Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 267: Vancouver, BC – The Calm Before The Storm

We had no plans for today, so we did basically nothing!

We wanted to get some relaxing in before we have to move this to week.

We woke up and just had some serial for breakfast and watched a little TV.

After that, we had a shower and then Curtis played some games whilst Kim relaxed and played on her phone.

We watched a little more TV together and then got hungry, so Kim made her delicious chicken and mushroom risotto!

After dinner, we watched Birds of Prey which was a pretty decent film.

Birds of Prey

Our Rating:- 7/10

We finished up with watching that and then someone came to pickup something we were selling, which was just a storage rack.

The person came to pick that up and then for the rest of the evening, we just relaxed a little more.

We have a lot of stuff to pack up this week!


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 256: Vancouver, BC – Sneaky Office Visit

Curtis’ Day

Curtis for rest and then, with Kim, walked down to the city.

Curtis was the only one in his team with a specific key, so he had to go drop it off.

He got into the office, dropped off the key and left again.

On the way back, walking through the deserted city, which felt very strange, Curtis stopped at Mario’s to get a coffee. It was delicious and Curtis had a good chat with the owner, as well.

Curtis walked back home and went right into the weekly webinar from Zoom in which they discuss new updates and have a Q&A session.

Curtis finished that and then for most of the remainder of the day, he completed the project work he began yesterday!

After doing a couple of tickets, Curtis did some training and then that was his day done.

Kim’s Day

Today was a busy day! The midweek catch up was great, there were more people than normal and it was great to see some newcomers! Kim hopped straight into a cribbage game after the social call and lost the game. It was good fun, but the other team crushed it!

Kim walked with Curtis into work, it was so lovely to have a tiny bit of normality, even if downtown does look like a brightly and beautifully painted apocalyptic movie. All the shops are boarded up, but people are painting on all the boards, its really beautiful!

When Kim got into the office she started by emptying the remaining cupboards on one side of the kitchen. She managed to organise the drinks where they take up only three cupboards and fit all of the drinks that were stored on a flatbed away in the cupboards too!

Kim then helped IT set up a new user on a laptop. She called one of the guys, but his audio wouldn’t work, so Kim asked the questions and he had to type out the answers. It was strange but it worked!

Kim then went back in the kitchen and started collecting all the nicer biodegradable plates and cutlery into one place, rather than being in different parts of the kitchen. She created a catering cupboard and its great!

Kim found another cabinet in the office so she took that to make it a gaming station in the break out area. She also took the new bookshelf in the kitchen for the breakout area too. She managed to position the bookshelf and another larger cupboard in a way that has storage for the trolleys behind them. Its very aesthetically pleasing!

Kim then had a meeting with her colleague, where she went over the plan for the rest of the day and asked her opinion on a few of the office move things.

Kim then moved a desk so she could use the area as storage space. She collected up all the stuff lying around thay belongs to the team and put it in the new space. It now looks much more open where Kim is making the breakout area.

Mid afternoon Kim popped out to pick up some personal pizzas for her colleague and herself. When she got back one of her managers was in the office. It turns out that he was in to pick up the laptop. So Kim finished setting it up and collected a few things to go with it and passed the laptop over. It was great to have a chat and say hello too!

Kim then attempted to DYI make a cable run in the cabinet she stole earlier. Turns out that it is nearly impossible to drill into the material it is with the weak drill Kim bought a few months ago. There is now a fair amount of sawdust and a tiny hole in the cabinet. So that was relatively unsuccessful! After giving up on this Kim moved a few tables from one part of the office to another.

Just before she left Kim cleared up the massive mess she made in the kitchen and one corner of the office. She then called a courier to ask some questions for a colleague and then had to plug in the mail machine in order for her colleague to send some post! It was a very sucessful day!

No Workout Today

We didn’t really feel like working out today, and Kim got home a little later, so we just played mini sticks instead, until we got hungry.

Curtis had meatballs and Kim had chicken sausages for dinner, with a collection of vegetables and a really nice gravy/sauce.

We watched the next episode of Tiger King and some other TV before heading off to sleep.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 247: Vancouver BC – Addicted To VR!

Curtis’ Day

The weather outside was wonderful this morning when we went for our walk, so Curtis felt refreshed and ready to start the day.

After he showered and had breakfast, Curtis did some admin and then had another computer checkup to complete at 09:30, so he did that and then did some security work.

After that, he had his daily team meeting, followed by some project work and then he had another checkup to do.

Curtis got his project work completed and then had his weekly team meeting.

After that, he actually ended up having a busy afternoon, which he wasn’t expecting, as he had some people reach out about some issues, and that lead him perfectly to the end of the day.

Kim’s Day

Kim got herself ready to play a game of cribbage, earlier than she would usually start working. So she got orgnaised, joined the call, and then realised it wasn’t her game! So she left and then did a test of a bunch of light bulbs in the apartment and made a bin pile and replaced some of the dead lights in the kitchen.

When she started work at the proper time she reached out to someone she is meant to be arranging a phone screen for as they had not been in contact.

Kim then spent most of her day working on righting a wellness and ergonomics document for the Wiki. It was something that her manager said would be a good thing to have for people to refer to while working from home. So Kim did her research and spent most of the day making the document to be a interesting and informative!

She also joined yoga at midday and in the afternoon updated the cribbage tracker to account for the games that took place today. Towards the end of the day, she aldo heard back from the candidate and booked them in for their phone screen.

Back To Working Out

We worked out after Kim got back from the office.

We played some mini sticks first as a warm-up, of course, and then did our working out which felt great.

We both showered and then we had chicken pesto pasta for dinner as it was almost 20:00 and we were hungry, so it was nice and quick.

We watched travel man whilst we ate and then watched some TV, played some games and played more VR…We are definitely addicted to VR!


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 238: Vancouver, BC – Lazy TV Time

We woke up a little earlier today, and then had some french toast with bananas and maple syrup for breakfast.

We watched some TV with breakfast and then got showered and ready for the day.

We were going to go for a drive, but we realised we couldn’t be bothered.

So what did we do?

We played some games, watched some more TV and played some mini sticks.

That was pretty much our day. Really, nothing interesting.

Kim made really tasty lemon and ginger chicken with coconut and jasmine rice, which was excellent!

We watched some more TV after dinner and then had a look at some houses in Norway because it’s fun!


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 235: Vancouver, BC – Homemade Workout

Curtis’ Day

We didn’t go for a walk this morning, so Curtis got to sleep in!

Curtis had a meeting at 09:30 with his team and 1 other person, to get team specific feedback on a survey the team had answered.

After that, he had his general team meeting, followed by 2 project interview meetings.

That was already the morning done and we went for a lunchtime walk.

Curtis’ afternoon was all tickets, which took up his whole afternoon which was good.

Kim’s Day

Kim hosted the midweek catch up, it was great to talk to a few people, some who hadn’t joined before!

She then spent most of the day working on the presentation. She has made a cool theme and designed the slides around that. She took some time to get some information on there, make sure the slides work and tried to make it as interesting and captivating as she can.

Midway through the morning she had a department catch up, it was so nice to see people she hasn’t seen for weeks!

For the rest of the day Kim did the slideshow. She also did a little scheduling and towards the end of the day she started to read a document that her colleague sent over, but she has made that a future Kim problem, it wasn’t something to start at the end of the day!

Homemade Workout

We did our homemade workout, which was our favourite elements from the workout we had been doing, but all put together in the style we wanted.

This was great!

Kim did a few stretches and then we did the cleaning for the week.

After the cleaning, we had leftover vegetarian spaghetti bolognese, which was terrific.

After dinner, we played some mini sticks for a while, and then played some Need For Speed, followed by a bit of TV.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 232: Vancouver, BC – Upping Our Mini Sticks Setup!

Shopping

We got up and had breakfast, followed by getting ready shortly after.We went out to go to a couple of shops right after we got ready.We walked up to Winners first, but that was closed, so we went to the supermarket and spent quite a bit of money but got a lot of things, which was good.We left the supermarket and then went to Canadian Tire to find some lightbulbs, a stud finder & some goals for our mini sticks setup!

Building The Goals

Kim got home and used the stud finder as well as looking online to see if she can get a pole for home, and Curtis spent time building the two goals for mini sticks. We’ve now really upgraded our mini sticks setup!

Friend Chat

Kim and a chat with 5 other friends from pole dancing on Zoom!This was a nice conversation and gave the chance to chat with some other people.

Roast!

As we have the time, we made a veggie roast for dinner!We had potato, sweet potato, beetroot, broccoli, carrot and peas!Delicious.We are our food and then did the usual in the evening, playing games, mini sticks and watching some TV.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 231: Vancouver, BC – Family Games & Long Drive

Lazy Morning

We had a lazy morning, as per usual on weekends, having breakfast, watching a bit of TV and relaxing.

Family Games

Once we got ready in the afternoon, we called Kim’s family and played some drawing games!

We used Skribbl.io to go against each other, having to draw whatever item we were given and everyone had to guess.

We had good fun for around an hour doing this and then they went to sleep so we said goodbye.

We chilled out for an hour or two more after this and then went for a drive!

Long Drive

We just wanted to get out but didn’t want to contend with other people, so we went for a drive.

We ended up drive for a while and got to an affluent area with a lot of horse stables and the such.

We turned around and just started driving in the general direction of home and overall the drive took us 1.5 hours once we got back.

It wasn’t as nice as going out for a walk, but we didn’t have to worry about physical distancing!

Films, Mini Sticks & Games

Our evening consisted of watching TV, a film (hotel Transylvania 2, which we think we may have actually seen before!) And then playing some mini sticks!

After Kim won the mini sticks game, which was incredibly fun and competitive, we played a bit of Need For Speed before browsing some houses in Norway whilst drinking wine, because why not?


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 229: Vancouver, BC – Fung Shui

Curtis’ Day

Post walk, the day started very quiet for Curtis.

Curtis did some admin and a few other things, but had nothing planned for a couple of hours.

The day picked up and he had to craft a communication and provide some information to the company around some software security.

Curtis also got a couple of tickets and some people messaged him about different things.

All of a sudden, it was lunch time!

After lunch, Curtis had a project interview again and then post that, he did some ticket work and some admin for the project he is working on.

In the late afternoon, Curtis and his team jumped on to play some Rocket League again and it was fun! Everyone is starting to get much better, so the games are getting more and more fun, too.

Kim’s Day

Kim joined the meeting in the morning and then worked on sending out a few more of the invites for the cribbage tournament. In the middle of the morning Kim joined in with yoga.

In the afternoon Kim had a 1-1 with her manager. It was ao great to catch up. They went over they were doing, how they are keeping busy in and out of work and it was lovely.

After that Kim then worked on the cribbage spreadsheet to set up the elimination round process! She also fixed some of the automation for the current games sheet.

For the final bit of the afternoon Kim sent. The last of this batch of invites and did some scheduling of interviews for a team mate.

Kim walked part of the way to work before she realised she didnt have her pass. So she went back home, pick it up and then went into work to drop off a few things and pick some other things up. Downtown Vancouver is very empty and some shops are boarded up. It was very surreal!

Fung Shui

We eventually did our workout, which wasn’t until around 18:30 as Kim was out still and Curtis finished up playing games with his team.

Once we finished our workout, we moved the furniture around in our apartment!

We wanted a better area for working out and playing mini sticks, which we have really started to enjoy!

We got the furniture moved and setup and then we had some pizza for dinner, because we completely forgot to get anything!

After dinner, we watched a bit of TV and then played mini sticks for 40 minutes or so. This was fun but tiring!

We finished up the night with some video games and some TV.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 228: Vancouver, BC – Plenty of Booze!

Curtis’ Day

We were going to go for a walk when we woke up, but right as we got outside, Kim realised she had a meeting at 08:00, so we went right back in!

Curtis did some admin and then some tickets before his team meeting.

After the meeting, another meeting he had got cancelled so he did some more ticket work and then finished off the morning with training.

After lunch, Curtis had a quick meeting with someone to show them how to do a couple of things and then did a bit of project work and research.

Curtis did some more training and then played some games with his team for team building!

Kim’s Day

Kim started the day with a week a midweek catch up that is open to all offices. There were a lot less people than last week, but it we still great to see people and have a chat!
After this, Kim joined the company wide meeting.

For some of the morning Kim worked on a few quizzes. She has a fair few ideas and it doesn’t look like this working from home situation will be changing anytime soon so she might as well add a few and use them as and when!

She also worked on her spreadsheet that logs the cribbage tournament. She made it easier to read and made the scoring sytem automated! She was very proud of this as she hasn’t used some of the formulas in years!

After lunch Kim joined on a catch up call with people in her team and who sit near by. It was great to see everyone and chat to them, she has missed them all!

Straight after this Kim watched the first game of the cribbage tournament and then updated the shiney new spreadsheet with the results.

Kim then spent the rest of the afternoon setting up games for in the future.

Plenty of Booze!

We did our workout which nearly killed us today!

After that, we walked up to the liquor store to get some wine, beer and pre mixed Moscow mules, just to stock up so we have plenty for any occasion.

We got back home and were hungry, so we had a big salad to start with and then leftovers from yesterday.

We watched TV and then played some mini sticks hockey at home, which was WAY more fun for us than it should have been, but was nice to get away from a screen for a bit.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 224: Vancouver, BC – Mini Sticks & Quarantine Queues

Staying In

We were up late, around 12:00, and we had some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast.

We enjoyed that and watched some TV and then eventually got ready to go out.

Mini Sticks & Quarantine Queues

We went out in the early evening to go to the supermarket and to Canadian Tire.

We went to get our weekly shop as well as headed to Canadian Tire for some stick on LED lights, as well as some mini sticks for something fun to do!

We had to queue for a bit of time to get into the supermarket, but that is definitely a good thing!

There was more than enough stuff in there for us to buy, so we got our weekly shop completed.

Curry Leftovers & Uncut Gems

We watched some YouTube whilst we ate leftover curry and then we watched the film Uncut Gems.

The film was a little confusing and we didn’t really know what the point of it was or what it was even about.

Either way, we watched it.

We finished the night with some Need For Speed as well as a couple of small TV shows.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale