Levelling off

 Hi everyone,

Well the big news is that I finally found a fantastic house to live in London.  It's central, it has a living room, it's close to work, close to the tube, lively neighborhood, new, and quiet.  You'd be surprised at how hard all of that is to find (within your price range) in London.

I couldn't afford to get my own 1 bedroom flat with a living room so I got a 2 bedroom instead with the intention of renting the other room out.  As of now, the entire house is well out of my budget, but split with another house mate it fits nicely in my budget.  I thought I would have an easy time finding a house mate so I wasn't too concerned about it.  The London market is quite dynamic with lots of movement all the time.  However, when I started to advertise my room on the web, days went by... then weeks went by... I only had 1 real person come by to see the flat.  I was getting really worried because I can't really carry this whole house by myself without major financial sacrifices.  I started lowering my asking price, then again, then again... still no takers.  Finally, I tried advertising the room on a different website.  I got 2 messages within the first 24 hours on this new website.  Within 3 days, I had rented the flat out.  It was an expensive lesson that I learned.

My new house mate will move in soon.  He's a very interesting guy.  Julie and I chatted with him for well over an hour last night when he came to see the flat.  He is a PhD computer science student from the Belgium who is just finishing up school.  He has now been offered a job in London and is moving here.  He has been working on a mobile phone application that helps map sound/noise.  Basically, it uses your mobile phone's GPS & microphone to track how noisy various parts of the city/world are.  This will ultimately give you a picture of where the quiet and noisy parts of town are.  The data is overlayed on Google maps to give you a clear picture.  He's a super ambitious guy and I hope a bit rubs off on me while he is here.  He reminds me a lot of my brother Max.

My new place has a London Bikes stand within 50 meters walking distance.  I'm hoping to get an annual pass and start biking to work most days.  I can easily take the tube on very cold or rainy days, but I would like to bike whenever possible.  There are several stands around my work that I can dock the bike at.  I got a lot of value out of the Dublin bikes scheme and I'm hoping that trend can continue here in London.

Our new place also has a small terrace.  I'm hoping to put a few plants out there and try my hand out at city gardening.  I'll start with a few herbs and see how that goes... maybe end up with tomatoes and vegetables :)

Work is going well.  We are looking to release an Android app in the future which should be cool.  I am in the early phases of writing test automation for this new android app using Robotium.  So far it was very tough to initially configure but then very easy to write test automation once configured.  I still think I'm in a good spot for a future promotion and this android automation could be enough to put me over the top.

It took a long time, but I finally got a regular football (soccer) game going with my work colleagues.  We had a hard time finding a pitch that was both close to work and available at a time just after work.  The first game will be coming up this Wednesday and every Wednesday after that.  I really enjoy playing football with work colleagues, I find it's the best bonding technique available.  These other team building exercises that companies some times go on are really no match for weekly football in my opinion. Anyhow, I really need this football;  I haven't been getting enough exercise.  I really need another game per week to round out my schedule.

I was telling Julie tonight over dinner that it finally feels like the uphill battle (that was our move to the UK) is finally starting to taper off and level out.  We're finally getting settled, comfortable, and back into a regular routine that is both healthy and fun.  Looking back, the past 6 months were brutal... all the Visa applications, moving around, finding new work, learning a new job, figuring out the city, etc.... it all took it's toll on me... but now I feel like things are starting to fit together and move forward nicely at a pace that I am more comfortable with.


Love,
--Ben

Jan update

Hi Everyone,

Lots continues to happen here in the UK.

I had a nice trip back home to Canada over xmas. I spent most of my time with my family in Ottawa. I hadn't been back for 2 years and it had been too long. My brothers & I got all caught up on everything from future plans to spanking children to politics. I was really happy to have some 1 to 1 time with each and every one of my brothers as well as my parents and in-laws. I got to meet my new nephew who I hadn't met before and my other nephew who is now 2 years older from when I saw him last. It was amazing to see them both but I will say they took up more time than I wanted to spend with them. Sometimes it was tough to get deep into conversations with my brothers when the 2 babies were getting into trouble in the background. I also felt a small sense of cabin fever because of the snow and I think next time I go back to Canada it will be in the summer.

I went to see my house & tenant in Kanata. The house looks to be doing well and my tenant is happy and seems to be firmly rooted in my house and probably not moving anywhere anytime soon – which makes me happy. She does want new carpets which I expected. So we are going to have to budget an extra $3500 hit this year. I'm still super pumped about that house though. It's been such a great investment. I'm not really cash flowing yet on monthly rents but the appreciation has been amazing. Kanata keeps growing at a rapid pace which can only be a good thing in my opinion.

I wrote up my goals for this year. I'm pretty pumped about them. I think if we are smart about our money and time we can accomplish them all. Some of them are pretty exciting! If we can get a amazing flight prices, I'd like to go back to Asia this year; Ideally India! I have no idea how to “do” India but I want to try. The good thing is that London to India is a major airline route and the prices can be pretty good at times. If my brother Tom is still in Asia we might go visit him as well.

While my goals are awesome, they are going to be tough to pull of financially. One of my goals is to be promoted to a management position. We are going from a team of 2 to a team of 8. The team of 8 will have 2 management positions and I think I am a strong candidate for either of them. One of my goals this year is to get 1 of those 2 management positions and, consequently, make more money in the process.

We are currently on an aggressive hiring spree at work hiring about 6 more in my team people ASAP. I am doing 50% of the work for hiring these people. I've learned a lot in the process. The biggest thing I've learned is that people lie like crazy on their resumes. They seem great on paper but when we start asking them some technical questions they fall flat on the floor. I've been able to use this knowledge to improve our interview process. I've implemented an email test that all applicants must pass before we even talk to them. Basically the applicants review a small program that I wrote. They can review the code, the executable, or both. At the end they are to provide me with a document for how they would test my program and what bugs they found in my program (I intentionally added a few bugs). My email test has been a massive success. My favorite scenario is when people simply respond “this is too hard, I don't want to work here”; so far 2 people have said that. I love it because we don't waste any time interviewing that poor candidate. Honestly though, my test is actually fairly simple. Anyone with a computer science degree from university could do it with their eyes closed. The people that fail are the bullshitters. Anyhow, my boss loves this test... it has saved him lots of time from telephone interviewing losers. I am hoping that me being a key part of the interview process will make me a prime candidate for one of those manager positions when they come around!

My work uses a lot of head hunters to find people. However, if you find someone yourself (who we eventually hire) you win a free iPad 2. I am gunning for this prize. So far I've found 2 people who are making their way through the interview process. Fingers crossed.

I am still not making the most of this amazing city though. To be fair there is more going on here than 1 person could possibly do... but I still have a long way to go. I am slowly signing up for clubs and organizations like Soccer, Badminton, and renewable energy. I took a cool class on parkour a month ago and I plan on going back.

The flat I am renting now is not ideal. Mostly because it's at the wrong end of town & it has no living room. I am hoping to move soon. Luckily I am only on a 3 month lease which is about to expire. Julie & I have already scouted out the ideal neighborhood and I think we can afford it if we find the right place. We definitely cant afford a 1 bedroom place with a living room so we will have to have flatmates. I'm thinking it might be best to just rent a 2 bedroom place and then sublet one of the rooms out to the person of our choosing.

I think that's about all for now.

Cya