Andy's Blog

From the archives...

Jason, one of the cameramen at work, has be going through old station archives and photos and found this gem of me with journalist Dianne Massey. It's taken around the late 80's in one of the Betacam edit suites.

Dandy Andy...

Last Friday week ago I attended the Southern Cross TV 47th birthday party at the Boat House in Launceston.

The event was fancy dress, come as a tv personality or character. As I hate dressing up, I thought I'd keep it simple; go as Rove McManus! ...and didn't I get a bagging for that.

Photo: Mark Tripp

Redundant...

Four days after returning from my holiday in Macau, my department head informed me I was being made redundant and my services as a news editor were no longer required. Actually that's not quite correct, the services I do for the company are required, it's just that the work load is being redistributed among the remaining newsroom and production staff. 

Here's the email that went out to staff, just sixty seconds (a little insensitive, don't you think?) after I was told ...

From: ***** ******
Sent: Thursday, 14 May 2009 15:36
To: TAS All Staff - Launceston
Subject: Sad Day
 
Hi everyone,
 
It is my sad duty to inform you that Andrew ‘Smirks’ Shepherd’s role as news ENG editor has been made redundant effective the 30^th of June 2009.
 
It is especially sad given his exemplary record and commitment to the station, in particular the news department but also that this has had to occur in the year he achieved 25 years of service.  
 
This redundancy is not related to the economic situation but rather the company’s requirement that our new non liner editing equipment has a pay back period and associated with the new efficiency of operation gained once implemented.
 
Should you have any questions or concerns please come and see me or discuss with your department head.
 
Regards
 
***** ******

The mysterious third paragraph has everyone dumb struck - well according everyone I've spoken to, particularly the words 'pay back period'. To me it sounds like someone made a monumental cock up when ordering the equipment.

Anyway, I'll curb anymore comment on this as I'm hoping to keep my foot in the door for future work.

To busy to blog...

My life has been in a spin for about a month now, and I haven't blogged a word about it yet. I just haven't had the time.

So just quickly, he's a brief rundown of what's happened....

*Tony and I spent about 10 days in Macau visiting my old friend and mate Michael. 

*I have hundreds of holiday snaps and a few rather lovely, well composed photos from the trip I want to post to my Flickr page.

*On the fourth day of returning to work I received the news I was being made redundant, after 25 years service.

*Tony this evening revealed to me he has his own blog.

Hopefully in the next few days, I'll get around to posting more details about my holiday and my redundancy.

Cutie of the day... from the archives (1988)

Cutie of the day... from the archives (1988),
originally uploaded by Andrew Shepherd.

Check out the pose.

Well, it is New York darling... or maybe it was the 110 degree heat that makes you feel like a wet sock!

Time wise...

I just created a timeline of my online posts with Dipity. So far I've included recent posts from Typepad, YouTube and Flickr.

It looks something like this...

UPDATE:
I've wasted time on this for two days now. The Dipity site held a lot of promise to begin with but with a lack of instant support or help for troubleshooting situations, even just general 'how-to' (it seems not very Mac friendly) it's left me frustrated and wanting to delete the account... if there was a way to do that!

A big thumbs down to Dipity.

Hobart Day 2...

We had a change of plan yesterday. Instead of driving all the way out to Richmond (which we'd done a few times before) we decided to stay in central Hobart and visit the Royal Botanical Gardens. Tony and I spent about two hours here shooting RAW photos of flowers, garden beds, trees, close-ups of trees, tree bark, ponds, pathways... and ducks.

Last night we walked around the docks area and shot some late twilight photos. I think I had my ISO setting wrong. I zapped it to 800 when 400 would have done the job.

Today we go out on the water. There's a ferry cruise Tony booked a few weeks back that's going to Researche Bay and back. This will take all day so I'm not sure if I'll drive straight back to Launceston tonight or take off early in the morning.

Anyway, the piccies are looking good. I'll get some posted on my Flickr page when I get back to Lonnie. Back to work tomorrow.

In Hobart...

I'm visiting Tony in Hobart this weekend. So far we've been out engaging in needless consumerism. I bought some media cards for my new Nikon camera and a few other little gadgets.

This afternoon we're going out to Richmond to do some stalking of the Lightroom Experience team and to see if we run into Leo Laporte. (probably not - updates later)

Silky...

I recently bought some Aussiebum Valentines Day boxer shorts. I had intended to give them away to somebody. However, I liked them so much I decided to keep them for myself.

They are brief and shorter cut on the legs than normal boxer shorts. They also feature a mesh pouch to keep the 'goods' together. The back seam is also rather trim and depending on the size of the package up front, can give you a suprisingly good wedge!

Hey you...

Alrighty, this is to the attention of the one I love.

Mmmm. Now that your eyes are focused, this is what I want for Valentines!!!

I'm not fussy.

;)