I can, I will

Well, 2012 is near and it's time to think about where I'm heading.

It's been an interesting year, with a career change, lots of travel and moving into our own house.  My blog has yet another new design.  A change is as good as a holiday.

2012 is my year of "I can, I will".  There will be no more slacking off.  There will be no more excuses.
Even though I am always extremely busy and have no troubles in filling in my days with stuff, there are many things which I just don't get around to.


In a first attempt to get things in order, I've decided to read up on goal-setting and yes... set some goals!

Here they are in no particular order:

1. Make twenty blog entries in 2012.  This is about one every fortnight.
2. Drink more water.  Every.  Single. Day.
3. Eat breakfast.  Every.  Single.  Day.
4. Sign up for fencing and go at every opportunity, Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons, subject to travel.
5. Make an effort to see my friends.  Not just facebook or SMS.

And just so that these are measurable, here are the current rates and future targets:

1. Two blog posts in 2011.
2. Only about two-three glasses per day.
3. Eating about two-three times per week.
4. Went to a handful of sessions in 2011.
5. As an example, I haven't seen Ben or Julz for months!

I'll be posting up some more goals later in the week, in particular work, uni and fitness.  I'll need to think these through a little more.

Cool Öre bro!

In the midst of cool weather, strange currency, pear ciders and five connecting flights I find myself up early on a Sunday morning in Örebro.  I flew into Örebro on Friday afternoon with around 30 hours of flying time under my belt.  I did surprisingly well on the long-haul flights, clocking up around 6.5 hours of sleep.  And I got to try out my Polish passport too.  It works!

I'm back out of Sweden this afternoon and off to the Netherlands for the week for a Global Sales Conference in which I will be presenting market outlooks for 2012 and beyond.  I'm new to the role so I'm no expert, but I hope that the other participants will forgive me for not being completely clued-in no the goings-on.

I've been up for about 90 minutes already as a few Swedish bogan equivalents decided to walk past the apartment I'm staying in (thanks Jocke!) and make a racket at 4am.  I decided to get up, check-in for my next flights, download the new Limp Bizkit album onto my BlackBerry in preparation for  my onward travels and make a cup of tea.  God help me if I can find the sugar bowl....!  I probably don't need any more of that sweet, sweet, white death anyway.

Friday evening was spent relaxing and catching up with Peter "pumpkin-eater" Bray in preparation for his birthday.  Unfortunately, he'd already made plans to play rugby in Stockholm, but that was cool with me as I got the chance to hang out with Sebbe Lee and his family at their place.  I at least had the pleasure of Ida's garlic marinated pork and her awesome potato gratin in the company of her sister and cousin and two bottles of wine.

One of the things I love most about Europe in general is breakfast.  Softly boiled eggs, fresh bread, cucumber slices, cheese and ham.  Plus I requested a jar of mustard herring for myself and Sebbe nearly puked right there in the shop at the thought of it.  I ate half the jar in one sitting :)

The rest of the day was spent doing a bit of shopping in the main shopping centrum and then Sebbe and I headed to the town centre for a walk, more shopping, awesome sushi and a donut from a turk.

The main square in Örebro (and sunny too!)

Not sure what's on the cards for today, but all I know is that I'm happy to take it easy.  I still have a big week ahead of me!

Terrible... or is it?

"Aw, you don't update your blog anymore.  Not even for your long-time readers".

And there goes another year.  I suppose it would be sensible to at least provide an update on the last blog entry.

My exams are going really well.  I'm hoping to finish my studies in February/March 2012 (depending on the timetable).  My course weighted average is slowly creeping towards 80 which is a stark change to my undergraduate studies which clearly reflect how much of a good time I had at uni the first instance.

The reports I wrote for Engineers Australia were submitted, graded and didn't make the cut.  There were complaints that there wasn't anything recent and even one report that I had assessed a few years ago was reassessed and it wasn't good enough.  I totally lost all motivation to get them completed, but in the end, I should at least have a crack at it.

I've since started a new job too, with the same bunch of people, but a different division.  This time I'm looking after a single product portfolio and just the aftermarket side of the business.  It means I'll be on the road a lot more, and in all, I'm glad my DELL laptop has an extended battery so I can do my work all morning, and still manage to smash out a blog in the afternoon.  I've already been to Sydney twice and to the Philippines.  As I sit here, I'm in Gove, (Nhulunbuy) in the Northern Territory.  I'm sitting by the pool waiting for the kitchen to open so I can have some lunch.  My room isn't available until later in the afternoon so I've been sitting here since 8am doing presentations and finishing off reports. PS:  the music in the outdoor area is atrocious.

The sun is out today and the breeze is warm.  It's cold, rainy and miserable in Perth this week and I'm here in the middle of summer.  Beautiful!  I always make an effort to make each work trip like a bit of a holiday, considering that I take all of my leave for study and that I haven't actually had a holiday since 2008.


In 2008 I went to Sweden, which I managed to take an extra nine days off over Easter and make a bit of a holiday out of it.  Luckily with my new job I get to head over to the Netherlands every six months or so.  I'm heading over again in October and I'll be swinging past Örebro for about 48 hours to visit the old clan.  It'll even be Pumpkin's birthday :)

In other news, Robin and I bought a house last year and moved into it in January.  We love the location and it's just the right size for us.  Robin has put heaps of lockers in the garage for all of our crap and we've also increased the number of cupboards in the kitchen.  We've also been painting the fence and planning a little garden in our courtyard.

My checklist has changed a little too.  Even though my blog fell through the floor, I've bought a piano and have actually been playing it.  I've been riding, catching up with mates, cooking and occasionally playing the piano.  Still don't get to do much fencing considering that I'm away from  home so much.

As if I didn't have enough things to do, I'm also going to start learning Dutch in the coming weeks so that I can impress my Dutch workmates.

Still busy as always! But today, time to unwind and enjoy as tomorrow will be a long day on site, and a flight back to Darwin.  I'll have another beer for you.