So I lost my Bolle glasses overboard – what a hassle. I was out on the yacht and my lightweight Bolle sunglasses came off, rattled down the deck in slow motion before resting against the rear cleat before washing over the transom.

I wasn’t happy, not about the cost but about the glare, it really hurt my eyes. The problem was the glasses were too light, they easily unclipped from my shirt. I guess they were not suited to wearing out on the boat, not that I was actually wearing them at the time. So I went into work and ordered some new polarised glasses online to replace them. Within the day I had a new package arrive with Bolle Raptor glasses. I then thought these are great for the boat, but not so good for riding my bike.

So when I was down at the local safety workwear shop, I found some Rush Smoke Lens for $6.95, so now I have some riding glasses and some boat glasses. The wrap-around glasses are great for the boat as they really keep the glare out. The lightweight plastic glasses are for the bike, they don’t bounce around on the bumps and fall down my face when contact is made with my helmet. Seems like losing my glasses overboard was a good thing, that was after my eyes recovered from the glare.

I try to be late to board to miss all the messing around but this time I decided to be in line early as I missed out on The New York Times and Financial Times newspapers on the first flight and I didn’t want it to happen again.

As the staff came down to check flight details and passports she told me I was standing in the wrong line as she highlighted flight details. I needed to stand over there near Business Class for the Premium economy boarding – I had no idea. Wow, what a surprise where to begin. There were larger seats with increased features and room, the entertainment centre was improved but had the same selection of movies. We started out with a glass of champagne before take-off, the drinks cart was promptly brought out when we were in the air.

Needless to say, the quality of the red wine was so much better than the red wine I drank in economy class the flight before. Likewise, the food could not be compared, the quality was at a different level altogether. The Premium Economy cabin was separated from Business Class and Standard Economy and although I had walked through the section many times before I had never really taken notice. I guess this was an upgrade as I didn’t intentionally book this flight.

Naturally, attempting to implement a poorly designed plan is indeed a poor idea, yet the reality is all too often we are asked to do exactly that. The requirement of a good plan requires extensive preparation based on extensive research.

The culture of the organisation is imperative to successfully implementing the strategy. All too often failed strategy implementation rests with the personnel tasked with driving a strategy they don’t believe in. Professor Huy cites the culture of the organisation as the primary reason why strategy implementation fails, my experience is very similar. The importance of organisational behaviour understanding is closely linked to strategic implementation.

Overqualified for the job, what does that really mean? It’s absolute rubbish and I like to call it out for what it is. Does this really mean this person will take the job to leave when a better opportunity comes along? What about this scenario, if the enterprise is efficient, then this person has the ability to pursue a career path in the company.

This is the goal of talent management, the acquisition of human capital to achieve strategic outcomes. This is a future high-performing team member that could learn from our mentoring and coaching to become a high-performing member driving the team. A hiring manager should recruit, select, remunerate and retain the highest available talent. This attitude of worrying about whether this person outshines them is rubbish. How about this scenario? As the hiring team, we identified a star performer and made sure they didn’t accept mediocrity, we recruited the best available for the company.

Every few years, the republic debate gets reunited in Australia and it is by the people pushing for a republic and not by the people. Eventually they believe if they keep chipping away, they will finally achieve their utopian dream of an Australian republic. Some people are irritated that we still officially have the Queen of England as our head of state or that the Union Jack is still on our flag. We have a functioning government based on the Westminster system that is a proven model of stability.

My attitude, apparently like so many others, is who cares? We care nothing about this idyllic bullshit, what we care about is a functioning government. The Commonwealth Government works absolutely fine, this is why we are a successful western nation in the South East Asia and Oceania region. The republican movement forced us to vote on the issue in the 1999 referendum and change the constitution of Australia. My girlfriend at the time [from overseas] thought it would be fun to write a new constitution, but I knew full well we would not be doing that.

This would involve high priced lawyers, special interest and lobby groups; the rest of us would just be drowned out in the noise. The Swiss get to vote on everything, the average person would not be involved, there would be no involvement for the majority of us. The republican movement wanted a president but we have seen the power and overreach of successive US Presidents, there is no way we would want to create a dictator. The role of the Governor General is to provide stability to the government.

I am not conservative by any means, these idiots wanted us to vote for a republic first then once they have a majority work on the details – utter crap. There was no framework, no plan and certainly no analysis apart from some feel good bullshit where we vote for change. Put your case forward and we will look at it; I am no monarchist, but I do not want to create an unstable government model when a stable government already exists. You analyse the model before you propose to the public, the public analysis then begins and we consider the consequences of the action.  

I had an interesting dive guide on Mactan Island, he got around underwater with half foot fins, no booties and no fin straps to hold his fins in place. He just used water pressure to hold his mask in place as he had no mask strap. Easy enough entering the water, he just held the mask in place and then let go of it once below the surface. To be fair, they never went far from the dive shop, it was mostly close diving.

Interestingly, many years ago I did two dives when a client I was guiding broke a mask strap once we were already in the water after entering the water from a long pier. Too difficult to get spares at that point with the whole group in the water so I just swapped masks for the two dives. My dive guide on the other hand began every dive without a mask strap, more a gimmick than anything as every dive shop has spare mask straps as they are a cheap item. This was a relatively small operation but they had a number of decent size banca boats to choose from.

My days of employment as a dive guide and dive instructor are well behind me, I still dive but not in a professional capacity anymore. I’m fine with this arrangement, I don’t want the responsibility of looking after other people and want to dive for myself these days. That makes me less than an ideal dive partner if you are inexperienced and just starting out; as a paying customer I am there to maximise my dive experiences.

The role of the dive staff are create memorable experiences for their customers, the last thing they want is customers getting in and possibly causing issues with how the shop is run. Further complications such as insurance then arises if something goes terribly wrong. Legalisation such worker’s compensation may not cover customers taking it upon themselves to instruct divers and any injuries based on your advice may see you with a legal bill. The dive shop may have preferences in terms of the continuing education they offer, it is, after all their livelihoods at stake here.

In some respects the Speedmaster has remained fairly static over the years, as a watch enthusiast we are still able to go out and purchase a moonwatch with close to NASA specifications.

There have been modest changes over the last 60 years with enthusiasts arguing over references but you are still able to purchase a moonwatch with a hesalite crystal and 1861 hand wound movement. The older collectible series feature the Lemania 321 and 861 movements with the 321 particularly sought out among collectors as these references were used in the Gemini and Apollo missions.

The Speedmaster has moved forward with the Skywalker X-33 whilst maintaining some of the aesthetics that people related to the original Speedmaster. For me, this timepiece is more aesthetically related to the TAG Heuer Kirium of the 1990s than it is to the Speedmaster. The Skywalker X-33 maintains a combination of digital and analogue housed in a titanium case. Astronauts had input with the next generation of Speedmaster targeting the aerospace and aviation industries.

The Skywalker X-33 was developed for European Space Agency specifications featuring three time zones, a chronograph, mission elapsed time, phase elapsed time, three alarms, a timer which I translate to a stopwatch and a perpetual calendar. Regardless of whether the Skywalker X-33 was specifically developed for the European Space Agency, $7100 is pretty expensive for a quartz movement. I understand development costs are involved; still, that’s a pretty hefty price tag.

Will I go out and purchase a Skywalker X-33? The answer is no, but I may try one on next time I am in an Omega boutique. That’s a lot of money for a digital watch, I am old school and love mechanical timepieces. I understand why Omega has moved to a quartz movement for the latest incarnation of NASA timepieces, they can manage multiple time zones, multiple timing events and this did involve astronaut input.

The trade war started by China against Australia is escalating; however, Xi Jinping has seriously underestimated the consequences of his actions. The intention is to subdue Australia into submission, the Chinese government view is they cannot allow Australia to succeed as this undermines Chinese prestige around the world is a flawed dichotomy. 

This is really a case of the rule of unintended consequences, Winnie the Pooh might be achieving his political aims, the economic losses are mounting. China does not wish to be questioned by a much smaller nation in terms of population and economic size. This is very much an embarrassment to the CCP. 

I love train journeys, we have some decent train journeys in Australia from the Indian Pacific, the Ghan and there is even a Perth to Bunbury service. I haven’t used the East coast trains much, I have seen more of Europe and South East Asia than the East coast of Australia. The train from Singapore to Bangkok interests me, So far I have only taken it as far Butterworth to get to Penang. I will take more trips through the East coast of Malaysia stepping off every so often to visit islands and through to Bangkok in the future.

When in Europe my preference is catching the various train services from the ICE, that’s Inter City Express. There is the IC, or Inter City (national reisezug) trains, the S-bahn in German that is local trains. The choices don’t end there as the Eurocity (EC) is the international service between countries, the Regional Express (RE), the Inter Regional Express (IRE) and the Stadtbahn that doesn’t offer First Class coaches.

There is an advantage of driving, you can go where you want when you want, but for me, the train is the best option as I can relax, read a book and gaze out the window. That being said, I have been on more than enough car journeys through Europe. I can enjoy the sights and not concern myself with parking hassles, dents, dings and scratches. Then, the issue in the larger cities is actually finding the vehicle again, they have to be parked far from the centre so you need to remember where you actually parked the car.