Tag: need for speed

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 451: Vancouver, BC – English Test

Kim & Curtis Hale

English Test

We had an English test today, starting at 10:00.

As mentioned yesterday, even though we are from the UK, we still have to have an English test completed for our PR, so that’s what we did!

We were up at 07:30 and very tired!

We walked down to the test centre which was about 15 minutes away.

We got there and had to sit around for a while and then we were taken in for our ID checks.

We then moved to the test room and sat our computers ready to take the test. That being said, we at there for 45 minutes waiting to start!

We eventually started and Curtis did it pretty quickly. We had 3 hours to do so, and Curtis completed it in 1 hour 15 minutes! There was a listening, reading, writing and speaking section.

Kim finished not too long after, maybe 30-45 minutes, and we were done!

We went to get ourselves a coffee and we both think it went pretty well.

We got home and were very tired!

Need For Speed, Completed!

We completed Need For Speed, so that was fun, and then Kim had to do a little bit of work for something that came up during the day.

After that, we mustered up the effort to go and do the shop.

We smashed the shop! Military precision was used and we got around it really fast, and even went to two other shops!

We got back home and had some cheese and wine for dinner whilst watching the film JEXI which was pretty funny and silly.

We relaxed for the rest of the evening. The day felt very long as we were up so early!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 450: Vancouver, BC – First Time Heating

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a pretty quiet day. He got quite a few tickets done and answered questions from people.

During the day, we got a bit too cold so we turned the heating on, only for it not to do anything! We were stumped so we thought that it was broken, but it turns out that the electric breaker was flipped off for heat, so we flipped that back on and we had heat!

A lot of the afternoon for Curtis was dealing with a potential security risk.

Kim’s Day

Kim spent the morning on odd jobs and small tasks. She reached out to a few people to get some information, started to set up one of the new softwares and updated some to do lists.

At midday Kim hosted a game of Skribbl and a few people joined in! There were 5 other people and someones son. There were three round that went on for 30 minutes and it was so nice to have people join, laugh and have fun. They enjoyed it so much they even hinted at making a tournament from another game Kim suggested. After the call Kim started making a score sheet for a connect four tournament. It will be so much fun!

For the rest of the afternoon Kim worked on her facilities project. It was a lot of research, saving information and collecting data on a spreadsheet so it’s easily comparable. From today Kim has a better understanding of what she is looking for and how everything works, so thats a big success.

Evening

We went and got some food from Noodlebox up the street. Curtis got a Pad Thai and Kim got Chinese fried rice.

We ate that and watched some TV and played some Need For Speed.

Kim went out to get an ice cream and some Red Bull for tomorrow morning, as we have an English test for our PR application fairly early, so we need to be up at a good time for that.

Energy will be required.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 447: Vancouver, BC – Research & Meta Data

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Most of Curtis’ day was very similar to yesterday, doing a lot of tickets and helping people out as they messaged him.

In the afternoon, Curtis was able to get a little bit done for the issue he was trying to fix from yesterday, but unfortunately a lot of that is just waiting.

Kim’s Day

Kim started her day by getting notes ready for the weekly company meeting. The meeting was then delayed so Kim worked on other notes and reorganised a few things in her filing system.

The meeting went really well, Kim gave a few updates and went over a couple of things that will be happening over the next few weeks. Everyone also sung Kim happy birthday, which was so kind and so funny!!

After the meeting Kim spent a lot of her time working on ideas for a few events coming up. She out together a proposal for a winter party and also took the time to find delivery options for people if Kim ever needed to order something for them as the usual services like UberEats and others dont service that area yet.

In the afternoon Kim added the metadata for another page which was cool! This time she had to include more information and it was so interesting to learn more and see how things work.

During this Kim also got a message about another project she will need to work on so Kim spent some time in the evening to research, get a better understanding and pull together some early options for the project. Its an exciting one and Kim is really looking forward to working on it!

Evening

We had some pizza for dinner and watched some TV, as well as played some games.

We plan to do not very much tomorrow, as it’s a day off (in the middle of the week)!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 446: Vancouver, BC – Broken Things!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a busy day all in all!

He started with catching up from the weekend and other emails, then he had a long team meeting.

After that team meeting, it was pretty much lunch time!

Once he finished lunch, he had a long, long call trying to fix something he created a long time ago. This was tough to remember how to do things but there was a little bit of progress made after a 1.5 hour call!

After that, Curtis had a couple more tickets to do and some admin, then he was done for the day.

Kim’s Day

BC added new restrictions over the weekend and as a result Kim decided to take some time to research what this means and learn a little more about how it impacts work spaces. She also started making some more signs for the office that arespecific to the workspace, as well as finding some official materials.

For some of the morning Kim worked on more research for a new software, updated the spreadsheet and sent it over to her manager with some questions and for her to review.

As there are a few employees in difflocations Kim wanted to make a list of all the public holidays that the company might celebrate. At some point she will add it to the new HR software so its easily accessible for everyone.

In the afternoon Kim did a bit of organising of files and then moved on to trying to understanding the recruitment process and add a job posting to LinkedIn. However, after a number of tries Kim can’t seem to get it to post right. So she will take a look and try again tomorrow.

Evening

We had some tomato and mushroom pasta with a ceasar salad for dinner.

We then watched some TV and played some Need For Speed. After that, Kim did a bit of admin for her visa.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 441: Vancouver, BC – Successful Pitch

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a call in the morning with an external support person and a colleague to get something fixed.

It was not particularly successful, but it got the process moving on a bit, so that the third party can investigate further.

After this call, Curtis had a team meeting and then not long after that, he had another meeting about a new start to a selection of projects.

After this, Curtis did a lot of tickets and had a 1 on 1.

Curtis spent the rest of the day doing tickets but also keeping an eye on the pivotal US election.

In the afternoon, Curtis did some training and practice questions for his Business Analyst exam.

Once he did that, he did a bit of a practice exam for the English test he has to do for the visa, too.

Kim’s Day

Kim went into the office again today and had a really good day!

She started by researching and compiling information on the some software she wants to bring in. She then went over it with her colleague and then set up a meeting to show their manager in the afternoon.

At lunch Kim popped out to pick something up to eat, as she forgot to make something the night before. After this Kim had a call with the recruitment company that is used and had a run down of the recruitment software thats in place.

Straight after this meeting Kim had the meeting with her manager to show the new software and highlighted the key points, it went well and looks like it will be implemented soon! Its a great start to getting some systems in place to make things easier for everyone.

For the rest of the afternoon Kim worked on adding metadata to the product. It was repetitive, lots of copy from here and paste there, but still interesting and somewhat cathartic! She got into the swing of it so much, she ended up staying late to get it all finished!

Evening

When Kim got home, we had some homemade chicken curry from a while ago that we had in the freezer. We had this with homemade naan too!

We watched some TV and played some Need for Speed again and watched a Norwegian show that Curtis had to watch the first episode of for his Norwegian homework!

We watched some other TV for the evening but we are so tired at the moment as it gets dark far too early… It was dark at 14:00 today!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 440: Vancouver, BC – Making Strides With Norwegian

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis was meant to have a meeting with someone in his company and an external support person, but the external person didn’t appear, so it didn’t happen!

Curtis therefore got some other work done.

At 10:30, Curtis had his Norwegian ‘lesson’ and learned a lot, actually, which he was really happy about! He felt he wasn’t speaking very good Norwegian, but learning a lot was a good feeling.

After that, Curtis spent most of the rest of the day getting tickets done as well as some security work that came up.

Kim’s Day

Kim started her day with the weekly company wide meeting, it was great to meet everyone, hear what is happening in other departments and get to know the product a bit better.

For most of the day Kim was researching softwares that might be needed soon. So it was a lot of finding one thing, reading about it, heading to a comparison site and then writing up about it.

In the afternoon, one of the companies got back to Kim so they had a quick call to go over some questions, talk about what Kim is looking for and learn more about pricing. This was a great help and Kim was then able to write a more precise overview as a result. She will start to set up a few more meetings with other companies over the next couple of days.

Towards the end if the day Kim reached out to a friend to see if they would be interested in a collaboration between the two companies that they both work in, so that could be interesting!

Evening

We had chicken chilli with potato for dinner which was delicious and we watched some Bake Off with it.

We played a lot of Need for Speed and Curtis was keeping up on the (far too close) US election.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 437: Vancouver, BC – Lebanese Coffee & Prospect Point

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up this morning and had some more cinnamon buns for breakfast.

We relaxed for a bit, got dressed and showered and then left the apartment.

We went to the place we got our Lebanese food from yesterday as they sell Lebanese Coffee, which we thought we should try!

We walked down there and went in to get the coffee.

There was not really anyone there and it’s a huge place, so we sat and enjoyed!

You get the coffee in this cool contraption and we had these tiny little mugs.

Curtis really enjoyed it! It’s similar to Turkish coffee, which meant it’s really strong!

Kim enjoyed it less, but didn’t hate it.

We left where and walked down to Stanley Park, where we’ve gone to the last couple of weekends, to have a nice walk in the chilly autumn weather.

We walked to a lake called Beaver Lake, but it wasn’t actually very interesting, so we continued up to Prospect Point where we got a great view on the Lions Gate Bridge!

We left here and walked back home, which took about an hour, but we did stop off to grab a Starbucks!

Kim enjoyed her walk home as there were plenty of leaves to kick!

We got back home and we were tired after being out for a few hours and being on our feet all day.

We ordered some Chinese food which took a while to arrive, but we eventually got it and it wasn’t very great at all, unfortunately.

We watched the film Like A Boss whilst we ate and then played some Need for Speed and watched some other TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 302: Vancouver, BC – Final Day of Isolation!

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up and had some scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast.

We watched some comedy with breakfast and then got ourselves ready for the day.

Today was our last day in self-isolation, so we made the most of having to stay home!

As well as doing laundry, we played some Need For Speed.

We then played some VR for a long while! We discovered a new puzzle game and had a lot of fun playing that!

We had more leftover chilli for dinner and watched more comedy, followed by a film called Love Wedding Repeat which was an easy watch.

Kim had her weekly bath and pamper and then we watched more TV before sleeping.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 251: Vancouver, BC – Back To Curry Again!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a company wide meeting right at 09:00 which lasted for an hour.

After that, Curtis had some admin work and research work to do, until 12:45 which is when he had his first of 2 laptop checkups to complete.

He did the first laptop checkup and then had another to do right after.

After lunch, Curtis had a project related meeting with his team, whilst doing an offboard, followed by some tickets and a zoom call with someone to help them out.

Curtis attended the office happy hour and then that was his work week done!

Kim’s Day

Kim started the day by hosting the UKs social talks, there were a couple more people than usual, which was great! She then started working on a few documents, working on The Wiki pages and making plans for next week.

Just before midday Kim had everyone who is doing a lightning talk join the meeting early to test their audio and slide shows. Then the talks went ahead, it was great to have so many people in the call ans enjoying something so normal for the company.

Straight after the talks Kim joined the east coast social drinks, but only for a little while as she had another meeting to get to. The meeting after was great! Kim was on a call with a few people and they were orgnaising stuff and making plans for the coming month as it is Mental Health Awareness month. Kim is very excited to be helping with this as its something she holds very close to her heart.

Kim went from that call to the next, a team meeting. It was so nice to hear from everyone, see how they are all doing and see what their plans for work are like for the next week or so.

Kim had a quick break after that call where she worked on another new Wiki page and added notes to all of the new ones she had started over the past few days.

To finish the day Kim joined the Friday drinks for the west coast people. It was so much fun and there were a great bunch of people on the call.

After the call Kim sorted out some scheduling for the Wiki tournament, next week is the final week of round robin games, in May Kim will start to set up the quarter finals!

Back To Curry Again!

We finished work and played a bit of mini sticks as we didn’t get a chance to do so today!

We ordered a curry, which we’ve gone back to after deviating last week, and then we played some Need For Speed whilst we waited for it.

We watched TV for the rest of the night and just chilled out. We barely stopped today!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 249 – Vancouver, BC – Quarantine Wine & Cheese

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had such a busy morning!

This morning went so fast and it was already lunchtime which was crazy.

Curtis did some tickets and then did an onboard, which took up a lot of time.

Just before lunch, Curtis got introduced to a new account executive for a vendor.

We had some soup for lunch and then in the afternoon Curtis did some admin and tickets.

Kim’s Day

Today Kim hosted the mid week catch up before the company wide meeting. During the social talk, only two people joined and they mainly had a chat, which was great as it meant Kim could get some other things ready for her day.

After the big meeting Kim helped some people in the UK with some logistics stuff. They were sending stuff from the office to people and Kim helped!

Kim then had a catch up with her colleague, it was meant to be for an hour, but it went on for at least two! They went over all the plans for the office space, events coming up and everything in between. While everyone is out of the office Kim will go in to move things around, not annoy everyone and be totally unbothered, it will be amazing!

When the meeting finished Kim went straight into hosting a mini game that she named ‘Who Are You?’ People are given controversial questions like which type of peanut butter do you prefer? And the answer options would be crunchy or smooth. Then there would be a time after where people can fight ans argue about why their answer was right and other people were wrong. It went exactly how Kim had hoped it would and people had so much fun!

Kim then spent the rest of the afternoon writing down points of interest in two documents she needs to write up.

Shopping

We drove up to the shop and went to Home Depot first.

Kim wanted to get some pots and soil for her herbs.

We managed to find pots, but they were sold out of soil, but we got the pots anyway.

We left here and took the stuff back to the car and then queued up for the supermarket.

We ended up doing a pretty big and expensive shop, but that should last us for another 10 days or so, and we even managed to get some toilet paper!

We got back home and had cheese and wine for dinner, because why not?

We played some need for speed, some VR and watched some TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale