Work Update

A work update – busy, busy, busy.  Going to be like this for the next few months sadly – I had a desire to take a week off in September once kids go back to school, but my boss has already told me that I should postpone this until October.  Which sucks.  Hopefully I can still visit Crater Lake in Oregon, which was my plan – unfortunately Crater Lake is (quoting from their website) “one of the snowiest inhabited places in the USA”, and checking dates I see that most of the seasonal road closures start around October/November.  So I might have to make some different plans.  What else at work…. had my mid-year review recently – and it was good.  I didn’t give it much attention – having just got a promotion, it’s going to be a while until I get another one.  But it is satisfying to finally have a manager who recognizes my abilities and my value – and I do feel more important and more appreciated than I have for a while.  And, if I’m going to be honest, I’m quite enjoying the work at the moment.  Yes at times it is pressurized and stressful, but I am staying on top of it and it does feel surprisingly rewarding when I know I’m doing a good job.  And although I’m busy, it’s not constant and I haven’t crossed over that line into feeling overwhelmed.  I think that’s something I’m very careful about nowadays.  What is also interesting is something my manager mentioned offhandedly during my review, and that is my reluctance to work extra hours beyond the standard 40 hour week.  Is that a reputation I have now – someone who doesn’t put in the same effort as others do?  That doesn’t paint me in a particularly good light – perhaps there is some truth to it (understatement?!), but I will work long hours on those few occasions when it is required.  But frankly I don’t feel I have to because I can do my job more quickly and more effectively than most of my colleagues, negating my need to put in all these extra hours – so I think this is an extremely unfair characterization.  I have an inkling that I mentioned my reluctance to work evenings and weekends to one of my Chinese colleagues, and apparently that got shared around the “Chinese community” in my function at work.  Great, you can’t trust anyone here – I don’t think this is intentionally malicious office politics, but I think my “non-Chinese”-ness is always going to mean I’m going to be scrutinized more carefully.

10 Predictions

Thank god football is returning this weekend, finally putting to an end this bleak sports vacuum of the last couple of weeks.  Some predictions:

1. Man City will pip Liverpool to the title again, and no new teams will break into the top 6
2. One of Frank Lampard or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will not be a manager next season
3. The relegation battle will go down to the final weekend, and the following teams will be relegated: Sheff Utd, Norwich, Brighton
4. VAR will still result in major controversy
5. English sides will not dominate European football this year
6. Due to the closeness of the races at the top and bottom of the league, the most amount of money ever will be spent on vastly overrated players in this season’s January transfer window
7. Harry Kane will experience a major injury and Tottenham will fade at the end of the season, yet again
8. Everton will flatter to deceive, yet again
9. Newcastle will have a surprisingly good season under Steve Bruce (but he’ll get fired next season)
10. Palace will be one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league

Photography

As I was sorting though some photos that I had downloaded onto my computer over the weekend, I was wondering why I bothered.  Once I’ve deleted the duplicates and crappy shots, I’ll probably never look at them again.  I think of all the photos that I’ve taken over the last 5/10 years, and they’re just sitting unseen on either my current laptop, my old laptop or an external hard drive (at least I remembered to copy them onto that from various even older computers).  And as I read stories about, or even actually see, various tourist locations being ruined by “Instagram Influencers” or selfie-takes, I despair.  I think I am guilty of taking too many photos – and I think it does ruin my enjoyment and experience of wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, particularly places new and exotic.  So I think I will make a conscious effort to cut down.  The problem is that the cameras on smart phones are so advanced now that you don’t need a dedicated camera any more.  I hardly ever use mine now – it is just so easy, too easy, to pull out your phone and take a quick photo that is of perfectly acceptable quality.  My god, you can even make a feature film using just your phone.  I think I can honestly say I preferred life before smartphones – from the art of photography to the printing out of driving directions to the lack of distraction via social media, texts, news alerts, mobile games, etc.  I’m increasingly turning into a technophobe.

Trends

First Queen, then Elton John, Motley Crue, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen.  Does the film industry have no original ideas any more?  Talk about jumping on a bandwagon.  I expect a lot more decidedly average movies based on or loosely connected to some more classic (or not so classic in the case of Motley Crue) musical acts in the next year or two.  Sad. 

Gun Control

America needs it, America will never get it.  Nuff said.

Blue Angels

I did have a blog lined up about my hair loss, but it's just too depressing - at least for me - so instead here is the briefest of brief video of some Blue Angels flying over my office today.

2 Photos

I haven't been taking a lot of photos recently, but here are a few from today.

A distant view of the Olympics from a lunchtime walk from work - not sure if its clear in the photo, but some really interesting lenticular cloud formations over the mountains.

Then a view from my kitchen window as I was making my dinner this evening.