Great to see the Christchurch trams up and running again, a great way to get around and see the place while experiencing part of its past. This tram (number 11) was built in 1903 and was originally based in San Francisco.

Last weekend I visited Christchurch with The Duchess to see how much it has changed since our last visit in 2009 (pre-earthquake). Very different, most of the central CDB has been either rebuilt, is still a construction site or a car park. While there are some heritage buildings and facades retained it does have a newness to it which has – unsurprisingly – taken away some of the charm. That plus the shops seemed limited to mostly expensive clothing brands and quite pretentious and costly food options meant I wouldn’t be rushing to return.

One thing I DID really enjoy about Christchurch was the street art – shortly after the quakes the Council brought in artists from all over to brighten up some of the gables and walls, and most of these have been retained after the rebuilds, turning the CBD into a large-scale free art gallery. Here are just a few highlights.

Glad I’m not working at the moment, what with the Worldwide CrowdStrike FUBAR taking down half the World’s Windows machines with a dodgy update.

Lots of IT Support people are losing their weekends doing manual repairs and cursing BitLocker and their employer’s choice of endpoint protection.

Reminds me of one of my old Bodecott’s Laws Of Computing from 20 years ago – “Never make a change on a Friday lest thou lose thy weekend”.

Well, another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into. Quitting a permanent role during the worst job market Wellington has seen in 15 years. Nice one you plonker!

The TL;dr answer is that I wasn’t enjoying the work at all, it mostly comprising client-facing support of a single mail security product, giving me no time or energy for career development while my other skills go stale.

I was literally getting tired of the grind, spending most of my weekends sleeping and couch surfing, rebuilding my energy levels to face the following week. Stuck on the hamster wheel; living to work, not working to live as we should.

Now that The Duchess is shaking off the worst of Covid we’re hopeful that we can enjoy a few days away in Christchurch, plus I have my annual pilgrimage to ‘Ul coming soon, which I can now prepare for at leisure.

In the past few months I’ve found myself quite bored of technology — particularly all the hype around cybersecurity and AI — so a bit of downtime and break from work will hopefully fill my cup again so I can get back into work later in the year with some energy and enthusiasm.

While I’ve got decades of experience and great references to pull on when applying for new roles, it’s a crowded market with lots of competition, and I’m increasingly worried about being on the wrong side of ageism and whether those (people or bots) skimming through the applicant CVs will discount me as being too old. Fingers crossed something will show up on the horizon!

Sadly our friend Bruce passed away this week. We were fortunate to have enjoyed a lovely weekend with Bruce and Carol just a few months ago at their home near Cromwell, getting guided tours and enjoying their hospitality.

Bruce was a great storyteller in the mould of Billy Connolly, based on life stories with perhaps a hint of creative license, dryly told over a nice meal and glass of something. He’d been a journalist, had worked in Papua New Guinea, worked on the Clyde Dam, helped start up Kiwibank and I suspect many other things we didn’t even know about.

He was also a rock music fan, particularly of Status Quo, and it was so unfair that he lost most of his hearing and couldn’t enjoy one of his main pleasures in life. Even on our last trip when his health wasn’t the best he was still wearing an Alice Cooper tour shirt to breakfast and chipping into conversations with good humour.

https://www.tributes.co.nz/ViewMyTribute.aspx?id=20474

Picked a bad day to return to work after Covid.

Tried to chew through three days’ backlog of work and still didn’t make it through the To Do list.

Having a liquid dinner and counting down the hours to leaving this sodding job. (Did I mention I quit a couple of weeks ago? Oh well that happened too)

Video summed up the day nicely and gave me a chuckle – needs sound on.