7 years ago today, I started blogging.
I removed access to my archives a while ago cos I was a bit mean to Telstra back in the day, and I didn’t really want that to be seen as being written by me as an employee of the company. So it was safer to abandon them.
But it’s a good thing, cos re-reading some of my early blog posts in 2003 makes me hugely embarassed that some of that trash made it onto the web!
It’s been a fairly popular topic on Twitter today, and been giving me quite a few laughs having grown up in the 90s. Here are some of my favourite selections:
So it’s quite clear that I’m beginning to suck a lot at this blogging thing. Twitter is definitely where to check in with me.
Holidays were tops. The time in Qld with family was great – Christmas was busy, but nice to see all the family, and especially my beautiful grandparents. And it was just nice to be away from the house with nothing to do! Scooter riding was also done – to my surprise, Debbie was also up for it. We spent a couple of hours one afternoon riding little 50cc Honda scooters up and down The Espanade in Hervey Bay. But apparently I’m still not allowed to get one here in Sydney.
Once we arrived back home just before new years, I still had a week and a half worth of holidays left. It was really nice to just hang out at home, see friends, do a bunch of handyman type things around the place. It was a nice week. But very quickly, it was all over and this week was back to work.
I had one of the worst night’s sleep in months on Sunday night – I had a lot of anxiety about being back at work. The past 6 months have not been at all kind to me at work. It hasn’t been a horrible place to be or anything – but in amongst all the tech stuff I do, my job is basically just a sales role, and not having made my sales target for 6 months in a row meant that it was really tough to go back.
But I was reminded of little wins I had toward the end of 2009, and also just how good I do have it… and in the end, just how much fun I do have being a nerd and doing all this IP and networking stuff. And so I ended up hitting up Monday morning with a pretty positive attitude. In the end, if it turns out that this job isn’t for me anymore, then I look around and find something else to do – no biggie!
Don’t know why I lost a night of sleep over it. :)
New Years Day evening, and after pondering what to do, Howie suggested that I take him on an adventure.
So Debbie and I drove round and picked him up, and headed for Milsons Pt for some walking over the Harbour Bridge, and then some awesome pancakes at Pancakes On The Rocks. And then lots more walking back to the car.
Christmas ‘09 up here in Hervey Bay has been and gone.
We drove up here on the 23rd and 24th – long drive, but it wasn’t too bad. We were on the F3 by about 7:15 and heading north. We made it to Old Bar to visit Debbie’s grandma by about 10:15 and had some morning tea with her, and then it was time to keep driving. I was really happy with the time we were making… until we hit Kempsey. About 2km out of Kempsey, the traffic just stopped. And for about half an hour, we crawled into and then through Kempsey. Very annoying. But after that, there weren’t really any other hiccups. We got into Tweed Heads at about 6:30 and checked into the City Lights motel. Nice place, and the right price. After unloading and sitting down for a minute, it was off to the South Tweed bowlo for some dinner. It was a pretty decent place, and the meal was fine. It had a nice view looking over the river that Tweed Heads sits on.
We started the final leg about 8am the next morning, and a few minutes up the road as we hit Qld, it was 7am… so we were already ahead! Thankfully, getting along the freeways through the Gold Coast and Brisbane was smooth. As we neared the exit for Eumundi and Noosa, I felt a little nostalgic, and enjoyed remembering times in the late 80s / early 90s when we had holidays in Noosa. And so I exited for Eumundi for a little reviver break, and to hopefully find some coffee. And happily, there were quite a few cafes, and one serving some nicely made Toby’s Estate coffee. And then the drive continued, finally arriving in Hervey Bay at about 11:45. Very nice drive. Christmas Eve arvo and evening was just a bit of unpacking, saying hi to Hervey Bay and its beach across the road from our appartment, and a little napping too.
Then Christmas Day was up and off to visit Hervey Bay Baptist in the morning, before coming home, having some presents, and then heading out to lunch with everyone (Mum & Dad, Jenny & Ryan, and my grandparents). After a very big lunch, a nap was definitely in order… and I think I was still incredibly tired from the driving. So I slept for two hours. And then it was off to Dundowran Beach, where my Aunt & Uncle live, which is a suburb to the west of the main bits of Hervey Bay. We had dinner there with all the family who are up here for Christmas, and most of the extended family who live here in Qld. It was a nice evening seeing cousins who I haven’t seen in many months and catching up with them.
And now it’s boxing day… and the morning was spent with a visit to a coffee shop down the road, and the rest of the time has basically been on the couch watching the boxing day test, and playing card games with people. Just what I needed… and it’s helping me to slowly get over the tiredness that has been plaguing me for the last few weeks.
Every year, I still am amazed at how crazy December gets.
Work is crazy town at the moment. Just so busy. There’s only a few days of the month left really – I’m on leave from next Wednesday, and all the account managers are taking the week between Christmas and new year off too. So if we want to close anything off in December, the window is rapidly closing. That means a heck of a lot of meetings, and 25 different things happening at once.
I did get a chance to catch up with my boss early this morning. And what I thought would be a hard meeting (because I’m really down on my sales numbers… have been the whole fin year to date) actually went pretty well. She was positive about a lot of stuff, and thankfully seems to understand that everything about my job is going well… it’s just the actual numbers that are lacking.
There’s a big batch of butter chicken on simmering away at the moment – that’s for supper on Sunday night after we play a simulation game (Basti Life) at church. That should be tops fun. Tomorrow night we’re having a bundle of fun people over for dinner as we farewell a couple of friends who are heading off to Nepal for a year… I have to cook a beef teriyaki (or something like that) for that. And then the craziness of Saturday kicks in: Christmas lunch with Debbie’s family, and then off to Lane Cove for Christmas with my Dad’s side of the family and dinner there.
But after that, there’s thankfully only two work days before Debbie and I hop in the car and head up to Tweed Heads, and then rock into Hervey Bay on Christmas Eve for a week or so there. I definitely can’t wait for that break :)
I really never thought the day would come when I’d get to see Cold Chisel live. I only discovered their music in the early 2000s, so I missed their Ringside reunion show around that time.
For me, they are really up there as one of my all time favourite bands – even though the majority of their music was written well before I was even born.
I’d bought my tickets to the V8s in Homebush way back in May – there was no way that B2, Steve, my Dad and I were going to miss one of the best street race events. We knew there was some kind of concert entertainment that was yet to be announced, but we didn’t think much of it – we were going for the racing! Well, that was until September rolled around, and it was announced that Cold Chisel was reforming to play on the Saturday night! My Christmases and birthdays really had all come at once.
And tonight has been nothing short of epic. Grinspoon opened the night, and played a good set, even if they were a little bit drunk. The Living End came on and played a set of brilliance and were just so very tight – not that you’d expect anything else from them.
Finally the time had arrived for Cold Chisel to take the stage. They walked on and smashed some Standing On The Outside with such perfection that it was like this was the 15th stop on just another tour. It was pretty much everything I assumed to expect from Chisel! They played for a solid two hours, going through the likes of Bow River, My Baby, When The War Is Over, Forever and Flame Trees – all the stuff you’d expect them to bring out really. Surprisingly, Khe Sanh was in the middle of the set – but that didn’t stop the incredible singalong that was sure to happen. It was cool to see the boys all looking at each other every now and then with a bit of a wry smile that said, ‘wow, I’d forgotten how awesome this was!’
They did a couple of encores, but eventually finished up coming back on stage and playing Breakfast At Sweethearts and then closing the night with Last Wave Of Summer.
Some people do have lists of bands that that absolutely must see before they die, and such lists usually contain those bands who’ve broken up and are usually going to be nearly impossible to see. I don’t have such a list – but if I did, Cold Chisel would’ve been at the top of it. And I can very, very happily cross them off tonight.
Although, if they do reform again, I’ll be right there in front of the stage to see it all again without any hesitation.
I’m getting pretty poor at this blogging thing. It’s been nearly two weeks since I last posted.
And I can’t even think of anything decent to blog about.
But I will harp on The Basics’ concert last Friday night that Tamara and I went to. Incredible. It took me a while to get into The Basics, and I only saw them live for the first time a couple of months ago. But they are such a brilliant trio who write and perform some incredible music.
Keep Your Friends Close is their new album, and it’s an amazing piece of work. Stand Out Fit In comes from a few years ago, but is equally awesome - but they are definitely quite different albums.
Switchfoot have released a fantastic new album as well. There’s a lot of opinions floating around about Switchfoot, and if they’re anything like my thoughts, I loved The Beautiful Letdown, but that was about it. Well, Hello Hurricane has completely changed my thinking on them. You should just put any preminitions about Switchfoot out of your mind and just listen to this album on its own, and I really doubt you’ll be disappointed. It’s turning out to be one of my favourites this year.
I’ve definitely enjoyed these few new-music-months that tend to happen around this time of year. 2009 has been quite wonderful for music I think. Pity that the concerts have been few and far between for me over the last few years. Although I will finally get to see Cold Chisel in a week and a half thanks to Tony Cochrane and the V8s – they were one band I was sad I never got to see, and was sure I’d actually never get a chance to!
I’ve always known To Write Love On Her Arms existed as an organisation, or movement. I just saw some people wearing the funky shirts, but I hadn’t really paid attention to what exactly they were on about. Recently I’ve paid attention… and I love what they do.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
I love that it’s so much more than an organisation throwing money at a situation – it’s showing people caught up in depression or self-harm that they are loved; that their life is worth fighting for; that they do matter! And that’s worth so much more than all the money in the world.
You should definitely read the story about how TWLOHA started. It’s an incredible story.
Today was a bit of an awareness day for the TWLOHA movement. It was encouraged to write the word ‘love’ on your arm, and spread the word about what these guys are on about. I did it – and for the times when I didn’t have to be all professional and meet customers and such, I rolled up my sleeve so it was visible.
But money is needed and important in this world. Those shirts that you see a lot of “cool” band people wearing, (notably, the dudes from Switchfoot) and that have become a bit of a fashion statement, are actually what they first made and sold to pay for their friends’ drug rehab treatment (read the story). And today they’re still the major portion of support they receive.
And more than that, wearing the shirt is a great way to keep spreading the message of To Write Love On Her Arms.
Debbie & I, Grant & Cathy, and Sam & Kate headed into the city yesterday evening for some all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ meat. Trying to get to the city by 6pm was going to be a challenge, so we moved our booking to the next session at 8pm.
We ended up making it into the city only a bit after 6, so we had some time to kill. And a wander around the city was a great way to do that!
The media activity and hype surrouding the parole release of Phillip Lim (one of Victor Chang’s convicted murderers) has been really frustrating me.
Please don’t get me wrong – Victor Chang was a brilliant man; incredibly intelligent, and has done a great wonder of things to do with the heart, and it sucks that he was killed.
However, it very much seems like Phillip Lim’s parole is being opposed by so many people (according to media, anyway) because of the “gravity” of the crime – the gravity being that his victim was Victor Chang. And even though he’s served his 18 years, behaved in prison, he shouldn’t be elligible for release?
Let’s look at this the opposite way – are we saying that if a human murders another human who is known to only 5 or 10 people in this world, and hasn’t done anything widely known with their life, that they are worth any less than a surgeon who’s saved thousands of lives through incredible procedures? Or are they worth any less than a scientist who created a vaccine saving millions of lives?
Essentially, all the thoughts that I have about this situation have been put to publication in an opinion piece over at smh. And I whole-heartedly agree with every word written in the article.
If you are someone who’s been upset or annoyed by the pending parole release of Phillip Lim, please take the time to read this article, understand all the facts of the case, and then rethink why you’re upset or annoyed - is it because Victor Chang was well known?
Should a criminal pay more for his crime because of the notoriety of the person they murdered or harmed?
Parole for Lim, all bar the shouting – [smh link]
It’s been a while between posts!
It’s been great to have a week like the one that’s nearly over – I’ve actually been enjoying being at work, and even though it’s still a struggle to get to target this year, I’m back in that place of enjoying my job. I’ve missed that feeling a lot.
I wonder if the end of last week might’ve actually helped me have a good week – as strange as it sounds. Thursday was Debbie’s grandpa’s funeral, but it was just such an awesome day where his life was celebrated. And it was just some very good times hanging out with family. And then I had Friday off as well, which was handy to just get some things done around the house that had been waiting to be done for quite a while.
We enjoyed hosting our first big family BBQ on Saturday. It was perfect weather for it too… warm, but with a breeze. Cos as the sun disappears over our house at about 3pm, the side of our house where the outdoor setting is becomes nice and cool on a warm day.
Looking forward to heading to Churrasco in the city tomorrow night – all you can eat meat for $35. Love it.
Sam had been talking about Indigo Ridge wine for a few months now. He found it at The Rocks’ markets one day a few months ago, raved about it, but then hasn’t been able to find it again since.
You’re able to order cases of their wine from their website… but where’s the fun in that? So with Debbie away for the weekend just gone, Sam and I thought it would be fun to head out to Orange (where Indigo Ridge is) on Sunday to buy some wine. We were greeted by a very friendly middle-aged couple who own Indigo Ridge, and who loved to chat, tell us about their winery, and about Orange too. They are very focused on the land they’re on, and about making the most use of it without damaging it – you should definitely check out their website (even if you aren’t into wine) to see how they are “greener than organic”.
They talked us through their 6 wines and gave us tastings of each – and they were all very impressive. Finding little wineries like this is fun; they don’t sell to bottlos, and basically don’t supply to Sydney at all, except through people ordering wines through their website. They just sell to a few restaurants and boutique bottlos in Orange, and then rely on cellar door buyers (like Sam and I) to sell their wine. They told us they prefer it that way, cos it means they get to meet most customers that drink their wine – I thought that was pretty cool.
Sam and I made mix tapes for the trip… not necessarily for each other – that would be a bit too romantic. Anyway, I was pretty proud of my mix. I thought I’d post the track listing:
- The Resolution – Jack’s Mannequin
- 1,000 Strands – Eliza Magill
- Santeria – Sublime
- Thump – Bertie Blackman
- The Hard Road – The Hilltop Hoods
- Until You’re Over Me – Maroon 5
- The Mixed Tape – Jack’s Mannequin (oops, two JM tracks!)
- If You Believe Me – Relient K
- Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running) – Foo Fighters
- The Feeling – Kutless
- Guerilla Radio – Rage Against The Machine
- King Of Wishful Thinking – New Found Glory
- Dancing On The Inside – Antiskeptic
- Stray – The Ross Irwin Soul Special
- Break It Out – The Rocket Summer
- Alarm Bells – The Lyrical Madmen
- Waiting For Us – The Porkers
- Forever Now – Pete Murray
- Cailin – Unwritten Law
- The Only Exception – Paramore
- Lord, Save Me From Myself – Jon Foreman
- Song For Elias – The Cat Empire
While it wasn’t deliberate, I just realised that just under half of those tracks are from Australian artists. I do love me some Aussie music.
Jenny posted this. I thought it was cool, and so I’ll join in…
A – Age: 24
B – Bed size: Queen
C – Chore you hate: Guess I don’t really hate any… I just tend to avoid them all. I’m not keen on gardening.
D – Dogs’ name: Don’t have one, and no great desire to ever have my own.
E – Essential start your day item: Coffee. Every weekday morning without fail. I usually go without a morning coffee on weekends.
F – Favorite color: Green
G – Gold or Silver: Silver
H – Height: Have no idea really. A bit under 6′ maybe?
I – Instruments you play: Piano, guitar, bass
J – Job title: IP Solution Specialist
K – Kid(s): none at this point in time.
L – Living arrangements: A house in Westleigh with wifey, and we’ll hopefully own it sometime in about 20 years.
M – Mum’s name: Julie
N – Nicknames: Jimmy
O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: none
P – Pet Peeve: Ignorant drivers, arrogance
Q – Quote from a movie: Just taaaaap it in, give it a little tappy, tap tap tap-a-roo.
R – Right or left handed: Right
S – Siblings: My sister, Jenny
T – Time you wake up: Alarm will usually go off from about 6am. Sometime between then and 7am is when I actually get up.
U- Underwear: Bonds
V – Vegetable you dislike: Squash, zucchini
W – What makes you run late: myself – distinct lack of time management
X – rays you’ve had: I think I’ve had a hand xray, and dental, and that’s about it.
Y- Yummy food you make: I really enjoy making new things – stir fries especially, using whatever sauces/flavours I can find. Recipes are boring.
Z – Zoo favorite: Haven’t been to the zoo in 20+ years I don’t think.
I always look forward to this weekend of the year – a whole weekend of solid V8 Supercar television is very awesome.
I grew up watching the touring cars (which then became the V8 Supercars in the mid 90s) with Dad, and heading out to Amaroo Park, or Eastern Creek, or Oran Park to watch different rounds of the championship. And then I’ve just kept into it each year. And watching Bathurst has always been a great fun Sunday, usually hanging out with Steve & B2 in the recent years, having a BBQ and eating copious amounts of chips and lollies.
There’s just something pretty special about such a traditional race. All the drivers have such excitement and enthusiasm about this race, and talk a lot about how special that is, and I guess that excitement gets passed onto fans and makes it special. On top of that, having such a unique circuit (none like it in Australia), and then having such a long race which requires such strategy makes it a very special Sunday in October.
The increased media coverage and sponsorship has meant that the TV coverage is so long and indepth now… which makes the people who love watching it on TV rather than heading up to the mountain (ie: me) very happy indeed.
And my new TV, and 7HD will make tomorrow better again :)
I’ve been discovering recently that cultural and language barriers are making it difficult for me to sell a private IP network to a Chinese coal mining company who are starting to build a bit of an empire here in Australia and looking to make themselves lots of money.
After about 3 months worth of emails, phone calls, proposals, and customised pricing, the company had seemed to give us the impression that they wanted us to build them a network, but they’d never actually said yes and wanted to sign the contracts. A meeting finally happened today (after weeks of trying to get one), and I held out a little bit of hope that after going through some points they wanted to cover, they might just sign the contract that I’d brought along.
I was wrong.
I would say it was a good meeting, and we covered lots in the two hours… but as to when they’re going to go ahead with it, it’s anyone’s guess. And apparently that’s fairly commonplace for Chinese businesses.
My boss came along to the meeting to give us a bit of “higher up” Telstra representation, just to remind the customer that they were pretty important to us. Interestingly, she’d just completed a unit on doing business with Asian cultures as part of her Masters in Business course by correspondence. After the meeting, she shared with us (the Telstra people) that everything that had happened in the meeting was much to be expected – the delay in signing, the laughing when they’re asking serious questions, etc. She told us that she’d learnt that apparently companies will focus a lot on entertaining you and dragging it on and on, when actually they made the decision to go ahead quite a while ago. It was comforting to hear…
It was just an incredibly interesting lesson in how hugely different cultures are in relation to doing business. Most “western” companies I deal with will be reasonably quick to make a decision, and certainly wouldn’t string something like this out this long.
Walked out the front this morning to see a bold little Kookaburra just hanging out in one of the trees in our front yard. He was quite content to have his picture taken.
In the recent weekends, the Rural Fire Service have been doing quite a bit of hazard reduction around our area.
This weekend, there was quite a bit of work up in the Crosslands and Galston area. And the wind was blowing in just the right direction to cover Hornsby and Wahroonga this morning as I headed up to Hornsby to get my haircut. But it wasn’t too bad at home.
But we headed round to Cathy & Grant’s place in Normanhurst for lunch this arvo, and the smoke got quite thick as the arvo wore on, and ash started falling too. I certainly wasn’t enjoying it – and Howie enjoyed bagging me out about it too. And now back at home, the smoke has blanketed Westleigh pretty badly too. I think it’s even seeped into the clothes that have been out on the line.
This is mostly a new experience for me. Living in Toongabbie for the majority of my life was awesome, but it was never near any bush. So bushfire smoke and ash was few and far between. And while I adore living here now and being so close to bush, I’m definitely not enjoying the smoke that comes with it.
I just hope all this hazard reduction means that there won’t be any fires near our house – that would be worse.
Telstra has demonstrated over the last 5 years that it can be a leader in the world telecommunications marketplace. It went from a follower just riding on the coat-tails of a copper network, to creating the biggest and fastest mobile network in the world.
Yet this morning, the Australian government has decided that it doesn’t like an Australian company being too successful. After all the the time, money and effort that Telstra has invested into becoming the leaders, the Government has decided that it’s time to slow it down.
They announced a series of reforms to telecommunications legislation that will essentially force the break-up of Telstra. Stephen Conroy tried to make it look nice by saying that Telstra can voluntarily choose to break up the way it wants, but then swiftly added that if they didn’t, the goverment will break them up anyway. And added a boot in by saying it’ll block any new mobile spectrum acquisitions until “it structurally separates, divests its … cable network and divests its interests in Foxtel.” Talk about bullying.
For me, this just seems like it’s going to make it very, very difficult for Australia to continue to be a world leader in the mobile broadband marketplace. Telstra’s advancements have forced Optus, Voda and 3 to play along or get left behind, and has meant that we have four 3G mobile networks in Australia. That’s massive for a country of our size compared with the US and China. And so by slowing down Telstra and forcing it to separate, are Optus, Voda and 3 going to bother making anymore advancements? They won’t have anyone to try and keep up with.
It just feels like the government has caved in to the whinging and whining of other telecommunications companies in Australia, who aren’t as far ahead as Telstra, and has just chopped it right down to slow its growth.
Somehow, the government thinks that a 100Mbps nationwide fibre network is the answer to Australia’s broadband problems… but in 8 years when its built, it will already be redundant. And in that time, Telstra would’ve been beyond that point in wireless broadband. Wonder if that will still happen, or if this will signify the beginning’s of the government’s monopoly on Australia-wide telecommunications?
And lastly, I loved the nomination that Stephen Conroy put forward for himself for the Ignorant and Stupid Comments of the Year awards:
Senator Conroy said Telstra copper network was literally “collapsing in the ground”.
“Every time there is a flood, every time there is heavy rain in northern NSW, Queensland, there is a further degradation of some part of Telstra’s copper network,” he said. “There is an enormous maintenance requirement every year to continue to just try and keep it where it’s at.”
The infrastructure in the ground was actually blocking the capacity to deliver decent broadband.
Bring on the comments telling me that Telstra is a big bully and that it’s the right thing for “competition” and for Australia – I’d love to hear them and I’m ready for a fight. Cos you try and tell me that the government isn’t being the biggest bully of them all right now.
[smh link]