Bicycle riders are gaining a poor reputation in Perth, a cyclist after riding through a red traffic light struck a pedestrian causing her significant injuries including traumatic head damage. She had to learn to talk, walk and eat again; this was a life threatening injury that will change her life. He just walked away, not a care in the world – he didn’t care.

The incident once again sparked public debate over licencing and registration of cyclists using both roads and dual use pathways. I think it is fair that cyclists carry mandatory insurance so that pedestrians who are injured are not left financially crippled, motor vehicles are required to carry mandatory insurance so why not bicycles? Cyclists struck by motor vehicles are covered by the mandatory third party insurance carried by that vehicle.

I am a runner, well more of a jogger these days and like to run on dual purpose pathways that do not have dedicated bike lanes. We have these cyclists roaring past runners doing around 40 kph. I have had two just brush me and the potential for serious injury is very real. Vehicle drivers now have to keep a metre between the vehicle and the cyclist, why shouldn’t riders keep a metre distance from pedestrians?

I really like the oldies out on their bikes getting exercise, they are courteous, ride at an acceptable speed and always ring their bells when overtaking. When I hear their bell ring, I always move over and acknowledge their signal with a wave as I want to be as courteous to them as they are to me. Now the Department of Transport is erecting speed signs, speed humps and other signage on dual use paths to prevent cyclists from gaining the same reputation as cyclists on the roads.

This doesn’t happen every morning, but I do try to perform this ritual at least twice a week, once on my day working from home and on the weekend. At 49 years of age, I still get up and undertake a 5 km run twice a week. These days I run to my heart rate monitor as the purpose is to increase my cardio-vascular activity to ensure my heart and lungs remain a degree of fitness.

The speed isn’t fast nor are the times quick, once what took me about 20 minutes now takes about 40 minutes but I am happy to get through a session. I read that people over 40 shouldn’t be running anymore, they should engage in less impact intensive activities but I like a run in the morning. My left knee hurts, I have hamstrings issues resulting from the knee and associated strain. My right kidney hurts along with my right ankle, probably my feet are feeling the stress too as I’m not 75 kg anymore but closer to 100 kg.

I normally cool down by watering the front lawn and garden by hand before upping the intensity again for a short free weights session. At this stage I wouldn’t change my running habits, I live close to Lake Monger and really enjoy the circuit around the lake, the views are fantastic, the wild life interesting and I use the time to think. I can nearly author a blog post in a single run and need to quickly shower up after the free weights to hit the keyboard whilst the sentence is still coherent in my head. Yep, I wouldn’t give up my running sessions however slow and lacking rhythm anytime soon.

I transit through Changi Airport a number of times a year just like many others; this excellent airport hub has plenty to offer weary travelers. But owing to the number of times I traverse through Changi; I prefer to get out of the airport if I have any more than six hours to blow. I have wandered through the terminal enough times to be bored with spending more than a couple of hours there. I have no interest in pulling up a bar stool at the airport for the sole purpose of getting on the booze and I have looked through most of the duty free stores in the terminal.

Terminals one, two and three are connected in a horseshoe arrangement with light driverless rail connecting all terminals at multiple locations. Actually, the underground MRT is driverless as well. From Terminal two, the East/West line will take you into the city connecting with other lines to get you pretty much where ever you want in Singapore. This is achieved at a very good cost in very quick time. The MRT station also directly connects to Terminal one and three as well via light rail; it’s a very good and efficient service.

I’m finding I’m getting to the Bayside MRT at the Marina Bay Sands for just $2.40 SGD; likewise, a connection to Clarke Quay, Chinatown or Boat Quay is just a couple of interchanges. There are some absolutely decent curries available at Little India for such a tiny outlay. Once, I thought they had undercharged me and I had to get them to recheck the bill – the bill was correct. The Chinese hawkers stalls just off Bencoolen Street offer pretty good food options as well at a very reasonable outlay although getting a seat is sometimes tricky.

On one trip I decided to duck over to Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen in the Marina Bay Sands for dinner in the upstairs section with an amazing view overlooking Marina Bay. Sure, you pay for the view but as a one off, you don’t mind too much. I don’t mind saving money on the transport to spend on food and drink, that’s more than a fair compromise. On this occasion I didn’t mind drinking a glass of full bodied red with my meal.

Ironically, I have plenty of credits from missed connections due to Singapore Airlines running behind schedule, these days I just request to be given a pass to the SilverKris Lounge. Clearly this isn’t local Singapore knowledge, I have been informed the East Coast restaurants are outstanding but I have never had the time to explore between flights, but with a few hours to blow on a late night flight can relieve the boredom.

As a luxury goods manufacturer, Omega is a strong international brand with a strong product and heritage. Omega has undertaken Olympic timing duties since 1932, the collaboration with NASA and the Speedmaster, the nautical heritage with the Seamaster, the luxury of the DeVille and Constellation ranges.

From what I have had explained to me by staff at authorised distributors, Omega is seeking to rationalise their distribution outlets and make their product more exclusive. A luxury goods manufacturer is not happy when retailers discount their product, that’s understandable as they expend huge resources marketing their products to carefully cultivate their reputation and heritage.

From what I understand, Omega has been brutal realigning retail distribution chains with some authorised distributors under pressure and losing their distribution rights. The Omega boutique is becoming very exclusive with what appears to be the new Omega boutiques owned by the Swatch Group, the holding company of Omega and older boutiques remaining under the control of existing distributors – for the time being at least.

Do cash poor millionaires exist? Maybe the terminology is a little subjective as vast differences exist between millionaires and high net worth individuals. I prefer the term high net worth individual as a millionaire is certainly a different proposition, homeowners with near million dollar debts are not as wealthy as many would think.

With real estate prices currently driving the nation along in terms of wealth, is this wealth really driving growth and jobs. The major east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have median house prices exceeding a million dollars more households are now entering million dollar status. This is net wealth, most households are highly leveraged carrying significant debt, gross assets are great but also carry significant risk especially with historically low interest rates eventually to rise.

Whilst a number of measurements exist, the definition of the high net worth individual generally denotes individuals with liquid assets exceeding one million United States dollars not including their primary residence. When families hold 10% – 30% equity in their house, that is plenty of debt to carry so while people might want to use the term millionaire, they are certainly not high net worth individuals or families.

Households are feeling mortgage stress with low wages growth, rising utilities, school fees, healthcare, groceries and probable soon to be rising interest rates. The reasons the Reserve Bank of Australia set interest rates is due to economic activity, lower rates are designed to stimulate economic activity whilst rising interest rates limit inflationary forces leading to severe downturns and recessions. We are a long way from that, but since these loans are long-term families are expected to feel greater stress throughout the full economic cycle.

So the general MBA return on investment revolves around determining starting salary, calculating the full tuition costs, determine opportunity costs and finally determine the increase in salary post MBA. After determining the increase in salary, calculate the time it takes to repay the investment in costs and you have your ROI. A part-time MBA negates the effects of opportunity cost if you keep full employment the whole way through the tuition period so I have an advantage there.

If I take an alternate strategy for determining MBA return on investment, I calculate the funds directly invested in my education, give the education a miss and instead invest the funds in equities or bonds. My choice would be Wesfarmers (WES); whilst the price is a little higher than I hoped, I am working on saving the sum for the period of my education and investing the sum at the completion of the course.

The $20,000 I have allocated is invested at an average price of $41.00 giving me 488 shares in WES. This will allow me to track both capital appreciation and dividends paid over the next 12 years to determine my return on investment or at the very least estimate the capital appreciation (or loss) and dividends received.

Whilst it is too late now in many respects as I have already invested the funds in education, I will take a five year and ten year view to see if I would have been better off just investing the funds and keep plodding on in my current employment. I know staying in my current employment is a losing proposition, there must be opportunities for advancement for any real ROI.

What I love about blogging is I have the ability to develop short stories based on real life experiences and share these stories on an electronic platform that can be read in any country in the world. Naturally I view the world from an Australian perspective, you could also add white male nearly fifty years of age with political views slightly right of centre but more socialist ideals than your average wannabe capitalist.

I loved to read novels, yet since I began studying again, I have lost the time to read anything other than a technical report of reference book – I hope to rectify that in the future. I love literature, yet I had to give that up to read reference books and write essays for what felt like an eternity. That’s all over now and I can go back to reading for fun – yay. But what I also like to do is write short stories, I would love to expand this in the future.

I have a number of friends and colleagues who have published novels through small independent publishers and I am interested to expand my writing. I can say I’m enjoying researching and writing a blog and really enjoy the research to expand my personal views and naturally to ensure everything is as accurate as possible. I carry my tablet around with me and write when I can; I jog around my local lake and think out a whole post then have to quickly write up the post before I forget it.

Likewise, when I am diving, I have a whole post written in my mind, I should really carry a slate and a pencil with me to jot down my ideas. I have a list of potential topics in my tablet and mobile phone, whenever I get an idea I quickly jot it down so it isn’t forgotten. Then I just need the time to write a post, this is done on both my tablet and notebook computer and I love to write in coffee shops and public places.

Once again, people who support themselves not only throughout their working life but into retirement are disadvantaged. The emphasis of the current federal government policy is to erode all the incentives to save for their own retirement instead providing disincentives to save – madness.

The people we elect to represent us in the federal parliament have no such issues, their generous parliamentary retirement plans are paid for by the poor saps who vote for them. Even with the new parliamentary standards for newly elected parliamentarians, their benefits are generous by general community standards.

Individuals who either establish a self managed super fund (SMSF), contribute to their industry or retail fund lose when they lose access the publicly funded pension because they hold assets. It’s fine to sacrifice during your working life to lead a rewarding early retirement, you still pay tax on your income derived from self funded pension – albeit at a reduced rate.

Reducing your consumption during the accumulation phase is fine insofar as long as you are willing to sacrifice during your working life, but individuals need to understand you are likely to disadvantage yourself during retirement, especially if you intend to delay retirement. The real purpose of a SMSF is to retire when they hit their preserved retirement age, for most of us born after 1963 is going to be 60 years of age.

The federal government not only saves money every fortnight by paying a pension, healthcare discounts are not available to self-funded retirees with pensioners gaining discounts from government utilities to transport and pharmaceuticals. Many believe they should purchase larger houses, luxury cars, take overseas holidays, boats, jet ski, 4WDs, big TVs or motorbikes to live their lives when they are young and carefree.

The best strategy is to retire at age 60 immediately accessing your SMSF and enjoying life for the next 10 years whilst you are fit enough to travel, gain life experiences whilst possessing the mobility to do so. Currently the retirement age that allows an individual access the public pension is 67; however, by the time my age group is getting close to retirement age it is expected to be raised to age 70.

The average life expectancy in Australia is 82; so an average 70 year retiring has 12 years of retirement so their the average. The average superannuation balance at retirement is $322,000 for men and $180,000 for women; so one expects to pull down $26,830 per year for men and $15,000 for women or a combined $41,830 for a couple – that’s actually fairly reasonable.

What is it with these stupid fucking waves on Facebook? As I drag my curser down on my laptop computer or run my finger down my phone, I have already sent a number of waves to friends and it must annoy the hell out of them, it certainly annoys me when I accidentally send a wave.

Firstly, who comes up with this rubbish? Then secondly, the question is, how do I turn it off? I have tried and so far failed, there must be a way. There are stories of these waves sent to ex-partners, managers and people not even known which may actually be better. Now that Mark Zuckerburg has fronted a Congressional hearing, I thought Facebook management would be less inclined to introduce such annoying features whilst trying to remain relevant. Naturally, I respect Mark Zuckerburg and Priscilla Chan for their pledge to donate their fortune to charities but since Mark Zuckerburg stated he is very hands-on at the business, he is the face of the company so we hold him responsible.

When Sting released The Dream of the Blue Turtles back in 1985 I didn’t race out and immediately purchase the album; well, I didn’t need to as a number of singles got plenty of air time on the radio.

The album reached number one in Australia so we never really needed to race out and purchase the album, a friend had this in his collection so we listened to his. It wasn’t until twelve years after the album’s release that I really became interested in The Dream of the Blue Turtles. I was working in Turkey in a dive shop in the Mediterranean village of Kaş and we had a cassette in the vehicle.

At the end of each day we would collect all the used scuba cylinders and take them up to the compressor for filling. Needless to say, we listened to that cassette over and over on a daily basis – we never got sick of it. Even if we swapped cassettes during filling, The Dream of the Blue Turtles would end up in the player again. It wasn’t until my return to Australia that I finally purchased my own CD of this album for my collection.

My favourite song on the album is Russians, the nuclear disarmament melody. I really identify with Children’s Crusade and the young lives lost in World War I and We work the Black Seam, the plight of underground miners and the UK coal miner’s strike in the UK. Even after all this time The Dream of the Blue Turtles is still one of my favourite albums.

1. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
2. Love is the Seventh Wave
3. Russians
4. Children’s Crusade
5. Shadows in the Rain
6. We Work the Black Seam
7. Consider Me Gone
8. The Dream of the Blue Turtles
9. Moon Over Bourbon Street
10. Fortress Around Your Heart