Hot Water!!

Not the most exciting of news to report but it is for us! At our flat, the so-called hot water takes approximately 2-3 minutes to come through in the morning for a shower and when it does, it's usually just warm.

Lately it's been getting worse so I called strata, who called a plumber, who arrived yesterday morning. He tried a few things but said it might take some time to fix up. We left for work and left him to it and when we arrived home Jo had to try out the shower to see if it was working.

The water is now scorching hot and he has probably doubled if not tripled the pressure! We're so excited. How pathetic! We both can't believe we've been living with such crap hot water and pressure for so long!

More Manager updates

Well, if this doesn't sum up my week I'm not sure what does. It's 11.21 on Friday night and I've just finished work.

This week has been extremely intesting as tomorrow is end of financial year here and working for a superannuation, investment and insurance company, coupled with massive incentives for people to invest in super due to federal budget changes things have been somewhat hectic!

It has been suggested that over the past week we as a company has taken 3-4 times a much money as usual and our systems are getting hammered left, right and centre.

I have resourcing issues, people problems, a mobile phone number that won't port over to a work account, no credit left on the stupid phone, a million unanswered e-mails and to-do items....ahhh remind me again why people want promotions!!??

My birthday continued!

Well, my birthday surprises didn't stop there as when Jo and I got home from the Hilton on Sunday there were some other little goodies in store!

Firstly, I opened all my cards from family and friends and Jo gave me my birthday present; a brand new Babolat tennis raquet! Looking forward to trying it out soon, when it stops raining in Sydney!

Jo had also arrange for heaps of our friends to join us for dinner at Govinda's in Darlinghurst for dinner and then for a movie in Govinda's legendary lay-down-on-beds-and-cushions movie theatre.

We arrived on time at 5:45pm to find Kate, Vanessa, Guy, Josh, Phillipe, Jade, Carlos, Brenton, Janet, Nicci, Joe and his son Rory all ready to tuck into some yummy dinner.

Some of us then rushed up to grab some spots for the movie Pan's Labrynth but we weren't quick enough to get the cosy beds but we did get two cosy lounges at the back so that was good. The movie was odd but very enjoyable, kind of a mix between fantasy and adult drama, I was surprised as I wasn't expecting to like it but by the end I thought it was great and forgot about the subtitles!

The stragglers then headed to The Piccadilly pub in Kings Cross for a nice nightcap :)

Priscilla Hilton

This weekend we've been celebrating my birthday in style!

I bought Jo and I tickets to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (The Musical) for her birthday and she thought it would be cool for us to stay at a nice hotel in the city to make a weekend of it. Jo found a great internet deal for a night at the Hilton that included breakfast at Luke Mangan's Glass Brasserie and a drink at the wonderful Marble Bar.

We spent the morning with Ryan who drove down from Newcastle and we all enjoyed some great Thai for lunch in Newtown. He gave us a lift into the city and we checked in at 3pm, dropped off our bags in our room and then headed out for a bit of afternoon shopping at Myer and David Jones.

We spent some time getting ready and headed downstairs to check out the Marble bar for a nice glass of wine before hopping in a cab to Star City where Priscilla is playing in Sydney. We took our seats in the dress circle and looked forward to the show. In our performance, the character of Bob (usually played by Michael Caton from The Castle) was played by Home and Away's own Alf Stewart!

The show was fantastic, the costumes were amazing and the musical did extremely well following all the main plot lines of the movie and keeping all the great one liners such as "That's all Australia needs...a cock, in a frock, on a rock!". The music had the crowd going and there was a great atmosphere in the Lyric theatre - this show has been a huge success for the producers and Star City alike and is in it's final run in Sydney before it moves to Melbourne.

We enjoyed a great breakfast in the Glass Brasserie, I've never seen so many type of bread, muffins and cakes! And for $39 per person for the full buffet you'd bloody well expect quality! Luckily, this was included in our deal as I think most people would struggle to get their money's worth without feeling sick!

It was a great way to spend the weekend and my birthday :)

Gold Class

Jo and I finally made it to Gold Class at the Greater Union, Bondi Junction last night. We had a call from Nicci who had two vouchers and asked if we'd like to go see Shrek the Third with her and Joe and we thought why not!

We arrived at 7:15pm and thought we'd get something to eat from the yummy food court at Bondi Junction Westfield but they were all shutting up shop for the night. We then wandered Bondi trying to find something open and eventually found a Thai Restaurant so red curry beef, chilli and basil seafood, vegetarian pad thai and asian greens it was for dinner.

We made it just in time for our 8:40pm showing of Shrek and the usher took our tickets and showed us to our front row lounge chairs. I've never been Gold Class before but god it's great. First, the cinema must only seat about 30 people. All the seats are like massive cosy lounge chairs that have a button that reclines the chair and extends a foot rest, there is a table with a wine cooler between each set of two seats, wait service for food or drinks if you would like. Basically, why ever go to the normal movies again!

My first week

I'm officially at the end of my first week as a manager (or people leader as we tend to say now) and it's been interesting to say the least.

My first day involved attendance at the monthly People Leader's Forum from across technology meet for a whole day for education sessions, working groups all that sort of stuff. As I'm trying to replace my old role I was only able to stay for the morning but I was welcomed into this clan-like group :)

Apart from that, I really have been just getting used to the idea of what this change means for my (and my team). I certainly have lots and lots to learn and to be honest am quite daunted by the challenges that are sure to come my way. I can't say the week as been smooth, I've experience many bouts of self-doubt and I can feel my usual confidence ebbing away at points but I suppose we all have to do things once and time will be the thing that will give me the experience I need.

Facebook

Strange co-incidence this week as I was pointed in the direction of Facebook by two completely unrelated friends!

I had no idea what this whole facebook thingy was all about (it's like an online community where you can keep in touch with friends) but after I signed up I instantly had 3 friends linked and after 4 days I can proudly say I have 13 friends :) Quite an acheivement.

I'm now back in touch with people I haven't heard from in ages, including one (my good friend Andy) to find that his wife is expecting their first baby any day now!

The real value of technology :)

I'm that Twat!

You may remember from this post that my team is being split off, will need a new manager and that I was hoping that person wasn't going to be a twat.

Well, I'm that twat! I finally plucked up enough courage to put myself forward for the role (after some conversations with my manager and his manager who practically told me to apply!).

I had the interview last Monday, about 3 hours after I found out that Nell had died :( and I was interviewed by my manager and his manager. The interview only lasted 30 minutes but felt like an age but I did heaps on preparation and it definitely paid off as I answered all their questions well and presented my vision of the team going forward. I'm sure this much have looked impressive!

I found out on the morning of last Thursday that I had been successful and am now (well from tomorrow as it hasn't been announced yet) promoted from Senior Business Analyst to Development and Support Manager with 15 team members!! Wish me luck!

Farewell Nell

We had some very sad news last week that Jo's Aunty Nell had passed away. She was 72.

Nell had been ill for some time, being a heavy smoker her lungs were not good and she had been in hospital for a few days before being admitted to intensive care were she died on Tuesday. Even though we knew she was ill it still doesn't prepare you for when the worst happens.

Jo drove up to Coffs Harbour with her Mum on Wednesday and I flew up on Thursday to attend the funeral on the Friday.

Nell was a religious lady and her service was held at the local church in beautiful Sawtell that is no more than 50 metres from her house. The local priest, Father John, had tears in his eyes during the service as they were very close and he was there when she died. Nell's daughter Karen (Jo's cousin) and her 3 sons; Matt (13), Luke (15) and Cameron (10) all made speeches at the service and did so well considering the circumstances.

The amount of people who turned up the funeral and wake was a testiment to how loved Nell was and she will be missed by us all.

Life on Mars

For those in the UK this will be old news but for us on the other side of the world the TV show "Life on Mars" finally aired on Sunday night.

This is a show my mum told me about probably a year ago now so when I saw it advertised on the ABC I had to tune in.

The show is about a 21st century copper who has an accident and wakes up in 1973. He can't determine if he is in a coma and has a very detailed and vivid imagination or if he really is in 1973. He finds himself Detective Inspector at his normal 'nick' in Manchester on a murder case with startling similarities to one he was working on in 2006 (but without the help of mobile phones, DNA evidence or computers)

Sam: "Where's my PC terminal?"
1973 copper: "You need a constable down here?"

The contrasts between the two eras were very interesting. Everyone smoking in the office, woman officers treated like tea ladies, having to use an operator when making a phone call. I thought the best line of the episode was from Sam's boss "Hey you kids! If anyfing 'appens to that motor, I'll come over to your house an' stamp on all your toys. Alright?". Hehehe. I really enjoyed it and will definitely be tuning in next week.

Names & Dates

Ok, this has to be at least an 8.5 on the cacky handed witch scale - Steve, your opinion please as you're the only one who reads this blog :)



The cocky cow even re-tunes mid song! Hehe.

Ps. The 'cacky fingered old witch' phrase comes from a very amusing story by the very amsuing Jack Dee.

32 Flavours

Check out the rare live TV performance by Ani Difranco - playing one of my favourite songs "32 Flavours"...

Chad Vader strikes back

Thanks to Steve for the heads up that Chad Vader episode 7 is now available on youtube. Will Chad get back the Day Manager's job? Looks like we'll have to wait for episode 8 - doh!



Best line: "Shut up! No!! You shut up!!" Hehehehe

Pink!

Last night we went to see Pink at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. We met up with our concert companions at Donna's place in Surry Hills and were introduced to Michelle, Julie, Trish, Steph and Bronwyn.

We all enjoyed a few drinks and nibbles before heading into Chinatown for a bite to eat (and to avoid the support act) before the show. I've never been to the Emperor's Garden before but the food was fresh, yummy and cheap so chances are I'll be back! We got to the Entertainment Centre at about 9pm and Jo and I took our fantastic central seats, unfortunately not sitting with the others who had seats elsewhere.

Pink kicked off her "I'm not Dead" tour to an extremely enthusiastic and noisy crowd to "Cuz I Can" and the got the entire place rocking.

Pink struts her stuff

She dazzled the crowd throughout a 2 hour energetic show that saw her display huge amounts of flexibility in a net 30 feet up in the air and talk to the audience in an intimate mini acoustic set. In between she was dancing around the stage, voice strong and always with a smile on her face. The entire show went so quickly but was so packed with energy you certainly didn't feel short changed and definitely left feeling fully entertained.

Donna had arranged for us to get free entry into the Shelbourne Hotel after the show for a few drinks and a dance. As suspected, our little dance turned into a long one and we eventually left at about 3:30am!! I blame the "retro" theme of 70s, 80s & 90s and my quality air-guitar :)

Still, I paid for it in the morning as there was a server upgrade at work this weekend that didn't go to plan and I had to have a tele-conference at 9am to decide what action to take. Eurgh.

My Humps

Fergie: "Check it out!"



It really should've been like this originally and Fergie should've done the cover! Hehehe.

Hungerford Hill

Jo and I took our first trip this year up to Nelson Bay to visit Jo's Mum for her birthday. We left early on Saturday morning and arrived at about 10:30. We had no plans of what to do for the day but inspiration struck and we decided to go to the Hunter Valley for the day.

We were off shortly afterwards and decided to stop into a winery for a look around as even though we had decided on our destination we still had no idea what to do once we got there.

We entered Hungerford Hill and saw people having a very nice lunch out on the terrace, well that was that. We were sat at a table in no time looking at a delicious menu that was to turn into Mrs B's birthday lunch treat :)

The head chef is Darren Ho (yes, brother of Lisa) and his asian influenced menu was delicious. We were all treated to a complimentary

Mrs B and I started with the aylesbury duck won tons with roast duck jus, blackwood fungus & pickled vegetables while Jo had the sea scallops stuffed with water chestnuts on sautéed garlic chives & sauce vierge.

Jo and I then had the beautiful fish of the day and Lyn had the waygu beef cheek slow braised with hungerford hill shiraz, on braised witlof & paris mash potatoes, served with béarnaise sauce. Yum!!

If that wasn't enough, we had already had a plate of mixed bread before the entrees and after we treated ourselves to gelato at a place down the road! Pigs!

Missy's Back

I went to see Missy Higgins showcase her new album "On a Clear Night" at the Enmore Theatre on Friday night.

We spent the first half an hour trying to "sell" a spare ticket we had by a late cancellation but with a lack of touting skills we ended up giving the ticket to some French tourist who seemed pleased enough!

We arrived in time to get a drink and take our seats to watch the support act. Leroy Lee played about 5 songs, a simple acoustic set that was reminissent of Jack Johnson mets John Butler.

Missy arrived on stage at about 9:40 and the crowd awoke and burst into cheers as the catchy but simple riff from "Secret" emerged from behind the curtain. The album was only released about a week before the concert but I've been lucky enough to listen to it for free for the past week via Claire's website :)

"Secret" is one of my favourite tracks on the album, probably because it consists on 3 notes on 1 string so I should be able to play it on my guitar hehehe.

Missy in action....

Missy played a great set mixing new with old favourites from the ever popular "The Sound of White". True to form she stuffed up the opening lines to no less than 3 songs but her innocent charm means she can get away with it with the crowd laughing along as say blurts out "Ahh! Those are the wrong words!" then mentally backtracks to the beginning to start over again.

Points have to be awarded for effort though when she gave up her trusty piano and guitar to simply sing, although you can tell she finds it extremely awkward and you want to shout "That microphone does detact from the stand you know!". Once again, a very enjoyable show from someone who improves everytime I've seen her.

Work, work, work

It's official, I'm in training coma.

Not only am I in a new role, in a new team, with a new technology, with 1 technical person to support 3 production applications with about another 10 on the way, I seem to spend my life in training courses.

First there was the Project Management course going back a few months, this was backed up with the conference in Queensland (sounds like a junket but wasn't really), followed by a dose of "Emotional Intelligence", then came my LSI training (I can't even remember what it stands for but they plot stuff about you on a circumplex, that's about all I can recall), now I am on a "Resilience" course that is for 2 hours a week for 6 weeks. I think. I have an exam to take in July and the rest I'm trying not to think about!

And to top it all off, it was announced today that my team is going to be split away from my current manager into a separate team. As much as I'd love to apply for that role, I'm not sure I'm ready to manage a team of 15! Fingers crossed whoever lands the role will do a good job and not be a twat.

The past few weeks

Well, if I thought my week up at the Gold Coast was busy I was wrong! Things certainly haven't calmed down since I've returned, either at work or at home! Here's the recap of the key events since the beginning of April....

1. We farewelled Steven as he returned from his trip to NZ for a night and took him to one of our favourite pizza places (Bar Reggio) in Darlinghurst. Our quiet Monday night dinner took 2 hours to eventuate - I've never seen that restaurant so busy in my life! We had a great time though and devoured some excellent pizza's.

2. The Easter long weekend was then quickly upon us and we were on cat/house sitting duties. We looked after Tiffany and Mia (Lisa & Christian's cat who has gone away to christan their beautiful twin girls with their family), we made sure that April and May (Carl & Martinette's cats who had gone up to Mooloolaba for the Easter break) were ok and of course our own little ratbags. We ended up spending most of our time our in Manly praticsing our non-existent surfing skills but we sure did have fun. We checked out a new bar - "Henry Afrika's" before enjoying dinner at the Manly Ocean Beach House.

The Manly Ocean Beach House Restaurant, at Manly obviously :)

3. On a sadder note, we helped our friend Jenny pack up her house as she was moving to Melbourne on the 12th. Jenny lost her husband Steve in December to a brain tumour and I have to stay it was a very strange experience packing clothes into a box of a man who I had never met and would never get to meet.

If I ever need anything to put things into perspective, I will certainly recall this experience and I have such utter respect for Jenny and how she is handling the horrible situation she now finds herself in.

4. We've had Jo's cousin Karen, partner Paul and 3 boys stay since Sunday so we've been busy little bees and our apartment feels much smaller with 4 adults, 3 young lads and 2 cats in it!

5. The pace doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon as coming up in the next few weeks are:
- A weekend in Newcastle this weekend
- Jo's Mum's birthday on 3rd May
- Missy Higgins concert at the Enmore on 4th May with Bo and Claire
- Pink concert on 12th May

and don't get me started on what's been happening at work!!

Busy week

I left for the Gold Coast (again) on the 23rd March for my week long conference. Nicci and I decided to fly up on the Friday so we could make a weekend of it.

Friday night we stayed with Nicci's friend Luke near Brisbane and enjoyed a great dinner and a few nice wines and dinner in the garden with his family.

Luke kindly gave us a lift the next day to Wet n' Wild where Nicci and spent most of the day at Calypso Beach floating around on a rubber ring!

We arrived at our conference venue on the Sunday at about 11:00am - Nicci had to be there early as she was facilitating and had to attend a session. I spent the afternoon in the huge lagoon swimming! What was to be the only relaxing time of the following week.

The Hyatt at Sanctuary Cove

Up early Monday morning for a run and gym session before breakfast and then to our conference room for Day 1 activities. I had met some of my team the previous night at the welcome dinner but today was designed to make sure we worked as a team. Our task was a 'virtual safari' run by Peak Teams.

The next day the real work started. The whole point of the conference is to teach a strategic planning and thinking model and apply this to real business issues, skillfully facilitated by Michael Wilkinson from Leadership Strategies based in Atlanta, Georgia. Believe the hype, Michael is the most incredible facilitator I have ever witnessed and I was super proud to be voted by my team as the person who had contributed the most to our case study challenge and receive a copy of Michael's book.

We all were taken through the process using a common case study and by Thursday we were back in our teams to work on other case studies submitted as part of the application process. Luckily I knew quite a lot about my case study because I wrote it :) We started at 8am in the morning and finally finshed up at 9:30pm (this could have been worse had it not been a master-stoke to pause for dinner and drink wine!).

The Hyatt's fantastic fake beach and lagoon

The other focus of the week really is the networking, getting to know other people in our vast organisation and also presenting to a board of senior leaders on the Friday with the aim of getting some support for your case study.

All in all, it was a fantastic week which saw me go ten-pin bowling, surfing at Surfer's Paradise, stroke a real life white tiger, have dinner on a fake beach, sing karioke twice and present to over 70 people with a hangover! Great stuff.