Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Five

Thursday 30th August

Kate dropped me at the station and I headed off to work. Kate drove Bill and Carol to the airport as they are off to Adelaide for the weekend. We are looking after the pets while they are away.

Kate picked me up from the station and we had a quiet night at home.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Four

Wednesday 29th August

Day two of the workshop and a quite productive day with lots of good ideas being generated. Everyone has taken away a lot of actions to complete and proposal documents to write.  At least it feels like something has been achieved with good plans going forwards. Once done I did some office tidy up and then came home.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Three

Tuesday 28th August

In to work for day one of our two day workshop discussing the future of the events, how we can work better and more efficiently. Was an interesting day, a few heated conversations and grumpy people including myself, probably through tiredness and because we all care about the success of the event going forwards.

Once the day was wrapped up headed home again. There was a BBQ that I could have gone too but just need to catch up on sleep and see some of Kate after my prolonged absence.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy Two

Monday 27th August

The day after event, headed into the office and dispatched 4 of the others to go out and about returning items and putting the event to bed. That took most of the day and while they were out and about I tried to make some sense of the massive pile of event equipment filling one end of the office.

Came home not too late as I was pretty tired.

Dinner at home and then off to bed to catch up on Z'ssssssss

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy One

Sunday 26th August

Got up at 6am and drove back to Event Control Centre to help close the event down. Last team came in to Finish just before 8am and then it was full swing packing up control and others at the Finish. Only drama was a broken rear windscreen on one of the vans on Sunday morning.

We finished the pack up before heading to the city. Here are some pics before we went.

Back at the office we unloaded 2 trucks and 4 vans worth of gear before they were driven back to the van hire place.

Once everything was done we all headed to the pub for some lunch and drinks. Of course there was some planking to be done before that....

All in all a very smooth, uneventful event, the best kind.

Came home and crashed out!

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Seventy

Saturday 25th August

Got home from overnight shift at about 6.45am and hit the sack. Heard Bill and Carol heading out to do their volunteering shift in the morning. They were delivering volunteer food out to all the volunteers today.

Got up late morning and had some lunch.

At about 1.30 I drove Kate out to the Finish to do her volunteering shift, here she is seen at the check in desk.

I left Kate there and drove over to the Control Centre to see how things were going and sort some gear out.

Headed back to the Finish at about 8pm and did a few things there while Kate finished up her shift.

We both drove home and went to bed.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Nine

Friday 24th August

Up early and headed over to the finish site to meet the contractors. Spent all day until about 5pm overseeing the building of the finish. Here is a picture of the finished result (The gantry and finish chute).

I headed home to get some dinner and rest before heading back to Event Control Centre (ECC) for a 10pm start to manage logistics overnight. Friday is notoriously difficult to fill with staff and with everything happening in parallel you run out of people for things, hence putting myself on the overnighter. All went very smoothly.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Eight

Thursday 23rd August

A strange day as I'm not usually in the office on a Thursday pre event, however decided I could get lots done and didn't need to be out on site. 

It got very interesting in the afternoon as Gale Force winds came through Sydney bringing down power lines, trees etc. I did make everyone stop doing stuff for an hour or two in the afternoon if they were working under trees for their own safety.

In addition to that we had a bush fire at the start for more excitement.

At 5pm I headed to ECC to help with final set up and then headed home for dinner.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Seven

Wednesday 22nd August

Got up at 6am, first light and drove out to section 7 to string up a safety rope for walkers (and the trail marking teams tomorrow). Did that quite quickly and then headed into work.

I spent day on phone to teams from Melbourne who arrived yesterday who were out overseeing the marquee builds at Checkpoints 3 and 4.

We went out and collected a number of vans and trucks during the day and then in the afternoon went to Kennards to load up the 2 trucks. Below is picture of the chaos we caused there.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Six

Tuesday 21st August

Got up at 6am in the morning to complete final scheduling and create PDFs for the staff. 

Later in the morning Kate and I had the excitement of the RTA, really my most favourite place in the world. We planned to nip in, register the car in NSW and get our new driving licences. 

This plan fell apart when...

I forgot my UK licence so could not prove I had three years of valid licence (despite this being checked in QLD)

Kate happened ot marry me less than three years ago so again could not get her licence, net result we could not register the car in NSW as it was last registered here in her maiden name.

So back to car park, put the number plates back on the car and drive home to get necessary ID

Drive back to RTA, unscrew number plates and go through the whole fun again....

Once that was done and we dodged the senile pensioners collecting their heavy goods licences we drove home and then I drove into work to hand out schedules.

Came home later in the evening, had dinner and crashed again.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Five

Monday 20th August

Headed into work early and carried on with final event prep. Worked late and didn't get home until 8pm. Crashed in front of telly after some dinner.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Four

Sunday 19th August

Worked all day at home doing scheduling having got up early to make a start on it. Kate went up to the shops to get us lunch. Spoke to UK on Skype in the evening.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Three

Saturday 18th August

Got up and caught the train to Brisbane Airport. An uneventful flight back to Sydney and then went straight from airport to office to do a few hours work. Caught the train back to home and Kate picked me up. Spent rest of day doing scheduling.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Two

Friday 17th August

Kate drove me to the station and I headed into work. Spent all morning doing event prep and then at 1pm caught the train to the airport to catch a plane to Brisbane for the Awards night. Flight was late due to windy conditions and then it took forever on the train to get into the city. Rushed to hotel and then caught a taxi to the awards night.

Awards night venue was a bit rubbish with poor sound and other minor issues. Anyway awards were all handed out and the Senior Ranger from Parks stood up and said some nice words about Brett and I which was nice.

After Awards night we went drinking, firstly in the city and then ended up in the valley. At 2am I called it a night and walked back to hotel.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty One

Thursday 16th August

Into work on the train, spent most of the morning and early afternoon preparing for the briefing night this evening. At about 2.30 departed the office for the briefing night venue on Pitt St. Spent a few hours setting up and then I spent time just running through the slides quietly before the first session kicked off at 4.30pm.

A picture of me preparing, less then an hour later this was half full and in the second session it was full, meaning I presented to just short of 1000 people this evening.

My slides can be found here for interest

http://trailwalker.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/OTWS12_Briefing%20Night%20Presentation_for%20web.pdf


 

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Sixty

Wednesday 15th August

Spent all day working at home on scheduling. Not much else to report. 

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Nine

Tuesday 14th August

Another early start and into the office before 8am. Lots to do but getting through it. Came home and had dinner and went to bed.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Eight

Monday 13th August

Kate and I got up at 5.45 to watch the Closing Ceremony of the London Olympics 2012. Not quite as good as opening ceremony but spectacular all the same. As an events person it was amazing to see the logistics behind such an event, certainly the pinnacle of someones event career. Maybe one day I'll be running that kind of show!

Went into work later in the morning and spent all day there followed by working late for final volunteer training session. This time training the checkpoint coordinators and as such I was leading the training. All went well but didn't get home until about 9pm. Long day!

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Seven

Sunday 12th August

Kate and I went for  an early morning walk on Section 7 of the trail to investigate a point where we need to put a safety rope during the event. the old rope form last year has gone missing since the 2011 event so we have to organise a replacement and I want to survey the site so I'm happy with it before it's installed closer to the event.  We only had to walk about 3/4 km into the section to find the site.

I set Kate to work in the afternoon updating all the event mobile phones that all needed a software upgrade, while I continued scheduling. We also found time to go shopping.

We skyped the UK in the evening.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Six

Saturday 11th August

Got up, did some work and then headed into the office to do the final general volunteer training session. Was in the office form about 11am until 4pm. Came home and we got a takeaway in from the local Thai place. Was very nice to have a quiet night.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Five

Friday 10th August

Spent the day working at home doing event scheduling. Got lots of help form Kate which was much appreciated. It's one of the biggest parts of this job, scheduling the movements of up to 30 plus staff from the moment they get on a plane in other states until they get on a plane to head home.

In the evening Kate, Bill and Carol and I wen tout for dinner in Mosman to celebrate Carols birthday. We went to 

http://sthonorebakery.com.au/index.html

 The food was good although the place didn't have many customers. It struggled to switch to a full restaurant for the evening form its cafe culture in the day. Still we had good conversation and food.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Four

Thursday 9th August

Happy Birthday to the mother in law Carol! More volunteer training in the evening and then headed home. Managed to scrounge some lovely leftovers from the Lamb meal Kate cooked her mum for her birthday. ( I did'nt really need to scrounge as Kate made me some too!).

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Three

Wednesday 8th August

Another day at work followed by the second volunteer training session. All went very well. Kate met Pru for dinner around the corner and after training was done we went for a quick drink at the Strawberry Hills Hotel near the office. Was nice to catch up with Pru. We drove back to Willoughby from the office and got home just before 10pm.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty Two

Tuesday 7th August

A busy day at work followed by an evening doing the first of five volunteer training sessions in the office. Managed to get away from the office at about 8.30pm and home for dinner.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty One

Monday 6th August

Drove to work, was a very quick trip across the harbour bridge and was in work by 8.05am.

Spent all day scheduling, I had driven as we had planned to go shopping at the cash and carry but it didn't happen, that will now take place on Wednesday.

Got away at 6pm and came home for dinner. Watched some Olympics and spent time catching up the blog.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Fifty

Sunday 5th August

We awoke and I went out and picked up some pastries for breakfast. We watched a lot of the highlights form yesterdays Olympics over breakfast, Team GB won 6 Golds on Saturday, their best performance in day since 1908. Our last morning in in Glebe and we packed up and headed back to Willoughby around lunchtime. I spent all afternoon doing work, primarily schedule planning for the event. It's slowly coming together.

Skyped the UK in the evening which was nice. Watched more Olympics in the evening.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Nine

Saturday 4th August

Awoke to a nice day in Glebe. We had some brekkie then went for a walk along Glebe Point Road. We went to the Glebe markets which were not as good as they used to be. We checked out the Broadway shopping centre again, many a time we have been through there!

We grabbed some lunch in the rebuilt Cafe Otto which burnt down not long before we headed to Brisbane.

We relaxed at home in the afternoon and then had a Thai takeaway in the evening.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Eight

Friday 3rd August

Having got up and ready I walked to the Tram stop and caught the tram to Central and went to work for the day. Just like old times when we first arrived in Australia over 3 years ago.

A busy day and then home on the tram.

Kate and I went out for dinner at the Toxteth Hotel across the street. it wa svery nice apart from a couple of tables where smoking was allowed right in the middle of the restaurant area, not nice, anyway we moved to another table and a very pleasant evening was had.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Seven

Thursday 2nd August

Drove myself to work today. During the day Kate got dropped off in Glebe by her folks. We are dog sitting for Kate's Aunt who has gone skiing with the family. We are looking after Jake a border collie/doberman cross. Its the most placid laid back dog ever, totally non phased by two strangers looking after it.

I drove back to Glebe after work and met Kate. We watched some Olympics before settling down in bed.

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Six

Wednesday 1st August

A usual day at work getting stuff done followed by evening in Willoughby. Not much to report!

Day One Thousand One Hundred and Forty Five

Tuesday 31st July

A normal day at work, can't believe its August tomorrow, less than 4 weeks until the event.