What Would Dad Be Doing?

I was watching a video on YouTube this morning from the B1M channel, which is all about large construction projects. A thought drifted into my mind that my dad would have been interested in this, had he been alive to see such things. It made me think, what was he doing when he was my age? An interesting concept.

So let's have a look. My dad was born in 1930. So when he - as I am now - was 50 years of age, that would have been 1980. Wow, that is a long time ago man! I was not expecting an answer way back when. Crikey, I was only 8 years old (well, strictly speaking, 7, about to turn 8) at the time. It would have been about a year after we moved to Hong Kong. I was at KJS, in form 3 I think. Dad was working on the MTR, at that time I believe at Shau Kei Wan.

The photo is not of that time, it is when we were on a Singapore holiday a couple of years later. I do have a reasonable suite of photos from my childhood, but few from that late 70's - early 80's era. I might need to raid Ma's collection next time I'm over there.

Anyway, I digress. So at 50, Dad was early into his second HK stint. Well, second proper expat HK stint. It'll be discussed more in the specific "Dad" post I am also working on, so I won't go into too much detail here. Let's just say that Dad was a lifelong HK tragic. This time period - 1979 to 1985 - would be Dad's last one actually living in HK. I am pretty sure my brother took them back there for a holiday years later, but this stint, when I was with them, was the last one of his living there.

In those days, as I recall, Dad was very work-focussed. I can't remember if he left before me in the mornings, but he certainly came home later. He also worked most Saturdays. Occasionally, he would take me with him to the office on a Saturday morning. I would sit there while he did his paperwork, and then sometimes accompany him when he walked around doing a site inspection. Dad spoke Cantonese, which amused the locals immensely, especially when he got angry and swore at them. In our family it has long been recognised that Dad had a very short temper, losing his shit over almost nothing sometimes. But for serious stuff - when things went badly wrong - he was almost always calm and rational about it. These trips with Dad on a weekend were important for me, because that was when I spent the most 1-on-1 time with him. Dad didn't ever really delve into my life or feelings much, not that I remember anyway. It was just a hanging-out thing. If also often ended in a decent Asian dai pai dong lunch, which was always very welcome!

Mum and Dad would probably have an outing or guests about once a month. I remember Tony & Liz King, Anne & George Windrum, and that's about it. There may have been others, but it is those that I remember. T&L lived in a big detached house up in the hills somewhere, and had three gorgeous daughters. They were all 3-7 years older than me, so I was just a chubby kid hanging around at the odd weekend visit, but I do remember them! So yeah, entertaining was something that happened a little bit, actually I'll post a photo here of Veronica and Dad at T&L's house. This would have been very much in the right timeframe, as V was only there for the first couple of years of HK - so right about when Dad was 50!

The other thing that Dad enjoyed, was going for a swim. Whether it was at the river in Cobram after he retired, or the condo pool in Singapore, or indeed, at our old club - the Kowloon Cricket Club in HK. We had family membership there for decades, and I still remember our old membership number - B22. Yet another example of how the number 22 seems to be ubiquitous in the Brown family. Sunday mornings would always be church - St. Teresa's in HK at that time. Gosh I should write an article about my Catholic upbringing one of these days too. Old-fashioned, toxic, predatory, and generally shite. Anyway, the KCC on the other hand, was awesome! We sometimes went for lunch - I recall them having a buffet and a dish of black bean mussels that I was particularly fond of (not a big mussel fan now though). Often though, we would just go to the pool, at the rear of the property, for a swim and sometimes an ice cream. Mum would sometimes take me there after school too, when I was doing swimming lessons. I still recall having the 25m and 50m badges sewn onto my swimmers. When I went with Dad, he would do a couple of laps, and I guess I would just muck around in the water, as kids do. I don't recall having any school friends who went to this club. These were the days when club membership was part of expat packages. I suspect it was one of the first perks to go by the wayside, although for HK I wouldn't know. 

The other thing we did sometimes was go for lunch elsewhere on a Sunday. In HK it would likely be yum cha, which then, as it remains now, was my favourite. OMG I love dim sum! And of course in those days, with every place having trolley service, and Dad calling out in fluent Cantonese for the baskets he was looking for, we were always popular. Perhaps not quite so popular as how it used to be in the halcyon days of the Browns in HK when my siblings were there, plus a couple of uncles and their families. Dad used to tell the tale of yum cha trolleys circling our big, round family table like it was Custer's Last Stand, and of empty baskets being piled 10-deep on the ground so as to save table space.

Another thing Dad liked to do along these lines, was go to the airport. In Singapore I guess it was because the airport was an amazing place, but even in HK - Kai Tak in those days - a few times per year we would go there on a Sunday afternoon, browse through the shops, and find somewhere to eat. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone else seeing the airport as a destination for anything other than travel. Perhaps in the new Changi mall attached to one of their terminals these days, but certainly not otherwise.

So there is a bit of an insight into how my father led his life back in 1980, when we were living in Hong Kong. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it smacks of routine, but as I find in my own life, that's pretty much how it goes. Sometimes one needs to break out of that routine - even today my son Daniel asked me why we always do nothing on the weekends. Living in a smallish rural town has a fair bit to do with that, but routine (and rest) also play a key part. It's good to reflect on life way back when though, and to realise that I had, and still do have, a pretty good one.

  

World Cup Blues

It happens every World Cup. Well, every cricket world cup anyway. Over the past five and a half weeks there have been 45 ODI's. I have certainly not watched them all, in fact I have probably only watched half of about 10-12 games (second innings is on too late for me). But for all games, I have followed online with interest, especially considering the waxing and waning fortunes of the Aussies, based firstly on their own performance, but also on how others teams' results impact on their ladder position. Maxi's 200 the other night was a standout! I lost a couple of hours sleep following that one on my phone!

But then we got to the end of the round-robin phase, and had a two day break before the semi-finals began. OMG, suddenly there was no cricket to follow of an evening, and I felt a bit lost! You see I have plenty of good memories of the cricket WC in my life - in fact my interest for cricket to begin with was largely driven by our success in the 1987 version. That one I did not see on TV, but listened to on the radio, and remember talking on the phone to an Aussie girl at school in Singapore that I fancied at the time. 

Other really good WC memories include going to Sri Lanka with Ramesh to watch a match in the 2011 version. That's another story in itself which will no doubt appear in this blog somewhere. But probably my fondest memories - and you might think me weird here - are sitting at Healy Mac's in CBB in KL, drinking beers, smoking ciggies, and watching WC matches on their wall-mounted TV's. I did that in 2011 and 2015. Ah the memories! Hazy as they might be.

So yes, the cricket itself is something I love and am happy to have on every day - I have similar feelings of loss whenever an Ashes (especially in England) comes to an end. In some ways, the ODI WC is a bit of a drag because it takes so long, but that's the point - it becomes an ingrained part of my life whenever it happens, and then when it suddenly stops, be it after the final or even the first day with no games like this week, it leaves a whole in my heart. 

Fairly silly I know, but that's just me. I love the World Cup.

Retiring Early - Part 4 - Next Steps

Good idea: don’t just focus on adding more positives, look to reduce negatives. Such as gambling, boozing, stress.

Need to consider multiple income streams. Ideas for freelance work include;

Who pays writers, Problogger.com/jobs, Upwork, LinkedIn jobs or maybe Seek, Flex jobs, Freelance writers den, Solid Gigs, working in content.

Ok so this is what I had done some research on ages ago when I first put together the draft of this post. The top line is a key one - need to cut down on frivolous spending for sure. But the next? Well if I was younger I might consider it. Also if I was "close" to being financially free I could consider these kinds of things to supplement my income. Actually I think that's the key now I think of it. I had been thinking I need about $2.5 million in order for me to retire. If the Vietnam / SEA thing comes off again then that might work in 10 years. Retiring at 60 would be an achievement I think, but to be honest, I want to look at retiring earlier than that even. I guess the challenge will be while the kids are still dependants and at school.

In the meantime, if I am to go back to Asia, I need to think about where to keep my money. Sending it back here is probably ok, although remembering my tax audit of a few years ago is not fun. Plus I have numerous assets here now, so I don't know if sending a lot of money back to Oz would be a potential tax issue. So today I Googled it. Of course there are myriad opinions and options on the net, but a site called Nomad Capitalist popped up. I have seen content from them before, and believe them to be reputable and clever. So here is an option:

This is likely not a Day #1 option, due to the minimum investment. But once I have got to $350k offshore, it well could be. And I like Singapore as a base for it as it will be secure.

Another thing the blog post I read spoke about was fintech. That being modern online financial solutions. I have looked at a couple of these when they pop up in FB feed for instance, but they all seem to come with plenty of consumer warnings.

"go where you're treated best" That's a philosophy I can deal with. I like what these people talk about. I guess it isn't as simple as that though, as I am likely to be very reluctant to go to a country that my kids don't live in. Yes you can't live for others I know, but they are central to my world. We'll just have to see.

Another development here is Kuan. He runs a channel on YT about Aussie retirement, focussing very much on Superannuation. I certainly learned a lot from him, including that I can retire and access Super at 60 - I don't have to wait to 67! He also gives good understand of tax on super and in retirement, and has me thinking about salary sacrificing more. With his guidance, I am getting closer to knowing what I need to know and what I need to have, in order to make this early retirement happen. 60 is now very much the goal.

Continue to watch this space.

Chills

That's what wifey calls them. What she means of course, is chilli sauce. We have two staples in our household. Well in truth we have four or five, but two that we make ourselves.

Chilli sauce and spiciness in general is simply a part of life for Asians. And as I am a wannabe Asian, or a Chinese man in a white mans body, according to wifey, I too love the hot stuff.

Recently, the unthinkable happened, and we ran out of both staples at once. OMG, life was a bit tough for a while there! I mean we have ABC Chilli in stock at almost prepper levels, and yes while it is nice, it ain't chicken rice chilli, nor cut chilli with soy. Nor is it bird's eye chilli, which I also reacquired after a long spell recently. That one is a Malaysian shop-bought sauce, which packs a punch. I gave Ma and V a bottle once, and they quickly gave it back.

But not the good old family favourite, which is the sauce shown below. It has been in the fridge at Mum's place for as long as I can remember. She uses woollies chilli, which is not that potent, plus soy, sugar, sesame oil and that's about it. We do much the same, but don't put in the sugar. It's great in a small dish to have with noods, for dipping, or to drizzle on your salmon when we have that with greens and rice. It is largely slightly-watered down soy, but with a nice hint of chilli. In Malaysia it is ubiquitous in hawker stalls when you order noodles. Here's what it looks like:

That is a staple, and we love it. However, the real star of the show is the home-made chicken rice chilli we put together, again as shown below:

It is a blend of spicy chilli, larger and more docile chilli's, some capsicum to bulk it out, plenty of salt, garlic, ginger, vinegar, fish sauce, shallots, and a bit of sugar to round it out. The potency varies according to the spiciness of the small chillis. Sometimes we can get nice hot ones, other times, not so much. But it always packs a nice kick, and has a wonderful taste. It's great to have with dishes, blend with stews and even curries, and even on sandwiches. We absolutely love it!

The Last of the Browns...

Dear old Aunty Kath passed away a few days ago. She was 91. I heard from Ma, who heard from cousin Libby.

She was the last of the Browns in my dad's generation. Apparently when I was a toddler I used to call her Kakky, because I struggled to say Kath. My sister used that name for her from then onwards. I remember her as kind, funny and warm. She was very close with my dad.

In fact her first husband, who we still refer to as Uncle John, was my dad's best friend - they did everything together. Mum actually has a photo on her fridge of a young Dad and Uncle John hunting in British North Borneo of all places, which is where my lovely wife was born. Haha, yeah, Dad always used to tell stories about a place called Jesselton, which was the colonial capital there in those days. I knew my wife was born in the state capital of Sabah, a city called Kota Kinabalu. What I did not realise until quite recently was that these two places were one and the same - the name changed when Malaysia became independent. It's funny how life throws the occasional coincidence into the mix sometimes.

Anyway, Uncle John and Dad were in a terrible car accident when I was a toddler. Dad suffered a broken hip, which plagued him for the rest of his days (he did have it replaced eventually). Unfortunately, Uncle John didn't make it. Uncle John was a funny guy. 

That is me under a X'mas tree as a teeny tiny. I don't know if it was that particular year or another one, but the story still goes around that one year, at John and Kath's house, where we were all going to celebrate, there were a lot of presents under the tree. Uncle John told me they were all for me, which as you may imagine, got my toddler hopes up well and truly! Apparently I was terribly disappointed when most of my presents were given to other people on the day!

Anyway. So Aunty Kath remarried eventually, to a fellow named Jack. He was ok, my memory tells me, but the family never warmed to him the way they did with John. He and Aunty Kath grew old together, and he passed some years ago. She had been living close to Libby since then. I think the last time I saw her was when she came to visit Dad in his last years, not sure of exact date. Judging by the photo, Uncle Bob was there at the time too.

As I was looking for this photo, I found another one of my parents with Aunty Kath, back either at or before the time I was born.

They all look young, and pretty cool, and pretty happy with life. That was their hey-day. Now, none of that generation remain. It is up to the next one, me being part of it, to make the Brown name live on. Of course it is such a common surname, it won't ever die out, but for our particular family, we have six Brown males and two females, plus those who are descendants of Kath, Bob, Ted and others. I think we'll be good for a while yet!

So farewell Aunty Kath. Thanks for always being a loving and lovely person, I will always have good memories of you. May you rest in peace.

Productivity!

 

Wow! This morning I had such an epiphany! I have been such a struggle-puss with blog-writing for such a long time - I fail to do any in the evenings, I fail to do any on the weekends, and generally I don't even do any in my holidays. It has frustrated me, as I love my blog and want to really make it my memoirs so-to-speak, and something for my kids to remember me by when I am gone.

So this morning I met with one of my colleagues for a breakfast meeting. Me being me, I arrived an hour early, and planned to use this time to chill, catch up on emails, and just enjoy the ambience. My colleague being him, he was 15 minutes late, so I had a lot of time to myself. After getting set-up with my laptop and dealing with an email or two, I opened my blog, and decided to finish off a draft post. I did it easy, and then did another, and then another, and was amazed at how prolific I was being, and how well the words were coming to me.

It is not the first time that I have noticed that I can be so productive, when I eliminate other distractions. In the office my productivity is maddening. I flit from task to task, generally with half a dozen or more happening at once. I do get there, but OMG it is so disorganised and chaotic. You might think that in a café environment, distractions would be the order of the day, but I am able to put it all to the side and just focus. Possibly because I can't get up and do other things and also because there is not enough space to spread out and get other bits of work info out and into my thinking. In any event, whatever the reason, this morning I smashed out the blog posts, and I was thrilled about it!

Of course, for this experimental result to be turned into scientific dogma, the results need to be repeatable. So I am going to try this again, and soon. I don't mind Essen, but the owner does have a chip on his shoulder. That may be unfair, and it was quiet, which probably helped. So I may go back, but in my mind, there are likely better places to try. I am keen to give this experiment another go soon. Watch this space...

B and Me

Hi Daniel,

I hope you are in a better frame of mind now. If you remember, some time ago you asked me to wake you up early every morning, which I was happy to do. For a while, you seemed to enjoy being up early, and I always like it when you're in a positive frame of mind. 

But lately, it seems that you are grumpy and in a negative frame of mind when I wake you up. I don't know why that is, only you can know. All I know is that I don't enjoy it. So I wanted to let you know that I am going to give you one more chance tomorrow. If you wake up and can decide to be in a good mood, then I will happily continue to wake you. If you wake up grumpy again, tomorrow will be the last time I wake you in the morning, and you will have to wake up by yourself in future.

That is not me being mean, that is me not wanting to be part of negative behaviour. I encourage you to see this as an opportunity to choose positive over negative. I know you don't believe it, but you have the power to choose how you feel. What I don't think you understand is, whatever you choose, it impacts everyone around you. Choose positive, and we all can enjoy a happy and easy morning. Choose negative, and it is hard for those around you, because we all have to be careful what we say, and the bad mood makes it uncomfortable.

Daniel I love you very much, and I only want good things for you. But I can't choose all those good things for you. Many of them, like waking up in a positive frame of mind, you have to choose yourself. I hope you will choose well tomorrow. Have a good day and see you tonight. Love Dada.

Going C.U.

Only wifey will know what that means.

But going C.U. is exactly what I did, back in June, at the bloody board meeting to present the F24 budget no less. I had given my presentation, which was pretty well received I might add, we had had lunch, and I was on my way back to the board room. What happened was I took a step, caught my foot in the plush carpet, and went down. Unfortunately I landed with all my weight on the ball of my left palm, and that force drove up into my elbow joint, cracking it. You can see the small wedge on the upper left of the ball in the x-ray.

Far out if frigging hurt too. We were at the Moama bowls club, and it was packed. Because it was kind of formal, I wore my only proper pants, which are a bit baggy. Combine that with my slip on shoes and the plush carpet, with a healthy dose of my klutzy nature thrown in for good measure, and down I went. You'd think, in the environment of the bowlo, that it would be someone like me, helping up a poor old lady who had gone C.U. But oh no, it was two of them who ended up hauling my sorry arse back to its feet!

Anyway. I went back to the board room, and sat there in a lot of pain. After the rest re-converged, I had to excuse myself and go to the ER. In due course I got x-rayed and the break was confirmed. I had a half-cast to stabilise my arm, and spent the next month treating it very gingerly. 

It is not my first rodeo either. In the past I have been in hospital for a badly broken nose, thanks to 1) Joe De something or other being a fuckwit and 2) me being a dumb-ass and putting my head where the ball was, when said f-wit was punching it. Smashed my nose, and I needed surgery to repair it. 

Around the same time in life - Cobram High - I also knocked all my bottom teeth at 90 degrees, so pretty much broken, when I tackled some very big kid in British Bulldogs, and went down like a sack of shit with him, smashing my chin into his shoulder. The dentist simply pushed - very forcibly so - my teeth back into place. OMG it felt like my skull was going to break in half.

But wait, we're not over yet, not by a long shot! My first known break was my collarbone, back in the Singapore days at about the age of 14 or 15. I was riding my pushbike, and tried to go over a speed bump. Unfortunately, instead of sailing over it, I hit it and stopped. Well, my bike stopped, I kept going - over the handlebars and onto my shoulder, breaking the bone. Being the bone it is, no cast was possible, so I wandered around in a sling for a few weeks.

The last one may have actually happened not long before the collarbone, but for some reason I thought it was after. Again, riding a bike, I was going like a shower of shit, when my foot slipped off the pedal. What happened then was my poor toe stubbed into the bitumen at speed, and jammed. I never got it diagnosed, but it hurt for weeks after, so I am pretty sure it broke. This incident is why I am currently telling my boy Daniel not to wear thongs when riding his new bike!

Actually, I am telling this out of order in other ways too. I just reminded myself of something. When I was getting the x-ray on my arm recently, the doctor asked me about when I broke my wrist. I'm like, WTF? That never happened Doc! He showed me, and clearly it did, the evidence remains. So I am thinking that when I went over the handlebars, I must have gone down on my wrist as well as my shoulder, and broken both at the same time. The collarbone was diagnosed, but the wrist was not. Nevertheless, the sling supported both, so I healed never knowing I had broken two bones in the incident!

I think that covers it. I have been punched a couple of times in my life that I suspect broke my nose again too, but let's not worry about those too much. I may tell the stories at another time - one about my brief foray into bullying, that deserved the punch, and another about the end of my first marriage, which did not. 

The Catastrophiser

You know what? Sometimes that can be me. This week I have had a dark cloud above my head for much of it. Driven by our poor July results at work, which I own, and I do feel reflect on me somewhat. Look I know I'm not perfect. I know I fuck the dog a bit, I know I don't go hard for each and every of my 60 hours in a week. But I am constantly working, constantly thinking about work. I work to some degree, every single day. So when we were $2.4m behind budget in the first month of F24, I wore that, and I wore it hard. I had, and still have, given myself until the end of Q1 to turn this around. If not I am going to resign. 

Sometimes when things are not going well, I have what I call catastrophic thoughts. I have noticed this tends to be more of an issue when I am alone. For instance I avoided people this week, until I couldn't any longer. On Monday I had my eyes checked and bloods done, then hit the road to Leeton. We had the weekly GMT on Zoom, which I did from my unit for the sake of expediency - at least that was my message. The truth was I had no interest in going to the office. On Tuesday morning I did go into the office, and sort of perched around the place, as I don't have my own room. My team and I caught up briefly, then they had a meeting. I took that opportunity to hightail it out of there and come back to my unit in town. 

Later that week it improved, and I noticed that spending time with people helped. I have since observed similar situations crop up a few times - mostly at Milbrae, but not all. I just have this constant feeling of being overwhelmed, and not wanting to deal with some things. Last week I got an irate call from one of my reports, regarding another team member. He had some grounds for being grumpy, but could have and should have handled it a lot more professionally. Instead he vented and threatened to leave, again. I really struggled with that. I enjoy interactions with people, even on difficult topics, when we're all engaged and behaving properly. But people who don't make it bloody hard for me. It essentially ruined the rest of my week.

Of course, that is but a symptom at the moment. Normally one such event would not throw me off for days, but such is my current fragile state of mind. I am also quietly shitty that I got a poor pay rise this year, only 2.5%. Ok, so I am paid well to begin with, but it's what this represents that annoys me. As in, only rewards for the bottom line, not so much for the effort in managing a massive and difficult job.

Yesterday - and apologies, as usual this post is spanning some days - I had another revelation. I know I am prone to self-destructive behaviour from time to time, be it actual or mental, and I have sometimes wondered if the behaviour begets my state of mind, or if my state of mind begets the behaviour. In any event, after reaching rock bottom earlier this week, I have felt a little better, and am determined to do better. Not so much in terms of work performance, but in terms of looking after myself, making good decisions, and loving my family. I am utterly determined to do all those things. Whether or not that means a change of scenery and job is required remains to be seen, but I do have a sense of calm that I know how I need to manage myself for once.

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

Or so goes the famous quote by Mark Twain. He was thought to have passed when he was merely travelling abroad. Me? Nothing so exotic I'm afraid. Not unless you count travelling to Milbrae as "abroad". It is somewhat akin to that as frankly it feels like a foreign country sometimes, alas without the exotic locales, superb food and tropical weather. Hold on, I hear you think - foreign country does not necessarily equal tropical weather! Well listen here sunshine, it sure does for me! 

So it has been one day less than four months since my last post (not including the one I just finished a minute ago that has been sitting in drafts for ages). Far out. And here I was, at the beginning of 2023, setting myself blogging goals and reminders in my to-do list. For the first couple of months, all good. I got far ahead, whimsically dreaming of getting this legacy blog where it needs to be, and becoming the prolific writer I have always wanted to become. Alas, work and life got in the way yet again, like it always seems to do. But yet here I am, still with the same goals - the same intent. I am having a couple of weeks off soon, one of which will be at home in peace, so I am hoping to get ahead. In the meantime I am going to try and put some time into getting the bones of my Top100 data set together, and maybe even make a vlog or two! Wish me luck...

The New Top 100

New top 100 idea, where I put together a database of all the top 100 or 200 even from the 1960's onwards. Then I start at the bottom or maybe pick random numbers and review every year's entry at that ranking, deciding which will go into my own Top 100 or not. 

I Will still need to review my iTunes list as no doubt there will be some songs I love that don't make any hit list. Also, thinking lately I may yet stick with iTunes. I have tried Spotify and am currently trying YouTube Premium, but it does nothing for me. When I need my music is in my car. So it's my iPod. Yeah you can download onto apps and such, but looking for some specific songs on these apps, I could not find the versions I want. That had knobs on it frankly! So the jury is still out. I may yet go the whole hog, or at least go back to iTunes fully.

This project is a tough one for me. A bit like the photo organisational goal, it just sits there year after year, with very little effort put into it. Man, tough is a fucking understatement and a half. It has taken me years and I have still made so little progress. Ok it doesn't help that I am usually tanked when I get the urge to delve into music stuff, but this is a project that matters to me, so I need to progress it.

I had a thought today, actually I have had this thought before, but today prompted me to post. I have thought a few times about exploring artist's back catalogues in order to see if they have any undiscovered tunes that I might love. Knowing my fav's as I do, and knowing that I know my fav fav's inside and out, well there are definitely good chances to find more good music. After all, it was exploring INXS's full back catalogue that gave me so much love for their music. Same for Hoodoo Gurus and Green Day. But the artist today that took me by surprise, in so much as having the huge back catalogue that I was not aware of, is Billy Joel.

You see, Billy Joel was certainly an artist from my formative years. My dear Mum loved him - actually Billy Joel and Lionel Richie were her fav's, at least those that I was willing to bop along to in the background! I think there were others like Neil Sedaka for instance that I was less into. But hey, maybe I'll give him a try one day, now that my tastes and personality have matured as well.

Anyway, I have always loved Billy Joel. I also knew he had a long career, and numerous albums. On top of this, I knew that some of my favourite songs of his were not chart toppers. My Life and You May Be Right being chief among them.

So what spun me out was this. I was listening to the song Say Goodbye To Hollywood, and thought to myself, when was this written? I was thinking 1982-1984'ish. Turns out it was 1976, far earlier than I thought. But here's the kicker - the entry I saw that stated the year of release also mentioned that it was on his 11th studio album. 11th!!!! In 1976!!!! Holy shit, that means that by the early 80's when I thought he was a breakout artist, he was in fact already a legend. The awesome part about it is that I have a lot of songs to listen to that I have either never heard, or not since I was a young boy in Hong Kong, when I first heard my parent's albums.

Earlier I mentioned Wild Gold. I went back to it to get a song that had corrupted on my iPod. Researching online to find the album, I soon realised they did a heap of Wild Gold, I didn't realise there were so many volumes!!! I may have to add a couple more on the journey, as I discovered a number of songs on here that I possibly would not have found otherwise.

Anyway, enough of this post for now, need to get it out on the blog and get the process of compiling song lists to review started.

Cousin Phil's Retirement

So last week on FB, Phil posted that he is leaving News Limited. From some of his replies to comments, it sounds like it may have not entirely been his decision, but that's just my interpretation. Below is a picture he posted from his days as a young journalist.

Good on ya Phil! I remember reading your articles in the Brisbane News weekly magazine back when I used to live in Brisbane from 2007-2008. I enjoyed his take on various happenings in the city, and reviews of film, books and art. I have also always enjoyed Phil's books, as mentioned in another post about him, so I was pleased to hear that he intends to write more, now that he is not working fulltime. The last one - The Hong Kong Kid - even had me in it. I look forward to seeing where he goes with his writings next.

The Annual Struggle

 Yep, it's happened again. I start off the year well - killing it in terms of blog post goals in Jan and Feb, only to fall in a heap in Mar when the pressure hits with budgets etc. And hit it farking has in a big way. Not as much due to budgets - DH is helping a lot with easing that process this year - it's more due to the new NSW part of the business causing me a WHOLE lot of stress, due to people not doing what they should be, and just not having enough of the buggers to begin with. Plus, as I have mentioned before, my job up north feels like another bloody job. When I am here in the old lands, I have enough to do to keep me busy. Going up there feels like I have to catch up on lost time each visit, and then things down here get neglected. When the boss first mentioned this purchase, it was all about a GM up there. That soon changed and now I have two full states to manage, with very few in my team who can handle a senior management position at this point, regardless of their skills and experience in quarrying.

So I am struggling a bit right now.

Ok, you could say that the ability to churn out blog posts when you're a GM and a fulltime dad and hubby is a real first-world problem. And you'd be right. But this project is one of my key life goals - to leave behind my story so that my children have it when I am no longer around. So it is important for me to keep going with it, to overcome the shitty reasons that I find it hard to write when others are around, and to regain some momentum on my associated projects, mainly being my all-time Top 40 songs and properly cataloguing my photos.

Anyway, so this is a small post, one to get runs on the April board, and two, to try and gather my thoughts enough to regain the initiative. Let's do it this month - Four for April and two to catch-up on March to get back on track. One down....

Next Holiday Planning

So we recently finished the family trip to Tassie (when I say recently, I mean December 2022, when I first started a draft of this post). Overall, I'd call it a success - we enjoyed many aspects of it, had some quality time as a family, some great experiences for the kids, and got a taste of what Tasmania has to offer. However, there were equally as many aspects that gave us the shits. #1 being the bloody ferry. It was poorly managed, took soooooo long to board, soooooo long to get there, and there was soooooo little to do. Never. Again. Frankly, while we enjoyed much of Tassie, there really wasn't enough to really keep us enthused - I should have booked places with pools for a start - and nowhere we went did we think, yep let's come back sometime. I really believe it will be a once only thing for us, both as a family and as individuals. Yes, most might think me a knuckle for having that opinion, but each to their own right? 

So, where does that leave us for the next trip? Well, based on recent experiences, this is my list of criteria;

1. Tropical climate

2. Beachside and/or poolside

3. Good food

4. Not super expensive

Apart from Tassie, other trips we have done in the past few years are family-based (Barooga motels) or very-much food based short escapes to Melbourne. Many of those have had good pools and have been a good experience for all, so this is definitely doable again in future. But a nice, resort-ish, relaxing and fun holiday is what we all crave I think. Yes I'll need to consider where we might be mid-late 2023, as our home base may well change in that time. But for now, let's consider this as a holiday coming out of Moama. The options are;

KL

KL is always close to first choice for me, but to be perfectly honest, for selfish reasons. I see myself getting NL and pork noodle for breakfast, going for banana leaf, dim sum and other hawker food for lunch, and getting mixed rice, roasts, and 100 different other things for dinner. OMG the food! That, inter-mixed with wandering the city streets, checking out malls, and finding cool spots to have an ice-cold Tiger or ten.

The shot above shows a couple of KL's strengths - a great skyline and a vibrant restaurant scene. But how does it go with my four criteria? Climate - check. Beachside/poolside - not so easy, but I am sure I can find an AirBnB with a good pool. Still, it won't be a resort, so just a half point. Good food? Absolutely. Not super expensive? It goes well here too. You're going to be hard to beat, KL my lovely...

Penang

A holiday staple in the Brown family since 1982, Penang is a great spot too. I came here with Mum and Dad at that time, staying in the Golden Sands resort, which is still around, albeit looking a bit dated now. My next visit was in 2009 with Cousin Phil, and that was staying at the new Hard Rock Hotel (pictured). It is a top spot. Next trip was with wifey, early on in our relationship. We also came another time once we had a couple of kids, and Jassie came along for the trip. Love this hotel so much. Hey the food is not the best compared to others (at least then that was the case), but the ambience, facilities, and the Hard Rock vibe that is so cool, makes it hard to beat.

Penang would be just behind KL in terms of food, probably just above in terms of accommodation, but more expensive in terms of travel. It also lacks slightly in terms of convenience, with taxis / hire car / courtesy bus needed to traipse between the hotel and the town. In the late days of our time in KL I saw they opened a Healy Macs on the waterfront in the town. JR had been there and enjoyed it. I would love to spend an afternoon and evening doing the same sometime...

Bali

Bali. Love it or hate it. I have done both in my time. We had a family holiday there in 2019 when I was with Gulf, and had a ball at the Holiday Inn Benoa (pictured). I have also enjoyed the facilities at the Hard Rock there, as well as a few others. There are a lot of ritzy, all-inclusive options, for pool-side, foody and boozy fun. It is significantly closer than other Asian destinations, cheap, and eminently doable.

It is also a popular option with the family. Me, well I know we could have fun here, and have done before. I just have a few more boxes to tick. A couple of interesting points;

1) I remember saying to my family more than once that a holiday does not feel like a holiday until I'm in a pool. Bali is likely the #1 in that regard. And,

2) In KL I no longer have any friends. Well that is not true - Subra is there, Harj not far away, and no doubt others I forget. Plus I could arrange through JR to meet Damian, who I always enjoyed having a beer with. But in terms of my expat friends, they are now all, 100%, gone. That's ok, I always make my own fun. I can still go see Michael at Cathy's, go to HM's, even go check out some old haunts at Damansara. But without my old expat mates as drinking buddies.

So, I would need to make good on the message to the kids, that there is more fun stuff to do in KL, be it shopping, food, playgrounds, and ensure we have a great pool there too. We'll see.

KK

This is a bit of a pie in the sky one, as I would love to go here to visit the place of wifey's birth, and a part of Malaysia I have never been. It looks cool, but doesn't have all the holiday-friendly stuff we prioritise, plus it will be more expensive and time-consuming in travel. At this stage it's a no-go.

Cairns / Darwin

This one is a little out there. It is probably more of an exploratory one to see if maybe we want to live in either place one day, to gain easier and quicker access to SEA. Aussie holidays are expensive, and lack all that SEA has to offer. So it's an interesting option, but not really on the table.

Ultimately, wifey tells me just to go where I want and they will happily follow. I think KL is the choice then, but that depends on costs - If I can still get flights and accommodation to KL for the same price as just flights to Bali, then we are going to KL. That was recent experience, as unlikely as it may sound. Anyway, we'll see, but those are really the only two choices.

Wild Gold & Return to iTunes

This is another music post. I was fucking spun out today - I posted recently that I was consider abandoning a replacement for iTunes, because none of the so-called to notch offerings these days, the ones I sampled being Spotify and YouTube Premium, cut it for me. One of the reasons for this is when I went hunting for a particular mix I used to have ready access to, having been cut from one of my cd's back in the day (see footnote), I found that none of the examples of the tunes on the many albums these apps had, contained the mix I wanted. Fuck. That. Shit. This was most of the reason for going to one of these things!

What compounds my situation though, and kind of forced me down this path, is when I began my iTunes journey in 2004. After downloading all my cd's, then having donated them, I no longer have access to that original music - music that I paid for (I do not do piracy). So that means if I follow the plan of abandoning iTunes and going with a streaming mob, some tunes that have been with me forever will disappear. No thanks. What further compounds this is that the tracks on my old iPod are degenerating and some just don't work anymore. Having moved a number of times over the years, I have lost my original PC-hosted database, and have to rely on what is on my iPod. Dammit!

So the other day it occurred to me, maybe I just buy a few of the CD's I loved the most and can't find online, redownload them, and stick with iTunes. I can run it off my phone if needs be, although that would involve switching accounts from work to personal, if that's possible.

Anyway, above is a snap of the Wild Gold album that prompted this search. It's got a couple of absolutely cracking songs - anthems for me really - that I love to this day. I have just ordered a copy of it on eBay. To my surprise though, when looking for it, I realise that Wild Gold has SO many versions! Seeing my one, which is Volume V, obviously there are four before it, but there are also 7 or 8 after it too! I am half tempted to buy them all just quietly. Let's see how the next few months pan out, and when I know what my next few years is going to look like, we may well just hit the button on that. Can't wait to enjoy a few of these tunes again....

Legs

 Is it just me, or does everyone split their journeys into legs? Rather than consider the whole, I have always split my travel - particularly work travel - into segments. 

Take for instance my journey to Cohuna office at least a few days per week. Leg 1 is Echuca to Torrumbarry Roadhouse. Leg 2 is said roadhouse to Gunbower, and then Leg 3 is from there to Cohuna.

I even attempted in my head to figure out the % split of the journey amongst all three segments. I always knew the first was the longest, and assumed it was about 40%. The second is the shortest, so I assumed about 25%. That left 35% for the last leg. Finally, the other day I measured this, and I wasn't all that far off - Leg 1 actual is 42%, Leg 2 is 23.7% and Leg 3 is 34.2%. Utterly useless information, but this post is about me and one of my silly little habits, so there you go.

The other trip of note that I split into legs each and every time, is from home to our new office at Colinroobie. That is a significantly longer trip, mostly very boring, and it helps to have a sense of completeness as I progress along it. That trip, Leg 1 is Echuca to Mathoura, then onto Deniliquin, then onto Conargo, then Jerilderie, Narrandera, Yanco, Leeton and finally Colinroobie. It's about a 3.5 hour trip, which is not too long, but as I said, boring.

I also kind of do this when I go to Broken Hill, which is the longest trip of them all at 7.5 hours. However I do it infrequently enough that I don't remember the breakdown of legs very well. I tend to just use the main towns, such as Kerang, Swan Hill, Robinvale and Mildura to help me measure my progress. I tend to be a statistically-minded person, so I guess this habit of mine is just in keeping with that.

Never Before!

 This has never happened to me before.....

Ok this may not mean much to others, but to me it is priceless. Usually I am happy if I can keep my inbox below 20, and most of the time I struggle with that. To get it in single figures is considered quite and achievement, but to get it to zero? Unheard of and simply awesome!

Now this doesn't mean that I have nothing to do. Below is another screenshot, this time of my To-Do list summary:

As you can see, currently I have 76 outstanding projects either I or someone I have delegated them to are working on. But the fact they are in here instead of my inbox means that I have actioned them and moved them along. When they are just in the inbox it generally means they are awaiting a response or an action. I am proud to say that whereas in the past I might have sat on emails for months on end, now I am moving on them quickly. That is partly because I have more people to delegate to now, and partly due to the size of my job necessitating swifter responses and action.

So why the change? Well, I have been moving towards a better task management system for years now. Yes, literally years. I have procrastinated, dabbled in numerous offerings (including the one I use now), but never felt satisfied. Then I realised that there truly is no promised land of productivity tools - one has to make something work for one. I was getting frustrated as I had so much on my plate, and I needed to act. Initially I also had to-do lists on the side of my timesheet spreadsheet, which is kind of my personal bible - I use it daily. But I found myself referring to the to-do aspect of this less and less, and the Microsoft To Do app more and more. So there I was and there we are.

I am happy that this is a part of my professional and personal life that I have improved in the last 12 months. I consider this to be quite an achievement.

My Career - Part 9 - Consulting, Contracting & Flitting Around (2012 - 2018)

This period of life was somewhat tumultuous! When I elected to leave Penjom in early 2012, I thought I had it all under control. I knew the writing was on the wall for Penjom, mainly as the new owners had their own plans and people to execute them. Bob and I had prepared a fleet replacement plan just as the sale was occurring, and that was accepted, which was great. However, Stu, Brian and I had also spent YEARS studying the orebody and coming up with a life of mine plan that would maximise the profitable extraction of the resource. The cornerstone of this was a major west wall cutback. It would mean two years of negative cashflow, but would realise well over 500,000 ounces of gold in the longer term. Alas, the new owners either didn't trust our plan, or didn't want that cashflow strategy, so they elected to abandon it. I believe in the fullness of time - years after I left - they attempted a half-arsed west wall cutback, but ultimately abandoned it. Anyway, that's a story for another post (probably the Penjom one!) But this, as well as the general cultural shift we were experiencing, led me to call time at Penjom.

The ultimate catalyst was that Dean, my friend and old GM at Penjom, had recently become COO for a nickel company called ENK in the Philippines, and needed someone to lead the charge in development of the mining operation. My wife was due to give birth in two months, but hey, it was exactly the opportunity I had been hoping for, and despite the 2:1 roster, off I went...

ENK (European Nickel PLC) - The Philippines

The Philippines. What a place. The ENK office was in Makati, which is kind of an expat/business central suburb in Manila that is essentially restricted access for the safety of those within. I guess it did do that job, although I am sure anyone who really did want to get into Makati, could do so. I started after a three day interview/visit, towards the end of Feb 2012. The ENK project was about a half-day drive away from Manila, past Subic (and old American WW2 naval base) and then up into the hills. There was a small plant up there, mainly doing trials, as this was a nickel laterite - the kind that Murrin used concentrated acid and high-pressure autoclaves to extract. In all honesty, I can't remember how ENK planned to extract the nickel, but they did have a process, and a proprietary one at that I believe.

The photo above shows a road being cut to access part of the mine. The deposit was up in the hills / mountains, and because of the shitty road, a good hours drive uphill. When one went to site, one generally stayed up there, which I did during my brief stint. I didn't really ever get stuck into the mining side of things, because here's the kicker - I only lasted two weeks. After one stint I knew it wasn't going to work. On the one hand, it was some of the stories Dean told of mining contractors coming to meetings carrying handguns (yes they have an American-style gun culture there), and on the other it was the sheer scale of what needed to be done. Forget the mining - the big issue was dealing with drainage and making sure sulphide-laden mud didn't wash into the streams at the foot of these hills that several villages relied on. It was a huge task, and frankly not really my forte. There was a surveyor on site who could help, and I did put together an initial earthworks plan to get started. But my assessment was that it was not really going to work, if we wanted to do it to western standards. After a stint up there, my confidence was quite shaken, and I was really not sure if I could deliver what was needed. I had simply not even had a chance to consider the mining, which was quite a simple aspect of the project, so I was already wavering at this time. I guess this was the first time I was faced with a challenge I wasn't really up for. I mean I was very grateful to Dean for the opportunity, and I am sure it would have eventually led to some interesting work. But I just wasn't the right guy for the job.

Mid-note: I'd call this a footnote, but I am not done yet, so mid-note it is. Interestingly, within six months of me pulling the pin, the project was bought out by local partners and turned into an "Asian mining" project. No offense to my Asian family, friends and colleagues, but you all know what I mean. Rip, tear and bust mining. And NO need for expats. So whilst I missed out on the redundancy payout, I made the right call. I did disappoint Dean in my first-yes-then-no performance, but we got over that quickly enough.

Subic was a place we stopped at on the way to site, and a place I really found very interesting. It had been a US Navy base since WW2 days, although when I was there, the US were not present (I believe they have since gone back). It was coastal, laid back, and a party town. I only visited twice, but enjoyed it. Photo below.

The second visit to Subic was one of the things that made my mind up about the Philippines. The bar/resto/hotel we had breakfast at on our road trips had a recent terrible story. A disgruntled sacked former employee returned to the place one morning, pulled a gun and shot dead the Australian owner for wronging him. This stuff happens here. Not. For. Me.

ASN Round #1 - Malaysia

So after a meeting with John at the Ritz Carlton in KL (which I remember because the lunch buffet probably cost $100, but being vegan, John ate only sliced carrots and nuts, which to me was nuts!), he offered me a contract to help with the quarry side of his new venture. ASN Cement was a privately-owned Singaporean company, but owned by Aussies, with a view to building what would have been the largest cement plant in the world at that time. John knew me initially from my Cement Australia days (so he knew I knew limestone quarrying) and then JMS, where he was the CEO when I joined them (he actually contacted me to get me there too, so despite some issues which we will cover in due course, John actually did pretty well for me overall throughout my career).

The plan was to build the plant at a site near Gua Musang, in Kelantan, not all that far from my old haunt of Penjom at Kuala Lipis. Although the site itself was actually at a locality called Merapoh, which was in Pahang (same as Penjom). So I was familiar with the area, and happy to do the drives up to site to direct drilling, sampling and site planning activities. 

This went on for a good few months, including a visit by a China-based company called Sinoma, who were interested in both part-ownership and designing the plant. That was an interesting day, with a whole lot of kow-towing to the China exec's, who didn't really bring much to the table IMHO, but certainly acted like they did.

Anyway, it all didn't matter, because late in 2012, the following happened:

Dear all,

Kindly find below article on Star Newspaper for your reading.

 

Published: Saturday November 16, 2012 MYT 12:00:00 AM                 
                         

No cement plant project in Merapoh

by isabelle lai

PETALING JAYA: The Pahang state government has promised that there will be no cement production plant at Merapoh.

Instead it is planning to convert the area to an ecotourism destination.

Pahang Tourism and Culture Committee chairman Datuk Mohd Sharkar Shamsuddin said they were now surveying the size of the area to be gazetted for ecotourism purposes.

“The state exco has opposed the cement plant project. We will come up with a master plan for sustainable development in Merapoh.

“So people don’t have to worry anymore and can sleep well,” he told The Star, referring to the concerns raised by environmentalists over the proposed cement plant project.

The land was held by Bintang Tower, while the cement manufacturing license was held by Lipis Cement since 1997 although the project never took off.

Concerns over the project’s revival arose when Singapore-based company, ASN Cement, expressed interest in restarting the project in late 2011.

Mohd Sharkar said he would enlist the expertise of the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) as well as other relevant organisations to help with the master plan.

He said their input was important as the state government wanted to ensure that development there was carried out properly.

“It is also important for me to know the dos and don’ts regarding the environment. I will ask experts to look into cave and orchid conservation at Merapoh as well,” he said.

Mohd Sharkar said the state government would also propose to Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd that it upgrade its train station there, as it planned for tourists to travel by rail to Merapoh.

“We are not just doing this for ecotourism, but to preserve the ecosystem of Malaysia itself. We want to ensure our water catchment areas are not harmed,” he said.

MNS president Prof Dr Maketab Mohamed praised the state government’s rejection of the cement plant project.

“We are very happy. This shows the state government is serious about conservation and using ecotourism as a means of generating income,” he said, adding that Sabah was a good example to follow.

Maketab said MNS would be glad to lend its help in developing the master plan before any work began.

So fortunately, ASN had a Plan B, at a locality called Chiku, further to the north. But it meant going back to the drawing board, limiting spending in the meantime, and no work for me for at least a while. So I had to find more work. Next stop, Queensland!

Alcyone - Texas, Queensland

What a clusterfuck this was. Look, the deposit was probably workable, but when under the charge of a megalomaniac, table-thumping narcissist, it had no chance. There was NO mining engineering, and no exploration geology done. Yes a little grade control was carried out and yes someone had put a pit shell around it and done a life-of-mine schedule, but neither of those things were going to save this place. I should have picked it. Alas this was the first of a couple of decisions where I let my circumstances override my logical brain. We needed a job - I got a job, paying decent money, and promising the world - so I signed up, and lo-and-behold, it was a fuck-up.

I lasted six months, and left under cover of darkness. I did give sufficient notice, but wanted to leave on my terms. Seriously, if you knew the guy who was my boss there, you would understand why. Within a few months of me leaving, the site went into care and maintenance, and shortly after the company folded. I made the right call again, although this time did a fair bit of cash on foolishly bought shares. Foolish because I believe the CEO-hype, who was delusion, and frankly a liar to the market. That wouldn't be the last time in my career I was faced with such a situation...

ASN Round #2 - Malaysia

So I got my get out of jail free card when John rang me and said they'd secured new ground to explore and a couple of million to keep the project going. We also had a new local partner, as sadly our Dato had passed away in the short time I had been in Australia. So the initial work was to figure out which hills were best to mine. We had a plot to build the plant on, and were literally surrounded by limestone hills. And I'm talking the James Bond whatever that movie was called kind - vertical cliffs. Amazing to look at, but also equally amazing to try and figure out how to develop.

Check out the photo above. Amazing really, and a pity to quarry, but despite what the media say, these things are plentiful. Plus look at what they do to the rest of the landscape. They bulk strip forest everywhere in this country, and no fucker blinks an eye. They even log in protected forest and national parks because they are so corrupt, yet when a foreign company wants to quarry one hill, they suddenly become environmentally conscious. Utter hypocritical bullshit. Anyway, fortunately for me I didn't have to worry too much about that. My job was to figure out how much and how good the resource was, come up with a way to develop it, and put all this together in a plan. I got this kicked off, but as normal, things were going slow. Luckily for me, old mate Dean rang up asking if I could help him for a few months. ASN didn't need a lot in the meantime, and this was super coin, so why not. Off to Wetar Island for me for a few months...

Finders - Indonesia

Now, this was one to remember. Not long after coming back from the Texas debacle, Dean asked me if I wanted some consulting work. I had come back for ASN, but it was taking them time to gain traction, and the timing for this job was perfect. The only drawback? It was a 4:2 roster, FIFO from Wetar Island, in the Maluku Province of Eastern Indonesia. Dean was GM for the project for Finders Resources. They were re-starting the demonstration plant that had been mothballed, and bringing the mine out of care and maintenance, back into production. The problem was that the mine management team had also been in C&M for a number of years, and getting them re-motivated proved to be a major challenge. One of the expats - who shall remain unnamed - had also been there through much of this period, and had kind of gone "native". I think Dean ended up moving him on as he was being more nonconstructive than anything else.

Wetar was a true hardship posting. The photo is outside Dean's little hut, right on the beach. It was idyllic, laid back and ok. Getting there and back however, was something else. Kupang, as I'll write about elsewhere (who would have thought I would end up living there for God's sake!) was really an outpost in the far east of Indo, and very under-developed compared to elsewhere. Highly unreliable electricity, internet, phone signal, food and drink, wow it was tough sometimes. But getting to Kupang was only the beginning. Either the same day or the next morning, I'd jump in a car and drive eight hours to the east of West Timor, to then jump in a fishing boat and chug along for 8-12 hours to get to Wetar. The longest boat trip I had was 28 hours. Yes you read that right. Towards the end of my stay they got a better boat, which then left from Kupang directly. But it was still a 10 hour ride and the worst part of the whole thing.

Then there was the connectivity. It was ok during the day when I was in the office. But at night, internet was next to non-existent, and there was no mobile signal on Wetar at all. Only one shop, so I subsisted on IndoMee and a few snacks for weeks at a time. The food was ok, but only ok, so it was a tough posting for me. I would never have taken it on full-time. Of course that was never on the cards anyway, because B-doi had only just been born, so wifey was back in KL with 2 under 2 in her care. Her parents were around, as was Jassie, but I needed to be home.

The work on Wetar was doing some scheduling, helping them develop some basic mine planning, and coming up with initial drill & blast designs. The only software was Surpac, which I am familiar with, but it had been a long time since I had used it. I was able to throw together some reasonable work for the board, and develop a weekly planning system, together with getting some blasts on the ground. Frankly though, in these kinds of environments, one needs to be somewhere 3-6 months to get truly established. I was there only 3, so my impact was limited. Still, I think I did help, and it was good experience for me, as well as good remuneration.

ASN Round #3 - Malaysia

This is where I did the lion's share of my work for these guys. It went from pretty much April 2014 (after I left Wetae) to early 2016. I did do a little more work in 2016 before we left Malaysia in June, but not much - and I never got paid for it either.

That was the real downside to ASN. I mean, the rate JR put me on was very cool, $1,300 per day, pro-rated. So some very busy months I made good coin. Yes the flip side of that was that we were living in an expensive place in KL, and renting a car, etc, etc. But we had some wonderful holidays, a great lifestyle, and I regret none of it.

So from when I finished with Finders in Q2 2014, to when things dried up, I was a busy boy. After our initial hiatus, we had found a new location to build the plant, at Chiku, just a bit further up the road than before, and this time into Kelantan, a more Malay and conservative place than either KL or Pahang. It was interesting. We did some good drilling, I got Brian to do a block model for me, I put together a fleet purchase plan, and a life of mine schedule and cashflow. What really killed ASN though, was Najib. Najib the Prime Minister, I hear you ask? Yes, him. He, and his stupid corrupt ham-fisted handling of the 1MDB investment group, that saw him siphon off over $1 billion to his personal accounts (how fucking stupid can you get?). Anyway, I write this as my own opinion, but I believe it is close to the truth. In any event, our western investors got cold feet about a $500 million project in such a place, and pulled out. Panic stations. We then started more heavy negotiations with Chinese mobs, but of course, smelling blood, they wanted control and a lion's share of the business. JR wasn't having that, so we hit a stalemate, suddenly had no cash, and ground to a halt.

The silly thing is that in that time, we had actually got our quarry license granted, despite what the greenies were trying in the press:

https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/living/2015/07/13/quarrying-threatens-to-flatten-this-wildlife-refuge-in-kelantan

I really hate the media, with a passion. 

So, this was early 2016 by this stage. I was compelled to help with site visits, interviews, and preparing more technical information, but started to get the shits after not being paid for a few months. By the time we eventually left Malaysia in June, ASN owed me $60k. They still owe me $60k. JR still claims he is on the verge of signing term sheets with new investors, but frankly I think he is a lying, self-deluding fuck now. Hey if it ever happens, then sweet, I would likely go back as Manager. However I think it is now very unlikely. A pity, as it is a world-class deposit and project.

Barooga - NSW

This is an interesting part of the post to write. Far out. Look, I am grateful that this opportunity was there, at this time. Frankly, without it we might have been in a bit of trouble. But then again, perhaps I would have just had to do some hard yards doing FIFO or something.

No. Screw that. Regardless of how things ended up, I am grateful for this period of my life for a number of reasons. One, I needed a job, and without one in Malaysia, we needed to move back to Australia. Two, this gave us the best part of two years close to my family, and gave us all an opportunity to be close to Mum and V. Great for all of us, but especially for my kids. Lastly, Three, spending that time in the shop was good for my fitness - both mental and physical. I ended up hating it, and my initial evaluation of the business ended up being correct - too big a risk. V&P did well for a while, but small business in rural areas, when competing with the likes of Woolies, is almost completely destined to fail. And fail we did, eventually. We're still paying it off too, but not for much longer.

Fuck a duck, that's one heck of a post. I possibly should have broken it up into component parts, but it does fit the bill, as in all this together represented a key chapter in my career - one where I was making good money, then making no money, having plenty of work, then none, and all the while being stressed and wondering where my next stable job was going to come from. It was not for lack of trying, as I had hoped first ENK, then ASN, then Alcyone, then ASN again would provide that longevity. Hey, I was even willing to commit to the shop long-term, as long as we could survive. But ultimately, either they didn't work for me, or I didn't work for them. Whichever way you look at it (generally the former I feel), this nomadic lifestyle had a use-by date, and frankly I was glad when it came to an end. If you look at my LinkedIn profile, you'll notice my "consultancy" days go until late 2019, but that's only because post-Gulf, while we were in Malaysia, I was open to such opportunities, and even courted a few potential contract options, but to no avail. Where I am now fits the bill better than anything has for a long, long time.

So, Feb 2012 until Mar 2018 comprised my consulting / contracting years. Interesting that for such an unpredictable and difficult period, it actually comprised the longest part of my career to date. Maybe that says something about me, I don't know. Probably not really, as you can see by the post that a whole lot of different stuff, in different places, was going on during this time. Plus we were really hoping that at least a couple of these period were going to evolve into something more permanent. It just never happened. But I don't regret it. Some great memories, some great parts of my life in terms of lifestyle and moments with my family. Frankly, I was damn lucky during these years, and I am glad for these experiences.