Rob's Blog

Today is my last full day at this job. (OK – not quite my last day. I’ll be in tomorrow, but that’ll consist of sanitising my PC, sending goodbye emails, and getting royally pissed at lunchtime). I’ve been here for almost 7 years, and I have this strange, elated feeling – the same feeling you get when you’re about to leave for a three week holiday. Only I’m not going on holiday, in fact I start my new job immediately…

I owe this company a huge debt of gratitude. They have been incredibly supportive throughout my employment here, sponsoring me (3 times) to stay in the country until I managed to get permanent residency, and generally being extremely helpful, thoughtful and generous employers. Thankyou to everyone, in particular Mark, Stephen, Jacqui and especially Andrew.

And now on to new things… From now on I have to shave, iron shirts, make sure I’m smart and presentable. And worst of all I have to catch an outrageously* early ferry to work. These are small sacrifices though, as in return I will be learning a whole bunch of new things, meeting a whole bunch of new people. I think this is why I’ve got that holiday feeling – the anticipation.
* Outrageous = 7:50am

I received a surprise birthday present yesterday, from a very kind person at the office. It’s a box of never-been-used, pristine golf balls circa 1971! Yup – that’s Jack Nicklaus in his 30′s on the box. These liquid centre (?) golf balls were (according to Mr Nicklaus) the longest hitting golf balls made.

Straight to the pool room.

Amanda managed to get a pretty good shot of someone on a monster wave at Bronte. Here ’tis:

The swell is huge, but not as big as we hoped. My photography skills suck, too. Here’s what I managed to get from Ben Buckler and Bronte:

Lou had a dream that a buzzard looked like this:

Since Australia is home to some of the oddest animals on the planet, I thought I’d try to compete by creating my own “concept buzzard” just for Down Under:

Clearly, Lou’s photoshop skills are slightly more advanced than mine. If anyone’s got enough spare time / nothing better to do, please send me your redesigned buzzard.

To quote Mr Ben Macartney of CoastalWatch:

“There is a massive south swell on the way and forecasts wave heights are completely off the planet. This is the kind of swell that will move hundreds of thousand of tons of sand in the space of a few hours, surge up over promenades at high tide and kill fisherman.”

Sounds like this swell will make last weeks look a little bit lame. Will try to get down to Icebergs balcony and get some photos. Yeah – I’m too pussy to paddle out.

CoastalWatch have also just released their new inshore wave height forecasting toy, ANNA. These guys have the best jobs in the world as far as I’m concerned… Playing with computers, surfing… If only they got free beer

Here’s a picture from last Sunday. Was taken from Icebergs – unfortunately the camera on my phone doesn’t really do it justice. Watched a guy try to paddle out for 20 minutes, only to screw up a duck dive and get washed back to the beach. He didn’t give up though, and another ten minutes later he’d made it to the line-up.

Well, I’ve finally done it. I resigned today, after almost 7 years in my current job. I’ll be starting my new position on the 1st May. It will be very sad leaving this place, particularly as only 3 other people in the company have worked there longer (2 directors have been there since the start – 15 years, and my manager has been there for 6 months longer than I have) – so I’ve seen plenty of people come and go during that time. I’m already getting very excited about my new role though, and am really looking forward to working with a new team of people. I’ll also finally get to start working with C# in earnest, rather than the occasional dabbling that has been my .Net experience so far…

http://www.kcpc.usyd.edu.au/polymers/uses/wetsuits

Everyone knew he’d love it. Here he is with his new metal detector, trying to find a 20 cent coin. Happy Birthday Norbert!