A Jellyfish lunch

Had lunch with Derek from work at Jellyfish today, as we were both "working from home" and he lives near me. I had some fairly spicy pasta with salmon and chillies. I know it did say chillies, but I was not prepared. Anyhow turned out to be OK.
We did talk some work, as apparently the big boss in APAC, has gone out with a message saying to rate any employee over "solid" needs written approval from two line managers above each other. We were both quite un-happy with that as we both had "excellent" previously. Given the 2 days to get the performance reviews done, there were not much time to argue. Apparently it has something to do with no pay-rises being given this year, and if anyone had documented evidence that they were doing very well, there could be too much pressure. So neither of us were very happy and agreed "what is the point of this process then"?
At the table next to us were two people having lunch "together", each one working on their own Laptop...
Did not manage to do much catching up as day was very busy outside lunch. Still have 35 un-read e-mails and it is time to wind down ;-(

Brand New Train

Today I took the new train from North Ryde to Chatswood. It opened on Monday, 3 years late.
As trains go, it was quite nice. It was very deep, 2 long escalators down, which is needed as it goes under a river. They have had lots of problems with it but for me it will be quite useful going between Optus & Vodafone on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Sunday outing to Rozelle

I have been taking the new Fast Ferry to work recently. A touch of luxury, with A/C and news on TVs. It also only takes 18 minutes compared to the 30 minutes the Manly Ferry takes. This means I can get the 7.10 fast ferry and still arrive at circular quay before the 7.00 regular one. It does cost a bit more but so far it is worth it.

However the fast ferry only runs weekdays during rush hours, so yesterday when we were invited to Charissa for Filipino lunch we went on the normal one. It is very exciting taking it on weekends as it has to navigate all the sailing boats, and sometimes it is very close. Picture above is of the ferry going the other way.

There are some great shots of the Manly ferry during the winter storms last year on Youtube - see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skQeGxFnyCA

In any case lunch at Charissa's was great! We ate so much there was no need for Dinner when we finally got home, and we had a great time. I had no idea what to expect, but we started out with soup that had pieces of pork in it (she also did a variant of this with Salmon in). I also got a dish with mixed chicken and pork pieces cooked in soy sauce and vinegar, but the best part was mixed beef & pork mince with spices wrapped in filo pastry and fried in oil. With this we consumed a good mix of Amber Ale, Champagne, a white and a red bottle of Cape Mentelle Marmaduke and a bottle of Chardonnay. An excellent Sunday afternoon.

Retail Therapy

Work is still hard, so I spent yesterday recovering by doing some shoe shopping. I have been after new deck shoes in brown leather, but they have been hard to find. Most ladies ones are pink or white or blue. However by chance wondered by a boating store and they had a pair. I am not sure they are the right size so wandering around the flat with them. I hope it rains later on today so that they can adapt to my feet. I have also been mourning the loss of my favourite Nike sandals. As they do not sell them here, and I don't remember what size they were I can't get them replaced on the Internet. Many friends of mine are big fans of Teva's so I got a replacement pair yesterday and hopefully they will do the job.

I am invited for a Filipino lunch which I am looking forward to. I have no idea what to expect. I have been to the Philippines once about 13 years ago, so don't remember much. BTW is anyone missing a T-Shirt that says "Cebu" on it? Cebu is a place in the Philippines, but I did not go there (I went to Boracay), and I definitely did not buy a T-shirt saying Cebu, however it did appear in one of the boxes I un-packed after moving here...

Congratulations Ove!

Ove was my 1,000th visitor and he will get free accommodation and some meals in Manly, next time he passes by (family included). Considering he lives in Sweden it is likely it will not be next week, so offer is extended to number 1,001 and all others by request.

I am quite amazed that so many of you actually bother to read my ramblings ;-) 

I have made 120+ posts over 209 days, which means several of you visit every day. 

Thank You!

Fridge Magnets

In 1993 when we moved out of London, I collected all the Fridge Magnets words in a jar that used to contain some kind of baby food (that visiting friends left behind). During the 4+ years we lived in Stony I did not manage to either break into the jar or smash it to pieces to get the words out.

I just unpacked it again in the new flat and thought of what tool might help me open it and suddenly came across a can opener, and thought why not?

It worked fine, and now all of them are on the fridge waiting for visitors to write funny sentences. I found some words that seemed to be from a different set, and first could not get it. Finally I made out they were from a pack of Baccardi Breezers and had words like flavour, melon, spirit, % etc. They will be a great compliment to the other ones.

Welcome to create!

(for distanced friends I could write a list of the words and you could post your sentences as comments to this. Does that sound like a good idea?)

Fish & Millionaire

We have had some storms with high winds and horizontal rain recently so going to the beach was not on the cards today. Instead went out for lunch at lovely Manly Fish Cafe. They remembered us from last week, so decided to set expectations for the future by modifying the meny & continue moving the furniture around.

I have been there a few times now and always have the same table, where I move the chair to get a better view. Today I asked them to swap the Garlic Prawns that came on top of the Silver Dory for the Garlic Crayfish Tails that normally come with the Ocean Trout. They happily agreed, so now I will think of how to modify the menu for next week ;-). In a place like Manly where there are many tourists and day-trippers, it is good to go more than once to the same place so they understand you live here.

Afterwards the weather was still bad so went to see the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". It is about an Indian boy from the slums that goes on "How to be a Millionaire" to get back in touch with a girl he lost touch with. For various (and not very nice) reasons he answers the first questions correctly and the movie starts with him being questions by the police for cheating, when they broke for the evening, with one question left for the next day. It was good, worth seeing if you have nothing better to do, but not absolutely brilliant. It is made by the same guy who made "Trainspotting" although they are completely different movies.

993

Today I noticed I have had 993 readers. Please let me know who is number 1,000? The counter is on top of the list of headings!

No email tonight - Need some sleep!

I have decided not to read my email tonight. I did check at 3.45 before going to my last meeting, but I am too tired. Also, I don't sleep very well when I spend my evenings in front of the TV doing work mail.
Last night I dreamt about CDRs - all night!. CDRs are Call Data Records and records the calls you make on your mobile so that the operator knows how much to charge you. They are not very exciting to look at - just rows of letters and digits. How exciting is it to dream about that? - Reason most likely as we had to do some work on the Vodafone Charging Gateway test-lab today and I then had a meeting with Vodafone. But in the end Charissa did an excellent job with help from Paulus in Jakarta and the Customer meeting went well.
The night before I dreamt about Project Plans and Project Schedules with every line colour coded. One in "Teal" do they even to that colour in Microsoft Project? That was also driven by work requirements. I kept waking up and every time I closed my eyes I saw project plans infront of me.
So - tonight I am not reading my work mail (if it is urgent they can call - I won't go as far as turning off the phone, but maybe screening calls...) . After all I left home before 7 am and just got back (7 pm).
Am I being bad?

A bit Decadent for a Tuesday?

I made it up to the 5th floor for a very reluctant but necessary meeting finishing at 5.30 pm today. However the meeting was useful and the Customer Team Head commented on there being un-opened bottles of wine sitting around (yes - in the office and openly on someone's desk), along with an apparent lack of glasses. He organised his PA to get some glasses and offered everyone red / white or beer to end the evening. I guess the "white or beer" must have been pre-planned in the fridge though... (and if it was put there too early someone would have consumed it with their lunch...)
I would have thought a Tuesday evening was a bit over-the-top even for the sales guys, but who am I to complain - 2 glasses of red later?
On top of that the Account Manager told me I was doing a good job and my friend who sits next to me offered me a lift home.
I am still extremely tired working 10-12 hours a day for the past few weeks, but a bit of appreciation goes very far ;-)

UK vs Sydney

Today we have one of the hottest days of the year. In the west of Sydney it is predicted 43 degrees. However, we are on the east benefiting from the sea breeze.
At the same time I hear that they have had the worst week ever in the UK with more snow than anyone can imagine. I really wish I would have been there, SMS'ing my boss that I would not be able to go to work as it is snowing. Imagine how that would affect companies in Sweden or Finland. They would have to close down for 6 month each year.
It does remind me of going to Helsinki to visit Nokia in February 2007. The plane was delayed at LHR due to bad weather there, but we both landed and took off at Helsinki with lots of snow and below ZERO degrees without incident. Same things applies to trains. When in Helsinki I took the train to work every day for a week ( lots of snow and below zero degrees). They were on time and very pleasant.
Anyway - Our really nice neighbour Sarah, has just returned and I need to prepare in case she shows up for a pre-dinner G&T!

What's in Peanuts?

Just poured some peanuts into a bowl to take on to the balcony. As I was doing this I read the ingredients label which says: INGREDIENTS: Peanuts, Cotton Seed Oil (whatever that is?), Sea Salt AND "may contain traces of peanuts and other nuts".
Well, I did not buy them because they may contain traces of peanuts, I actually wanted real peanuts.
I have every respect for people being allergic, but if it said "SALTED PEANUTS" on the bag, is that not indication enough that there may be peanuts inside?

Realxing after a hard week

The past two weeks have been absolutely mad work-wise. I have got some new projects that all have had their share of problems and management escalation. Fortunately Friday evening ended slightly more positive than the other days, so feel a little bit more relaxed and have not done any work today, not even checked my mail. Instead I took Little Car out.

We were really just going to the market down the road and to get some drinks, but ended up driving north along the east coast all the way to Narrabeen and then turned around. Given that is is forecasted to be around 40 degrees today it was best to do it fairly early. After loading up a few cases of beer and wine, we realised that Little Car really is very small. You can't fit much in the little space behind the seats and as we had to stop at the marked to pick up food we could not really put the beer on the luggage rack. It was a nice drive though, but quite sweaty.

I am playing Tetrison Facebook and got beaten by one of my friends last week, but the keyboard on my other laptop could not keep up, so this morning I have caught up and now I am ahead again in all variants of the game.

Now I am off to cook pasta with prawns, smoked salmon and cream.