Princess and I had our first shots today.
Princess put the numbing cream on, lay down and looked the other way, took 3 injections and walked out telling me how she likes the feeling of injections! What? I thought you were phobic!
So yeah, we need lots more jabs, so back in a couple of weeks for more jabs.
Also have a bit more of a plan - going to hire a campervan and drive brisbane -> cairns, then fly down to Sydney, stay with my Auntie and fly out to Singapore!
Will elaborate soon, Toolman.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Next step: Resigning from work!
So both Madeline and I have resigned. It is the best feeling in the world!
I have been at Ei for about 5 years now. They have looked after me and I learned heaps there - but boy am I looking forward to the next step in my life. I am starting to get jaded about how the business operates and cynical about their style; it makes it really hard for me to encourage the team and to motivate myself. It must be time to move on - the guys at Ei will do fine without me, and honestly I'm no longer able to give them 100%.
Reminds me of my school report cards, something like: when toolman finds something interesting he really applies himself. The corollary to this is, of course, that this comment is just a back handed rib-jab because I rarely found school subjects interesting, so I rarely applied myself at schoolwork! Instead I'd be either wagging school for cars/girls/money (all of which I did my best to apply myself with) , or goofing off in class, bringing the class average down with me. (Maybe thats how I managed to skip a year, slack off/wag heaps, and still pass - C's get degrees, as the underachiever mantra goes...)
So here is where I am at: riding out my last few weeks at work. Ei has known about my plans for leaving for a long time, at least 6 months. I gave them 6 weeks notice, with unofficial words to my managers for many months before hand. I have been moving my responsibilities off to other staff, and so hopefully there will be nothing dropped when I leave. I love Ei, but it needs to be injected with some more staff with passion!
The one project that made me stick around at Ei this long has proved to be too elusive for me to see thru to completion - It has been in the pipes for so long, but decisions keep getting revisited and the scope keeps changing so building something has proved difficult. I wanted to see it complete, but I have better things to do with my life then play ping-pong with specifications, features and "what the application does". Instead of building the one-size-fits-all-imaginable-customers, I'd go and talk to our 5k+ user base and figre out what they want. But thats just me...
Princess is also happy about moving on; her workplace is starting to chafe as well. But what about travel - what is next to do?
Well I have started a list of things we need to do on my personal wiki. A few of the big things are: vaccinations, insurance, visas and contacts (feel free to suggest people you know - I dont care how tenuous the link is; our travel is going to be a frugal one for us)
We have booked our vaccinations, and I really have no idea about what shots I had as a child. Il'l talk to mum, but I doubt she know much either. Probably means I'll end up getting a large cocktail of shots. Princess is worried about the actual injection, needles being one of her phobias. I have tried to offer strategies to deal with it, but shes adament that numbing cream on the skin and not looking is the best strategy there is. OK, whatever works if fine :)
Stay tuned for another mindless rant y'all.
I have been at Ei for about 5 years now. They have looked after me and I learned heaps there - but boy am I looking forward to the next step in my life. I am starting to get jaded about how the business operates and cynical about their style; it makes it really hard for me to encourage the team and to motivate myself. It must be time to move on - the guys at Ei will do fine without me, and honestly I'm no longer able to give them 100%.
Reminds me of my school report cards, something like: when toolman finds something interesting he really applies himself. The corollary to this is, of course, that this comment is just a back handed rib-jab because I rarely found school subjects interesting, so I rarely applied myself at schoolwork! Instead I'd be either wagging school for cars/girls/money (all of which I did my best to apply myself with) , or goofing off in class, bringing the class average down with me. (Maybe thats how I managed to skip a year, slack off/wag heaps, and still pass - C's get degrees, as the underachiever mantra goes...)
So here is where I am at: riding out my last few weeks at work. Ei has known about my plans for leaving for a long time, at least 6 months. I gave them 6 weeks notice, with unofficial words to my managers for many months before hand. I have been moving my responsibilities off to other staff, and so hopefully there will be nothing dropped when I leave. I love Ei, but it needs to be injected with some more staff with passion!
The one project that made me stick around at Ei this long has proved to be too elusive for me to see thru to completion - It has been in the pipes for so long, but decisions keep getting revisited and the scope keeps changing so building something has proved difficult. I wanted to see it complete, but I have better things to do with my life then play ping-pong with specifications, features and "what the application does". Instead of building the one-size-fits-all-imaginable-customers, I'd go and talk to our 5k+ user base and figre out what they want. But thats just me...
Princess is also happy about moving on; her workplace is starting to chafe as well. But what about travel - what is next to do?
Well I have started a list of things we need to do on my personal wiki. A few of the big things are: vaccinations, insurance, visas and contacts (feel free to suggest people you know - I dont care how tenuous the link is; our travel is going to be a frugal one for us)
We have booked our vaccinations, and I really have no idea about what shots I had as a child. Il'l talk to mum, but I doubt she know much either. Probably means I'll end up getting a large cocktail of shots. Princess is worried about the actual injection, needles being one of her phobias. I have tried to offer strategies to deal with it, but shes adament that numbing cream on the skin and not looking is the best strategy there is. OK, whatever works if fine :)
Stay tuned for another mindless rant y'all.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Step 1...
By the way - I forgot step zero: I bought Princess a laminated map the size of a tabletop and mounted it on the wall - we drew on it with whiteboard markers the ideas of places we liked and/or knew people, and kinda mapped a loose traverse direction so we knew what that was like.
Step 1: ... we can have lots of fun! (you should know from my first post!)
Step 2: Book tickets!
STA was an interesting escapade; maybe I can get Princess to post a story.
Breifly; We are flying out from Auckland over into Brisbane June 19th; on July 6th we'll be in Cairns, and fly out from Sydney to Singapore on July 19th. The plan is to slowly travel north thru all the intermediate countries between Singapore and Shanghai. From there we'll headacross to India to fly out December 15th 2007.
We got tickets as far as Dublin for the same price, (i.e. a free extra ticket) for Jan 15th to Dublin.
All the details are still open and feedback is welcome! For you nerds who have whinged about me not having comments on, this blog now has them enabled - but this a PG blog please.
I payed the $40 for the cancellation insurance, and can 'upgrade' my insurance with them, or get proper insurance from 3rd party. Anyone with suggestions on travel insurance?
Stay tuned for step 3.
Step 1: ... we can have lots of fun! (you should know from my first post!)
Step 2: Book tickets!
STA was an interesting escapade; maybe I can get Princess to post a story.
Breifly; We are flying out from Auckland over into Brisbane June 19th; on July 6th we'll be in Cairns, and fly out from Sydney to Singapore on July 19th. The plan is to slowly travel north thru all the intermediate countries between Singapore and Shanghai. From there we'll headacross to India to fly out December 15th 2007.
We got tickets as far as Dublin for the same price, (i.e. a free extra ticket) for Jan 15th to Dublin.
All the details are still open and feedback is welcome! For you nerds who have whinged about me not having comments on, this blog now has them enabled - but this a PG blog please.
I payed the $40 for the cancellation insurance, and can 'upgrade' my insurance with them, or get proper insurance from 3rd party. Anyone with suggestions on travel insurance?
Stay tuned for step 3.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Testing, testing 1.2.3 - Is this thing on?
So hello all and welcome to the first post of Madeline and my adventures around the globe.
Step 1) A few weeks ago we went shopping and got backpacks - 75 liter for me, and 65 liter for Madeline. And yes, her pack is pink/purple...
Stay tuned for step 2.
Step 1) A few weeks ago we went shopping and got backpacks - 75 liter for me, and 65 liter for Madeline. And yes, her pack is pink/purple...
Stay tuned for step 2.
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