Ahhhhhhhhh! That was a sigh of relief. It was the sound of me de-stressing, relaxing, and switching off from the last 3 months of work. I’ve been on holidays for a week and have another week to go and it is definitely worth it.

I spent Christmas with my family in Hervey Bay. My days were spent watching TV, playing Eve:Online and generally ignoring the world. My nights were spent drinking with friends, eating great food with my family and, again, ignoring the world.

There is a specific joy in knowing that 14 days must pass before I go back to work. It reminds you as you go to sleep that you needn’t set your alarm, whispers to you in the mornings that you can go back to sleep for another hour or two. If there is something that needs doing, it can wait until tomorrow, or next week. No rush, no stress, no worries.

Christmas morning in our families’ house is a subdued affair. There is no tree, no decorations, no 6am present unwrapping. In fact, I have not wrapped a present in years. We hand each other our presents knowing that wrapping and extra decoration in no way improves the intent of the gift.

This year my Mum bought me art. That’s right, I, Tony Peaker, am now an art owner. It’s a great painting called “In the eye of the storm”. It’s mostly black and dark with a man grasping the edge of the canvas, stretched out horizontally in the face of the wind and rain. When I look at it I see myself in my most stressful times and know that I just have to hang on for one more day, because the storm will pass.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Yes, I say Christmas, not Xmas. Always remember the reason for the season.

I hope you all have a fantastic day with friends and family. See you all in the new year.

Much love and thanks for reading my musings

Tony

Ahhh yes! I am a geek and I am in heaven right now. Today, after humming and hahhing about the cost of a universal remote vs the annoyance of having too many remotes to swap between, I finally succumbed and shelled out $400 AUD for one of these.

Logitech Harmony 785

Impulse purchases are my thing. Unfortunately I spent all day researching these:

Thankfully, my credit card is unable to stretch to the $3000 AUD required to buy one, otherwise I would have ordered it immediately.

Instead, I went to the local electronics store for an S-Video cable. A lowly $13 cable that would hook the TV out of my spare computer up to the TV so I can run Itunes etc from the couch using Synergy to control the spare computer with the keyboard and mouse from my laptop. As I browsed the shelves of gadgets on offer I saw the remote and just had to have it.

Not only does it replace all my current remotes but it has an Activities button. This is where the remote goes to the next level. By configuring an Activity such as “Watch a DVD” the remote will turn on the TV, the DVD player, switch the TV to the appropriate input and press play on the DVD. All that with two button presses!

My two digital set top boxes were automatically configure just by selecting the manufacturer and entering the model number. My DVD player is just a cheap brand and so I had to program the buttons individually. The most enjoyable part was the JVC tv. I entered the model number and suddenly I had a bunch of extra buttons that could be programmed that didn’t exist on my remote.

The capability exists to program multiple commands in set sequences so that you could, for example, press watch DVD and the TV or stereo could be set to your favourite surround sound settings and then when you switch away it could be reset to normal operation.

The programming of the remote happens in a very simple program on your PC that connects to the Harmony website to store your settings, download existing commands etc. That way, if you ever need to reformat your PC or you upgrade, you can still access all your settings after reinstall.

I’m off now to play with my new gadget, and to thank God that they didn’t have Ultra Mobile PC’s at the local electronics store, or I would be extremely broke!

It has been an extremely busy month and a half for me at work. We did 49 events in the Auditorium over 45 days. We have covered rock shows, theatre, dance, and corporate events. I haven’t had two days off in a row in over 2 months. The hours are long, the sleep non-existent.

So, why do I do this for a career?

I get enjoyment from a show that has been well presented. We put 100% into every show, from the big name international artists to the local amateur dance schools.

When a show is over and the client or artist comes up and thanks me personally for helping put on a great show, it’s hard to describe the sense of accomplishment that I feel. I think that the heart of why I do what is at times a tiresome, thankless job, is that I get instant gratification of a job well done. I know when a rock band is sounding amazing, I know when the lighting is perfect for the show.  An architect puts in all their work and it can take many months to see the result. I see it immediately.

That’s what brings me back after four hours sleep to do a show that I’m fairly sure I won’t enjoy on a personal level. That’s what keeps me going after 12 hours of work with another 4 to go.

I love my job, and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I don’t know what I did last night but my neck pain is back. I can’t get comfortable in a chair, couch, bed, anywhere.  Unfortunately it has flared up right in the middle of a really busy week. I haven’t even got decent drugs to take the pain away.

It hurts just sitting typing this so I’m leaving it at that.