Springfield Lakes, 8 January
2023
Hi Marlis,
Happy New Year! I know we only spoke on the phone this week, but there’s no harm in repeating new year wishes I reckon. I hope that 2023 will see you healthy and comfortable with lots of time in the garden and sunshine and not too many kids visiting haha.
It’s always so typical that you often call me when I literally just mentioned you the same day or the day before to someone! It’s always good to hear you, so feel free to call me when you want, or when you feel a bit down or out of it.
The past 2 months have been a lot more relaxing than the ones before, but like always, a lot has happened still. Every time I write I think that the next two months will be less busy, but they hardly ever are! Okay, let’s dive into what has happened over the past two months.
SES Ipswich
Technically we don’t live in
the Brisbane area, Springfield Lakes belongs to Ipswich City, so I’ll be
joining SES Goodna on 7 February. There was an information night on 6 December
and it was a good opportunity to see their unit and meet some of the people.
It’s very similar in style and approach to SES Victoria, but they respond to
more weather and flood related jobs and do less trees and trampolines. Oh well,
you can’t have it all! They seem to have comparable equipment and most of my
training will still be applicable. I’ll just go through the same training as
everyone else as far as I am concerned and that’ll give me a good idea about
the differences and I’ll get to learn about my new crew mates as well. I hope
to get some training on boats and water stuff because that’s still missing from
my skillset but they seemed happy to have a trained up person come join them.
The unit commander seems like a friendly guy and they have 40 members, which is double the amount of what Altona SES used to have, so that’ll be a good experience, not having to be on every job. It’ll also be an adjustment to not be 2 minutes away from the unit, more like 15 minutes, 13 if traffic lights are friendly. Another really cool thing is that my SES buddy Michael from Victoria will move to Springfield Lakes in just 2 week and live just 2.5km away. He’ll also join the SES Goodna unit so we can go out on jobs together again!
In some final SES news, I am getting an official medal! The National Emergency Medal, for the work I did early 2020 with the fires and stuff. Typical SES that it takes nearly 3 years to get there and It feels a bit like getting all the credit for doing very little, but it’s a nice recognition of everything else I did for SES. I’ll put it in the box with the rest of the certificates and accolades. Not that I am not proud of my work, but I just don’t have a lot of events and opportunities where I would wear a medal!
The new table
After being a furniture
maker’s apprentice for a bit I vowed never to buy mass produced furniture again
if we could afford it and fortunately we can! Early September we designed our
very own dining table, found somebody to make it for us and we even got it
earlier than expected. We did a lot of furniture shopping for chairs and a new
sofa too and despite the horror stories of delivery times taking up to 6
months, we had everything in house within weeks.
The furniture maker enjoyed working out our table design and told us that he hadn’t made anything like it in eight years, so it’s truly one of a kind! It’s really not that special if you ask me, it’s still a square slab with two loops for legs, but the legs stand at an 82 degree angle and it’s completely made of blackbutt timber instead of getting the standard metal black legs and now it just looks more natural I think. I like the look and feel of it, even though the finish is a bit rougher than I would have made it when I worked at Bombora as an apprentice, it’s a very nice table that can stay with us for the rest of our lives if we want.
It was a bit of an adventure to get the van organised and it really only just fit into it. Nowadays you can organise it all on your phone and 15 minutes from our house is the pick up and drop off. So we go there and the van isn’t there, the previous person was late, but when I called the company they said it was parked near a servo nearby. So we drive there, no van again. I call them again and they tell me, no, it’s at the original spot now. We go back and there it is, turns out they were fuelling up, haha. We arrived a bit later than planned but Ben the furniture maker had a nifty lifting gadget that made loading the 50 kg table into the van super easy. When we got home the unloading and manoeuvring to get it into the house went a lot better than expected and the chairs matched really well too! Have a look at the pictures and see for yourself.
Garden set restoration
A few weeks earlier we picked up a garden set for just $90, six chairs, cushions and a table. But because we couldn’t take it apart we ended up hiring a van and all in all the full set ended up costing $300, with the staining and sandpaper included. Still, you can’t get a new set like it for that money and we’re trying to be conscious about not just buying new things, but reusing existing things that are still fine. Over the course of a few weeks, listening to the radio and working early in the morning when it’s not 600 degrees outside, we sanded back the table and four of the chairs (two were not in great shape and we put them in our shed as backups) and stained them in a light colour so they can live on for a few more years. It was nice to work with timber and restore it to its former better self, even it’s pretty low quality wood and not in the best condition anymore. We sanded it all by hand and now it truly feels like OUR garden set.
New licenses and registration
A few weeks ago we finally
got our new licenses and car registration sorted. You’re supposed to do it in
the first three months you move and technically we were in the clear but I was
expecting it to take forever and having to wait for hours. I don’t know why I
thought that because I’ve never spent more than 45 minutes at the place where
you sort these things, but we were in and out under 30 minutes with our new
license plates that took all of 5 minutes to swap out. It’s always so weird to
see your own car with new plates after having the old ones for nearly five
years. It did feel like we finally truly arrived in Queensland now and that
we’re more or less official Queenslanders now, for better or worse, haha. It
felt a bit strange to not have a driver’s license for a few weeks, just a piece
of paper but of course we never get asked for it in general and we weren’t
stopped in the three weeks it took to get to us. Turns out we DID need it for
renting the rental van for the table, but I sort of lied and used images of my
no longer valid Victorian license, not great, but it all worked out and no cars were harmed in the process!
Dash’s adventures
Dash has been living his best
life as usual, snoozing the day away without a care in the world, following
Yumi around wherever she goes and being a lovely friendly dog every day. It’s
just the best to see how excited he is to get started every day, knowing he’s
going outside and on the best days he even gets to go by car. He’s just a ball
of energy from the moment Yumi’s alarm goes off and doesn’t stop until we get
into the car 30 minutes later.
Everything is just one big adventure for him and we laugh at hm all the time because he startles really easily and is afraid of his on shadow, rocks and branches just lying there, paper rustling, frogs, birds, suspicious piles of leaves and strange sounds. Near one of the lakes there’s a little ramp where he could walk into the water and he did it one time, but most of the time he sees the tiniest little fish in there and he’s backing away like he’s about to be attacked by a killer whale! We always just tell him he’s okay and we don’t mind that he's careful, at least he won’t charge after snakes or toads and get poisoned.
We found a greyhound walking
group in the neighbourhood and he really enjoyed meeting some of his long-nosed
friends. The other owners are all friendly people as usual and their doggos are
just as friendly. Compared to the massive 25-40 dog walking group in Victoria,
It’s only a small group of 5-10 dogs, but that’s enough for him to have a good
time and learn from them how to dog. He had a great time and even went into the
water with the rest of them for a few seconds, our hero! We took him for a walk on a nearby beach and
it’s always so interesting to see that he’s equal parts excited to be there,
but also has no real idea what to do, so he just jumps around and wags his tail
real hard before quickly retreating and calling it a day, haha, he will never
be a sea dog, that’s for sure.
With all the long morning walks and walking up and down the neighbourhood hills his leg muscles are really bulking up and he looks like he’s retired from racing just last week. We’ve been monitoring his weight because he could do with 1-2 kilos more, but so far he’s still around 37kg while he could easily be 38.5 to 39. We give him snacks and treats but he just burns those calories off straight away I guess. We’ll have to look for a different treat solution because the ones we have now (which he loves) cost $800 per year. Per year!! They are supposed to help him clean his teeth, but that’s just crazy if you ask me, Yumi thinks it’s fine but even I don’t have $16 of snacks per week…Turns out that an annual teeth clean at the vet is ‘just’ $300, so maybe that’s a better way to keep his teeth in shape and save $500!
Christmas break and New Year
I had a break from work from
23 December to 3 January and it was nice to just hang around the house a bit
and not get up to very much. Well, our version of not doing much at least. We
still went on day trips, did some clothes shopping in the city, cleaned up the
garage and offices, built a feeding bowl stand for Dash, donated blood, went on
lots of walks to pick up litter and did some video gaming and puzzling while
reading books (not at the same time 😊).
We also found The Dutch Club, just 15 minutes from our home. It’s a community volunteer initiative for social engagement and they even have a little store with Dutch groceries, candy and other food items. Not that we NEED them, but it’s nice to be able to get those if you want to. We got some specific herbs, condiments, different kinds of Lebkuchen and a small bag of ‘spicenuts’ (English doesn’t really have words for these things).
I noticed that life really starts earlier here. It’s light at 4.30am, which suits me really well and people are out and about earlier during the day as well. Must be a temperature related thing, I think. We went on a day-trip to Bribie Island, which is an hour and bit north of where we live and you can get there by car so we brought Dash too. It was quite busy already at 7.30 in the morning! We did really enjoy being near the ocean just as much as he did and it’s nice to see different parts of Brisbane too. It’s nice to just walk and chat a bit, but when we bring Dash it’s like having kids, you’re constantly watching him and laughing at his antics.
We were fearing that there would be lots of fireworks and that Dash would freak out, but it really was a non-event. We did stay up until 12 but there were maybe 2-3 pops in the distance and that was about it. There was some organised fireworks earlier at 9pm or so, but that lasted all of five minutes and Mr. Snooze-a-lot didn’t even really wake up for that. It’s not that he’s afraid, but he gets curious and walk around the house looking for where the noise comes from. We were just happy that nothing happened and went to bed at 12.05, haha.
Yumi’s work
Yumi got to travel for work in November and December and did some client work that she really enjoyed. I love how she makes her own way, finds new people to connect with and does work she enjoys. I see so much potential in the things she does or could do, but I’ve learned over time that she’ll does what she wants to do and I don’t need to advise her in any way 😊. All the time building her network since we arrived is now starting to pay off, with the new year come new budgets and strategic plans, so she’ll probably be busy in the months to come. That’s the great thing about being self-employed and making good money when you work, you don’t need a lot to get a good pay check. I am curious to see what she’ll be doing in the next few months with new and existing clients. She tells me she’s working on a new product/service in her head, but isn’t ready to share it yet, I reckon it’ll be good and useful as usual!
Going back to school
I recently realised that it’s
been 20 years since I got my bachelor’s degree and this year it will be 10
years since I got my master’s degree as well. Of course I did a few Cert-4’s
and other kinds of training but nothing in the traditional sense of ‘study’
with just my brain. I’ve been thinking for a bit about maybe studying emergency
management, or environmental protection and I’ve landed on Marine Biology. It’ll
be a three year commitment and not exactly cheap ($25-30,000 all-in) but with
some tax write-offs and fee-help from work I might be looking at 40-50% off,
fingers crossed. It’s a bit too early to get excited as I’d only be starting in
July, but it’s something to look forward to. Perhaps there’s a new career for
me in it, living near the coast, working with marine life. Some days I feel
like I am too old for another career change, but then again, I’ll be working
for another 20-25 years, so why not do something that helps save the planet and
change things for the better, right? I ask myself what you’d say and you’d
probably tell me to go and do it because I have nothing to lose. Worst case
scenario I learn a lot about marine biology, that’s not such a bad thing to
begin with.
Work stuff (University of
Queensland -UQ)
Work has been busy in a good
way. Nothing that I can’t handle, but lots of things happening as they do at
any university.
· First of all, my boss is leaving for family reasons
after a year in the role. His daughter is starting university in NSW and needs
some more support than anticipated and their plans for the family moving over
to QLD never happened due to Covid so it makes sense. It just throws a small
spanner in the works for our division plans, but let’s wait and see who the
next person is and what they intend to do.
· I’ve temporarily got a person reporting to me,
Loretta. She’s a very experienced administrative person and needs no looking
after whatsoever, but she just needs to have someone to ask questions off and I
happened to be around when they needed a manager. She’s getting things done and
then some and I just stay out of her way!
· The new risk system project is going as planned, slow
but steady and a little less frustrating every week. We’re getting I don’t have
that much to do other than keeping things organised but that’s not too hard, we
make a pretty good team overall and everyone wants the new system to arrive sooner
than later so no one is actively working against us. It also looks like we’ll
have a new project manager by the end of the months. He will replace the
current one who is struggling to get the job done and it’s starting to wear on
everyone a bit, so that’s good for all of us.
· I’ve put my hand up as a volunteer for the UQ
Professionals Network (colleagues networking together) to organise a mentoring
program and to host some networking events for colleagues to get to know more
people outside their immediate team. Should be fun and it’s a good way to get
to know more people myself too.
· I got to deliver a presentation to about 125
colleagues on change management in a very nice venue in Brisbane City Hall
early December. I definitely enjoyed it and it looked like they did too. I got
a nice box of tea as a gift and met a lady who wanted to practice her Dutch
(she’s English, married to a Dutchman) and we had a good time.
· Still waiting to present my big plan for change
management to the big boss, but maybe next week or early February, it’s all
getting a bit ridiculous, but that’s just how things go at a university with
many priorities
As I said on the phone
already, Yumi and I have this tradition at the end of each year to list everything
we’re grateful for and as promised, these are the main things in no particular
order:
2. Getting an article published in an actual business journal
3. Road tripping to QLD in January
4. Visiting Marlis in January AND September
5. Getting a new bed, table and sofa
6. Moving to QLD by ourselves with no issues
7. Being voted SES crew member 2022 by my unit mates
8. Deploying to the floods in March and SES work in general
9. Doing work with Alan on Right on Board
10. Being self-employed and doing work I like
11. Visiting the Netherlands in May
12. Lots of greyhound walks
13. Working on creative projects with Peter
14. The first 5 weeks by myself in Brisbane
15. So many good books getting read
16. Being part of the Change Days conference team
17. The Bad Change Book doing really well
18. Donating lots of money to charity
19. Guest appearances on podcasts and conferences
20. Friends and family are doing well
21. Regular video chats with our parents and friends
22. Doing a good job at Swinburne
23. Finding a new job with UQ
24. Fostering 4 greyhounds (Fraser, Paddy, Danger, Suzy)
25. Completing my AICD Directors course
26. Delivering Change tools
27. Finally getting glasses and seeing properly again
28. Making healthier eating and drinking choices
29. Getting my teeth fixed
30. All the new friends and connections made over the year
Small stuff
· I’m still not drinking soda, which didn’t prove all
that difficult. I’m now drinking water, tea and cordial and that works just
fine too, just had to get used to not having so much caffeine in my system. I
hope my teeth are happy too 😊.
· Life in Springfield Lakes is still pretty good, we
have the parks and lakes and the stars at night, all the shops we need and
keeping the yard tidy isn’t too much of a chore. Overall, life is good. We had
some big rains and got to see the water management systems work overtime, which
I think is pretty cool and it works so well!
· I am still working out in the garage 3 days a week in
the early morning and I am seeing some progress and I feel much fitter. Not
much weight loss just yet, but that’s fine. I hope to drop 6 kg in the next 6
months and once I see what I look like, I might still consider getting some
skin removal plastic surgery done on my chest and inner thighs, but that’s a
long way away and first I’ll have to get to 82-83 kg, haha.
· I’ve been reading this massively thick book by a guy
called Studs Terkel, titled ‘Working’. It made me think of you a lot. It’s from
1970, when you would be working and building a life in Australia and even
though the book is a collection of 100+ American regular people’s jobs and how
they experience them, it’s such a good an human read, you feel like you’re
right there in the room/office/workshop/truck with them. It just shows that some
things got better, but a lot of the things they grappled with then, we still
have the same issues in the workplace today.
· I wrote this article on a website for change
professionals and normally when I write that gets about 2,000 views and a few
dozen likes (it’s an online platform where people can click a thumbs up button if
they like what you write, like Facebook and Tik Tok, but for professional
workers). This one on change fatigue got 27,000+ views and 300+ likes, so I
clearly hit a nerve somehow. I am just busting some myths and telling people
it’s okay to tell leaders no, to change a bit less or not at all to keep people
healthy and sane. You’d probably say that’s not rocket science and I agree, but
clearly people appreciated the message. It’s nice to feel like I am influencing
the public debate a bit in my own little way.
· The book is still going strong, nearly 600 copies sold
and we’re now getting started on a smaller version with only 20 stories, called
‘Bad Sponsor’, with a new comic every two weeks or so. Let’s see how much we’ve
learned from the first one 😊.
· I got my bike (used to be my dad’s) completely serviced and fixed up for just $350. That’s so much cheaper than buying a new one and it’ll last me a good few more years still, yay!
Okay, that’s about it this time around, I’ll write again early March and I am sure there’ll be lots to tell you then.
Be well and stay cool as always,
Gilbert
