[tpm] country hacker, city hacker

[Adam Prime]

Welcome,

(i haven't read any of the other replies, but i'm sending this as is anyway)

Moving from the Sault to Toronto is going to be a huge adjustment
without a doubt.  Rest assured though, that there are lots of people
that came from communities even smaller than where you grew up that have
moved to the city and thrived.  Theres a lot in your novel, so i'm just
going to address some highlights, at random

Getting around:
Transit in the city is safe.  The subway is pretty reliable. Surface
routes are generally reasonably reliable as well (meaning buses and
streetcars)  It's 3 bucks cash fare to go anywhere you can get to on
transit.  You can get a monthly pass for 125 or so, and there is a
federal tax break associated with those passes so you get some of that
money back.  There are *many* people that live in the city without any
vehicle at all, and are reliant on their feet, bicycles, and transit.
You are probably going to walk a lot.  Maybe more than you do now.
People in the city tend to do that, especially if they are on a budget.
 I personally *hate* spending money on cabs.  Up where the office is
it's all buses, but they are buses that run pretty frequently

Apartments:
checkout viewit.ca to get an idea of what you're up against. I'm not at
all familiar with what it's like in that part of the city, but i think
you've got a blend of single family homes, possibly split up into
apartments, and big apartment buildings.  I've never lived in the
latter, and don't really ever want to.  That far north you're probably
not looking at $2000 a month.  You can probably find something nice not
that far from the office for around not too far over 1000/month

ie: http://viewit.ca/vwExpandView.aspx?Vit=141773

I wouldn't advise taking an apartment you haven't seen in person, no
matter how nice the pictures look. Also, parking for two vehicles may be
tough, unless your car is small and you can put the bike and the car in
a single spot.

You're probably going to end up eating a lot of money with the whole
resignation / moving thing.  Moving is expensive and there isn't really
any way to avoid it.  When i left my last job i left them with a list of
my contract work rates.  I billed them for a couple grand of work over
the next three or four months.  You might want to consider offering them
something like that.

You're exaggerating about the difference in prices of things i think.
The only place where that might be true is on restaurant food.  In my
experience small town restaurants charge nothing for massive meals.  My
advice would be to cook at home as much as possible ;)

About bike maintenance, you should start checking out forums about
whatever kind of bike it is you have.  It's pretty much guaranteed that
there are a huge number of bike nerds on the internet that live in
toronto and love nothing more than helping people wrench their bikes
when they need wrenching.  If you drove a rally car instead of a bike i
could introduce you to a bunch of exactly those kinds of people.


Hope that helps,

Adam