Category Archives: Life

Complaining Solves Nothing

Life

I came across an insightful post by Sebastian Marshall today, via Scott Yang, titled “Okay, so what are you going to do about it?“.

The article resonated with me, mostly because I semi-regularly find myself complaining about similar things, which annoys me for a number of reasons – least of which is the Groundhog Day nature of it.

Sebastian has a great quote toward the bottom:

Complaining solves nothing, it makes you unhappy and turns people off. Claim solutions, improve things, build, fix, work, repair, serve.

I’m going to try that on for size & see how I go.

20/20 Vision

Life

A fortnight ago on a Wednesday, I felt as though I had something in my eye. No matter how many times I washed it, blinked or rubbed it, it persisted. At the time, I figured it’ll sort itself out and go away in a day or two.

Fast forward to that Friday and I woke up and my eye was quite red and it still felt as though I had something in my eye. After close inspection in the mirror, I could see a mark on the edge of my iris – which prompted a rather quick trip to the optometrist.

The optometrist that I had was great and confirmed what I could see in the mirror to be an ulcer. We went through the standard set of eye tests and one that that shot three bursts of air at my eye. I didn’t realise it at the time but it measure the pressure in your eyes – which I was happy that he checked since Jude came down with acute glaucomer many years ago. The optometrist also put a dye in my eye to get a closer look, it was absorbed into the eye instead of glossing over it like a drop of water, which indicated some sort of damage to the surface of my eye. He’d said that the mere presence of that behaviour was enough for an immediate referral to an ophthalmologist, which got me a little nervous.

I was lucky enough to get into the ophthalmologist that afternoon and fortunately Lucy was able to drive me in. When I arrived, I went through two different sets of staff – firstly another optometrist. He did a standard eye test, which I passed with better than 20/20 vision. That was followed by the first set of eye drops, which was an anesthetic to numb the surface of my eye. Second was a set of drops that relaxed the muscles in my eye to make my pupil expand. What a bazaar feeling that was, I was trying as hard as I could to focus on something and just couldn’t – hence Lucy chauffeuring me. Once the pupil expanded he had a really good look around and in my eyes. That was really hard on my left eye, as it was sensitive to light and he was shining a bright light into it at close range and I couldn’t blink.

Next up was the ophthalmologist, who put in another set of eye drops to numb the surface of my eye again. He also looked in the back of my eyes to make sure nothing was wrong, which there wasn’t thank god. The specialist however had a new instrument, something fitted to the front of his normal machine which literally touches the surface of your eye. Touching the surface of my eye was another way of testing the pressure in my eyes and he reconfirmed it was okay. Now for someone that hasn’t needed glasses or even a visit to an optometrist for as long as I can remember, I can’t tell you how strong the urge was to pull away from the machine as it got closer and closer to my eye!

After all was said and done, the ophthalmologist informs me I have something known as marginal keratitis. Keratitis is an infection in the eye, can be caused by any number of things and comes in various types and severities. In my instance, I was lucky as the infection was on the edge of my iris, so had no impact on my vision while infected and no chance of long term damage to my eye sight.

Treatment for it was quite straight forward, the doctor prescribed me with two different sets of eye drops which I had to take four times a day. Putting drops in my eye was a new experience as well, again not used to putting things that close to my eye and I was a horrible aim for the first few attempts!

A week on and I’ve now had a follow up appointment with the specialist and he is really pleased with how well my eye has healed in the week. In fact, the second appointment was nearly a non-event as I was in his office for less than 10 minutes and not all of that time he was in the room. I now have another week of using the drops but only twice a day instead of four times daily.

I have taken my sight for granted, like most people do, for such a long time. It was a frightening thought when I was referred to the ophthalmologist that it was that serious. I’m so thankful that the infection was minor and wasn’t going to impact my vision going forward.

4 Car Motor Vehicle Accident

Life, Photos
Mitsubishi Lancer, after rear ending a Mitsubishi Pajero at about 100kph
Mitsubishi Lancer, after rear ending a Mitsubishi Pajero at about 100kph

I left work early today to for an appointment at a Gold Coast physiotherapist not too far from home.

It was about 4:55PM and I was driving north on the M1, approaching exit 57 for Hope Island. At this time of day, there was a lot of traffic around and the intersection is notorious for being heavily congested as it serves as a massive interchange for some large roads. The traffic had already filled both of the offramp lanes and was now backing up a few hundred metres further down the M1 in the shoulder of the motorway. To give you an idea, the accident happened about 150m south of the overpass to the right of map marker A (see link above) and there was a few hundred metres of cars lined up behind us within seconds of the accident.

Mitsubishi Pajero, after being rear ended by a Mitsubishi Lancer at about 100kph
Mitsubishi Pajero, after being rear ended by a Mitsubishi Lancer at about 100kph

I indicated and slowed down like normal and just as I was coming to a rest I glanced into my right rear view mirror and thought to myself for a split second that I hope there isn’t an accident. Nearly as soon as that thought left my mind, all I can hear is an enormous smash as a dark blue Mitsubishi Lancer ploughed into the back of a Mitsubishi Pajero, which proceeded to hammer a Toyota Camry and then onto my Ford Telstar. Fortunately, I hadn’t come to a complete stop yet so was still a reasonable distance from the Mazda 3 in front of me and was able to stop my car before hitting it.

Toyota Camry, after being rear end by a Mitsubishi Pajero
Toyota Camry, after being rear end by a Mitsubishi Pajero

A lof of people that weren’t involved in the accident pulled over on the motorway to make sure everyone was okay, which I thought was fantastic. I’m sure to passing traffic, they must have got a shock as the man following the blue Lancer suggested that he didn’t even put his breaks on, or if he did – momentarily before he carreered into the back of the Pajero. After talking to the other drivers, the guy in the Mitsubishi Lancer said he wasn’t looking at the road, for some eight seconds (his words) – which scares the hell out of me. If that timing is true, eight seconds on the motorway is approximately 240m of travelling distance and a hell of a lot of things can happen in 240m of motorway, like say a four car multi-vehicle accident!

Ford Telstar, after being rear ended by a Toyota Camry
Ford Telstar, after being rear ended by a Toyota Camry

The emergency services were amazing, there was a motorbike police officer on the scene within five minutes and the first of the ambulances arrived a few minutes later, followed by fire engines, more police, ambulances & traffic control. Surprisingly, the tardiest of the lot were the tow trucks, who are normally like vultures circling waiting for something to die.

Incredibly, everyone came away from the accident with no or fairly light injuries. The guy in the Lancer had a broken finger and was struggling to breathe a little, which doesn’t surprise me given the rather abrupt stop he made coupled with the airbag. Probably the worst effected was the young woman in the Pajero, who took the brunt of the force and was really shaken up but visibly unharmed.

Being completely unsure what I should do in a multi-vehicle accident, I asked one of the police officers on the scene. They informed me that I didn’t need to worry about getting everyones details, they’d provide me with an incident number to provide to my insurance company. Now comes and interesting time ahead to see what’ll happen to the trusty Telstar!

Federal Court Observations

Life, Work

For the last few months, Mantra Group have been involved in a court case against a number of different businesses and individuals which revolved around trade mark infringement and breaches of the Trade Practices Act by off site letting agents – specifically those relating to Circle on Cavill.

Due to my familiarity with what was going on, I was asked if I would be willing to provide an affidavit for the court case – which I was more than happy to do. That also meant that it was possible that I might be needed when the trial date arrived, however at the time of submitting the affidavit – that wasn’t really on my radar.

A few days before the court case was to go before the Federal Court judge in Brisbane, I was notified that I would in fact be needed during the case as a witness and would be cross examined by the party Mantra Group were up against. I’m not the sort of person that tends to get too nervous but as soon as I found out, I had butterflies in my stomach and was excited and scared by the proposition of giving evidence in a court case of this magnitude.

I arrived in Brisbane much earlier than I needed to, not that it was my intention – I simply allowed enough time in case I got hit by poor traffic from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. Just in case, I took along Always Be Testing to pass the time – turned out to be a good decision. By about 9:30AM all of the official parties started to arrive and there was lots of preparation happening within the court room – making sure the literal volumes of evidence were in order and accounted for. Legal teams have bookcases on wheels to move all of their evidence and paper work around, which they appear to prefer over builders wheelbarrow – though they carry considerably less. The first session went from around 10:00AM until 1:00PM, at which point we broke for lunch and returned just after 2:00PM. Our barrister finished off his opening statement (4.5 hours, not a bad effort) and then the opposition questioned our witness list in about an  hour and the judge called it a day. I was expecting the questioning to be quite lengthy and rigorous, attempting to disarm or discredit the evidence we had submitted against them but that didn’t appear to be their strategy on that particular day.

There were a number of things that I thought were quite interesting about the whole experience:

  • The Federal Court building in Brisbane is very nice
  • Apparently silence or near enough to it is a virtue, you could hear a pin drop most of the time even outside of the court room
  • Barristers and other legal staff bow when entering and leaving the court room
  • You can now give an oath or an affirmation to swear that you’re telling the truth. An oath can be performed over a Catholic bible, Qur’an and many others.
  • Not knowing the line of questioning from a barrister is unsettling.
  • Knowing the line of questioning can be unsettling as well, as you wonder why they might pursue that line of questioning in the first place and what they hope to achieve out of it further down the road.
  • Court reporters can apparently hear nearly everything that happens within the court room, regardless of how softly it might be spoken. While they can record the conversation taking place are break neck pace, you still need to slow down slightly to allow them to take it down accurately.
  • Instead of a barrister referring to other barristers as Mr Smith or Smith, they are referred to as ‘my learned friend’
  • There are a lot of terms for various elements of a court case, evidence and processes. Due to their respective significance, barristers always use the correct name for each element to avoid confusion. However, it makes their speech patterns very different from everyday life.
  • Barristers need to stand before addressing the court. When there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between each party and the judge, watching the barristers stand and sit is humorous.
  • Only the barristers are permitted to address the court, other legal staff are not – regardless of how qualified they might be. I think even if the judge requires clarification, that will go from the other legal staff to the barrister to relay to the judge
  • Barristers cannot provide documents to the judge directly, they must go through a court assistant and subsequently through an assistant for the judge.
  • I think an assistant for a judge might be the most qualified personal assistant on the planet, having at least a legal degree under their belt.
  • The pace of a court case can vary dramatically, from watching paint dry boring to short, sharp and quite snappy.
  • Respect for one another and courtesy appear to be a requirement and highly regarded
  • Judges appear to be very patient people

The whole experience has been a real eye opener for what is involved in a court case and doing a great job. While I think everyone appreciates what legal teams generally need to do – the effort they expend attempting to be as thorough and complete as possible is quite remarkable. Aspects of this case, which I was involved in were related to internet marketing. A colleague at Mantra Group and I were concerned we weren’t going to be able to adequately explain the intricacies of it to the legal folk, as it is a specialist field and quite in depth, such that they could explain it to a judge. Despite that, the ability for our senior counsel to comprehend what was going on and apply it to a different circumstance was quite impressive, especially given it isn’t something they deal in regularly or at all.

Now we just need to wait for the judge to deliver his ruling, pretty exciting!