USS Texas BB-35

The USS Texas BB-35 is the second of the two New York class battleships; commissioned in 1914, she was a WWI dreadnought era battleship. The USS Texas saw extensive service during WWII firstly escorting convoys in the Atlantic and later in the Pacific theatre of war.  

The battleship provided in North Africa and the Normandy D-day landings in the European theatre before transference to the Pacific theatre providing naval gunfire support for the Iwo Jima and Okinawa marine landings.

Placed in naval reserve in 1946, the USS Texas was decommissioned and struck from the naval register in 1948; now residing in San Jacinto, Houston, Texas as a museum ship open to the public.  

On my next trip to the United States, I hope to be touring through Texas and will be sure to visiting this floating WWII museum.

Blackwood Bar & Grill - Mandaluyong

I was headed out to dinner in Mandaluyong, an city within the greater Manila area on the north side of the Pasig River. I wandered into the Blackwood Bar & Grill and immediately found out this was a bar targeting expats as their clientele - their prices notified me in no uncertain terms.

Still, I was waiting to meet friends for dinner and and had to hang around for a couple of gin and tonic. I quickly noticed the service wasn't up to the standard of the decor. Maybe because I was an interloper in their area, I wasn't taken seriously - I was just ignored. 

This is apparently a bar where local expats meet for a Sunday afternoon drink, this was early Saturday evening and I just wasn't feeling the love. Regardless, if I wanted a refill I had to chase them down, paying the bill seemed to be an almost impossible request - who would have thought?

Building the learning organisation

Having just racked up 10 years employed as a lecturer at a vocational college, I have a fair knowledge of traditional classroom delivery. The next step becoming more employable outside of the college system is to create the conditions to build a learning organisation within our faculty. That isn't going to be easy as I come up against resistance at every level - this is a fight to the death.

With this in mind, I reckon that is what I was already doing so I wanted to validate the process I was undertaking so my personal assignment over the Christmas holidays was to work my way through this book. That wasn't an outstanding success as it was mid-way through February and I still hadn't completed the book. 

However, in my defense, I have not only been taking notes but I have been writing up key concepts and approaches on my computer. In order to really embed the principles expelled in the publication, I really need to do more than just read a book from cover to cover and place it back on the bookshelf and forget about it. Now it is time to embed the principles in a reluctant organisation. 

2013 Hay Shed Hill Cabernet Sauvignon revisited

I purchased a bottle of 2013 Hay Shed Hill cabernet sauvignon and was must admit I was fairly disappointed. While I am very supportive of this winemaker after having purchased numerous vintages over the years, I thought the 2013 was lacking. 

I have visited the vineyard down at Margaret River and loved the soft smooth notes of the pitchfork cabernet sauvignon range. I was particularly impressed with the 2012 cabernet sauvignon, I suppose I expected a degree of consistency I had not found in the 2013 vintage. 

Were my expectations too high? Had I opened this bottle of wine too early so that it had not developed as hoped? But as I had so many great experiences from Hay Shed Hill, I knew this was probably me on a bad day so I needed to revisit the 2013 cabernet sauvignon to be sure.

I found the 2013 to hold none of the virtues of the complex yet smooth 2012 vintage. I found this vintage to be fairly nondescript and lacking the complexity of this range - that was unexpected. I do ask myself, was this just me? Was I just being overly sensitive? 

Were my expectations too high as I have come to expect a certain standard from a high quality wine producer? What I do know is this won't stop me drinking Hay Shed Hill cabernet sauvignon, I have had too many great experiences over the years to sook too long. As it turned out, I liked the next bottle of 2013, maybe I was just having a bad day. 

The café Americano

I have never much like the watery rubbish that is the café Americano, the growth of American style coffee houses has seen my choices of good black coffee somewhat limited. The café Americano is a style of coffee prepared by brewing a standard espresso shot then adding hot water to the espresso shot allowing a similar strength but somewhat different flavor to drip brewed coffee.

A popular belief that the café Americano origins were born during the second world war when American Soldiers stationed in Italy diluted Italian espresso shots with hot water to brew a coffee to that they were accustomed too. I was once in a pretty good cafe down in Fremantle and I overheard an American tourist explaining to his friends that the United States has the world's best coffee in Seattle coffee chains - I nearly fell over at the thought of that horrible watery rubbish.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - Philippines

My favourite coffee haunt when visiting the Philippines is the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in the Greenbelt 5 shopping complex in the business district of Makati in greater Manila. What I like about the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is they serve their coffee in proper cups, not those disposable paper cups of other chains - let's get serious here.

This is a great hang, I can set up with my laptop computer and reference book and work from there for hours at a time. There is plenty of activity, but that doesn't seem to distract me and the double espresso they have on offer is some of the best coffee on offer from the large coffee chains.

Scuba Professional

I obtained my copy of Simon Pridmore's latest dive publication, Scuba Professional and started reading the preface. Peter Symes of X Ray magazine began by stating that no dive industry academy existed beyond the standard training agency instructor offerings.

This thought immediately raised alarm bells with me as substantive dive centre and resort training is available by a variety of non-certification agency institutions, this book addresses these and other issues and is an excellent bookshelf companion.

I understand what he is saying though, and yes, becoming an instructor is the most common method to enter the recreational dive industry. The instructor development course is in my opinion woefully inadequate preparation for dive industry management.

It took me a while to actually start reading as I loaned this excellent publication to numerous workmates, such was their interest in this book - it was a fight to get it back.

So actually reading this book began with a number of setbacks. I soon realised that this was not a romantic escapade into dive centre and resort ownership, this tells it as it is. Indeed, Simon asks if moving into the recreational diving industry is really for you - this is an important question.

The attrition rate among instructors is very high, this high attrition rate is beneficial to the dive certification agencies as they have a new cohort of instructors filling the roles vacated by burnt out instructors and dive centre owners.

Simon himself was a dive centre owner, his advice is fundamental to an understanding of the industry as you need to take a business based approach to dive centre ownership and management. The business needs to be viewed through an objective ideal, not a love of diving but through a keen business acumen and strategy.

Naturally, the love of diving is paramount; customer service is the basis of the industry. Sure, as I previously stated, the financials are important and this is brought about by keen observation of customer needs and desires.

Make no mistake, this is a customer centric business with dive centres and resorts displaying high levels of customer service, this book provides you with the blueprint to plan your dive career.