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Happy New Year, BMR.

May your 2024 successes continue through 2025, and may your 2024 failures serve as lessons from which to leverage success in 2025.

Best of writing to you all.​
 
Here's another "Australia hates the world" clip...and this post in the comments just made me laugh:

Okay, let me get this straight:
There's spiders that can one shot you
There's fish that can one shot you
There's kangaroos (born with the ult ability to one shot you)
There's cassowarys (a bird with a blade as a mouth)
There's emus that can tank literal gunfire
And now there's plants that just wanna spite your existence
You guys must've lost a bet thousands of years ago


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7yuNp5YBY1Q
 
In general, men are not emotional creatures. Sure, we have them, but we don't share them as readily as women do. It's just not our way.

Some can argue nature vs nurture, and that will play a small part in the scheme of things, but by and large, it's in a man's nature to not expose himself, to not make himself vulnerable.

Which is why this clip hits hard. I've seen it a number of times, and it still gets me. The man is opening up, being vulnerable, sharing something that's important to him...and is quickly shown why he shouldn't have bothered.


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ylJZ-2BsGC4
 
So...a very long, draining...and disappointing day at work today.

We're in the process of replacing our entire IT ticketing system (which includes the user front-end portal, and many other back-end IT-oriented modules). I'm a part of this process, and have engaged in a few workshops that are aimed at seeing what the new tool can offer and how we can either configure the tool to meet our needs or change our needs to meet the tool.

On top of that, our Change Manager is on leave, so I'm filling in that role in addition to my regular duties.

This on top of being involved in setting up a new out-sourced partner to help take on the overflow and backlog of calls and queries from our external customers.

So today saw a couple of workshops for the replacement IT tool, and these are pretty conversation and thought heavy. While I'm taking part in these workshops I'm also trying to juggle Change Manager duties. My lunch break is shot, and I'm falling behind in getting things ready for new starters while being the hands and feet for a colleague who's temporarily house-bound.

In short I didn't spend a lot of time at my desk through most of today.

And when I walk into a team meeting this afternoon, another colleague looks at me and says "Well at least one of us is not having a cushy day"...as if I've been slack.

I resisted the urge to rip him a new one...but that is really pissing me off right now.
 
On September 5, 1977, the Voyager-1 probe was launched (2 weeks after the launch of Voyager-2). The immediate mission of the two craft was to fly by and investigate Jupiter and Saturn, although the trajectory of Voyager-2 allowed it to also then visit Uranus and Neptune.

In January 1979 Voyager-1 encountered Jupiter and its inner moons, sending back a wealth of data about the largest planet in our solar system. In November 1980 Voyager-1 encountered Saturn and its inner moons. Its trajectory was such that the Saturn encounter sent the tiny probe away from the orbital plane and in the direction of interstellar space.

While most of the craft's systems have now been shut down in an effort to conserve power - not to mention hardware failure - the little craft is still operating.

In February 1998 Voyager-1 officially became the furthest man-made object in the Solar System when it "overtook" Pioneer-10.

In December 2004 Voyager-1 crossed the Termination Shock and entered the heliosheath - the point at which our Sun's solar wind and influence balances with the interstellar gasses of the galaxy - at a distance of 94 AU (94 times the Earth-Sun distance of 150 million km).

In August 2008 Voyager-1 exited the heliopause and entered interstellar space, becoming the first man-made object to leave our solar system entirely - a distance of 121 AU.

And the probe is still going. It is currently over 15.46 billion miles (166 AU) from Earth, travelling at an estimated speed of a little over 38,000 mph

It is a testament to human ingenuity and science. While there will be future space projects that overshadow the Voyager missions in complexity and achievement, there will be few that are, or will be, so profound as these two little craft.
 
We've all (I'm sure) seen the meme that says you can have an insane amount of money for the rest of your life, but the catch is that there is a snail that will be chasing you for the rest of your life and if the snail catches you, you die.

This is that snail (and of course it's Australian):


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zMJIDCFQA0c
 
Yup...I do miss the 80s and 90s. In some ways, I'd go back there if I could. A lot of the things that younger people take for granted today were being developed and coming into their own back then. We got to do stupid things and lived to tell - no-one nannying us and claiming things weren't "safe" enough - we got hurt and learned from the experience. Great times.


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lqnHxsQHsGE
 
Well...this week is certainly piling the shit on me...

17 new starters arriving next Monday for our Contact Center that I have to prep and build computers for. I knew they were coming, at least, so I was able to get ahead - the team leader let me knew about a month ago that the intake was on its way, so I was able to get the computers organised with plenty of time to spare. Of course, I can't do the paperwork side of things (asset allocation, account creation, etc...) until I have the tickets in front of me, but that's less of a strain. Still, plenty of work there.

Regular BAU new starters arriving next Monday - 3 or 4 of them. These are the ones I don't get advance warning of, they just appear on my radar about a week in advance. Not normally a problem, but when you're already getting 17 ready, this is something I can do without.

Another 14 new starters arriving next Monday for an external project. This one I got blindsided by, and I hate the people who "lead" this project - they treat me like I'm their fucking lap-dog, that they can just snap their fingers and say "why isn't it done yet?" (That's maybe a bit of an exaggeration...but not by much.) No courtesy given here, no "by the way, we'll be doing another large intake shortly"...they tickets just arrived out of the blue.

So...I'm trying to get 35-ish new starters ready for next Monday, only half of which I had advance warning of.

Then...the home's hot water heater decides it doesn't want to heat water any more. It did that yesterday, I think, probably early in the day. So I was outside at 6:45 am today, in the cold and damp, struggling to get the damned thing lit...which it did, eventually. Got the pilot lit, turned the gas up, heard it take...and I went to work. And then the wife messaged me just after lunch as said "we still don't have hot water". Fuck. Leave work early, go back to the hot water tank (it's outside, and it's now also raining)...the pilot was still lit, at least, but the burner hadn't taken...so I tried again, watched the burner light under the tank...hopefully it'll stay working this time.

I could really do without having to replace the hot water tank in the middle of winter. Cold showers at 6am are no fun.
 
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