buckle-up

Back in Colorado for just two weeks, it’s proving hard to comprehend that we just spent three months down under. Australia holds a special place in both of our hearts, but this time, Margo and I found it tough handling Colorado’s wintery welcome after so much time under the blazing Aussie sun! As we flew out of Denver, all those months ago, the view from our plane was sunny and quite breathtaking despite what we knew were the conditions on the ground: Bring on the sunshine and warmth! Then again, this trip to sunny down under was always going to be about optimizing our time and, faced with the potential of having to make three separate trips to Australia, it was enough reason to combine potentially many flights into a single trip. As for timing, knowing full well that we would be away over the Thanksgiving Weekend, Christmas and then New Year’s Eve, it only seemed fair to squeeze in time with my family while focused on business, for the most part. However, to respond to numero...

For anyone who has ever followed auto sports anywhere on the planet there is only one “The Great Race.” History will always hold a special place on the timeline of momentous occasions in car racing for that track outside Bathurst, New South Wales, known as Mount Panorama. From my earliest childhood recollections, the annual event at what was simple called The Mountain was a topic of discussion between my father and his friends. We purchased our first black and white television in 1960 and almost from the time it arrived, that long-weekend Sunday in October was always a time to watch The Great Race. Fast forward to December, 2018, and here I am trackside. In a promotional video , voiced by Russell Crowe, that describes the track as a curiosity and the atmosphere and the tribal nature of those following the race teams, Crowe declares “you’re either red or blue; there is no beige on the mountain!” For many decades this auto race, the Bathurst 1,000 – a reference to the 1,000 kilomet...

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...