Celeb Best Blog

Four weeks ago I pulled my metaphorical drawbridge up around me. I had to do some big-time soul searching & as is my way, had to do it alone. Today I've let it down again, & since early this morning, a lot of lovely people have been pounding across it for hugs & kisses!!

I received an approach by another Company when I was least expecting it. At first I wasn't interested, but they persisted. There were many things to consider:

• It was not with my traditional client base, a beautiful group of loyal & wonderful people who I have 21 years history with.
  


• It was not in the area of Interventional Radiology/Cardiology that I have an enduring & all encompassing passion for.
  


• It was back to full-time work after a glorious 4 years of part-time (read as 'How was MOTH going to cope with having to wield the vacuum cleaner again on weekends?!')
  


• At 55 did I want to subject myself to enormous change?
  


• Could I say goodbye to the best group of colleagues I've ever worked with?

So I've paced the floor many times at 3a.m. this past month, I've done my due diligence on the Company, I've researched the client group & the products & I've chewed my top lip to shreds.

Then over the Easter weekend I plonked down in front of the computer to enjoy a leisurely read of Janell's wonderful new ezine House Of Fifty. And there it was staring right at me on the 50 Ideas page - 'It is rarely too late to start something new.' It was about as close to an epiphany as I'll ever have.

After a somewhat 'harrowing' week at work, my normal bouncy resilience has deserted me. So I'm off to try & find it & reinstall it on my hard drive. Normal programming will resume as soon as I do.

Image: etsy - Suzannaanna

Well that sure was an interesting few days in Sydney! Our Sales Meeting was held in one of the city's most salubrious & prestigious 6 star Hotels & my room was divinely luxurious. All well & good you might say except for one small point - these boys (or their equivalent) were my next door neighbours!!! I believe these lads fall into a musical category known as Gangster Rappers, & after 3 days sharing a common wall with them, boy do I know how they got that name. Now I have a pretty broad mind & am not one to deny anyone the right to party, but these lads, their groupies & a posse of minders wearing more gold chains than Tutankhamun gave it more than just a nudge, they pushed the party machine right off the cliff! The noise I could have tolerated, but the crunch was that my room had a locked connecting door to their's & that's where the trouble started.

Yes dear Hedgies, its that time of the year again - my dear Company's Annual Sales Meeting, whoopee! I've had a lovely year milking my Sales Specialist of the Year Award for all its worth, but on Wednesday night I need to hand over my crown to the next sucker lucky Winner at the big dinner. If you missed the goss on what happened this time last year, you can read all about it here. After a huge argy-bargy intelligent discussion with MOTH, I've finally cashed in my Travel Voucher prize from last year & booked Millie & MOTH's Grand Vacation - more of that soon. So with the crown jauntily perched on my head, it's off to Sydney for me for the rest of the week. As you can tell, my excitement is palpable. Image: Neobeatificvision

I work for a large Japanese company. Our head office is located in Shibuya-ku Prefecture in Tokyo & we have extensive manufacturing plants in Kofu & Fujinomiya in the south east of Honshu & Ashitaka just south of Tokyo. My heart has been in my mouth since the news of the disaster in Japan reached us late this afternoon. I have just had a text from our Chairman to say all my Japanese colleagues are safe. However what is underfolding is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. The Japanese people will need all the strength & fortitude they can muster - be brave my friends.

Joy of joys, my painstakingly prepared budget forecasts for FY11/12 have been rejected by management on the first round of negotiations, so back to hours of rejigging units again line by line. Which means I'll be a bad Blogger for a while longer. Note to Management: You can't continue to milk the old cash cow for all she's worth, as one day she'll just dry up completely!

Image: Conversations

A less than auspicious start to my working year this week has left me feeling like I'm walking down a long corridor, not knowing what's going to come charging out from a side door to send me flying. I had to engage the old adage 'The customer's always right' big time yesterday, when very clearly they were not. When the evidence was placed quietly in front of them without any words, a simple apology was not forthcoming, just abject rudeness. This is a major Account so I made the split second decision to walk away without another word, but I found it incredibly disempowering. Those meaningful words from my dearest friend 'Grace under pressure Millie, grace under pressure' came in very useful, but it wasn't easy to adhere to them.

Could I or should I have handled it any differently, that's the big question. I get a niggling feeling that 'The customer's always right' belongs in another era & it's time to give it the flicko. However, the last thing I want to do is have a stand-up slanging match with a client, just to win a point - that's not my style. Thank goodness these occasions almost never arise, but if you've got any thoughts on the matter I'd be very keen to hear them.

Christmas Party # 2 of 9 is going to be held in this gorgeous room today. Although I work in an extremely competitive industry, each Christmas we forget all that stuff & about 12 of us leave our sharp knives at the door & get together for a long, long, long lunch. This year it's my turn to organize & host. So I've chosen one of my favourite pubs, The Queen's Head in North Adelaide. It has been met with universal approval, so I feel a very Festive session coming on.

MOTH & I have sat by this fire often & once we've secured those Egg chairs, no amount of bribery from other patrons will move us on.

And here she is looking down on us, Our Gracious Majesty - raise your glasses please to the year that was!

The Queen's Head is in a quiet side street in North Adelaide within batting distance from the world famous Adelaide Cricket Ground. It's the oldest pub in Adelaide, having served its first drink in 1838 (& no I wasn't there that day!!). While it's been given a very snazzy internal make-over in recent times, it still retains enormous heritage charm & street appeal. Adelaide still has little bluestone gems like this scattered around the city - & long may they continue to thrive & prosper I say.

Images: The Queen's Head

Thanks to Jane over @ Life On Planet Baby for the Who's Coming To Dinner? tag. The deal is to describe the setting, list the menu & then the 6 guests who you'd most like to invite. I thought about it & immediately names like George & Jon & Clive & Patrick came to mind. Then I got to thinking - while I do love those chaps, there are 6 other very special gentleman who are far more important to me. Although not household names, they are my idols. Of course, I would be far too excited to cook, so it would be off to the famed Le Cinq at the legendary Hotel George V in Paris for the evening - it would be heaven. And come to think of it, sadly that's where all these lovely men are these days.

My 6 guests have shaped my working life like no others. A day doesn't go past when I don't think of them & their pioneering courage & achievements all mixed with a high degree of chutzpah. And as today is the 115th Anniversary of the discovery of X-Rays, it's the perfect day for this post!

As it all started with Wilhelm Roentgen (1845-1923), he will have pride of place at my table. A mechanical engineer & physicist, his work on cathode rays led him to observe that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of these rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate. On the evening of November 8, 1895 he immobilised the hand of his wife Anna in the path of the rays over a photographic plate, & observed after development of the plate, an image of the bones of her hand and that of a ring she was wearing. This was the first röntgenogram ever taken & because their nature was then unknown, he gave them the name X-rays (X=unknown). He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1901 for his achievement.

Seated next to Roentgen is Dr. Sven-Ivar Seldinger (1921-1998), the pioneer of angiography. No single technical contribution has impacted the development of angiography, as Seldinger's technique of introducing catheters percutaneously via a needle & guidewire into the vasculature. Every Interventional Radiologist & Cardiologist around the world uses this technique each day of their working life to gain access to the arteries of their patients. The technique's elegance and its usefulness lie in its very simplicity - 'Needle in—wire in—needle out—catheter in—wire out' is the mantra with which I & hundreds of thousands live by each day.

Next to join us will be Dr. Charles Dotter (1920 - 1985), the father of Interventional Radiology (& my great passion!), a brilliant innovator and Nobel Prize nominee. As a Radiologist he became fed up with receiving patient radiology request forms from his medical & surgical colleagues often with the same scribbled note on the bottom ' Look but do not fix.' So he modified the Seldinger technique for treatment/therapeutic purposes, where previously it was a diagnostic tool only. With Dr. Melvin Judkins, Dr. Dotter was also the inventor of percutaneous transluminal balloon angioplasty, using a balloon catheter to unclog peripheral arteries and to restore blood flow.

Seated next to his friend & mentor Dr. Dotter is Dr. Melvin Judkins (1922 -1985) a Radiologist with a special interest in Cardiology. He begun work in the mid-1970's on creating a technique of introducing catheters that were specially shaped to reach the coronary arteries, as the conventionally shaped peripheral catheter curves did not work for coronary vessels. Known as theJudkins technique, it's still used in Cardiac Cath. Labs. around the world today. He is pictured holding the 3 diagnostic catheters we call the Holy Trinity - a Judkins Right Heart, a Judkins Left Heart & Pigtail.

Then we'll be joined by Dr. Caesare Gianturco (1905 - 1995), a creative genius with a warm & inquring mind & prolific inventor who gave Interventionalists many tools of their trade.
These include embolization coils & vena cava filters, but most importantly of all, the expandable metallic stent. Whilst Drs. Dotter & Judkins had revolutionalized medicine with the use of arterial balloons to treat strictures & occlusions, once the balloon was used, the artery often closed off again. He designed a simple metal structure that could be deployed after balloon angioplasty that would 'tack' back the occlusion to the vessel wall, like a scaffold to prevent reocclusion.

Then lastly we would be joined by that bundle of bouncing energy, the brilliant Dr. Andreas Gruentzig (1930 - 1985). An eminent German cardiologist, Gruentzig built on the work of Charles Dotter, working hard to miniaturise the Dotter balloon catheters for use in coronary arteries. He presented the results of animal studies with the balloon at the American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in 1976 and was met with skepticism. However an opportunity to prove the skeptics wrong came the following year, when a 38-year-old insurance salesman with severe proximal stenosis (blockage) of the left anterior descending artery (LAD) and intractable angina agreed to undergo the procedure & Gruentzig successfully performed the first coronary angioplasty in the world. A year later, when he presented the results of his first four angioplasty cases to the 1977 AHA meeting, the audience burst into applause, acknowledging his breakthrough with a standing ovation.
Tragically, Dr. Gruentzig did not live to see his life's work come to fruition. In October 1985, the light plane he was piloting in stormy weather crashed near Macon, Georgia. Dr. Gruentzig was killed at the young age of 46, along with his new bride Margaret.

So what an evening we will have. There are so many questions I want to ask my gadget guys, my heroes. I hope my guest list has given you a look into my specialty area of work, & how we got to this point. While it's not everyone's thing, by golly it's mine!!!! Bon appetit.

For me the week is finishing on a quite wonderful note. A long time ago I set myself a big personal goal at work. It seemed improbable at the time, silly & unattainable & there were many doubters. It couldn't be done in a small State like South Australia said the Wise Men from the East. Yesterday afternoon I reached that goal & it is all thanks to my gorgeous clients. I love them to bits, they rock my world. I value the trust & respect we have for each other immensely & guard it ferociously. So Ti Amo to them all - I'm almost lost for words, kisses all round!! It's Friday & I'm off to celebrate this glorious moment. Happy weekend dear Hedgies.

I'm rummaging around in the wardrobe this morning for my Mystic Millie outfit. Today is Budget Forecasting Day at work, not only next year's sales revenue & expenditure, but also my predictions for 2012 & 2013. What a joke, honestly - 2013!!!! Wish me luck as I gaze into my crystal ball & make my predictions. I reckon the only reliable prediction I'll be able to make by the end of today is that if MOTH hasn't finished that b..... bathroom by then, I'll be giving him to the gypsies!!

Image: Ouspenskaya

Spring has finally, albeit somewhat tentatively, graced us with her presence here in the Hills. We have been fire-less for 3 nights now, but I'm not putting the firewood basket into storage under the house just yet. I'm still in catch-up mode at work from all the goings-ons of last week & am up to my neck preparing all the submission documents for my largest Tender which is due in 5 days. There's just a gentle hint of breeze today, & now that the camelias are fading, the rhododendrons have taken their spot with a blaze of colour throughout the garden. I'm working from home today, so have decided to take the whole lot outside & work quietly in the dappled sunlight, with just the noisy birds & my cell phone for company. Life is good & I'm grateful.

Images: Michael Partenio

It's a crazy busy time at work from today, so I'll say my goodbyes until the end of the week. I have a large function on Wednesday night - a formal dinner for 60 of my lovely clients with a guest speaker (who's on a plane to Adelaide from Washington DC as I write this!). The big bosses are coming down from Sydney to observe how a dinner like this SHOULD be organized, so I trust they'll take copious notes! I've done lots of these nights over the years, but always get a little tetchy during the run-up. I'll be glad when the guest speaker is at the podium sans jet lag, I've done my presentation, the evening has run smoothly, everyone's happy, I've put the big bosses on the plane back to Sydney & my heart rate returns to normal. Hope your week is lovely in every way.

Image: Epicure

It's mid-year Company meeting time again, so on a plane & off to Sydney I go this morning for the rest of the week. Inside information indicates the Agenda is exactly the same as its been for the past 12 years. Needless to say I'm dragging my feet, but I'll put on my happy face & see how long it lasts. Those 3 horrendous words 'Team Building Activities'-TBA's, (or as Mr. HR Expert MOTH calls them Team Destruction Activities-TDA's!) abound for Wednesday night, so I reckon the happy face will disappear totally by about 8p.m., give or take a minute or two. We have been told it involves sports shoes & Olympic Park - oh joy. When will HR realize that all this is so 1980's. The most valuable thing Management could do would be to block book a Day Spa & treat us to an afternoon of intensive pummelling & beauty therapy. It was the boys who suggested this last time & they are spot on. We are a great team, enjoy each other's company immensely, achieve much & are winners in every way. We need to be rewarded with a little luxury, not punished with an evening of TBA/TDA's!!

P.S. The wardrobe in our bedroom looks fantastic & takes up less space than I'd thought it would. Will try & post on it next week with my dodgy, 'on it's last legs' camera. Maybe MOTH might organize all the contents while I'm away.......or then again, maybe he might not!

Image: etsy ( Mincing Mockingbird)

I feel like I resemble a croissant at the moment - layer upon layer upon layer, all delicately teetering ready to bake in the oven, but with the outcome all dependent on the quality of the ingredients & the ability of the pâtissière! There is so much going on at present, at home & at work......one of my lovely clients noticed my somewhat frazzled state yesterday & said 'Miss Millie, you need an Assistant!' Never a truer word has been said.

I have been thrown a large client function to organize with very little notice - a lot is riding on it, so I need to get it right. MOTH & I have a very big extended weekend away next week with lots to organize (more to come!), then the Mid-Year Meeting in Sydney is straight after & don't get me started on end-of-month reports. A large project that I was supposed to have completed by tomorrow won't be & a research paper that's desperate for a written conclusion is giving me the heebie-jeebies & so it goes. I've been a bad blogging buddy this week, but I know you'll all understand. Three & a bit years ago when I went part-time, I thought it would be a breeze - what drug was I on!! See you all soon - promise.
Image: Roboppy

This week is all about the heart & lots of it. I'd love to say it was the romantic heart that I'll be preoccupied with, but sadly it's the anatomical & physiological heart that will have my full attention. It's the Cardiac Society of Aust. & N.Z.'s Annual Scientific Meeting all week & for once, I don't need to get on a plane to attend, as this year it's Adelaide's turn to play host. All the big bosses + my lovely colleagues are flying in from everywhere today & it's full on from this morning. So there'll be very long days working hard in the Trade Display, lots of didactic & live sessions to attend & some very late nights out drinking, eating & partying early nights tucked up in bed to ensure I'm at my best each day. Thursday I have a 7a.m. breakfast symposium for 130 to conduct with my best client, which means a 4.30a.m. start to get to the Convention Centre by 6.30a.m. - yikes!!! So I'll say goodbye now & if my exhausted state allows, I'll make an appearance on Friday.