Sinclair's Blog

G’Day Mates,

Wow, hard to believe it’s been almost six months since my last update. I have kept in touch with a lot of you, but just haven’t had time to sit down and update the blog page. Where to start?

In the last update I said that the City was sending me to Swinburne University to take a Project Management Diploma Course. I said that it would be tough doing the course and working full time, but I was wrong, it was one of the toughest things I’ve worked on ever. The course was 80 credit hours over four months with two assessments as the gauge of passing or failing. One assessment ½ way through and then a continuation of the same assessment that was turned in as the final assessment at the end of the course. The assessment ended up at 64 pages with 100’s of pages of documentary evidence of competence in each area.

I passed with flying colours, but basically gave up every weekend and many evenings for four months to get it done. I’ll get my diploma in a ceremony this month at town hall. It was tough, but I’ve never been to University before now and besides the professional credential it gives me, it was always a goal of mine to prove to myself that I could compete and succeed at University. By the way, I won’t ever being doing that again J…….at least for awhile.

Work in general is going very well, it’s been nine months and I’m getting the hang of it. I enjoy the market days and loath the paperwork, but my days go by quick and I enjoy my co workers, stallholders and customers. We have several capital works projects over the next fiscal year that starts July 1^st with many large scale projects totalling just over 2 million dollars that I will be overseeing in addition to the day to day operations that I am in charge of. Not much time to get bored. I’m also on Councils Water and Energy Taskforces which oversee the implementation of energy and water saving measures for the City of Port Phillip. I got my first review which was excellent and got bumped up to the next pay grade retro active to March.

On the home front, Van is working hard on her business, web marketing and putting the final touches on their main project of creating a Vietnamese portal for access to news, advertising, and blogs in the large Vietnamese community that exists here. Hopefully it will branch out to the rest of Australia and beyond. It’s a huge undertaking and has taken a lot of time and pain to get where it’s at. Everyone keep their fingers crossed. She may become the Vietnamese version of Face book when it’s all said and done.

We’ve begun looking to buy a house/apartment, most likely an apartment. We are taking our time, as the market has slowed down here, but it’s still very competitive. We want to stay in St Kilda. Any of you who have been keeping up with me in Face book know that I love St Kilda. It’s the perfect combination of beach town right next to the CBD, and is one of the hot spots in Melbourne for sun, sand, food, bars, entertainment, you name it.

The sun part is seasonal; we are going from fall into winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. This is my second season through, yes we’ve been here two months over a year now (boy time flies!). While I’ve gotten used to driving on the other side of the road, looking to my right when I start to cross the street (for any of you who come to visit, that is a big one if you want to live J), calling ketchup tomato sauce (pronouncing the a as a soft a of course, which has been pointed out to me multiple times now) I still have trouble with getting used to it being so fricken cold in June and 100+ days in December. Oh well, it’s a small price to pay for living in paradise.

We visited the Shrine of Remembrance last week and I’ve included a picture of it with the update. It’s the memorial shrine for veterans here and is a very humbling place to visit. They take their veterans very seriously here and are proud of their service and heritage.

The family is all doing well. We found out the hard way at my birthday party that our nephew Ethan is severely allergic to macadamia nuts. He had to be rushed to the hospital and two epi-pens of insulin later he recovered, but scared the bejesus out of all of us. Being seven, he has since taken the epi-pen and injected himself, that won’t be happening again. He’s a very curious kid, got to love him. Van’s Dad gave me a new camera for my Birthday it’s really cool, it’s a Cannon EOS 450D with two telephoto lenses and someday Van might let me actually touch it.

Last, but not least, for those who haven’t heard yet, I will be coming back to the US for a three week trip in Aug/Sept. I got a notice from American Airlines that if I didn’t use my air miles by October I would lose them. I had enough to cover all the US airfare (First Class, WooHoo!) and only had to cover the Qantas flight to Los Angeles and back. I’ll be coming solo this trip. Van is staying back as she is busy with her business and family here. She misses everyone and sends her love. This trip was unexpected, but we thought it was silly to loose all the miles.

My schedule is below;

August 21- Fly to Los Angeles then to Denver

August 21 – 27 in Denver visiting family and friends

August 27 fly to Tampa

August 27 – September 9 in Tampa (Caliente!)

September 9- Fly back to Melbourne

I’ve already figured out that it’s a total of 48 hours in the air round trip. Yes that’s actual air time, not counting layover time.

I am really looking forward to coming back for a visit. As much as I do love it here I have been homesick, both for my kids, grandkids, and friends in Colorado and for the warm Florida sun that is calling me and all my friends back in Land O Lakes. I’ll be at Caliente for the Labour Day Weekend, should be a blast! I can hardly wait!

That’s it for now, thanks to those of you who continue to write. We love hearing from you. Here are some recent pics from the Shrine, around Melbourne and the family. Life is good!

Cheers Mates!

Sinclair

Welcome to my new blog!  I am new to this so please be patient.  I’ll be adding more content as I go along here.  You can find my first two pages on the “Pages” link to your right.

“Kaleb” is the page dedicated to my newest Grandson, Kaleb Josef Hugh.  He is just over a month old and the first son for my youngest Levi and his wife Nickie!

“Down Under Update” is the latest news from what is going on with us here in Melbourne.

Please feel free to add comments.  There are more pages coming soon!

This page is sponsored by Phoviet.com.au it is the new Vietnamese portal web site that Van and her oldest brother (and business partner) Khoi have created as a communications port for the Vietnamese community.  It is also a great place to keep in touch with services like the blog page that you are reading now.

Any of you that would like your own page or web site, please let Van and Khoi know and they will contact you.  You can reach them at enquiry@phoviet.com.au This link will take you to the contact page of their company website inos.com.au.  You can touch base with Van there and let her know what you need.  They can do it all, from a simple blog page (it has to be simple if I can figure it out) to complex programming and internet marketing.

Ok, I’ve done my plug, thank you Van and Khoi for making this possible.

Enjoy Everyone!

Sinclair