33 years old, time just keeps marching on.

Claire, Hugo and Evie woke me up in the morning first thing to open some presents:

• Diablo 3 for my computer
• A few fresh pairs of sport socks
• Armani Black Code perfume
• George & Jude gave me $50 which I’ll add to my Dick Smith Christmas voucher

Ordinarily we’d have McDonalds for breakfast on my birthday, however this morning we delayed that and instead rolled with a standard breakfast instead.

Initially we’d planned to go ten pin bowling at the AMF at the Logon Hyperdome, however as timing would have it – not many family were able to join us so we postponed that for another day when more people can attend as its a lot more fun I think.

We still ventured up to the Hogs Breathe at the Logan Hyperdome for lunch and I munched through a delicious steak sandwich and added an egg for good measure. Andrew rode his motorbike up from Ipswich for lunch and the afternoon which was great.

When we returned back to Upper Coomera after lunch, Andrew and I visited the new Rippit radio controlled hobby shop in Helensvale. I’m really impressed with what the Rippit guys have done since opening their store, there are always people in the shop and they’ve now opened an indoor race track as well.

Later that afternoon Sterle, Lorraine and Jean came over for a cup of coffee and also sporting cream puffs. We enjoyed those and a freshly made chocolate cake that was decorated with a ring of M&M’s around the outside per the request of Hugo and Evie.

As a surprise Lorraine offered to babysit Hugo and Evie, so Claire and I could go to the movies and see the latest installment of The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug. I really enjoyed the movie, the special efforts for Smaug the dragon were absolutely fantastic, I think I could watch that whole section of the movie again just for that alone!

Thank you to everyone that called, SMS’d and messaged me on Google+ or facebook for my birthday as well. I received a swag of them through Google+ this time, many from people I’ve helped through the SEO Questions community – which was really nice.

Next up 34, look out!

A couple of months ago, I was talking to a squash player named Karen for an hour or more about her life. I know what you’re thinking, me talking to someone – strange and unusual behaviour.

After talking to Karen that evening, I was completely inspired by the stories she was telling me about her childhood and what she has done in her lifetime. Originally from the Solomon Islands, she was an orphan, became the United Nations representative for the Solomon Islands, moved to Australia, started a law firm, later in life became a lawyer, has an amazing array of commercial and residential property to her name and much more.

With all of the incredible things she has done in her life and amazing success, I asked her if she thought she could do it all over again if given the opportunity and her answer was no.

Puzzled by that response, given the success she has achieved in her life, I asked her why and she felt it wasn’t possible as a lot of her success has come from opportunities and good fortune. Karen said that in her life, every time an opportunity has presented itself – she has gone after it with full force, never leaving anything on the table.

That got me thinking more about my life and the opportunities that I’ve never acted on. I’ve been asked to speak at Australia’s biggest internet marketing conference twice and never done anything about, have been asked to apply for jobs with two separate international airlines, a large Australian based retailer, internet marketing agencies and each time I’ve never done anything about it.

In hindsight, I think I wasn’t acting on it because I was happy in my job at Mantra Group and probably scared about the prospect of change. I’d been at Mantra Group for more than seven years by the time the above started happening regularly and the prospect of leaving a great employer and a familiar work place behind was daunting.

After speaking with Karen, I said to myself that if another opportunity presented itself, that I was going to do something about it – whatever that something might be. This seemingly small change has already lead me to speak at my first conference on search engine marketing and more recently apply for a new job.

Opportunity is about a particular set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. Opportunity without action or participation is an opportunity gone begging which might not present itself again in the same format or at all.

Take them when you can.

Just before lunch today I noticed I had a missed call on my mobile and a few seconds after I picked up my phone, it started ringing again and Lorraine told me in a somewhat worried voice that our house had been broken into.

Claire had been to the gym this morning and Lorraine happened to drop in before lunch to drop some items off and was going to leave them on our back patio table when she noticed that the back sliding door was open. Initially she thought it was odd and that Claire must have unknowingly left it open, so she walked in, dropped off her items and then noticed the broken glass on the floor.

At this point Lorraine thought she heard someone in the house and called 000 and the police responded promptly but instead of having the normal boys in blue roll up, we had a Sargent, two detectives and a forensic officer who happened to all be in the area when the call came over their radio — talk about good timing!

Police entered the house with weapons drawn, cleared all rooms, cupboards, under beds, in large storage spaces, garage and even checked in the man hole into the roof cavity to make sure no one was in the house. By the time the police arrived, there wasn’t anyone in the house – good for the offender, not as fantastic for the police as it would have been great to apprehend someone.

House

While getting broken into is not on the top of my bucket list, I’m very thankful that whoever broke into our home didn’t do any damage. Other than the shattered glass pane in the sliding door, nothing else in the house was damaged. They could have easily broken the TV, damaged or spray painted the walls, set fire to the house for the fun of it — the options are pretty endless but none of that happened so for that I’m thankful.

The living area, kitchen, computer and kids rooms were left alone, while our master bedroom took their full attention with virtually everything in a draw or on a shelf, now sitting on the floor as they rummaged through looking for valuable items but again, nothing damaged – just a great big mess.

Possessions

Knowing that Claire was at the gym, I had in my head a rough time frame that she would have been away from the house. For whatever reason, I was imagining someone or a group of people systematically going through the house over a couple of hours (I know, ridiculous) and emptying it out completely of anything of value.

To my absolute and complete dismay, that is virtually the opposite of what has happened. While turning our bedroom upside down, they’ve found a beautiful dress watch I gave to Claire on our wedding day and taken that, while overlooking my equally expensive Seiko watch. They’ve literally picked up the Canon 600D and the digital video camera to move them but didn’t take them, similarly they opened a jewelry that was clearly opened wasn’t taken so I’m a little confused about what their motivation was.

This makes me wonder if Lorraine did disturb someone in the house and when she back out of the house, I presume to the front yard to call the police, the intruder(s) have escaped out through the broken glass door and over the fence. No idea if that happened or not but it is odd that more items weren’t stolen, so maybe something spooked them.

Forensics

It was great to see the forensics guy dusting everything down for finger prints, maybe it’ll help them nail someone for the crime in the future. Successful finger prints were lifted off the door frame but unfortunately they didn’t cut themselves on the glass. It also turns out that Apple products are very desirable, as every box we had in the cupboard was taken down and checked and the nice glossy cardboard is fantastic for prints – four more sets were lifted off those as well.

Insurance

This afternoon I put a call into our Suncorp Insurance to get the ball rolling with them and the process was really smooth. Rob, the Suncorp consultant I talked to on the phone was fast, clear and explained what was going to happen.

Before I got off the phone he’d already organised a glazier to call me later that afternoon to come and fix the broken glass panel in the sliding door. Rob had said if I didn’t hear from the glazier in 2-3 hours to give them a call but I didn’t need to, as they called me less than 10 minutes after I got off the phone.

The glazier, Amalgamated Glass, turned up about an hour after the phone call. Hugo and Evie were excited to see him shatter the glass into a thousand tiny pieces and vacuum them up, along with watching him refit the new glass out at his truck.

Next Steps

Claire has provided the police with an initial list of stolen items, which at this stage is just her dress watch but that might change in the next day or two. The forensics officer actually said it is normal to add things to that stolen items register months or a year afterwards when you realise an item you use infrequently is missing. I’d expect to receive the incident number for the break and enter tomorrow or early next week.

I’ve got the case number from Suncorp and have told them about the stolen watch. Again we need to update the stolen items as soon as we can and also provide Suncorp any documentation (if we’ve got any) showing that we own the items that that we’ve reported stolen such as a receipt, maybe a photo for instance.

Tomorrow or Monday I should receive a phone call from someone at Suncorp to go through our case in more detail, at which point I should find out about how the payout process works which at this stage I’m unsure of.

So far having someone break into our home has been an inconvenience but everyone we’ve dealt with so far have been fantastic. I’m hopeful that the last part of the process with Suncorp is equally as smooth and if so, they should be congratulated on really trying hard to deliver great customer service.