It would take me 24 years of interest (non-compounding) to offset one month of your fees. That’s just one of the reasons why I’m moving…

Engagement, Europe trip, new position at work, travel – 2010 will have to try hard to beat this year.

Happy New Year!

Getting engaged while travelling through Europe for a month, that’s got to be the highlight. Still can’t believe how beautiful Tuscany is, not too mention my fiancee. I can honestly say that this is a paragraph I did not think I would be writing. It’s amazing how things change.

Beautiful Tuscany

Changed jobs and, in doing so, dodged redundancy by a matter of days. It’s been good to start from the bottom again, plenty of new stuff to learn which is what keeps me going but it’s also hard work just keeping things moving when everything is quite new. It’s going to be a different workplace next year, with a lot of challenges to contend with.

Lots of new interesting toys to play with this year too: continuing to find great ways to use the iPhone, Windows 7 through the betas and release candidates, Google Chrome OS. Played plenty of GTA IV, Dragon Age, Team Fortress 2, New Mario Wii, X3 and now Eve Online.

It’s funny looking back at this same post just one year ago, wondering where I was heading in 2009. Relationships, work, all that stuff has worked out perfectly. One lucky year, I guess. And still haven’t had a smoke for two years – feeling much, much better for it. It’s great to be able to look back over the birthday posts from this blog for the last five years, things have decidedly been improving all the way along. Plenty coming up in the next twelve months too – engagement party in January, wedding to plan for 2011, work travel throughout the year (including Singapore and New Zealand), the new job to keep improving at, turning 30 (!) plus any number of surprises that are sure to appear.

All in all, I’m looking forward to it.

We had a great time and, combined with a lot more travel with work, I plan on writing a lot more on this site and about travel as I start to work out how to manage things while on the road. Maybe… I’ve been pretty hopeless overall!

Living on our own in Essendon has been fun, we’re pretty settled and have survived the first eight months. The number of weddings, engagements and pregnancies among friends has been amazing and fending off suggestions of when I will be following suit has become a fulltime occupation, although I am beginning to mellow a bit on these fronts…. Having a school reunion recently put a few things in perspective, which I found to be rather surprising.

Work has been frustrating in most cases, but I think it’s time to start thinking a little bit outside the box in the coming year. It’s getting to the point where I will need to make things happen rather than wait for them to happen. This year has seen me turn things around in terms of being organized at work, thanks to the GTD methodologies. I still need to finish off my GTD series of posts, but hope to get to that soon. I’m still amazed at the changes and personal gains I’ve been able to make, and have already bought my fourth copy of GTD after giving away my previous ones!

The coming year is still a mystery at this stage, there are still many directions we could end up taking. I’m looking forward to taking the year head on though, and I’m sure that this time next year will present a very different set of circumstances. It’s going to be fun finding out just exactly what they will be.

Me: Hi, I would like a PIN for my credit card mailed out please.
John: Sure, but it would be quicker to go into a branch.
Me: Ok, but I would prefer it to be mailed out.
John: Are you sure? Some of our branches are open on weekends now.
Me: I’m sure, please mail it out.
John: I’ll just check which weekend branches are near you (5 minutes while he finds list of these, discusses where I live and work and finds none which are particularly close to where I am).
John: How about X Shopping Center?
Me: No, that’s a way off.
John: Surely that’s only a few minutes drive?
Me: Not on public transport.
John: What about Y Shopping Center?
Me: No, that’s even further. Can you please mail out the PIN?
John: It really would be quicker to go into a branch.
Me: But I can’t get to a branch while I’m working or on the weekend. It really would be easier to have it mailed out.
John: Still it would only take 5 minutes to go into a branch, it’s up to 10 days to mail it out.
Me: That’s ok, I can wait, please mail it out.
John: What about Z branch near work?
Me, completely fed up: Just forget about it.
John: Ok, thanks for calling.

This doesn’t count as customer service. It should be a 2 minute call to have the thing sent out and 2 minutes for me to open the letter and read the PIN. Total of 4 minutes. This is more convenient for me than a 20 minute walk to the branch near work, god knows how long a wait in the queue (conservative estimate, 20 minutes), 10 minutes to explain what I want and get it and a 20 minute walk back. Total of 70 minutes. The 10 days to send it out doesn’t count, it’s the time out of my life that does.

Commonwealth Bank, you still repulse me and I continually wonder why I continue to keep money in you. This is the bank that gives a $0.03 interest payment on the same day it deducts a $2.00 ATM access fee. As soon as I find a decent alternative, my money and I are gone. I’m certainly not only on this one.

And John? You’re a tool.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad applying for the house, even in Melbourne’s current real estate climate. We looked at about seven or eight, but this was the first we applied for, even though it was the upper range of the budget. We got it first shot, taking most of the stress off our backs. A tip for people looking at real estate agents in the Essendon area: check out Sheryl Upton, they have been fantastic, which is a big wrap for a real estate agent. Brad Teal, our existing real estate agent, on the other hand has been absolutely appalling and should be avoided at all cost. Cannot wait to move so we can be finished with them.

The downside is the amazing amount of time it takes to connect an ADSL service with iinet. After tomorrow, it sounds like I will be internetless for about three weeks. I just hope that there’s some friendly neighbourhood wifi in the area I can ‘borrow’ for a while.

The cover is extremely well made and feels fantastic. There’s not a single imperfection in the stitching and the fit is perfect on my large, lined Moleskine notebook that I use for taking notes in meetings. The leather is soft, but feels like it will last a very long time. The design is well thought out, particularly with regard to the elastic band slit at the back and the expandable pocket, things that other covers struggle to deal with.

All in all, I’m rapt with the cover and would not hesitate to recommend it to others. I just wish I had a use for more of their products!

Here’s another review of the cover. Incidentally, as they are all stamped with a number near the Gfeller logo, you may like to know that mine is number 203.

I also got a Wii, which has accounted for most of the holiday break, but more on that later…