Updating the Website: Part Two

I have had a great week and a half since posting about my need to stop dithering with updating the work website. Here's the Mindmap as it stands at the moment.



I'm fairly sure that you get the idea that this is not meant to be a "complete" map, and that it is meant to grow and alter as I spend more time thinking about what I want the outcome to be.

What I Have Done This Week.

Along with deciding to use Wordpress as the backbone of the new site I have also decided that I will start the design process from scratch rather than use an existing template or theme. My main reason for this decision is that it will force me to actually learn the skills that would be required for ongoing maintenance and enhancement. This has already proven to be a good decision as my fuzzy-brain-itis seems to have faded somewhat and I can almost say that I genuinely understand how WP works and how things are structured to produce the wonderful blogs that we all take for granted. Almost.

The process will follow (roughly) this order of events:

1. Complete initial layout and design. (Currently under way.)


2. Investigate potential hosts & decide on one. (A "trial" domain will be purchased for this project.)


3. Existing content will be reviewed and altered.


4. Identify and incorporate new and additional content.


5. Check that the overall creation (design and content) aligns with the stated purposes.


6. Invite friends and associates to review the initial result.


7. Fix stuff that doesn't work, is misspelled, and that everyone hates. 8-O


8. Send it out for a second round of critiquing, smile graciously as everyone applauds.


9. Release it into the world back on it's own domain, retiring the existing design to Back-up City.


10. Wait for Google to figure out where we've gone, and hopefully pick us up again sometime this millenium.


11. Have a nice glass of Cab Sav and gloat over conquering my techno-fear. :D

Timeline of this masterpiece?
As long as it takes, and as quick as I can go.

How was your week?

Updating the website: Part One

Fine, so I have finally decided that it's time to suck it up and get on with renovating our work website.

This has been sitting in my 'parking lot' of things to do for quite some time now and it has been gnawing away at my subconscious with its sharp little teeth until I could stand it no longer. The little taniwha has finally pushed itself forward and all those mini-attempts at doing this rather large project have been fully laughed at and consigned to the 'information gathering' folder.

Now it's time to work on it like a big girl and stop hiding behind my bed, my baby, my housework, and my 'any excuse will do, thanks'. So here is the first step.

This is a large project for me as I have to divide my time into fairly small slices. Roughly one to two hour slices at the most. This provides some challenges for me around "flow". I will need to find some way of dealing with this as it isn't likely to change significantly in the next few weeks or even months.

To help me with the organising and planning, I have enlisted my trusty Mindmap software from Mindjet. I am more than happy to pass along the responsibility for keeping my thoughts and ideas in some semblance of order. Here is what I have to start with. This contains my initial and brief musings on the subject of creating a new and improved website.



Clearly this requires more attention before moving into the details and tasks. A whole section for required skills is missing and irrespective of whether I intend to use Wordpress or not, I will still need to learn the finer points of CSS design.

Some of the items are "might be, could be" in nature. Nothing is fixed, nothing is set in concrete. Oh dear. That could lead me to waffle about. I am getting a strong impression of needing to have stern words with myself and committing to a couple of major decisions.

Right then.
Please take this opportunity to praise or whinge about websites you love or loathe.
In the meantime I will shuffle away to my corner and make those 'big picture' decisions. I will report back once they are made and I am ready to start the nitty-gritty.

Staying At Home

I am currently on Day Two of my new life.
That is - a life away from the workplace.

It has been on my mind for some time what this was going to be like. Would my mind be turned to mush by the company of two dogs and (eventually) a small baby?

Well so far I have:

• WOF-ed the car;


• Cleaned the car (actually to be fair, I took it to Car-fe and they cleaned it while I had a coffee and magazine read);


• Went to the library (such luxury mid-day) for yet more books about babies and the general back-up moral support of reading material;


• Slept;


• Have done the week's grocery shopping;


• Dropped off a whole load of old clothes to the local Thrift Shop;


• Slept some more;


• Attempted briefly to watch daytime television and managed about a whole two minutes of channel flicking;


• Have done half a week's laundry (in the midst of some nasty wet weather);


• Have begun blogging about this whole process of change.

So, while it may not be high finance or business cut and thrust, it is fair to say that my days are not completely empty and barren of things to do.

In preparation for this transition I have been reading an interesting book I found in the library a few weeks ago. It is The Smart Woman's Guide to Staying at Home.

I am enjoying the read so far. The author has some interesting, and useful, advice for the transition from "working woman" to "housewife".

Yes, I know, I used the H-word. Never in a million years did I picture myself going down this path. However, in saying that, I do find the ego's need to flash up the title a bit ridiculous. After all, domestic engineer, domestic manager, domestic executive all smack a little bit too much of ouch my ego has just been flushed down the dunny and I need a quick fix title to plunger it back up to some level of respectability.

I am also not fond of the interweb's standard shorthand for the H-word, that of SAHM. It seems to suggest that you are hiding stuff from all but those in the internet know. SAHM, for those who aren't in the know = Stay At Home Mom (usually an American idiom in my experience).

What I am finally getting around to is, what do you call yourself in a society that places a fair amount of pressure on its citizens to have an identity linked to their working life?
In some people's estimation I have taken a backward step off the ladder of purpose and meaning (work) in order to revert to pre-feminist days when the wife stayed home and the husband went out to earn the family's income.

I am not even taking the compromise road of having it all, by remaining at work in my guise as Superwoman.
For a while there I did think that I might look good in red lycra pyjamas, with baby in one hand and Palm Pilot in the other. But as I've taken a longer look in the mirror, it seems to me that no one needs to see me in skin-tight lycra and that perhaps there are mists of propaganda surrounding this ideal.
I am now thinking that "have it all" means "knacker yourself trying to be all things to all people with more stress than anyone actually needs in their lives and try to smile politely while having the associated nervous breakdown".

Blow me down, I do appear to be moving into the pre-emancipation role of Housewife without so much as a blink. That, of course, isn't quite true.
Like everyone else, I have vested ego in being a "[insert important job title]", and it takes a bit of wrestling with the part of you that doesn't really want to relinquish the social status that goes with saying "I'm a [very important title]".
However, I am through the other side of this wrestling match and have come to terms with my new title.

Here ends Day Two of life as a Housewife. ;-)

Lost in Translation - The Shipping Industry

Those of you who have tip-toed through this blog, or have generally loitered in the corners while I have been writing away, will know that my business is marine safety stuff. (Shameless plug for work website here.)
Most of our business is "B2B" with large shipping companies, ship managers and their ilk. Part of my job is to keep tabs on the vessels calling in NZ and that entails spending a lot of time chasing down potential clients and keeping our contact records up to date. Now this is usually pretty dull stuff. Routine, in fact.
But you may not have factored in the idea that many vessels are owned by non-English speaking companies. Can you see what's coming?
Yes, this is the quirky, funny and plain bizarre world of commercial ship names.
I kid you not, all of the below names are actually painted or embossed on the rear end of a commercial ship somewhere near you.

Note: If at first you don't get it, repeat the name faster and with a slight slur.

• Deja Bhum


• Kang Fu


• Mass Wits


• Peng Wen


• Yong Tong (almost a Goons moment)


• Bum Ik


• Sobre World (hopefully on this vessel anyway)


• Pu He


• Millennium Falcon (for the sci-fi buffs out there)


• Please Please Me


• Joyoboyo 1


• Funky (and it's sister ship...)


• Smarty


• Fart (this is a very old tug(1907), from Finland, perhaps the age explains all)


• Man Kee (for those with an appreciation of Scots slang)


• Man Shun (for those without spellcheck)


• Sunko (maybe not such a good choice for a ship name)


• Itchen


• Monkez 1


• Flipper (great for a dolphin, but just asking for trouble as a ship name)


• Santa Claus (a chemical tanker of all things! Whatever he's bringing, I don't want it.)

And this is just from my whip around the 'net today.
Feel free to share any "lost in translation" items in the comments. I'm sure my industry isn't the only one with quirks of translation.

Have you ever seen a 101 person liferaft?

There are not only 101 dalmatians, there are also 101 person liferafts.

This is what they look like when they are inflated, and are undergoing their annual survey.


Big and orange, huh?

It's quite funny how after working on only one half of the full MES system for this customer, we have all become accustomed to the huge size of the rafts and their containers. So much so, that when a normal 6 person commercial liferaft came in for survey it seemed almost toy-size. Actually I might take a comparison photograph of the size person when it's finished (it's kinda mucky right now, since it's spent the last 12 months on an ocean going freight carrier) so you can see what I mean.

And if the photograph above doesn't really give you a proper feeling for scale, I made arrangements for yours truly to take some smart-ass comments about modelling from the guys and be the scale model in the photo below. See what I do for you?



So, that's a 101 person liferaft. Next time you're at sea on a ferry or similar, take a look at those big round containers and you'll have some idea of what's inside them.

Dogs and Slides

It has been very quiet here at my blog over the past week or two. And there are a couple of reasons for that.

• Older dogs


• Work

Meet Duke...



And this is him after facial surgery to remove a fatty lump...



It is fair to say that he has been an unhappy chappy throughout the process. Not that he is a stranger to surgery, but usually that is carried out somewhere around knee level for him. And although he is getting the hang of the Elizabethan collar that aims to stop him from ripping his bandages off, he finally managed to destroy that against a doorframe at work this week. The next day he set about the removal process for his bandage, leaving him looking sullen (refer photograph above) after a growling from me.

I'm not really convinced that the stray cotton wadding and peeled green bandaging is going to be a trend for next year's sick animals, but I'll give him points for creativity.
Yes, he did eventually create such an interesting headdress that we succumbed and removed the whole thing. And, other than the usual post-operative fluid build-up to deal with (don't get in the way of a dog shaking his head at the highpoint of fluid build-up...it only ends in splattered yuckiness), he is progressing nicely.

On the work front, we are at the start of our busy time with the biggest job we currently do. It is an MES. Not in the commercial marine safety business? Okay. It is a Marine Evacuation System. Meet one of the four slides...



To gain some perspective, it is 25 metres long and I am around 5 foot 6 tall. I took this photograph from one end with my hands a few inches above my head. If you can't quite picture that, take a look at the photograph of a deployed slide, platform and 50 person liferaft so you can see what we are dealing with.



If you are intrigued by this photograph, you can visit Viking's website and take a look at a small piece of video footage showing the deployment of an MES. I would only recommend this to those with broadband though.

Things will continue to be a bit slow on the blogging front for the next little while, as there isn't any real spare time for fun stuff at the moment. I promise not to totally abandon you but you may have to put up with more work oriented entries however. :roll:

Working from Home

We recently decided that I should try working from home for a week.
Partly this is to give me a quasi-holiday, partly to allow me to work on the strategic planning necessary for our business without daily work interuptions.

I can tell you that I was very hesitant about doing so. Not being in a formal workplace requires a certain degree of internal discipline to turn up and actually do the work each day.
And I was fighting with the idea that everyone else would view it as nothing but an excuse to avoid going to work like they have to.

In the end I went ahead with it, and here I am, sitting in front of my home computer. Newly furnished with broadband internet - a whopping 3.5 Mbps connection.
I know. Don't laugh. And most especially, don't brag about your 11 Mbps or 25 Mbps connections. It's already bad enough just knowing how primitive we are, no salt needs to be applied to the wound thank you !
And it doesn't help that we need to rob Fort Knox each month to pay for it either.

Still, five or so years after first reading about the concept, I am finally giving the idea of tele-commuting a try.

What I have liked so far:

• It is really nice not having to get up at 6am to make it to work for 8am.


• It is really nice not having to sit in traffic for 40 minutes each way.


• It is really nice to have freshly brewed coffee whenever you want it.


• It is really nice to not be interupted by the telephone all the time.


• It is really nice to not be interupted by people's questions all the time.


• It is really nice to have a peaceful environment in which to think about "big picture" stuff.

What I have learned so far:

• Discipline, discipline, discipline. That's what is required to do this well.


• It can be easy to get distracted by household jobs.


• It can be easy to take longer breaks, or be tempted out into the garden.


• It is necessary to have a good VPN setup and knowledge on using it well.


• It is necessary to have a well organised work plan, to keep focus.


• It is necessary to have a well organised and thought out workspace at home. (A desk for the computer isn't enough. What about writing space? Reading space? Lighting? Seating?)


• It could become lonely, without face-to-face people contact.

After my trial week, and the trials that the week brought, my assessment of the outcome is remarkably positive.

I will confess that I did not complete one of my tasks for the week - getting the planning to an all-but finished state - but I did manage to recharge my mental batteries, while still staying in touch with the day-to-day running of the business.
I learned about the usefulness of the new VPN, and about the current limitations of my setup. I learned a heap of things about "what not to do" when attempting to work from home. And I am looking forward to my next tele-commuting week, with more structure, better organisation, better office layout, and more pre-planning.

Hello Cyber-Age, I think I have finally arrived !

Who Moved My Cheese?

I've just finished reading this nifty little book by Spencer Johnson M.D. and can recommend it for a little bit of light reading.

It is a business and life parable involving two mice and two littlepeople.
It is a simple story that reflects on many humans dislike of change and the fear that promotes "stick-in-the-mudness".
I have to say that I have read much better written parables that have a similar intention of highlighting areas where our emotions create difficulties for us in life, but not one directed solely to the fear of change. I found this one less lively and buoyant in tone. It felt flat and lacked the upbeat writing style of say, Fish, Fish Sticks or Gung Ho!

The concepts (or "The Handwriting on the Wall") are good, but could have been presented in a more pleasing format.

On the whole, a 2 out of 5 rating.