Who am I kidding? I’ll never keep up…

Anyhow it was a chilly morning and my fingers and toes were numb by the end of it. Otherwise same story, roundabout at Mordy everyone slows down, then it all stretches out as you see the pace pick up, and the first little incline at Mentone pub and I am dropped! It didn’t help that I was towards the back end of the bunch going into Mordy to begin with. Maybe I’ll try to be closer to the front next time…

Oh and some of you may have read about this article on a man being killed by a cyclist on the weekend. Prior to the beginning of today’s ride, some guy was going on about stopping at the scene for 5mins on the Friday ride in respect of the victim to show that cyclists care (I think it was something like that. I got there a bit late and couldn’t really hear him properly).

Iceman: You two really are cowboys.
Maverick: What’s your problem, Kazanski?
Iceman: You’re everyone’s problem. That’s because everytime you go up in the air, you’re unsafe. I don’t like you because you’re dangerous.
Maverick: That’s right! Ice… man. I am dangerous.

I’ve decided on a new nickname for Nick - Maverick.

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Here’s a story you guys are going to love…

I accepted a position a week ago with Credit Suisse as an Operations Analyst/ Product Controller and was promised by the manager during the interview that the position involved only 25% product control (generating daily P&Ls). Unfortunately when I arrived to start work on the first day, it turned out to be more like 80% product control. Here comes the worst part, the person who i was going to be taking over from and who will be my supervisor for the next month was going to be an absolute clown who i worked with in EY melb called Sam XXXXX…seriously. I travelled half way around the world and they put me together with sammy. I was devastated. I knew his work is poo and that he was gonna leave me a massive mess to clean up so after 6 hours I decided to give my new job the ar$e….too funny.

Also went for an interview with Morgan Stanley and the role was pretty much perfect I reckon but two things scared the crap out of me…
1) the manager said “i dont mean to scare you but our usual days are 8-7 and they are intense days”..WTF
2) we are payin you 29paye per hour and there’s no negotiation cos we think we’re the best and everyone wants to work for an investment bank…29Paye means you get taxed at personal income level and not the company tax level. Also u cant claim expenses under PAYE so effectively you’re getting paid about 15-20% less.
so I gave this the flick aswell….

After a month in London, penniless and nothing to show for it I have now landed back where it all started…EY. I got a tempting phone call two days ago and went for an interview with EY in the FS division. Figured it would be good to get some futher FS experience in the UK (that’s what i try to tell myself anyway) and it always helps when they are throwing $$$ at contractors to get back into practice. As Janey put it here very nicely…”basically James, u’re prostituting yourself”….hahaha…exactly!! So as of next wednesday I’ll be working contract with the London office. I had to resigm from EY melbourne but it was a small price…

take it easy guys and we’ll speak soon…
Also, going to valencia and barcelona this weekend cos its a long weekend with the crew here. although we have to leave at 3:30am tomorrow cos of the terrorist thing in the airport it should be great…bring on the paellas and sangrias!!!

We’re going to Vietnam tomorrow for 3 weeks!

Lots of photos of ‘nak-nak’ when we come back…

For the second time, all 5 of us got our act together and met up at 8:30am for a Bicycle Victoria social ride today. (HP, Yang and Al rocked up at 8:45 because of ‘traffic lights’). The route was from Port Melbourne to Frankston covering about 100km, with Nick and I taking off from my house and the other 3 amigos starting from HP’s place.

As usual, I’m expecting a write-up on wurple.net but weather was overall good (sunny), albeit a headwind on the way home. We actually all managed to stay together for pretty much the entire trip down and we even managed to do a bit of pace making from Mordy to Frankston. But as usual, HP and Nick were shooting off at the front. Could you get any worse a combination than that for pacemakers??

And oh, HP tried a new trick on us today… dropping his knicks while doing his pacemaking. Wasn’t about to risk getting my camera out for that one…

Some good work from Al in keeping up with a fast pack on the way back from Frankston to Mordy and HP you’ll have to tell me about your near call at taking out the entire bunch on the return leg. (See I told you to fix your bike! But you’re like ‘no, there are other more important things to be looking at right now’).

Anyway, next weekend is looking to be good weather again. Dromana anyone? I’ll be making a day trip of it.

Just right for Nick to get to the top of Mount Dandy while sitting on the couch. It’s called a “bike” but it has 4 wheels so it’s not strictly speaking a bicycle.
Couchbike

This one’s not even pedal-powered, but it has two wheels.
Treadmill Bike

(…on a Wednesday too!)

Mrs Geek calls it obsession, but I’d like to call it passion.

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What’s the difference between the Atom and Atom Exec?

guys just to let you know that i ctually just got a role at Credit Suisse on friday. its a role that is mainly systems/ operations analyst with a touch of product control. the manager promised me its only 20% product control so fingers crossed that stays cos i dont wanna do product control (daily preparation of P&Ls). i will be starting this on 21st aug and its a rolling contract so anything can happen. rolling means its an initial 3 month period then it keeps rolling over on a monthly basis. so finally i can relax with the knowledge that some cash will be rolling in soon…

as for holidays, tara and i have booked a two week holiday back to melb starting on 13th Jan. we’ll be back for a friends wedding on 20th and hopefully the bucks on the night of the 13th…hahahaha…bring it!! anyways, if u guys want to plan something then let us know…

I was going to name the weekend ride YPR#1, as it was the first time we have had all 5 members. However, it appears the numbering has already started and we are up to ride #4.However, I propose that we name it YPR#4 instead of TYP#4.

Slightly unsatisfying ride as I expect to be tired after a ride, but it was still good to finally get all 5 of us and we were venturing onto roads that none of us had ridden on before. The target was Whittlesea but time contraints meant we only made it as far South Morang before we had to turn around - round trip of about 45km. Head-winds on the way out were quite challenging but we managed to stay together reasonably well.

Post-ride, I had to make an emergency visit to the Chamber of Doom on Gilbert Road to attend to a cracked tooth.