planeray

Sitting in another subject lecture right now... Rather suspect I'm the ONLY domestic student here. 

All good - I'm pretty used to pushing offshore teams to deliver from my work, and if not, I'm not about to be nice about it. 😈

Went to a postgrad welcome at uni last night from my faculty, which was still a bit of an experience. While there was a slightly older group, plenty of them were early to mid 20s.

I was very much in the minority as a domestic student too - they asked for hands up from internationals and without exaggerating, it was 95% of the audience. However, the networking canapes afterwards were surprisingly friendly. I could barely turn a direction without someone smiling and introducing themselves, so we soon had a nice circle of people chatting and getting to know each other, which bodes well for the semester.

Oh, and I've decided to start a counter based on my age and apparent confidence in talking crap to new people:

Number of times mistaken for faculty = 1

Edit - legit stat from one of my courses - Number of domestic students = 9, or 3% of the cohort for that subject!

Make Isengard Great Again!

Correct - mostly because everyone has different needs. For example, you might be a couple focused on cruising, so only need a couple of basic ones. On the other hand, you might do a bit of racing, so you'll need some more choices, particularly for downwind sails. Right at the other end of it, this same boat I was looking at has literally won the Sydney-Hobart in its division, so someone buying it for that is going to need a very extensive wardrobe of sails indeed.

Busy day today!

Did the boatshow with Dad. Last year, he was so ill with heart conditions, it was a real struggle. Night & day by comparison to today - we walked about 4kms all up, both of us had a good whinge at our various marine electronic suppliers and I played "hmmm, yes, maybe I will by this beautiful new boat" (At $380k before sails or electronics, it would have to become my home!).

Got an email during it from a recruiter asking if I was free for a chat this afternoon. Role is a brilliant fit for me, pays more than my last job off the bat (after 24 years of service!) as well as a kickarse title if I do go looking for jobs in the future. Catch is, it's about an hours drive each way (I'm not situated well for public transport out there). 3 days in the office, so that cuts down some of it, but everything else I've been looking at is in the CBD, so 20mins away by public transport. Initial chat went well, he's gonna take it to the CIO and then it'd be a 2 stage interview process. I'll go with the flow and worry if I ever get to the offer stage I guess.

Then tonight, I'm off to yet another uni orientation session, this time just aimed at post grads. Hoping to see some more grey hair about rather than all the kiddos I've seen on campus so far!

Just started watching the Marvelous Mrs Maisel on SBS catchup. Seriously good TV.

For pure trash, Below Deck can't be beat!

Ah cool - I'm doing a Grad Cert in IT Studies, what are you doing?

I know, it's wild how much focus some of these kids have on uni. Maybe because of the nature of the IT industry, I've never really prioritised study over experience (and if I was hiring, still wouldn't). Why on earth you'd go back to uni without any industry grounding after your undergrad, I don't know. The other thing I find odd is the search for internships etc...like mate, you're gonna do the work for free?

Oh, and when I reveal that my big break was working on Y2k stuff, only to find out they weren't born yet.

Haha...well, it's really hard to say at this point, but yeh, I'm guessing it'll be very different.

I'm in an even weirder group - I've never been to uni, but i'm jumping straight in as a Post Grad. So on the one hand, I'm just as unsure about everything uni related, while on the other, I've worked in the industry for 24 years, so I have a lot of experience. I'm also married with a kid in primary school and looking for a job to replace the one I was made redundant from, so my life outside of uni is vastly different.

To be perfectly honest, I felt a little jealous listening/watching to the "youngins". A loooot of exchange and internationals about in these first couple of days, which I would've loved to do, but that whole experience is closed off to me now. They got so excited watching the welcome to country dance and I didn't really get why they were recording it at first, till it hit me - they've been in town for a day or two and here they are at uni, getting a traditional dance from another culture - it's a great tourist thing for them!

My problem will be walking the line on keeping my trap shut. I'm a pretty outgoing person and I'm not afraid to speak up...but I don't want to turn into that mature age student saying "Well, ackchyually..." in class all the time.

Been doing orientation at Uni this week. Man is it weird for me.

I'm very old, compared to everyone else - granted, I haven't yet had a proper "postgrad only" event, so I'm mixed in with all the undergrads, but I think the next oldest person I've found is still about 10 years younger than me.

Some of the coursework has started dribbling through though, and I'm pretty happy with the level of it. There's a mix of "well yeh, of course I know that" and "huh, so that's what that's related to". Looks like it'll help tie together all my islands of knowledge, so that's ace.

Got another call for an interview next Tues while I was on a tour as well. Only a 2 year FTC, but I'll worry about that after I have a chat to them. It's for a quasi govt agency which I'm interested in, so it could be a doorway into something else anyways.

Oh, and boat show tomorrow!

Tape a spare one to the inside of the engine cowling for next time.

Awww yis! Glad to hear you're through it mate!

Well, the hard line is 35kts - by definition, that's gale force winds.

But before that, it's a bit more iffy. We take into account warnings from the bureau (today was a strong wind warning for enclosed waters) and what is like in the actual waters we sail in (it's a bit more protected in the western harbour where most of our races are).

In the end though, it's up to each skipper to make a safety assessment on their own - which comes down to not only your boat design, but also your crews' experience levels.

No one remember Misty Hymen?

Yeh, that got cancelled. 

Gonna spend the day making blips and blood on my synths at home instead.

In theory...sailing today. Think I might put on my best brown pants.

Just waiting to hear if it's called off or not. Irritatingly, I'm in the top 3 at the moment with just this race and another to go, so I can't afford any "did not competes". If it's cancelled, it'll make the last race a real shitfight for scoring, depending on who comes in where.

Suspect if we do sail today, we'll be reefed and with no spinnaker.

Ok, I've had both a Quatix 5 & now a Fenix 7 pro solar sapphire.

The only real differences (other than preloads of software) are that there's a dedicated MOB button on the Quatix, and, as you say, connection possible to Garmin plotters.

However, really have to point this out bigtime, it's only Garmin Plotters & autopilots, and even then, only some of them. Not a huge issue for me, as I have a B&G system.

When it comes to the software, you can 100% load all the same software and it works just as good (or bad) as normal. My particular ire comes in for the Garmin Sail Race app, which has been programmed by someone who's never sailed before (eg, burn time only calculated while you're moving toward the start line (no use if you're beating up and down to try and actually burn time) and to set the start line, you have to port tack the fleet). 1000% use the RaceQs app - works great and uploads to the website easily.

So unless you have a full Garmin setup onboard, go the Fenix, which will be hundreds of dollars cheaper for the same models.

Yeh - there's a guy in there in particular, Boris Mihailovic, who's been a writer for Australian motorcycling magazines for donkeys years. Think Clarkson with more tats and a fouler mouth. Needless to say, he's somewhat displeased!