June social blog

Mollie Brown

"Can you believe we are halfway through the year?" is the cry, heard around the world as June begins. How dare time be linear? Where did it all go? And dear god, is that the sun?!

Yes, 2023 is middle aged, and the summer is thundering on (although in Belfast as I type this it is raining yet again).

There was plenty of fun to be had this month with Data Intellect: we threw axes, climbed mountains, and checked our blood pressure - although not necessarily in that order.

A Day out to the Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong

This month, the Data Intellect HK team met up and headed down to see some of the races in Sha Tin in the blazing heat of 33C. There was a huge crowd turnout and the local teams were all in good spirit. The day was finished out with a visit to Maxims Palace for dim sum.

We all scream for ice cream

Yes, that's right, the sun was out in Belfast. It's a miracle, it's a phenomenon, it's the abyss of global warming that we're all staring into.

Um. Never mind that. Who wants an ice cream?

Our own personal ice cream truck graced the footpath outside the Belfast office, providing a cornucopia of free ice creams, lollies, and slush puppies to anyone in the office.

Health Checks - it's not all ice cream and dim sum

Employees of Data Intellect have access to our private healthcare supplier Benenden, which offers services such as a 24/7 GP Helpline and 24/7 Mental Health Helpline, Physiotherapy, and Cancer Support. Through Benenden, we are also able to organise in-office health checks - to check your bio numbers and get a general assessment of your health, receiving your results on the day. The health check is voluntary and entirely confidential, but a great help to those who want to feel more in control of their health and well-being.

> The assessment is designed to...
- Identify warning signs of hereditary and hidden illnesses
- Reduce the risk of preventable conditions like heart disease and diabetes
- Improve the quality of your life, now and in the future
> What is included?
- Biometric analysis - includes a breakdown of the percentages and masses of muscle mass/body fat/metabolic rate/metabolic age
- Blood Pressure check
- Cholesterol level check – a finger stick blood test
- Diabetes risk – a finger stick blood test will measure the levels of glucose in your blood to identify pre-diabetes
- Muscular health – tested by the strength in your hand grip using a dynamometer

Mournes Hike - A view to cry for

We had another successful hike up in the Mourne Mountains earlier in the month. The route was more strenuous than our previous trip up Slieve Donard, covering 3 different peaks, and on the day we hiked we were accompanied by not so glorious weather.

Slieve Loughshannagh, Meelbeg and Meelmore all had to be summited though, so it was a blessing in disguise to have some shelter from the sun as we ascended through the mists. With great company, and some good old fashioned rambling off the path in poor visibility, we were all smiles.

Our legs and lungs were burning by the time we reached the top, but if you were being pursued by a ghost sheep, you would keep climbing too.

And the winner is...

This month marked the end of the Q2 Axe Throwing team challenge. A big congratulations to our New York team, the TopAxers, on being our Axe Throwing Champions 2023, with an exciting last minute entry.

We had the January cohort heading to Black Axe, as well as a friendly competition between the Kick Axe team and the Data Science at the Axe Yard. Kent Lee and Philip Gunning competed in the final head to head, trying to determine once and for all if KDB or Python better trains you in the art of axe throwing. Phil just inched into the champion spot with a 1 point lead.

Q3's challenge will be announced next time...

FINAL SCORES
TopAxers - 14.2
Data Axe-lytics - 12.49
Axe-cidents - 12.35
Great Axepections - 12.13
Bowling HK 11.86
Di-abolicals 11.73
Di-ehards 11.64
Data Intellaxe 11.45
Kick Axe 11.42
Axe gon' give it to ya 11.3
METEORITE 10.37