The Old Boy's

11:11:11

A New, Aged beginning

I'd met many Great mentors throughout my life - there had been just so many great teachers, in my life to listen too. Billy Mac always said 'Surround yourself with good people & quality, David' - Your company is only as good as its people. They are the most valuable resource - train them. And so I incorporated a company from an existing business. I set out to find the resources Old Bill talked about and to ensure our work was made by a team of the highest quality. He also gave us a building project our first year that doubled the turnover for a great ride of discovery. Hand drawn workshop drawings under supervision, always learning and from a basic level of course that added value to the equity value of our business. I had learnt on site the Installation processes with 'Dirty Hands' for that last 5 Years prior, this was an exciting new World. It was the Physic's though that intrigued me, I enjoyed the way the Old Boy's explained things. I had missed the guiding hand of a Father figure in my early days so I searched for as many of these Mentors to take me under their wing. The business became my life's education in skill.

You were always there for me.......

In Greek theatre Rhea the great mother of all planets, had sent her youngest child Jupiter away from a Father who was consuming her children and from this story from I learned a philosophy quite relative to our current economic events preceding this new age of communication. A commitment was made to save her youngest child by sending him away from Time management; In so, hoping one day a grown Man returned to Olympus to succeed his evil Father, Saturn who wanted control over life's power in our Universe. Metaphorically Jupiter is present again in the vast empirical world of astrology and as storm & tempest coincidentally comes over these polluted skies I can't help but relate Saturn to the stolen dreamtime in life that creates innovation so different to that which we all suffered in the Macro-failed World. The teaching of Drama and fear that was reinforced by hindsight & rhetoric presented Time & Efficiency solutions that in reality never worked practically. Our prestigious leaders talked of productivity, but they couldn't begin to know what it actually was. Our Country was big enough now to stand on its own two feet.

'Our Datum for a productive life is not given by controlling time....'

I knew there was a lot of common sense in our business, that had seemed to go missing in the later part of the Hourman's succession planning, but then again the business was growing in a newly accelerating World. I remember the first fax machine; didn't that thing speed us up. There were big changes ahead for us in the evolution of communication, yet still the Old Boy insisted that time was made for a good lunch, qualifying this methodology as a productivity measure for real conversation in the planning our actions to meet the new binary deadlines. You were a good teacher and I revered your overflowing knowledge, the use of the old slide rule, thermal law principles and simple things like using old school means of determination.

The computer by the nineties had evolved to the desktop....

Then came the first Excel spreadsheet. It was a period when the trade introduced drawings to a computer screen. A dos version of Auto-CAD release 2.6 and I had to learn how to type in co-ordinates an sit and watch the screen as these amazing lines appeared. Fisher, another Mentor was so excitingly profound and a professor in his skill and understanding how to control logic. He taught me to write macros and he was passionate about the new tools of the binary World. It was so slow back then waiting for the computer to regenerate the work on screen. I was most proud when Professor Fisher said that my drawings were 'very good David'

..... and our business grew & grew.

We had a great business and we had traded well over two hundred million dollars by the new century; sixty million dollars in taxes towards our growing economy and you grew gracefully into a little Royalty we could promote as our knowledge base. I had tried to keep you a mite comfortable Old fella and I always looked for the small gestures to help you out. I loved buying the black beast and trying to purchase it that day with my Amex card. Didn't that salesman's mouth drop? I certainly used that debonair English accent for all it was worthy respect and as time stood you watched as a few larrikins built the goodwill of a growing Company into greater heights; we were very successful.

..... you were always around and we planned for success

I do remember that trip to Nepal I undertook around mount Everest, standing there high in the sky at 6000m. Didn't that trip awaken me up to what luxury's I had. Finding 'a dead body in the snow and the contrast of looking up and seeing the beauty over the top of the World' I have been privileged in existence, I'm sure I won't complain when I reach the recycling centre. I knew that I was annoying, it's just that I had to understand the engineering & physics as it was that learning, of those new skills that excited me

.... my Passion was constructing & putting things together

You were quite Patient Old Boy. You must know 'I Respected you' Your teaching skills of Engineering skill was very valuable to me, unsurpassed and above all my other mentors; & frankly much better than the Ego addicts, the Managers of affairs who claimed to be professionals, who seeded it all going wrong. I'd learnt that the people who proclaimed to know everything and give you advise without your asking for it are also the ones who seem to know about everyone else' s personal business and will easily stab you in the back at every opportunity

Are our Children turning to Stone.......Because of a lack of time?

Now I use my learned skills of engineering in a theory of Collectivity for Micro-Community. Could conscious change come to this Earth by removing the complexities that drive us all mad; through a process of simplicity - using an example of one Tax rather than 125. I have placed the Children's future at the centre of my work as my Datum for this engineering challenge and measure that against a known datum I call mechanical emotion. I had found only expectation in our heated emotions, that these were always a purposeful tool for the emotional vampires; and that these emotions performed just as inefficiently as the modern engine does like hot air being the most inefficient wasted heat for movement and that engine was similar to personal anger & blame most businesses face internally.

......sense and sensibility diminished when squared, a process lost squared to the power of ten

Emotions vary for each of us and I wanted to find out as a business manager a broader relativity that bonded our shown emotions to mechanical function when combusted; like the hot air of preconceived conversation being an inanimate object that has weight or matter; and I found was there a comparison between Emotional Matter & mechanical function when we are thrown like a ball, that falls through the air. To compare a theory of an engines wasted heat to the wasted pathetic emotions on display each day. I have been searching, trying not to blame, but digging deeper into my self to remember some of the good things we brought towards the lives of the many good people who worked in our business, then straight away I think about those silly lunches, weekends away with the boys & the serious-lessness in the trade Golf days. And I must say each Thursday night in my band room, all that music we recorded, all those people having a drink and singing silly songs - finally working on a theatre production with a Julliard trained composer, recording and playing our music with members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, meeting the Hartle strings, playing live at the Enmore theatre trying to rediscover myself.

......and all those good times and .... still the business grew.

Old Geoffress was a great man and I remember the '37 Jaguar SS-100 he built from scratch. I just couldn't get enough of watching him build that car on my visits. I'd buy cakes, sitting down with the Old Boy in his kip-shed with a cup of hot Billy tea listening as he reconciled the many interesting stories that had created this life. He was passionate, he could remember names, places, he knew about trains and planes; a collectively stored knowledge database that was easily accessed and as valuable to me as physics, learning about his hobbies in a hand made set of sheet metal model train carriages and the old cars he loved. Much more interesting than hearing the Poets of society speak of their conquests of stray routes on motorbikes trips. Technology owns us now and controls our mechanical & emotional lives in an accelerated existence for the Hourman's macro gain.

The power of life was much greater, collectively than the forces of time....

I had so many collectively happy times with great mentors who shared my passion for the improvised moments. Great Violin concertos Duigal made up in haste and music that just came from nowhere. I studied the moment and started to write about a theory of change after young Sean told me of his dream - he was a lot like me in many ways. The moment I experienced would have been a comparable story to the the Engineer who conceived the A380 plane simply from someone saying something about flight , of how congested the skies were with jets speeding us around the World and a bigger plane was needed. The 'Dead Poets society' the critics would be turning in their graves seeing such a plane. What if you fought against Jack Lang in the 1920's and then you lived to see the Harbour Bridge built in all its Glory or if you were the critical element in the Jaguar car company when they were developing the legendary design quality of the E-type Jag...Listening to critics?

'Oh no.... that couldn't be built because...?'

I knew first hand that the creation of our children's future did not rely on money - it relied on creation. Now we have the technology to power our transport systems with cleaner energy, planes that can be half in weight, more powerful trucks and V12 engines that work efficiently from fuels on demand and clean our skies with cool temperature exhaust systems as they worked. Well I have many honorable associates who agree, it is plausible...as our engineering challenge

To save the Christmas kids in 24 hours - 'We're better than this...'

As I look back over the last thirty years of business, what comes to mind is steaks for $2.00 and a bottle of Taylor's Cabernet Sauvignon for $6.00 and getting our investment dollars back from the Pub as he learned to trust our skills in quality engineering. Sven would break out the cafe' cream cigars, the coffee would come and we'd drink the last drop of the Taylor's Red and yarn about the affairs of the world and how we could improve on future prosperity.

You were my superstar for marketing and selling - My secret weapon

As I think of Go Kart sessions after lunch; and you, like a preying mantis, hanging out of that small kart like a pro; the child within I kind of smile like a bastard. There was old Norman who loved the 'Grolsh' beer and after two bottles of those beers, I was drunk. I remember that day we flew to the hunter valley for lunch and you were quite at home in the cockpit, although I think that bottle of wine gave you a whole lot more courage. I sent you to Spain and I always kept you mobile.

And you must know Gosh, didn't I have to fight the Poet for those little gifts.

I have imagined the pomp and ceremony flying with the British Royal Air force over the sandy plains of Africa and the pilots training that you accomplished in a time of complete British dominance and back in those days I guess you were discovering yourself in a very exciting life. You were a little bit of royalty to me Old Boy. I do remember seeing you in a picture recently, although old and faded now, with a " tit" on your head serving the British police force. You have accomplished quite a lot old fella and I thank you for the experience.

I reminisce often and I want you all to remember and value your Mentors, as we need these people to share their skills in this World that currently has evolved to use a flavour of blame, hindsight & personal emotional bias to control your time.

The learning from an Old Boy can never be replaced - and if you are serious at learning skill in life.....Simply Listen