So I was wandering around the shopping centre and I always stop outside Mazzucchelli’s Jewellers and have a look at what they have on display. This is one of their smaller stores and doesn’t have a full range, this is my local shopping centre though where I do my grocery shopping so I always stop and peer through the glass.

I was looking for a Bauhaus design dress watch, one that slips under a long sleeve easily, a minimalist dial that is relatively slim. I was inspired by the Junghans Max Bill but they are next to impossible to purchase in Australia and this was the time of no international travel brought about by Covid-19. I wanted a leather strap and I knew I wouldn’t wear it often so I didn’t want a high priced piece. I like the Longines dress watch range, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual has an oyster bracelet, Nomos Glashütte or Jaeger LeCoultre are what I would choose given a decent budget but this is not really possible.

So, the Tissot Everytime Swissmatic would become a possibility, the bauhaus minimalist dial appealed to me so I wandered in the store. I did not have my reading glasses with me so when the saleswoman turned it over, I couldn’t really see the movement. I could see through the sapphire case back that the rotor was pretty much unfinished, I could see the bridge was black but that was about it. So when I returned home and began researching I found out the Swissmatic movement is somewhat of an unusual engineering feat.

This is a low priced automatic watch by an entry-level Swiss watchmaker so I was expecting a high-end piece. I did enquire if this was a Powermatic 80 movement and she was unable to answer my question, this wasn’t a concern as the Everytime has a RRP of $650 AUD and I was able to purchase for $553, a decent enough discount. The crown feels a little light-duty, mine doesn’t sit square and is worse when setting the time, even during hand-winding, the crown is misaligned on the stem.

The T1094071603100 from the T-Classic range is a 40 mm 316 stainless steel case with 30 metres of water resistance with an 11.6 mm thickness. The light silver dial has index markers with no numerals and a date window at the 3 o’clock position. Whilst this is a little large for a dress watch, it fits under my shirt sleeve. I do like the bauhaus design, the simple yet elegant dial design and long horns on the case fit my 8″ wrist well, it would be too large for a 6″ wrist, maybe even a 7″ wrist. .

The black leather strap is cow leather with a standard clasp, whilst more upmarket versions have the butterfly clasp, this entry-level timepiece has the standard pin/buckle clasp. That will do for the time being, my wrist is a little large and I have the clasp set at the second hole from the end, this isn’t really ideal. The Swissmatic is a throw away automatic movement, the whole movement is built by robotics and cannot be disassembled as the plates are soldered together. The black bridges I could see were actually plastic – amazing.

The movement has a 72 hour power reserve; that, I find amazing. The movement is built using not only an automated process, the movement was redesigned to just 51 parts that have been available in the Sistem51 manufactured by Swatch. No movement servicing required, that is actually very wasteful and doesn’t really align to contemporary sustainability values. The watchmaker just replaces the entire movement at service time so I am not even sure if the watch is worth servicing – time will tell. 

I was in Las Vegas and happened to wander in the Coca Cola shop on Las Vegas Boulevard, it is not a normal shop I would enter but I am glad I did. Looking around the store, I noticed clothes manufactured (in part) from recycled plastic bottles and this really took my interest.

I explained to the staff member on hand while snapping the photograph of the clothes for sale that I have a friend researching and writing a thesis on plastics in the ocean, I am pretty sure a corporate initiative like this would grab her attention. I have an upcoming university unit on Business ethics, globalisation and sustainability with this surely fitting into the sphere of corporate social responsibility.

Some research on the Coca Cola website found in 2007 they began producing the Drink2Wear fashion apparel manufactured partly from recycled plastic bottles and cotton. What they didn’t indicate on the website is the extent of the size of the program, what I do know is this a definitely a step in the right direction.

For the life of me, I don’t know why people rave about the iPad and the iPhone – they are horrible devices. I really don’t enjoy the iPad, but, to be fair, I probably don’t use the device to its full potential.

Give me a Samsung Android powered tablet any day, with open source software, you aren’t locked into specific apps. As far as I’m concerned, the battery life of the Apple products is superior but that is their only improved feature. So why do people love iPads? They were first and people got used to their product, I began with Android and I learned that system first. So sure, I am more conversant with Android – certainly. I don’t just follow trends, I do have one but really don’t like it.

I also took to learning the Apple product range, I now have an iPhone as my spare phone and an old iPad mini that was given to me. I do use the iPad and iPhone for travel, as I was given these products in the Philippines, they work well there with a new sim card. The iPhone is not my daily user so I am more proficient with Android products, but that is also by choice.

When I have been travelling around the Philippines, people automatically assume I am an American. I’m white, or Caucasian, in racial terms and I don’t really know how this relates to nationality.

My travels in the Philippines have seen me meet a whole host of American racial sub-groups from Hispanic, Asian and African backgrounds – they are all American. Being an American is a nationality, not every American is white, although to be fair, whites are around 60% of the population. I haven’t bothered to learn Tagalog, but it isn’t difficult to pick up the term Americano when people are chatting in local language. It works for me, why bother explaining to locals that I am from Australia if they don’t ask.

Let’s face it, most people don’t care either way and they clearly can’t pick an American, English, Australian or New Zealand accent. What is ironic for me, the average Filipino has more of an American accent than me – I am not even close. I enjoy my time in the Philippines, so I care little of the perception of nationality whilst I am there. I’m white, that’s pretty obvious What annoys me, I guess, is locals thinking I am paying with US dollars and not Australian dollars, that’s where a disparity exists.

The purchasing power of the Australian dollar is significantly less than the US dollar these days, at time of writing the New Zealand dollar didn’t fare too bad against the Australian dollar at 1.09 but that is still well short of the 0.76 of the purchasing power of the mighty USD. When I am negotiating prices with a currency of around three quarters of the value of American dollars, then this matter is important to me. Most people couldn’t pick the difference between a New Zealand and Australian accent, most in the region could distinguish a English accent either and I would mind paying in British pounds too.

I can’t say I have ever been a fan of Starbucks coffee, so when I saw the Nespresso style coffee were on sale in local Perth supermarkets, I decided to give it a go.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much as I haven’t been a huge fan of the whole Starbucks brand. I gave it a go and I liked it, I even dumped the Nespresso lungo that I normally drink. Their coffee and their outlets are well marketed, but their product lacks so I tend to believe this is where they spend their money. According to the notes, this medium roast is a level 8 with flavours of cocoa and nuts. I ditched my preconceptions of Starbucks and I was pleasantly surprised and this is now my regular lungo. They worked together with Nespresso, I’m guessing this collaboration improved their product and we now have a pretty decent coffee.

A timepiece that has taken my interest is the Hamilton Khaki Mechanical, a rugged field watch mounted on a canvas strap. Living in Perth, I can’t just wander down my local boutique, I searched online but a Melbourne dealer was also unable to supply.

I am specifically searching for both a field watch to add to my collection and a manual wind movement. I get the two features I am seeking from this one timepiece so I am pretty happy. The Khaki Mechanical very much reminds me of the Vietnam War where Hamilton supplied watches for the troops. Hamilton was an American manufacturer before becoming a member of the Swatch Group, one of the largest watch groups internationally. Hamilton has a distinguished reputation hailing back to 1892, they manufactured field watches for the US military from to MIL-W-3818B specification.

So I will continue to search, I don’t purchase second hand so I require an Australian based retailer selling new timepieces online. My best guess is either Sydney or Melbourne but I see they appear hard to source. I am guessing these are grey market dealers so I would prefer to deal directly with the distributor. That being said, whilst I prefer correct channels, I know this position of power has been abused in the past so I hope to enjoy the advantages of competitive forces.

I love reading news from a variety of sources and news from my region is of particular interest to me. I particularly enjoy reading Singapore’s The Straights Times newspaper as it has both a regional South East Asian focus and obviously a high Singaporean content online newsprint.

I find the articles well written and researched, then I read the comments section. What I know about Singaporeans is that they are well educated, actually extremely well educated and reasonably reserved. I have worked with Singaporeans and socialised with them both in Perth, Singapore and overseas. We all know how well Singapore as a nation works – it just works. I have found the people to be both polite, respectful and knowledgeable. Without doubt, Singapore is a safe city where crime is so low it is almost virtually non-existent considered to many international standards.

As a reasonably close city, Perth in terms of distance and as a transport hub, over a period of many years I have traveled to Singapore where I always have an enjoyable time. As an educated society, many Singaporeans live and study in Perth attending university with Murdoch and Curtin being the most popular universities. So when I read the comments sections of The Straights Times I am a little astonished as the vitriol can be pretty strong at times.

Any articles on mainland China are met with derision; the Singaporeans, well, the ones writing in the comments section anyway tend to really look down on the Chinese and this is reflected in the comments. Then you get the articles related to the Philippines, especially related to outspoken President Rodrigo Duterte and their army of paid trolls or those caught up in the nationalistic fervor. As a nation, Singapore has a lot to offer and Singaporeans have plenty to be proud of – I get that.

As a foreigner I could understand the locals would have issues with me commenting on their newspaper – fair enough. I don’t mind being called an ang mo, names don’t upset me although I always believe attack the argument and not the person. What I am asking myself now is this mainstream Singaporeans putting up these arguments. Regardless, this ang mo is laughing his head off.

Or does this come from the city state’s diverse imported workforce that are not as possibly as educated as the mainstream Singaporean. So is the typical online punter more outspoken behind a keyboard or do they really feel inferior? I can’t see why, what’s not to like about Singapore or Singaporeans?

A luxury watch I see at boutiques is Chopard, this warranted further investigation as I really didn’t know much about the brand and wanted to know more. It took me ages to wander into one of their boutiques – I’m glad I did.

These are high end timepieces with luxury price tags, but a little reconnaissance never hurt. I walked out of the boutique in Makati with their catalogue that not only lists models but the history of the brand as well. Whilst these are well finished products, I have to ask if the style is for me? They have motoring timepieces such as the Milne Miglia, that is an especially attractive piece named after the road race.

Some of their dress watches are a little flashy for me, the style just doesn’t suit me but I always ask if the style issue is me. I am a member of a number of Facebook watch forums and silently question some of the styles people choose. This I believe is a personal issue/problem and always question if I am missing something. I guess I am nouveau rich without actually being that rich, I believe less is more and certainly don’t like garish and overstated tastes. That being said, Chopard is a serious manufacturer of high-end timepieces and well worth considering.

As I was copping some grief from the Director of HR about my blog and the business and leadership component of what I write about. I understand his perspective, I was undertaking a business course and was writing about business based issues related to my workplace and he was concerned about negative exposure.

He made a comment about some of my trips as I sometimes write about those, I try to write about a wide variety of subjects. Most of my trips I wrote about on my blog were the most recent trips and Mark got me thinking, why don’t I write more about past trips? My memory is still good, I admit, I don’t remember every day of a trip as those trips went for three to six months at a time. Back then, a two week trip was just a short break from work before getting back into it.

A three to six month trip meant resigning from my job, paying my bills in advance so it wouldn’t leave me without funds on the trip. Upon returning, this involved paying any outstanding bills and then saving for the next trip. I owned property and had a household to run and pay for; electricity, water and telecommunications tend to reduce during that period but there are still base charges. Local government rates, insurance and other outgoings were fixed so they never reduced despite the property being empty.

I would work when I was away, but that would generally cover the cost of travel, that wouldn’t pay bills at home or generate savings let alone add to my superannuation. Working also meant filling your day in, immersing yourself in the local culture and giving yourself some purpose. As I get closer to retirement, I will do exactly the same again.

I read a comment on a newspaper article in regards to online learning, students are complaining about online learning during the pandemic. Oh, come on – really. Then there was a father complaining that his daughters were teaching themselves – has everyone lost the plot? 

So I decided to comment, he clearly has no concept of training design, delivery and assessment. They are not teaching themselves unless they write the curriculum, reference materials and academic readings. They are following a program developed on a learning management system such as Blackboard or Moodle constructed by instructional designers and subject matter experts.

Ok, so what does that mean? The young [just out off high school] students are not self motivated, they want their education served on a platter. Adult students hold down full-time jobs whilst upgrading their education. These full-time employees/part-time students are supporters of online education – they require it. They have no need for the university experience of drinking, parties and socialising. They get home, get dinner and get studying – the weekend is where they get the bulk of their work done. Campus socialising is out, this is their big chance to get ahead – no hangovers wanted.

A student has a chapter of a reference book to read, this is supplemented by articles and possibly a second reference book chapter. They need to write tutorial responses, they are referenced and to a strict word count. Based on my experiences, we were also required to interact and this demanded we write two referenced responses to a peer post; naturally, that also requires a word count that is generally half of the original post.

Then there is an assignment to write, that is the real time consuming endeavour and some units require an end of term exam, others multiple assessments. There are online quizzes and collaboration with other students. Naturally, as mature age students, we are motivated as we are already working and want to improve our chances of promotion or recruitment. This is why we are undertaking tertiary education, we are self-motivated and we want to succeed.