Hello World

I’ve been enjoying retirement for over a year now, and I’ve kept myself occupied during this time. I undertook several home improvement projects, such as renovating the laundry, constructing a new shed in the backyard, and painting the upstairs bedrooms. Additionally, I provided handyman services at my daughter’s house, assisting with various maintenance tasks. I also lent my expertise to a company by aiding them in pre-acquisition IT and systems planning as part of a corporate acquisition deal.

Amidst all these endeavours, I managed to pursue some of my hobby projects and, of course, prioritised my health by getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Nevertheless, the year was primarily marked by two significant aspects. Firstly, the birth of our first grandchild has brought immense joy to our lives. And secondly, the ongoing battle against the threat of COVID-19, enduring multiple lockdowns in Melbourne, where we reside. These challenging circumstances have shaped the year and emphasised the importance of resilience and adapting to new norms.

As I mentioned, I have worked on a few hobby projects, including doing further work on my family history, cleaning up my home automation system, and building a robot arm to learn more about ROS (Robot Operating System). ROS is an open-source robot management environment that is very powerful and used in many global robotic and self-driving car endeavours. However, it is reasonably complex and difficult to understand (at least for me, anyway).

I also had a retirement plan to get involved in astronomy. However, I have developed reasonably advanced glaucoma, and my eyesight needs to be better to see much through a telescope eyepiece. So I have begun a preliminary investigation into how to use electronics or tech to help. It is very early, but I plan to post something on this.

I am writing to document my progress and add discipline to these projects. I have started to post this documentation online, mainly for my benefit, but if anyone else finds this helpful – that would be a bonus.

If you want to contact me or provide feedback, please leave a comment below, or at the bottom of any other page.

By the way, this first ‘Hello World’ post gives a clear indication that this site is delivered on WordPress, and that I have had a career in IT. I decided not to delete the default post that comes with WordPress as it seemed like a logical place to start.