Experiences Matter! - Vern Gambetta (Sun 29 May 2011)

Experiences Matter! - Vern Gambetta (e) (Sun 29 May 2011)

Experiences Matter!

It is not so much about the number of years of experience one has, the depth is what really counts.

Depth comes from experiences.

[It is p]ossible to have one experience many times over, [it is] more valuable to have a rich and varied [set of] experiences.

Here are some photos from the 2010 Asian Dragon Boat Championships, a great experience for us all, particularly Joanne and myself:

Team Photos (All Smiles) - 2010 Asian Dragon Boat Champioships - Wujin / China (Sun 01 May 2010)
Team Photos (All Smiles) - 2010 Asian Dragon Boat Champioships - Wujin / China (Sun 01 May 2010)
Team Photos (All Smiles) - 2010 Asian Dragon Boat Champioships - Wujin / China (Sun 01 May 2010)
Joanne, Serge and Geoff - 2010 Asian Dragon Boat Champioships - Wujin / China (Sun 01 May 2010)

On Thinking - David Foster Wallace (21 May 2005)

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about

"teaching you how to think"

is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea:

"learning how to think"

really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

David Foster Wallace (w) - Transcript - 2005 Kenyon College Commencement Address (21 May 2005)

Sculpture by the Sea - Bondi / Sydney - (18 Nov 2002)

On Luck and Want (Garrison Keillor)

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon Days (1985), p. 337 (seen here)

Game-day performance is a manifestation of training and preparation - Phil Gould (14 Mar 2011)

Game-day performance is a manifestation of training and preparation.

It is a test of attitude and the ability to control your attitude under the pressure of challenge.

Timely advice from Phil Gould (Thanks to Steve for finding this quote).

Pacific Dragons Premier Women 500m Team - 2009 Australian Dragon Boat Championships - Kawana / Qld (Fri 24 Apr 2009)
Pacific Dragons Premier Open 500m Team - 2009 Australian Dragon Boat Championships - Kawana / Qld (Fri 24 Apr 2009)

Some Quotes

Geoff, Jenny and Joanne - St George Private Hospital - Chemotherapy Ward - 1520hrs Thu 19 Mar 2009
Just found these little quotes that had I saved (would just cut and paste into an email and send it to myself) in the period between Jenny's diagnosis of multiple liver tumors on Wed 11 Mar 2009, and her diagnosis of a 4cm brain tumor on Thu 11 Jun 2009 and resulting neurosurgery on Wed 17 Jun 2009. Interesting to see what resonated with my thoughts and feelings during that time. Here they are:

"Don't think of yourself as a statistic; think of yourself as an individual," - Tue 26 May 2009

"You can't let statistics get in the way of your recovery and progress." - Tue 26 May 2009

"it's not who you are, it's what you do" - Thu 28 May 2009

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you are happy then you will be successful" - Wed 03 Jun 2009

"You're constantly making choices, and your choices determine your experience" - Wed 03 Jun 2009

And a few months later ..

"Everybody has to die, You don't know how you're going to die. You don't know when you're going to die. It's strange to have that knowledge that this will do it. You don't get angry at it. You just live with it and keep going." - Thu 8 Oct 2009

Two days after the above photo was taken (during her first treatment on a new round of chemotherapy), Jenny would race in the DBNSW 2009 State Titles at Penrith where she stroked the Pacific Dragons Mixed B Boat. Some photos from that day are here.

The following week we would enjoy a lovely holiday in Cairns where we would celebrate Jenny and Joanne's Birtday.

Getting Started

Jenny and Geoff - Paris (Thu 25 Aug 2005)

Need to start again with something. Why not a quote from Gustave Eiffel which started it all for me back in the early 1990's:

Must it be assumed that because we are engineers beauty is not our concern, and that while we make our constructions robust and durable we do not also strive to make them elegant?

Is it not true that the genuine conditions of strength always comply with the secret conditions of harmony?

The first principle of architectural esthetics is that the essential lines of a monument must be determined by a perfect adaptation to its purpose.

Gustave Eiffel, 1887 - From his response in Le Tempsto a petition by members of the literary and artistic Establishment protesting his project of elevating a tower of iron in Paris.