The Long Goodbye

The time has finally come to say goodbye to Silicon Valley. Ashley and I will be moving back to Vancouver tomorrow, leaving the place we’ve called home for the past four years. Rather than dwell on the sadness of leaving the Tech Mecca, I thought I’d take the time to reflect on the good stuff we’ve experienced while we were down here:

• Music: The Bay Area is a cornucopia of good music. Through the local friendly radio station, KFOG, we got introduced to a number of great bands and artists, and I finally came to understand the Grateful Dead phenomenon after being a longtime Phish fan. We took in a few concerts, including some nice small concerts with some Canadian rock heroes (Sloan, The Tragically Hip).
• People: We met a lot of great people here building the next great Internet whatchamacallit, and hope to stay in touch with all of them in the coming years. They include, in no particular order, Min Jung Kim, Mike Allen, Matt Mullenweg, Kevin Burton, Eleanor Kruzewski, Russell Beattie, Mike Rowehl, Brad Neuberg, and many, many others. We even managed to meet a few minor celebrities along the way, which was pretty cool. Best of all, I got to spend some quality time with a fellow global nomad, longtime friend, and former college room-mate Kevin Cheng.
• Events: If there’s something you’re interested in, the Bay Area has the benefit that there’s a lot of other people just as nerdy as you who are also interested in it. Ashley and I both enjoyed the Maker Faire this year, and the various other events like BlogHer, BloggerCon, Startup School, Wired’s NextFest, the Singularity Summit, and others over the past couple of years. And of course, who could forget CampCamp?
• Travel: It’s been a busy couple of years for traveling. From a business perspective, I’ve been around the US several times over. From a personal perspective, we had a number of nice vacations: Maui, LA, Turks & Caicos, and Paris. Good times.

What does the future hold? Who knows. I’ve been working on some code for a while that I hope to license out (once it’s perfected), and I’m also working with a promising person-to-person lending startup that’s in the very early stages. I hope to get into writing a bit more on this blog, in part to reflect on what I’ve learned over the past four years, and to share that experience with others in the Vancouver area.

Looking forward to seeing all my old friends in Vancouver! And to those in Silicon Valley: Keep in touch!