Velsoft costumes of Halloweens past

This is the last Friday Update before Halloween, so I thought I’d go with a scary and very frightening topic — things Velsoftians wore as Halloween costumes in years gone by. Some of these are many years gone by!

It did no good asking what people wore because the embarrassing costumes were never talked about, so I had to spend hours and hours trolling their Social Media feeds, talking to parents and siblings, friends and enemies.  Well, in the end it was all worth it!

So here they are (I’ve added photos as well):

• In her youth Sandra (Office Manager) dressed up as her favorite food, sausages.
• When she was very young Bonnie (Account Manager) dressed up as an astronaut — notice the clever use of the garden reflection ball!
• Skyler (Account Manager) is a huge fan of Randy Savage and he went dressed as the Macho Man whenever he could. This picture was taken just before he left for his high school prom (we’ll say it’s a Halloween costume – just saying!) BTW great beard, eh.
• Seems John C. (Illustrator) wasn’t always as mild mannered as he is today. Remember this when you see him next!
• As a young child Scott (Account Manager) was fascinated by E.T. (I think it was the bald head). He dressed as Elliott when he was younger. His wife said he still dresses as Elliott to this day, but not in public.
• It is kind of interesting that our resident vegan, Brandon (Software Programmer) went out for Halloween just a few short years ago as a hotdog! (must have been a vegan dog).
• Pat (Ninja) has dressed up as the same character every year for Halloween- you guessed it — Ninja Pat!
• I bet no one is surprised by the fact that Maria (Marketing Associate) went out on Halloween dressed as a princess.
• Dylan (Audio/Video Marketing) went out for Halloween last year as the ultimate party animal.
• Jim (CEO) and Charlotte (Mrs. CEO) made such a cute couple in their ultimate wedding attire costumes.
• Ian S. (Researcher) has an inner Evel Knievel as we all know from his bike riding. Now we have the evidence that he had this from a young age.
• I found a cute Halloween picture of Jan (eLearning Programmer) and her grade 4 class all ready to Trick or Treat. Jan is in the middle of the top three in case you couldn’t tell.
• It seems John D. (Velsoft West) was always a hero!
• When I first met Craig (Director Velsoft ZA) I thought he had some Canadian heritage and when I found this costume he wore as a child, my suspicions were confirmed.
• Dave (Account Manager) dressed as his favorite hockey mascot!
• Jean (International Sales) has always had a love for the water and that is certainly shown as he dressed up as a mermaid the year before last.  Last year he dressed up as Dora the Explorer, but his wife didn’t have any pictures.
• I found a picture of Pete (UK Director of Learning) and Simon (UK Senior Consultant) dressed up for Halloween as kids. You guess which is which!
• Everyone knows how funny Sydney (eLearning Developer) is. It only makes sense that when she was in Junior High that she dressed as a Whoopie Cushion. What a card!
• Keith (Production Lead) is a huge fan of the Muppets. From the first time he saw him on Muppet Labs as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s assistant, he has loved Beaker. It makes sense that he would dress up as him for Halloween.
• Marty (Account Manager) and Jordan (Software Programmer) have been spotted outside the Halifax office in their costumes for this year (sneak peak). If you see them when you are next in Halifax — run! Yes, that is Marty standing up (without his Cubs ball cap!).
• Rachael (Project Manager) looks like she was preparing herself for life at Velsoft as a young child with this costume.
• Ben (Account Manager) is new here so it was hard to find out about his past, but a few well-placed phone calls netted me with information about his Halloween 2015 costume — Rat Dancer!
• Not hard to tell what Ian T’s (Manager IT) favorite food was as a child. He wore it for Halloween!
• Michael (Account Manager) is a huge fan of Jodie Foster — like huge fan. It’s no surprise when he was younger he would dress up as someone close to Jodie.
• Many of you know Pablo (Account Manager) as a guitarist, but he is also a trumpet player which he likes to highlight in his costume selection.
• When he was little, Nathan (System Programmer) used to travel in the car with his parents a great deal and it influenced his choice of Halloween costumes.
• Cindy (Account Manager) was always a helpful sort and that was no different when she was a child (remember how she helped her friend with her Friday the 13^th phobia). Well, she wanted to dress in a way that could help kids who were away from home a bit too long getting their trick or treating done.

What’s in the Pipeline:

• Jan is working on our latest eLearning courses and customizing Writing for the Web Refresh.
• Keith is doing components for Digital Citizenship.
• Carol is working on the Leadership Refresh and editing our soon to launch website refresh.
• Ian S. is doing research for the refresh of our Softskills courses and HRLR inputs.
• Kevin is working on the Project Management/Agile Refresh and other stuff.

Tech topics:

• New custom pages feature is now live – This feature allows administrators to add pages or external links to the LMS sidebar.
• Update the homepage feature to include a WYSIWYG.
• Implemented a client-side idle timeout. Users will automatically be logged out of the LMS after 16 minutes of inactivity.
• Visual improvements to the course resource centre.
• Fixed minor bugs with the SCORM connector.
• Fixed issue causing the document upload feature to not work in some cases.

Course Count:

Here is the official count of courses for both courseware and eLearning, broken down by Computer and SoftSkills.

Random spooky facts

• The fear of Halloween is known as Samhainopobia.
• Ireland is believed to be the birthplace of Halloween.
• Halloween ‘All Hallows’ Eve “is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Saints’ Day
• The mask used by Michael Meyers in the movie “Halloween” was a William Shatner Star Trek mask painted white.
• The first Jack O’Lanterns were made from turnips and beets.
• Over 25 million pounds of candy corn are sold each year at Halloween.
• Only available in Canada for the last 75 years, Halloween Candy Kisses are described as bold, spicy and earthy. Every year Kerr’s sells out their entire production of these nostalgic Halloween delights.

Happy Halloween!