Hamstaa!

West End has a long history of multiculturalism and artistic creativity. Post Expo'88, Southbank changed significantly from the industrial part of central Brisbane to a trendy new place to be and be seen. This change has been progressively spreading into West End, with trendy new restaurants/cafe's and apartments taking over however you can still find the "old" West End along with artistic outbursts if you look.

I found this example of a "Can Critter" on a power pole between a shiny apartment complex and one of the older timber homes that were originally in West End. Love the use of an DB15 connector for the mouth.

We are getting our bathroom renovated at the moment, and the completion date has been extended by a couple of days.

I guess it should have been expected, but what was interesting was that it seems the delay is not due to unexpected issues in the fit-out (as in water damage, etc) but rather the delay in the supplier getting the taps to the company doing the work.

Talking to the plumber, the problem lies in the suppliers not having stock sitting in local warehouses. Now this wouldn't have been a problem, but the time from agreeing to do the project, and it starting was very quick. As such, the time for the delivery of taps was longer than the time until they were needed. So if we weren't able to kick off this project so quickly, then they could have ordered those items in advance enough to get them here in time.

This got me thinking about Lean development practices and the “Just in Time” approach. If we consider that the aim is develop something “just in time” for when it is required, then it is possible that an opportunity may arise that, to take advantage of, would reduce the available time to develop and subsequently cause delays.

Of course the trade-off of doing “Just in Time” is that you aren't building a stock-pile with all the inherit costs and problems. It does however mean that the critical path analysis for taking advantage of a sudden opportunity does require you to know the “Just in Time” periods that could affect you.

I was recently watching a great show called "Kevin McCloud: Slumming It". In it, Kevin investigates a slum in India and discovers that while the people are in squalor, they have far more sense of community and use of common space than we in the west do.

While there doesn't appear to be the available common spaces and subsequent community in most cities, I was really happy to see a Community Garden in my recent wanderings around West End.

Sometimes a holiday is more than just the opportunity to see something new, or achieve some project at home, sometimes it all about you.

My wife and I recently had a two week break, the first holiday since Christmas last year. We had originally intended to do some travelling down into New South Wales, with some camping and walking through the National Parks, however at the last minute we decided to scale it down. What we did instead was spend the entire two weeks in Hervey Bay in a holiday house just minutes form the beach. We weren't there to Whale watch or see Fraser Island, but instead to do as little as possible.

While we were away, I read an article in the local paper that used the term "Mental Health Break" and I realised that was exactly what we were doing. It's been a big year for both of us work wise, so this break was needed to recharge the old mental batteries. Being away from home stopped the inclination to "just do X around the house". Being without internet access stopped the "I'll just check my email". Both us love to read, so with no distractions I was able to read 6 books, more than I've read in the last 18months.

So, if you have the chance, take a "Mental Health Break". It will leave you refreshed, re-focussed and ready to get back into it when you return.

Earlier in the year Ephox, after many years in Paddington, moved it's Brisbane office to West End. Whenever I find myself in a new location I like to go for walks around the area to get a feel for it. On a few of these, I came across interesting or amusing things, and so I thought I'd create a new category (West End Wanderings) on my Blog for them.

For the first one, I thought I’d introduce my favorite place to get coffee.

Local Coffee

A key requirement of all software teams is access to good coffee. While we have a great machine in the office, a good barista will always produce better coffee and besides, it's an excuse to get outside and stretch the legs.

Stove is just up the road from us in an unobtrusive little building. The staff are brilliant and the coffee is too. Oh, and if you find yourself there, their fresh made muffins are wonderful, but be quick, they disappear rapidly.