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    Summer Breeze Makes Me Feel Fine…


    2015 - 02.14

    Well the last week was tiring but positive. Getting to work was a successful venture at this stage. Worked from home three days and got to work the other two. That was as arranged, and helped significantly. The same for this week. Monday, Wednesday & Friday again. After that we’re mixing up the days again.

    The day after my last post I ordered the Nikon D810, and it arrived on the following Thursday just past. The price had risen $100 in the last month. No sign of that stopping. It’s defintely a great beast, but I’ve had scarcely any time to play with it yet. I’ve managed to charge up the batteries and configure the settings to match my preferred settings similar to the D600 and the D7000. I may need to changed those for this camera, it’s some different processor technology and image capture technology. Still I need a starting point for comparison!

    I’ve also ordered memory cards and a sensor cleaning kit while I’m at it.

    The final components of the order I placed about three weeks ago for ensuring I had the complete kit of Descent: Journeys in the Dark Ver. 2 have shipped. Interestingly the last to ship was the Australian Supplier, all the overseas orders had arrived weeks ago. And they wonder why they’re struggling to have people buy locally.

    So enjoyed some rain for last couple of days, done the usual phone calls to catch up with friends, housework, been for a walk and played with the Moggies. It’s warming up now, and a bit bright, but I may still take the new beast out for a bit of a run.

    Hopefully all the Rapids are Behind…


    2015 - 02.08

    Well it’s been a fairly positive week. Five days back at work, and a plan for the next few weeks. I’ll work from home alternate days, basically on BAU, it’s easy to track so keeps people happy. I’m feeling better within myself again, I certainly have a bit of positivity back. I’ve been pretty tired after the week, but that’s ok, sleeping much better now. So far I’m only waking up about once in the middle of the night. For me that’s fantastic progress. I also seem to be getting to sleep quicker.

    I’ve not done much with the Photography over the last few weeks. But I’m going to swing back into it over the next week or so. I just need to get back into the routine of work again first. Currently that’s one of my prime tasks, once that’s back in tune, I should have the available energy to devote to my other goals.

    I’m hoping to pick up the Nikon D810 soon, possibly within the next 6 weeks. The price is creeping up so I’d rather get it sooner than later.

    A Happy little Worker Be(e)…


    2015 - 02.02

    Well Monday arrives, and so far things have started smoothly, awake as usual before the alarm, about 04:30 with Furbags on bed. So no committee meeting before getting out of bed. Can’t really adequately express right now how good THAT WAS for a change. So it’s Breakfast, Drugs, Coffee, make lunch and it’s off to work I go like a happy little worker bee.

    Pulling Myself Out of the Pit…


    2015 - 02.01

    Well the week has passed and finished on fairly high notes.

    Work has been extremely supportive and we’re shaping some new strategies to help me stay there at this stage. Yes it’s in their interests to do so, I’m a high performer when I’m there. Certainly from my point of view, the longer I can stay at this point the better off financially I can be working towards substituting Photography for my income.

    The Bank approved my application so I’ve removed the burden of Credit Card Debt from my outgoings, and that will make a significant difference to my financial state within a few months. Just in time for winter, given that is my worst time of year from a bills perspective. I think I’ve developed the discipline over the last two years to make the most of this opportunity now. I have one expensive item on my list, a Nikon D810, but it will be waiting until I have the cash ready.

    The Anxiety has virtually vanished overnight with the response from work, and coupling that with the change in finances, my general disposition is at the highest it’s been in years!

    Just need to get some more Cat Food before the Furbags start eating me in my sleep!

    In for a lot of Dungeon Crawling…


    2015 - 01.24

    Another tough week, but at least there’s been some positive action come out of it, if only because of an unexpected attack of anxiety as well. I don’t normally feel anxious as such. My Depression generally manifests without it. But this week I began to get caught up in a being in a maelstrom of Depression & Anxiety with seemingly no hope of escape.

    However I managed to springboard off to another chat with the GP and up the Antidepressants for a period of time until things become manageable again. I’ve also organised to talk with the Bank about rejigging the mortgage to fortnightly payments and suck up the last of my credit cards into the mortgage to focus all my debt in one place with a much lower interest rate. That will make a huge difference to me by the end of this year. I’ve also hooked up with a new Psychologist since my last one has retired and I’ve been procrastinating about organising another one. Just need to get the workplace sorted out for the time being and try and settle in for the ride again.

    However with all that good work done this week, I had a bit of an emotional spend. Of course I blame the cat Chemoux; I reckon she’s worse than Tigga, it must be the Kitten in her still. In the cat’s defence, all of them were reduced by 20% or more.

    So really what’s happened now up to this point tonight is a spending spree consisting of the following: Descent ver. 2 plus a couple of expansions and additionally the unrelated Battle of the Five Armies. All of these from Games Paradise. However they didn’t have some of the expansions in stock. Then, a quick trip to Ozgameshop and picked up a conversion kit to convert the Descent Ver. 1 characters and monsters for play with Ver. 2. Then slipped over to Bookdepository, and picked up the expansions I couldn’t get at games paradise or ozgameshop. It’s concerning for me that book depository are now selling boardgames.

    All in all a good shop, and I can’t actually remember the last boardgame I bought, it’s been a while. I’d say it must have been the final expansion for Arkham Horror being the Miskatonic Horror. This was an expansion for every previous expansion and the main game. I do love my Arkham Horror too.

    Amongst the Waves…and Waves…and Waves…


    2015 - 01.18

    It’s been a tough week for me with only managing two days of work while wrestling with this seemingly stretching bout of Depression. Still two days is better than none. Hopefully this week I’m going to make it back on track, with a long weekend at the end of it.

    An interesting question struck me while I have been delving amongst the difficulties dealing with pulling myself out of this round. “What is this sense of feeling trapped” about? What is the key to breaking out of it? There seems to be a sense of criticalness about this question for me that gives me hope that it may open a door to a more positive space.

    More to come I guess.

    Head Up and Looking Forward…


    2015 - 01.11

    Well another weekend is coming to an end, I didn’t get out for a shoot this weekend, but did do some work towards the business. As long as I’m doing something each day towards preparing or growing the business I’ll be satisfied that I’m making progress towards that freedom down the track.

    Caught up with a few friends by phone & email, which I make an effort to do each Saturday morning usually. But now I’ll spread that out a bit more given that I’m scheduling quite a few of the maintenance tasks for the business such as ensuring the preparation of stock and the supplying of stock to the various sites I’ve now got to manage. Other preparations have gone well too, but they’re not to be actioned for quite some time yet.

    I’ve also decided that the Camera shop downtown does the best prints of all my options here: Fuji processing and it really “pops”. So that will be my Stock choice for the orders; despite the increase in cost, I think it will be a better product for the purchasers from the Etsy Store.

    Out of the Blocks…


    2015 - 01.06

    Well I’ve got through the Alamy.com Quality Control without any hitches, so I can upload stock anytime. Have to get a “swift code” from my bank though. Or I can get paid by paypal. Haven’t made up my mind yet.

    He Spams me, He Spams Me Not …


    2014 - 12.31

    Well the spam comments on the photography blog were becoming so annoying that I decided to get an Akismet subscription for it. It’s been a boon for comment management I have to say, and well worth the $5 / month subscription price. Haven’t had a problem since. Clearly wordpress is a target for these spammers that they feel worth hammering at hard. Anyway, given that the blog is connected to my photography business now I felt they were justified in having a paid subscription from me for it. And I’m not sorry.

    A Resolution of Sorts…


    2014 - 12.27

    Well into the last gasp of 2014 now, and within a few days it will be 2015! I’m looking forward to this year in a lot of ways. This will be the year I am positioning myself to break out of my Depressive Cycle. I have a plan to deal with the occupational aspects contributing to my Depression, and I’m well on the way to making more significant strides in the aspects outside of work.

    In many ways they’ve proved easier to make the ground in, due to my capacity to make a huge difference from my side. Work is more complicated than that, and my input has far less impact. However, as I said there’s a plan in motion, with a 6 to 12 month timeframe there. I’m looking forward to that starting to take substance!