A good news week

Well, the good news is that I've stuck to my goals thus far.  It is only one week into the New Year, but I've held true to my targets.

In other news, I'm heading out of the office for five weeks.  Three weeks in the Netherlands, and then two weeks at university finishing off my capstone unit for the Master of Business Administration.  When I get back I'll be changing office spots so I've spent the last two days packing a few boxes.

I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.  It's all training and learning and thinking so I hope I'm not too burnt out after all of it.  I'm thinking of taking a long weekend off soon to head up the coast and just bum around the beach.

I'll also be celebrating Australia Day in the Netherlands which will be a first.  There's no forecast for snow (yet) but I'm hoping that it will get cool enough.  I fly out tomorrow so there will be plenty of photos soon!

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.

Zilla Thrilla!

First of all, a big thankyou to Zilla for sorting out my gallery today and reminding me that I actually have a blog!

It's a new financial year, and what better way to celebrate than with a Coke Zero and a new blog design. It's my third design since starting my blog in 2006 and I'm glad that Blogger are making it easier for n00bs like me to actually make changing with out making a meal of the coding.

I've just come back from the city, where I have just sat my end of semester test for Legal Issues in Human Resources 660. The test wasn't easy, but I think I had enough under my belt for a decent mark. It's now time to buckle down and finish off my industrial journal which is due next week. Not huge amounts to write, but being a legal unit, it needs to be on the money.

I've also finished writing my career episode reports (CERs) for my engineering work over the last six years or so. I have four more to have signed and verified and it's off for assessment to Engineers Australia. Once that's done, I get to sit an interview, pay an exorbitant fee and get five more letters to my name. CPEng. Oh, how sweet that will be :)

Things have been pretty fast paced since starting the new job, which isn't that new anymore actually.... I'll be off my six month probation period in about two weeks. I'll be able to apply for sponsorship of my further studies - which will take some of the financial pressure off me!

Robin and I have also been looking for a property to buy. A small house or a large villa south of the river, but still within a 10km radius of the city. We don't want to be too far from work or from our friends so it's an area we're looking into. If you see any good 3x2x2's for under half a mill, give me a call! Seriously!

I'm pretty much home alone tonight, Robin is still at work doing the long shift (thank God for overtime) and I'm pondering on what to do for dinner... Christ, I think I'm turning into an Aussie; eating after 8pm!

More travel is on the cards too, Sydney in two weeks and then up to site for a shutdown before I have my intensive unit on Leading and Facilitating Teams, then to another site for a day or two, a round-trip visit in the Murchison at the end of August and in mid-September its up to the Kimberley for commissioning and some sight-seeing. I might even squeeze another visit up north before the wet season starts again.

Well, that's about it for me for this edition. I've made it one of my goals to keep blogging this year as my blog (as well as a few other things in my life) have taken a back seat to study and work. Its time for some more "me" time. Cliche I know, but its true.

Fencing, check.
Violin, check.
Blog, check.
Cooking, check.
Piano, finding the right one to buy.
Riding, need more sunny days.
Friends, need to see them!

Singapore Trio 2010

It's only been a week since I spent three magic days in Singapore and I miss the place completely already. How can one complain with a view like this? This is the fifteenth floor of the Grand Mercure Roxy on East Coast Road, not too far from the beach. It was even sunny for most of the time I was there.

I arrived in Singapore around 9pm on Friday night after racing home from a three-day cracker trip out to Wiluna and back to a lead mine. There's another three days of my life I won't get back! I flew Qant(arse) with Frequent Flyer points and I must say, I was not impressed. Their domestic service is excellent, but their international flights are awful.

At least the next three days made up for it.

Robin met me at the airport and we were going to head straight for the shops, but he had to stop into the office in the morning and it was already midnight. Instead, we dropped into McDonalds for a McSpicy (seriously) and a Coke. It was off to bed to dream of all the awesome shopping I would do the next day.

Saturday morning was spent sleeping in, enjoying the view, watching Channel News Asia and planning my shopping time wisely. It was off to Parkway Parade at 11am as the shops open to check out the Purple Gold at Lee Hwa Jewellers. This is where I wanted to get my engagement ring.

Robin met up with me at the plaza not long after lunch, and by then I had managed to raid all the shops on five floors, pick up some clothes and accessories and pick a ring I like. Did I mention that the Singapore Dollar was at 1.30 Australian? How awesome is that!?

We went to Lee Hwa, had cups of tea, tried a few rings on then decided on a beautiful white and Purple Gold ring with 0.077 ct of diamonds. The size I was after was in another shop across the country so we jumped in a taxi and headed to the far east to pick it up. Over the next few hours, I had the ring on and off and on again with mini-re-proposals at the shopping centre and at food halls. The six-month wait for a ring was over, and it was completely worth it.


The rest of the afternoon comprised of some more shopping and laksas and wontons. Oh, for the love of Singapore food!

Sunday was a day for touristy things. Robin and I took the train out to Suntec City, did some more shopping (for me) and gifts for family, plus Domo-Kun Robin had been pining over getting one for two days and was distraught that he didn't buy the one at Changi.

When we emerged from the shops, we spotted the Singapore Flyer and walked over via the Formula One track and past the new Helix bridge (which had only been officially opened the night before).

The Singapore Flyer was a thirty minute trip about 185m above ground and the sunny day really showcased how beautiful and green Singapore really is. Domo-Kun also approves.


We spent the rest of the afternoon looking in motorbike shops for leathers, boots and helmets and generally chilling out enjoying the environment.

I'd heard from a workmate to go and check out Chijmes, a food plaza in part of the cultural district in Singapore. It is a complex across the road from the famous Raffles Hotel. We stopped in to the Raffles for a Singapore Sling and an icy cold Tiger (beer is never cold in Singapore, except the Raffles) for a premium SGD50! It was like being at the Breakwater on the weekend. $25 per drink!

Over the road to Chijmes, I was disappointed at first, I thought the complex was small and uneventful. We nearly turned back and left, until I realised that there was another entrance. We walked through into a massive plaza full of big screens, tables and chairs, fairy lights and the most electric atmosphere!

Robin and I chose a Thai restaurant to dine. We were back in the "white" district of town and of course, we paid "white" prices. I got used to paying $3 for a meal and seeing panang curry for $16 made me laugh. We ordered a jug of Tiger straight up. Something wasn't... quite... right... It smelled fishy! As we had just come from the Raffles Hotel with their icy Tiger beer, we knew the taste well, and this jug didn't taste anything like Tiger beer. We asked for another one. Same again. We apologies and said we wouldn't drink it. I think someone forgot to clean the pipes to the keg, because that beer was worse than the worst warm can of Export I could think of. We chose two glasses of Coke, as we thought it was safer. I had a delicious chilli pork shoulder fillet and Robin had the panang curry. Both meals were awesome.

Robin was back at work on Monday so I was on my own. It was off to Chinatown, Singapura Plaza and Suntec City (again) for some more shopping and souvenirs. My plane was due to leave at 7:30pm but not before I stopped off for one final wonton noodle at the hawker across the road from the hotel.

Goodbye Singapore... I miss you!

Busy, but Quiet

I've been a very busy bee over the last few weeks, but it has been pretty quiet. Robin has been away for almost 8 weeks straight (with a short stint at home; 3 days). Lucky for me, he returns on Thursday.

Work is going well, I think I've settled in fairly well. There has been heaps of training and familiarisation. The business systems are very good and aren't too hard to master. Most of the hard work is actually going to be in the application engineering part, and trying to get all the work done that is generated from site visits.

I've also been cooking for myself again, meaning that I'm not eating everything out of the freezer. I've made the effort to go to Woolies and buy beautiful fresh food as often as I can, with focus on fruits and veges.

I did my last shift at the Carlisle Hotel on Sunday night, and I'm glad it was only four hours. I was fairly tired and it was extremely hot behind the bar. I was drinking lemon, lime bitters and fire engines like there was no tomorrow.

This evening, I'm sitting here with the 5 Seeds, waiting for the washing to finish. I'm glad that life has gone back to normal after the crazy storm that hit Perth yesterday. The house was battered with wind and rain, with water running down the inside of the walls, running out through light fittings and out of powerpoints. The pilot light in the hot water system blew out again and it was full of water; same as last year.

At least the sunset was pretty...

A New Start

After almost two months of unemployment over summer, relaxing, watching cricket and drinking cider, it was back to the real world and back into work. I'm now an Area Manager for an OEM looking after pumping and process equipment for mining. I will be looking after the Murchison and Kimberley regions which means lots of travel and lots of driving.

I'm glad that I have these regions to look after, as I have been on many of the sites in the Murchison and on the visits I did last week, I knew many of the people up at Golden Grove and Jundee. It was like the good 'ol days, wearing high viz clothes and steel caps, wearing "cool" safety glasses, even going for a quick trip underground, Bacardi and coke in a can (I personally got GG to stock these when I worked there in 2003/2004) and sleeping in a donga.

I'll be seeing a lot more of this...

...in the coming months.

I even did two nights in Meekatharra! I must say however, of all the mining towns I've been to, Wiluna has *unfortunately* set a new low. It really is a dive. Smelly, dirty, lots of broken down cars and stray dogs. Not my favourite place, but at least I know where to get an icecream and a bag of chips.

And now I call tell everyone I been everywhere!

Year of the Tiger

This year, my Valentine's Day was spent alone. Robin was still in New Zealand, and I didn't have any plans. Nath had come by, as he was in the area, to give me a hug.

Luckily, February 14th marked the start of celebrations for Chinese New Year - Year of the Tiger.

The Sagaramudra Buddhist temple up the road had a festival going in the car park so I popped down to see what all the fuss was about.

There were fire crackers, groups of chanters and drummers and lion dancers; all performing for the crowd. The day was hot but it was worth the show.

Done and Dusted

Finally, the 400 got to see some daylight. The first photos of the bike were in the yard about a week ago, however Robin and I headed out on the bikes for a run-in and to take some snaps on the Perth foreshore on the weekend.

It has been interesting getting used to the bike again as I haven't ridden it properly in about six months. This thing handles like it's on rails. I keep forgetting how low the centre of gravity is on this bike. I can change direction so quickly and rip around corners effortlessly. It also has a shorter wheel base and smaller turning circle than the R1 so I don't need to do a 10-point turn to get around the courtyard.

I'm looking forward to many more lovely kilometres on "Paris". Here's to warm sunny days and windy roads.

:)

The Finishing Touches

I'm going to let the photos tell most of the story, but I would like to make a point and say a massive "Thank You" to Robin, who has done most of the work, been pestering me to get this bike going and make it look beautiful again.

I love you sweetie, and your work. You're a star.

The tank went on about a week or so after I got it back. When fitting it, we changed the fuel hose and decided to polish up the tripleclamp and replace the headstock nut with a nice titanium one.

Working nights was common, it was a lot cooler and with a beer or two, we were happy to kick on for a few hours a night to get things going.

$5 to the person that can guess what is wrong with this picture!Once the fairings were on and the bolts were replaced with a nice set of ProBolt aluminium bolts, all that was left to do was to go in search of a tank pad. Here's a cracker we found by Keiti.

Getting Tanked

I got to pick up my tank yesterday. Big thanks to Potato (Niall) for doing this up for me, I think the finish is great!

Looking forward to fitting it back to the 400 during the week.

Infected

What a killer week it was! I somehow managed to get a pretty destructive virus on my computer which had me faffed for over two days. The usual steps of just removing it and rebooting caused me so much drama.

Here is what I woke up to:


What I soon found out to be BlazeFind, had me stumped for days. It created a login-logout loop for Windows which meant that I couldn't login to my own computer. Lucky I had a laptop that I could work from to at least work out what the hell was going on!

I ended up needing my Windows XP CD to create a pre-installed environment so I could remotely change the registry. It was a total nightmare, but at least none of my files were deleted or removed.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the Tenners!

New Year's Eve started at Hornet's place in Scarborough where we all met up, parked up on the lawn, got the eskies out and started cracking those first drinks. We had oodles of beer, cider, sparking wine, snacks, my famous fried potatoes (world famous in Perth) and heaps of chocolate!

Hornet and I

Lucie and Jamie

Simone and Matt

Hornet

Robin and his beautiful smile

Robin and I

In between beers, Hornet and the boys got the toy helicopters out and took them for a spin in the backyard. Unfortunately, the wind caught most of them and threw them into the next door neighbour's yard and there wasn't much left when we went to inspect the damage. The skids and counterweights had broken off and Hornet only had a few flights before it was inoperable.

The launch

Up, up and away!The demise...

Later in the evening once dinner was done, Simone got out the blender and started mixing it up with Midori, Bacardi, fresh mangoes and raspberries... in fact, I don't remember what half of them were, I just drank anything that was put in front of me!

The girls and their cocktails: Simone, Lucie, Julie and I

When midnight struck, we all exchanged hugs and kisses, wishing each other a Happy New Year! It wasn't a long or rowdy night, but it was great fun. Cold drinks, hot food and great mates.

A successful start to 2010.

Head and Shoulders

I finally got my headers back from CIC. Not cheap, but the finish and quality is fantastic. I'm really happy with the result.




I also got some other pieces teflon coated for the bike, just to tidy it up a little bit and keep the surface finishes consistent.

Contract Law and Other Such

I recently took three weeks off work to complete two more units towards my double masters. For two weeks, the classes were from about 8am till 12:30pm. This meant that I could wake up, go to class, head home for lunch and have a lie in the warm spring sun.

Three weeks of that certainly relaxed me. The life of a student is never really that hard. You use your brain for 50% of the time, and the other 60% is relaxation. I was starting to enjoy it too much!

Having such a good time made me a bit sad however, as I wasn't really looking forward to going back to work. After many a long discussion with mum and dad and Robin, I decided that I would resign from work and continue my studies in 2010 alongside some part time work.

It's a bit of a scary situation with a mortgage on the side, but I need the break after 5+ years of solid work with only the occasional holiday. The reason I started studying in the first place (June 2009) was that I was starting to idle at work anyway.

It was a tough call, but I'm on the home stretch now, with less than two weeks left in the office and still no replacement or assistant to do a handover for.

This week is also important as exam results for Contract Law 601 and Socioeconomic Impacts 601 are due out at 5pm today. I'm thinking I got a minimum 70% for each of them, but I would like to keep my grade point average over the 75 mark. Here's hoping!

Failures

As you can see, I never got to finish my blog about Thailand... how awesome the whole week was. There are three reasons mainly, the first being that I couldn't find the time to write, the second being that if I had time to write, I had lost the desire to write, and the third being that I have had catastrophic hard drive failure and it is currently being attended to by forensic data recovery specialists.

*le sigh*

I hope that the invoice for the recovery will only be a few hundred dollars...

Meanwhile, I can't sleep (its about 2:30am) and I'm backdating some work Robin and I have done on the Honda CBR400RR.

Plastic Fantastic

Robin fitted up some of the fairings today so we could get an idea of what the bike was going to look like and to also assist with getting the tank painted to suit.


Our mate Potato came over to offer some advice on a colour scheme and we agreed on a white tank, with black near where the legs go and simple plain black Honda wings. Potato does some great work and he has priced the tank up for me, plus some plastic welding and a respray of the air ducts for around $400.

That night I jumped on Xtreme Decals and picked up a set of wings for about $15 delivered.

The Engagement

The engagement was held at the lovely Windsor Hotel in South Perth on November 26th. All our friends were invited to this lavish event with beers flowing and food platters ahoy!

Robin, Mum, Me and Dad

The week prior, Jess and come out with Robin and I to organise some decorations and they looked stunning! There were diamonds and beautiful bouquets and my favourite part, the word "LOVE" on the table in big letters.

When Robin and I arrived at the Windsor, there was a massive canvas print of Robin and I from Thailand on one side of the room, and an elaborate stand with details of our engagement party on the other.

This was also the first time that our parents had met. It wasn't a long visit, but I think that everything went well. I had good vibes from everyone all night.

Mum and I

The Singapore Room at the Windsor

My mate Jess (did such an awesome job) and I

Posing with guests

Robin and I were incredibly impressed with the turnout considering it was a school night (Thursday) with about 60 people coming to visit us during various stages of then evening.

The night wrapped up around 11:30pm after two pints, much banter and many smiles and hugs.

The Pipe

I was looking around at getting an Akropovic, or maybe even going back to Roo Racing, but I wasn't in the market to drop another $700+ on a pipe for the bike.

It was on eBay where I stumbled upon an English company called Fuel Exhausts. They do a bolt-on pipe for the CBR400 with all the hardware and clamps, for about $500 delivered. I ordered online that very day.

The styles they had meant that I could buy a "new-look" design so the bike didn't look as dated. I ended up ordering an oval pipe with blue coloured titanium exhaust.


The pipe has not been bolted on yet as I am getting the headers ceramic coated, but that's another story :)