A few weeks ago on Nov 1st, Recyclistas Bike Shop hosted an Alleycat race. It was organized by Radar Hill programmer Shannon Graham and sponsored by our client, Accent Inns.
On Saturday night, the day after Halloween, 23 racers and their respective cheerleading factions met at Recyclistas to find out where the race would take them. Everyone drew a slip of paper out of an envelope to get the location of the first checkpoint, and at 7:30 on the dot, raced off on their bicycles into the night.
The race route went from Recyclistas to Gorge Narrows Bridge, to the top of High Rock Park in Esquimalt, to Beacon Hill Park, to an obscure park bench on top of a ridiculous hill in Oak Bay, to Pemberton Park, to Spokes (the student bike shop located at UVic), to Smith Hill Reservoir, and finally back to Recyclistas. No one knew the checkpoints in advance. At each checkpoint, racers got a slip of paper with the address of the next one on it.
In an Alleycat race, local knowledge is prized above speed and fast bikes. Arthur Taylor, a software developer who took second place, finished building his bike less than 20 minutes before the race started. He got a late start, but knowing the town well from hundreds of late night explorations and years of bike commuting gave him an edge.
Mark Van Akker is a teacher at Vic High School. He only started cycling as a hobby a few months ago, with his toddler in tow for resistance training. But again, he knew the most efficient routes around town and beat everyone back to the shop. That’s the joy of Alleycats — being a powerhouse isn’t the only way to win, and non-athletes can have just as much fun and chance of winning.
The race was about 23km long in total. The last rider arrived at the shop at 9:45pm, where a keg of beer and a hip hop crew called Downtown Mischief were waiting to start the after party. About 10 riders dropped out along the way, including one who memorably failed to pace herself and stopped for a puke break in Beacon Hill Park. She won a special prize — the “Puker Prize” — for the racer who tried the hardest.
Prizes included a night at Accent Inns, a free haircut from B Sharp Salon, dinner at Pluto’s Diner, a tune-up from North Park Bikes, and assorted bike accessories from Broad St. Cycles and Recyclistas.
Everyone who participated had a good time and a lot of them said that they were keen to come out again for the next race. Anyone who is interested should contact shannon@rocketships.ca, and stay tuned for announcements in February 2015.
1st place: Mark Van Akker
2nd place: Arthur Taylor
3rd place: Parker Bloom
For a deaf person, a group conversation is a difficult situation. For most people, it’s a great opportunity, with ideas flowing and all kinds of social cues going out. For a deaf person, it’s usually an exhausting confusion as they try to hold the thread of a conversation that’s changing every instant.
Breaking News: Radar Hill’s Director of Awesomeness, Megan Newhouse, and her husband Kevin Boyd announce the arrival of baby Declan, born the night of Saturday January 17, weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces. A baby brother for Kieran. Stay tuned to our social media feeds for photos.
Shannon Graham, who does programming and product development here at Radar Hill, has been in contact with Transcense, a company developing amazing software to empower the deaf and hard of hearing. | 
Enjoying the unusually mild February weather? It has been a full month at Radar Hill. In this issue:
On behalf of Radar Hill, Client Care Coordinator Jennifer Dempsey attended the Partners For Life Recognition Lunch presented by Canadian Blood Services on February 19th. As part of the Partners for Life program, we pledge how many blood donations we will make. Last year we pledged 15 and exceeded our goal with 16 donations! Canadian Blood Services thanked us, along with many other companies that are part of the program, with a lunch in the Ivy Ballroom at the Fairmont Empress Hotel. Guest speakers included members of the McSweeney family, three of whom would not be alive today if it wasn’t for blood donors. It was touching to hear their stories and reflect on how thankful they are to be alive thanks to donors.
The Vernal Equinox happened, officially on Friday at 3:45 pm Island Time when the sun was right over the equator. On our pyramid building we did not do what they do in Teotihuacán at the 
On April 15, Radar Hill celebrated fourteen years in business. We have grown from the original three owners of Shawn, Roger, and Dan, with a small handful of clients, to eleven staff and a wide range of business and non-profit clients. We are now one of the largest and most stable website design and development companies on Vancouver Island. Thank you for your support! Here is an update on the past couple of months. In this issue:
This summer our family decided on a ‘stay-cation’. Luckily we live in Victoria and there are a zillion things to do. Each of us added to a list of things we wanted to do.
In difficult moments such as these (the internet is down), we take time to reflect on the past year of achievements, struggles, and good times.
Thank you! Thank you to every one of you who made 2015 a fantastic success. We’ve had a full and productive year at Radar Hill. Now that 2015 is coming to a close, here is some news we want to share about staff and friends.
Shawn’s poodle whippet cross, Sasha, passed away peacefully at the ripe old age of 16 years, 8 months, and 14 days. That would put her at over 100 in dog years. Born in Glenora in the Cowichan Valley, Sasha was an incredibly fast runner who excelled at chasing balls, thanks to her whippet genes. Even with her small stature she was a great long distance runner who became quite muscular as a result of doing 20 kilometer runs with Shawn as he trained for half marathons.
But it seems like even that isn’t enough: Kendra also met with our regional AdWords representative from Google in person in Vancouver, is preparing to renew her Analytics certification, and is looking into applying to be a Certified Publisher Partner so that she can handle AdSense on behalf of clients as well (allowing our clients to offer advertising space on their websites rather than just advertising themselves). All while managing our existing AdWords clients above and beyond industry averages. It’s been a busy quarter!
Start 2016 off with this inaugural Small Office Home Office conference. Get small business advice from a handpicked selection of small business leaders. Give your business the edge through insightful talks, one-on-one advice, networking opportunities and valuable Q+A sessions with our renowned speakers.
Our resident tea dealer, Jennifer, has turned her love for tea into a hobby business. It has been a little over a year now and she loves spending her time outside of Radar Hill sharing the health benefits and joys of premium loose leaf teas. In addition to her teas she also carries fantastic tea accessories, delicious baking mixes and spices infused with tea.
Since Steve Nash Fitness World moved to Uptown last year our office building has been under major renovations.
Congratulations to Andrea, who is celebrating her 13th year with Radar Hill this month.
One of the O’Hara dogs, Mia, an American Cocker Spaniel, passed away peacefully but suddenly after 10 years, 10 months, and 24 days, due to the sudden onset of a massive internal infection. She gave good hugs, and was like a little kid in a black fur coat, or a snow suit with big mitts. A week later, their pet rat, Willow, passed away at the ripe old rat age of 25 months. She liked to run and climb, and was affectionate. Photo is Willow resting on their last remaining rat, Rose.
For Christmas, Jennifer left us and headed down to Disneyland with her fiance’s family.
Jennifer recently broke one of her fingers during an intense soccer game. As a goal keeper she made a great goal save, but one of her fingers just didn’t make it.
