That’s what I get for not saving as draft

I have been working on a long post that didn’t get saved at some point.  I’m guessing I lost it on a patch Tuesday reboot.  At any rate, I’ll just post several small thoughts as they come back to me.

For now:

“Global Economy”
Someone forgot to tell the banks and cell (“mobile” here) that the world is flat.  My US credit cards are hit-or-miss, and there’s the wonderful foreign transaction fee when it does work.

Getting a cell phone here (AT&T no worky;  then again that’s not too different from home) is more difficult than getting US government security clearance.  I once held a sword over then Governor Bush’s head during his inauguration, but Telstra won’t give me a post-paid plan.  Then again, thanks to Apple and AT&T, my iPhone won’t work on Telstra’s network anyway.  Waiting on that iPhone OS 4.0 and subsequent DevTeam jailbreak/unlock before I try again with Telstra.

Socialized Healthcare
Beware America, this is coming soon if the Dems get their way.  Like many things, this sounds good in theory – medical care costs are out of control, everyone should have access to medical care, our system is flawed.  But inserting the government into the value chain of any industry is never the answer.  For example, schools in the US and Australia require immunization records.  In the US that entails calling your pediatrician and having them fax the records to the school.  In the socialized Australian system, it involves going to your doctor and getting a signed government form (not valid if it’s not on the government paper), taking that form to a local council which will then submit the form to a national registry.  One month later, you will have a certificate that is functionally equivalent to what took 5 minutes in a privatized healthcare system. 

I’m not going to get into my beliefs about how to fix the medical system, but here’s a hint to where I believe the fixes should start – legal system, education system.

Driving on the left, sitting on the right
No, that’s not a clever political turn of phrase.  Literally driving on the left side of the road and sitting on the right side of the car.  It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be.  But why did they have to move the blinker to the right side of the steering column!  I hope everyone realizes that when I turn my windshield wipers on it means I’m turning left.

Adventures of an Unemployed Expat

OK, so my two blog readers have told me to post more.  Some other folks have told me to start a blog.  So to satisfy both requests, I have created a new category entitled “Adventures of an Unemployed Expat”.  I will post about my time in Australia with the intent on being more observational about business, culture, challenges, unsuccessful attempts at humor, etc. (see my posts from Russia).  If you want to see what the family is up to, friend me on Facebook.

Wait.  Australia?  Unemployed?  I guess I should begin with a little back story.  In January, my wife was offered a three year assignment in Melbourne, Australia.  It’s not often that you get to live in the “most livable city in the world”, much less be paid a premium plus expenses to do so.  In the end, it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.  I attempted to arrange remote work arrangements or find a job with HP Australia, but things didn’t pan out.  So after twelve years, three business units (enterprise servers, business desktops and thin clients, business notebooks), and three jobs (software engineering, technical program management, and strategic marketing), I left HP.

So that’s where I stand.  I’m talking to a few companies here in Melbourne including some of the usual industry suspects – HP, IMB, Apple, etc.  I’m also working on establishing my own “company” of sorts, basically me doing business strategy and market/industry research consulting work and software development with a focus on Windows Embedded Standard 2009 and 2011.

In the meantime I’m being Mr. Mom for my two girls and living the life of a kept man.  My traditional blocker blogging more often has been time.  While a three year old and an eight month old don’t exactly provide superfluous free time, I should have a few more minutes a day to post.  So stay tuned…

T