakes here- some are deep, some shallow, but there are some interesting things to be seen; shipwrecks and the like.

Toronto's not too bad a city either, all told- there's something for everyone here, I guess. I suppose I'm involved with the art/music scene here, and there's certainly stuff like that happening all the time. One complaint might be that the rents are ridiculous here, but we manage to make it through somehow, even the poverty-ridden such as myself.

Temperature-wise, Toronto's at the top end of what's known as the Snow Belt, and I bet you can guess why. We get dumped on quite a bit in the winter, but it's not often too unbearably cold- I'd be lying if I said that it didn't go down to -5/-10 F from time to time. The weather's often quite humid, making the summers a bit less than comfortable (the plants love it, though), and it usually hovers around 90 at worst, though sometimes we'll get a heat wave past that. I guess I'm not selling the place too well, but there you have it.

So how do you plan to go about getting over here? You'd better not ask me for a date with my sister, ha ha.

[seahawksfan_74]

As a proud Canadian I would say make the move. I live in Manitoba so I would have a tough time answering any Ontario specific questions. Though you have to realize that Ontario is huge, Northwestern Ontario is very very different from Southern Ontario. I assume that you would be looking at Southern Ontario near Toronto. As I understand it they have pretty mild winters compared with us (two months of -30 or colder). As for SCUBA I am sure you could dive in the lakes around there in the summer without a wetsuit, it wouldn't exactly be Carribean diving but still you could do it. Taxes are higher but you get more for them. Universal Health care is a beautiful thing. Good luck in your decision making.

[darc]

Lot's of good info here... thank you for your replies.

I've got a few interviews lined up in-state over the next few weeks... but I'm still thinking heartily about that job up north...

-darc