buckle-up

There really is something to be said about big boys and their big toys. While spending time with my brother Greg I have become acquainted with his friend, Glenn, who has a real ripper of a collection of HSV’s finest models. He seems to favor red cars and there’s nothing wrong with that in my books. This week, I was able to get behind the wheel of a HSV interpretation of the Holden Monaro. Sold in the U.S. for only a short time as the Pontiac GTO, this Aussie-only HSV interpretation is the real deal and it is a shame these HSV updates never made it to the other side of the Pacific.  Glenn took Margo and me for a drive around some of the backroads of leafy areas of Sydney’s North Shore and much to my surprise, after a short while, offered me the keys. I jumped at the opportunity and pointing the GTO back towards Sydney’s famous Comenarra Parkway that is a favorite drive for the locals. Back in the early 1970s this was my favorite parkway, or should I more accurately say, r...

After spending weeks ashore with family, friends and business associates we have been all at sea. Business hasn’t stopped, but it’s been a lot easier with so much fresh input to work with – Sydney provides such a rich backdrop to any conversation about technology and Margo and I have taken full advantage of every opportunity that has presented itself for us to see different sides of a very much changed city of Sydney. It has been five years since we walked the streets of Sydney’s Central Business District (CBD) and it’s hard to compare what were once familiar landmarks with the soaring skyscrapers that have essentially popped up everywhere we turn.  Talk to Sydneysiders and it’s clear that it generates mixed reactions; cities are never finished, just ask your average Parisian. Then again, cities can leverage any natural beauty that they have inherited to present a fresh and sometimes even rejuvenated appearance. Sydney still has its Opera House and its Harbor Bridge, but as...

In my previous post to this blog I talked openly of how it was our intention to absolutely immerse ourselves in everything Sydney had to offer; we hit the ground running and we haven’t stopped. While the pace has slowed considerably over the past couple of weeks, there has been no letup in the number of social outings. We have met with good friends and former colleagues even as have spent time “talking shop” with a number of them. The day job as it were is never out of mind and the mere fact of being in Sydney is giving me a lot of material with which to work in the coming months. Have I mentioned how much I really like Sydney? Have I also mentioned that after just three weeks away from Colorado, we miss our home in Windsor? It was in my previous post that I observed just how crowded Sydney has become and how there are people everywhere you turn. Or that the city of Sydney is rapidly morphing from a village of single level dwellings to massive high-rise condos (alright, ho...

Stepping off the plane Thursday it all came rushing back. We had just arrived in Sydney and after the long flight across the Pacific all we wanted to do was grab a big Aussie breakfast. Right from the very get-go, we wanted to absolutely immerse ourselves in everything Sydney had to offer and we hit the ground running and we haven’t stopped. All right, we have had a couple of laid back afternoons but for the most part, I can honestly say I haven’t walked this much in years. Sydney does this to you as it draws you away from wherever you have landed to see the sights and to soak up the atmosphere. It’s one of the few places on earth where the weather is absolutely perfect and even as our first few days saw cloudy skies overhead, it was still a great time to be out and about! Five long years had passed since our last trip to Australia and the mere thought of this we both found quite shocking. It had never been our intention to delay our return by this amount of time but now that we a...

I love Texas, no doubt about it. Each time we pull out of the garage to head to Texas it’s always the start of something special. I first re-located to Dallas Texas in 1977 and spent nearly three months living out of a condo, right beside Love airfield, somewhere in and around the triangle bordered by Mockingbird Lane, Lemmon Avenue and Inwood Road, which has changed a lot with the passage of time. Just watching the private jets fly into Love Airfield each Saturday morning, one after the other after the other, was more than enough incentive for me to get up and go back to work, come each Monday. So, no surprise here, our first trip of October involved a run down to Dallas for client meetings. Whether it’s the many lakes that dot the landscape or simply the wide open spaces that are apparent everywhere you turn; everything happens within the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex and whether your tastes see you heading to Ft Worth’s stockyards or to Arlington for a Texas Rangers baseball game o...