Today, I was going to write 100 words about public holidays, given that Queensland had one today. I was going to write about the philosophy of public holidays, and whether they should be mandated, and then wax eloquently about being self-employed and so public holidays don’t actually mean that much, etc.
Anyway, I was going to write all that, and it was going to be terrific, and then I wrote the date, and couldn’t get past the simplicity of writing:
May the fourth be with you.
And I’m not even a Star Wars fan.
But I do like Harrison Ford.

I like running long distances. Sunday is often a long run day. A lovely long 3hr meander along Brisbane’s riverside is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning.

In my running community, I’m nothing special. Most run further and/or faster.

Taking 3hrs to run 24km is fairly pedestrian (slow), but it makes me happy.

My brain free wheels, or I listen to podcasts or audiobooks, and it is terrific me-time.

For me, slower is better.

Sometimes we need to slow down to achieve things. Not everything needs to be done at a cracking pace. This applies to work, too.

I’m starting the preparation and pack-up for an upcoming office move.
It’s both enlightening and infuriating how much paper I have.

I’m thoroughly enjoying reviewing it all as I pack it up. I have articles on topics such as knowledge management, ethics, project engineering, principles and respect, and of course risk, quality and competencies. And course all of the client-related documents and records: it’s ten years of being self-employed.

I clearly can’t and won’t move away from paper. It’s ridiculously wasteful, in terms of both materials and space.  And yet, it’s not wasteful: it’s reminders of a self-employed life lived.

The other day, I went to write the word “goals” and instead wrote “goats”. Scribbled it out and funny enough, the remaining scribble somehow looked like the word "ghosts".
And I thought, well ok: if we strive for our goals we can become GOATs (greatest of all time). (Or maybe striving for a goal makes us feel like a goat).
Meanwhile we’re all surrounded by ghosts of past goals.
What does it all mean on this Friday, May 1st? I don’t know, but I promised myself I’d start up 100wordsaday again, so, here I am, goals, goats, ghosts and all.

Today I joined Felicity Furey’s book launch (‘Future of Engineering—Legacy by Design’). It’s a substantial, weighty book, and pleasure to hold and flip through.

The event was well attended, and it caused me to observe two things.

1. There will be books in the future: thin books, heavy books, philosophical ones, fiction, self-help, biographies, memoirs. Yes, books will continue to have a place for a long time.

2. Meeting in person will remain a ‘thing’. It’s easy to drift into a life online with little in-person interaction. I am convinced, though, that a fulfilling life must include meetups with other people.

Habits are fragile things: easily broken when just starting them up. I’ve been trying to build a few habits lately (fitness, nutrition, writing), but they aren’t settling in quite yet.

Two learnings so far:

Make time over finding time: I switched thinking ‘I can never find time!’ to “if it’s important, I’ll make time”. Yes, that does mean something else won’t get done. Recognise priorities and get on with it.

Wanting to do it vs forcing myself: having decided on a habit to embed, remember it was my choice to take it on. Lean into that agency and own it.

Technical Standards like AS2885 for high pressure pipelines, or button battery safety, or pool fences, or others like that, are a unique documentation situation.
While Standards “lead” because they set requirements to be met so that products are safe, efficient and consistent, I actually think Standards are laggards. Quite often, we can’t set a Standard without being able to refer to experience about what’s efficient and safe.

When novelty and innovation are underway, people are also looking for a Standard. But we’re finding that it can’t be written until there’s enough experience to know what the best requirements should be.

On Saturday I ran in my first ever Parkrun.  These are 5km ‘races’ occur around the world, at 7am every Saturday morning. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, getting people out for some exercise.
It highlights the human need/want to do things together.
Any of these people could’ve run 5km on their own, or gone out for a 5k with a few friends. And yet, 200 people at this event, didn’t do that, no, they came to Parkrun.
Because spending time with other people who want to do what you want to do, seems to just be something people want to do.

No, not personal failures; I’m not going to regale some story of my struggle to battle back after some epic failure (well, only if asked). Here I’m referring to the more mundane but sometimes spectacular failure of design, materials, or systems.
To be successful, every engineer should spend time considering failure. An outcome of good engineering is the prevention of failure. For infrastructure, process, and mechanical engineering, failure can mean fatalities.

Anticipating failure is as simple as asking the question ‘how might this fail?’. Too many projects are never seen through this lens, because of our natural fear of failure.