So, today was my last day with the MED. It’s definitely with a mixture of sadness and excitement that I’m moving on. They have been a really great bunch of people to work with.
I was going to send this poem around (as a joke!) but was a little worried that some people might not see it as a joke. Here I’m safe though ;) And I honestly think that the people I have worked with are *not* reflected in this poem.
Mike Carrigan is one of the wickedest kiwi’s I have met. Excellent fun and a truly excellent sense of humour, how he managed to convince the lovely Heather to marry him will forever remain a mystery ;)
Mike and Heather would have to be one of the most relaxed couples I have met – and a damn good thing too. Just before their wedding (a week?! before) they were told they had to leave the house they were renting and move out immediately because of earthquake damage. A work gang was pressed into service and most of the moving was done in an evening. They _seemed_ quite unphased… I was so impressed.
Anyway, a week before the wedding was the stag night – and I thought, for all Mike’s wickedness, he came through remarkably unscathed. The suicide curry was pretty damn hot (I tried about a teaspoonful – and could hardly taste anything for an hour – Mike managed a good 3 mouthfulls (before succumbing to hiccups for about an hour)
The next day it was off for a tramp to a hut where there was laughter and merriment and a reasonable amount of drink consumed. All in all it was an extremely pleasant experience! Much better Glynn’s stag where I ended up in hospital ;)
This weekend, while Maaike was off doing the Spring Challenge, I went to Mt. Olympus to go snowboarding, and we both had excellent weekends.
Neil and Ruth picked Mike and I up after work and we headed off to Olympus on the Friday night. Big winds forecast and looking like it might just be the Saturday on the field, but still, worth getting away from the thousand or so aftershocks that we’ve been having. Honestly, if there’s one take-out from all this earthquake business, it’s that it’s the aftershocks which are the real psychological killer!.
Anyways… up we headed and I had the best days boarding of the season. Lots of deep snow to fall into and just a great time.
Some of those pictures are Neil & Ruths. Neil was experimenting with his new IXUS (Canon) camera. I’m quite jealous and am now hanging out for my one to break ;) It also has some weird features, like being able to take pictures when you’re smiling and a fisheye effect. I think Neil had to force the camera to take this picture of Mike and I, as we were resolutely trying not to smile.
And finally, a video of me trying out my latest trick – the full speed faceplant.
A little out of place, but a month ago I walked to work. It was only a 50 ish minute walk and just a perfect day for it. The first half is entirely through the park, and the second through town.
The second half is through town, this building was about 100 metres, if that, from where the MED building is.
Maaike and I also headed to Akaroa – to our favourite spot out there – the Onuku Farm Hostel. I tried some stellar photography.. but it was less than stellar. Sigh.
I’m not a big fan of change.. and definitey not on large scale issues like changing job. Some people thrive on that sort of thing – but I’m not one of them.
For 6 years I’ve worked in the MED – the Ministry of Economic Development – out of their Southern Business Centre. It’s has been a great experience and a really fantastic group of colleagues to work with. Oftentimes it has felt more like a family than workmates. It has been a ridiculously supportive environment – and I am certainly apprehensive about moving on.
The work I have done has been mainly in-house custom websites & business intelligence solutions. Unfortunately for me, there’s no development team per-se and this is unlikley to change. Anyway, the time is right to move on and I’ve decided to move to Egressive. Egressive is a local (Drupal oriented) Open Source development shop – and I’m really looking forward to working in a team again, with like minded individuals. It’s going to be a hard, steep learning curve – with a probation of 3 months. I’m excited, nervous, and can’t wait to get started.
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