I purchased a case of Swings & Roundabouts chardonnay, for the price, this chards is drinking well now. The current style is less oak, more fruit and a lighter finish – I think they pull it off. For about $18 a bottle, this Margaret River offering is pretty competitively priced.

The crisp lightly oak style has taken hold for a number of years now, a positive maybe is that it could cut into unwooded chardonnay market; the domain of the professional woman grabbing a bottle on the way home from work to drink over dinner. What it isn’t is a big kick arse chardy with big oak flavours ready to lay down for a decade to increase complexity with layer upon layer of fruit, wood and developing in the malolactic process. Just enjoy this easy drinking style now for what it is.

In Australia, we view the American love of firearms with much trepidation. We understand that the constitution of the United States of America specifically states the needs of the age required an armed militia. I would not as an Australian attempt to lecture Americans on gun laws, I do ask the simple question, why are such powerful weapons found on the streets these days?

The rifle of the age was a single shot musket; people just didn’t walk into public areas and start shooting up. If the authors of the constitution foresaw such events, surely they would acted differently to protect the people from needless violence. The second amendment to the American constitution was adapted in 1791 and influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. The second amendment reads A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. 

The last time I checked, the US no longer requires a militia; instead a professional military complete with aircraft carriers, ballistic missile submarines, F-22 fighter jets, B-52 bombers and armed drones among other hardware – what would a handful of people running around with rifles do really? Modern warfare is about weapons, high tech weapons that are operated remotely such as drones, missiles and jets that require major support.

The United States constitution was written after the War of Independence of 1775 to 1783 when the United States did not have such a mighty military for self defense; in such a case, a militia was justified. If you want to overthrow the government, why not head off to the polling booth? The constitution may be amended if the will of the people is strong enough. I am glad the Port Arthur massacre allowed a strong government fed up with Hoddle Street, Surry Hills, Strathfield and Queen Street mass shootings to act decisively removing unnecessary firearms from the community in Australia.  

PADI has expelled considerable time and effort to design functional dive courses based on contemporary learning theories, their learning materials are linked to course objectives and are naturally of a high quality. As an instructor, you don’t need to qualify to become an instructional designer; you just need to qualify to become an instructor in the world of PADI. This will not allow you to teach at college, it won’t even allow you to teach scuba programs from other scuba certification agencies. 

At the end of your seven day instructor course, you must attend a two day instructor evaluation run by PADI and you are off and running, your career as a recreational dive instructor just hit hyper-drive. Armed with slightly below a rudimentary level of teaching knowledge, you are now slightly more knowledgeable than a layman and able to earn a living as a dive instructor.

Naturally the hours are long and the pay is low, but hey, you can’t complain, in seven days you went from a novice diver to a certified and qualified professional. Try doing that with a law, engineering or medical degree. But in all fairness, most instructors already have a profession such as a marine biologist, retail assistant, boat skipper or trade. What you are purchasing from PADI is a lifestyle change and the former occupations of dive instructors are pretty diverse.

I do feel for the young guys straight out of school who have no other background to fall back on when they burnout – you certainly do burnout. Stuff up and injure or kill someone, you will be deemed and held accountable just as any other professional, don’t expect PADI to come running to your rescue, they will throw you under a bus at first opportunity.

As a PADI instructor for 15 years, I may not teach dive courses anymore as time constraints required to undertake further study now are just too great. Just finding the time to go and dive is difficult enough. Committing to teaching people to dive is unfortunately unattainable for the next couple of years at least. I went from a part-time instructor to a full-time instructor right back to a part-time instructor again.

During my time as a full-time instructor, I was a dive centre manager, tour guide and retail salesperson. Actually, I wasn’t a full-time instructor for all that long, six months actually. After I resigned my full time dive centre manager position, I went on holiday for half a year before going and working for a rival full-time for six months before heading back overseas again for another six months. I then returned and started my own dive business that was ironically part-time too.

A picture recently snapped by medical student Joyce Torrefranca and posted to her Facebook account was inspired by 9 year old homeless boy Daniel Cabrera doing his homework by the light of a McDonalds fast food outlet in Cebu city, Philippines.

Daniel is not letting his lack of opportunity hold him back; wanting to become a policeman, he diligently does his schoolwork while his mother works at a restaurant across the road at night. Joyce told Philippine news network ABS-CBN “This kid, he doesn’t have anything but he has dedication to study” apart from his makeshift wooden bench and the light shining through the window from McDonalds. This snap has gone viral, Daniel had lost his father in a fire that destroyed his home, his sibling is sick yet this young boy isn’t letting his situation beat him – his determination is truly inspirational.

The dreaded performance review is usually an ineffective method of motivation in the hands of an inept manager. Ineffective managers who fail to provide leadership in the workplace generally attempt retrospective actions in a performance review instead of undertaking regular and ongoing coaching.

If the manager feels the employee is exhibiting poor attitudes or behaviour, this once a year meeting to fix these alleged behaviours will pretty much waste of an hour of work time. The ineffective manager focuses on negative behaviours and the most recent efforts instead of building on positive actions whilst also providing constructive feedback on negative issues.

A lack of a regular performance review is just lazy, many employees are unfazed by a lack of performance management as the manager has already proved themselves to be a manager in title only; lacking the respect of the individual employee and team in general. The manager in such situations is usually unprepared, having not put the effort into preparing for the performance management meeting. I have attended meetings after been given just 10 minutes notice. We all know this 10 minutes is preparation time for the manager to quickly review my performance prior to the meeting – that’s a joke.

I have even had a manager put the wrong name on my performance review, did he perform a simple copy and paste from other people’s reviews or was he unsure who was sitting in front of him? The purpose of a performance review is for the manager to ensure the job is performed well, to improve their productivity by removing obstacles to productivity and streamlining task functions – it’s that simple.

It’s great having a dog, they become part of the family complete with their quirks, moods and abundant personalities. Treated right, they are a loyal friend and companion but I feel dogs have only one downside – their lifespans are way too short. In short – dogs get old and die.

We still argue when I brought my 5 week old blue heeler kelpie cross home; I believe it was 1994, members of my family argue it was 1995, I also cross reference against my then girlfriend – interestingly, the dog outlasted her and a couple of others by a large margin. We also counted back the approximate of birth, it was the 4th of April, as a reminder, 4/4/94 had an easy ring about it.

She was so small, she was tiny. It could be argued that we picked her up too young, regardless, it didn’t seem detrimental to her development, she was well looked after and lived a long life in dog years, the problem, I live in human years and still miss her. I actually believe being pulled away from her dog family and into the world of humans was a positive experience, we were what she knew – her loyalty was to me.

My problem was I worked away, so my little friend was placed in foster care with my parents while I was out of town. This worked well for all, my father was retired and my mother was a housewife, the dog was surrounded by loving people around the clock, a daily walk in the bush kept all fit and healthy.

Around the age of 11 is when dogs start to develop problems, this is when I started to notice issues in her hips, she had arthritis, she had it bad. Now vets know people will spend freely when their animals develop medical issues, I was no exception and we became frequent visitors. My dog however somewhat disliked the vet and embarrassed me every visit, they remember me well but unfortunately not fondly. Still, I purchased every expensive medicine, injection and remedy they had on offer, I still believe the vet knew my credit card, the expiry date and cvc by heart.

Because her back legs were in such bad shape with no cartilage left, I would carry her everywhere, the sound of bone on bone was heart breaking. Eventually she got used to her lack of mobility and would bark when she wanted to move about, this mean’t one of us came running. When she spotted a cat and a chase was warranted, a 25 kg dog held to my waist racing after that pesky feline ensured the cat had ample opportunity to escape.

Boss Number One by Hugo Boss is a aromatic fougere fragrance for men; launched in 1985 and based on the input of legendary perfumer Pierre Wargnye, this fragrance is very much a product of that era – bold and unashamedly macho. Exuding confidence according to the advertising, this masculine scent is my formal cologne – this is not my daily aftershave.

According to the description, the fragrance base notes are artemisia, green apple, juniper, basil, grapefruit, caraway, bergamot and lemon; middle notes are honey, lavender, orris root, jasmine, sage, lily-of-the-valley, rose and geranium; base notes are sandalwood, amber, patchouli, cinnamon, musk, oakmoss, cedar and tobacco.

Phew, that is some pretty serious fragrance complexity, what I do know is I liked the cologne the first time I sampled this eau de toilet and had to immediately purchase a bottle, that was in 1999 traveling over the border from Greece to Turkey. I still have the original bottle and use it very sparingly as I had been unable to replace it until now.

Formally known as Boss, I have been searching for this cologne for some time now in large department and duty free stores with none of the staff knowing anything about this cologne. This is pretty concerning as staff product knowledge is severely limited, it ruins your credibility when a customer asks a specific question and the whole team is clueless. That was until I walked into a Hugo Boss branded store in Makati in the Philippines and they knew exactly what I was asking for – now I know how to get my hands on this legendary fragrance.

A stunning example of a great Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon is Bowen Estate, I was first introduced to Bowen Estate at the Perth Wine and Food Show a number of years back. Since then, I have sought out their full bodied wines whenever I am out at bottle-shops, bars and restaurants.

I grabbed a bottle on the way through at the local bottle shop to drink with my father on Friday night to watch the football. This full-bodied wine displays intense fruit flavours with a strong blackberry bouquet and strong cedar overtones typical of the region; the fine tannins allow for an elegant structure that will undoubtedly increase with cellaring.

We used to run five-day entry level diver courses; in my view, everyone was a winner. The instructor was not under the pump for the duration of the course; furthermore, the instructor had guaranteed employment for the week. The dive students were not rushed adding to their personal stress, the students had a week’s worth of exposure to the dive facility with retail opportunities frequently presenting and everybody winning. Everyone got to know each other and relationships and friendships were forged.

The instructor was happy, the divers were happy and the store owner was happy; so what happened? The dive certification agencies pursued the shortened entry dive level courses recruiting a major dive centre in every strategic area, once your competition was offering shortened courses, you eventually were forced to follow. In all fairness, the certification agencies are in competition with each other, one agency forces change and if the other agencies do not counter their move, they too risk being rendered obsolete.

So who is the winner here? The student receives a faster condensed course, is that better? My opinion is no, the longer exposure to skills and more importantly, in-water practice is lost leading to only the bare minimum standard being attained. I would argue a new diver needs time to learn and embed new skills, the time spend in confined water is important.

One of my favourite fine dining establishments in the Makati business district is Chateau 1771, this French inspired restaurant is the leading dining experience in the Greenbelt entertainment precinct.

From the classical guitarist playing solo in the corner, their extensive wine list and their attentive waiters – this dining experience is one to be savoured. The upcoming Bastille Day celebrations saw Emilly and myself seated within sight of their guitarist listening to his well crafted notes. We ordered their Bastille Day special that was fairly priced beginning with a bottle of medium bodied red wine.

The three courses began with stewed lamb shoulder with red wine and rosemary. This was followed by hotplate fish with tomato and melted cheese, slow cooked five-hour duck confit that had been marinated for three days prior. A carrot, pecan and raisin salad and finally a shared lemon meringue torte.

We arrived late, 9:30 pm is early for Mediterranean dining tastes but is fairly late for the Saturday night Makati crowd, this was no trouble even as we went well past their 11 pm closing time. At no time were we made to feel rushed or pressured to get a move on. A café with our desert – no worries. A double espresso to finish the night off, an excellent finish to a wonderful Saturday evening.