Backup

Day 1 It was a luxury to have a whole non-work day before our trip. That meant that we had sufficient time to pack what we needed well and maximise all usable space in our suitcases. We did do a few last minute chores on the Saturday before our trip, including dropping into Sam's mum's place one last time to say goodbye and dropping off some Christmas prezzies for a colleague's kids. The evening was unremarkable as we ate the rest of the food in our fridge. We got up on Sunday at about 5:30 am, hopped on a taxi, and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. As we were flying business, there was no queue to contend with - we simply walked up to the counter and checked ourselves in with minimum fuss. After a fairly quick custom clearance process, we bee-lined to the lounge and spent the next two hours there waiting for to board our flight. The first leg of our flight was from Brisbane to Hong Kong. Sam quickly guzzled down the welcome champagne before we ev...

I was meeting two workmates for dinner at the Defiant Duck at Gasworks tonight.  Just as we were chatting away, I heard this almighty bang behind me. I quickly turned around and saw sparks flying. People around us started running towards the scene, which was about a hundred metres in front of us. It was very hectic and sudden. As it turned out, a crane had lost balance and toppled over sideways. Worst of all, there were two people in the crane taking aerial photos of the construction site when this happened. It took about 10 minutes before we started hearing sirens. A police car arrived, followed by many ambulances and, finally, a fire truck. Details of the accident are only just starting to emerge. Very sadly, one of the two people died at the scene. According to the paper, he was thrown out of the cage and fell onto the road. The other person is in critical condition as I am typing this. We knew that things were grim because after the ambulances arrived, we didn't see o...

The tension is building. After a crazy week of Christmas get togethers and events, I am finally staring into the last week of work before our European trip. Just as well - while I have been busy (my last speaking engagement was done on Thursday - yippee!), business hasn't been all that forthcoming, so I am suffering from a bit of latent stress, wondering if I would make budget for the year. In any event, getting away will be good for me by taking my mind off these things. Friday evening I went into work late on Friday. I just didn't feel like getting there early. When I got in, I did some work before going to our division's Christmas lunch at a restaurant nearby. I made an effort to chat with everyone at my table but didn't stay when our group got moved along to a bar nearby. After I got back to the office, I did some more work before I caught up with a contact over yet another glass of wine in one of our meeting rooms. When she finally left, I went down to the mall...