The year of 2006 will always be remembered as a major turning point in my life so far. Perhaps the best way to outline the events that happened is to list them in point form in order of when they happened.

1. Erin and I broke up

After four years of being with Erin, and living with her for one of those, I had ended our relationship. It is now approaching exactly one year since this happened.

I had originally met Erin at Subway in August 2001 and I was doing a closing shift at Springwood. Erin had walked through the door, wearing a netball uniform. She was the only customer to be served which gave opportunity for conversation.

Erin ordered 2 “subs” that night, both footlong chicken pieces (cold), with mayo, lettuce and tomato on white bread. It was obvious Erin played netball and I asked her if she won. Apparently they did, and they won easily. Her team was the called “The Radicals”. Erin seemed embarassed to reveal that to me. We then got into conversation about what she did. Erin told me she was studying nursing at Griffith logan, I then told her that I studied at Griffith also. At the end of the sandwich runway, I asked her if she wanted to upgrade to the meals, which she did, and I put in some extra cookies to let her know that I enjoyed meeting her. I had taken in everything Erin had said. I made sure I kept in mind that she played netball on wednesdays and that she usually gets Subway after netball…. Erin left the store and I had already started planning seeing her the following Wednesday. The following Wednesday came, but I wasn’t rostered on to work.

At the time I was playing Australian football for the Logan City Cobras. I remembered that we had two volunteer trainers helping us on game day who also studied nursing at Griffith Logan. I knew that I had to get in contact with Erin and so I had written a small letter to give to one of the trainers to give to Erin at uni. Unfortunately, neither trainers were there on the Saturday. That letter stayed in my football bag. I had my usual wednesday night shift again, and I had a young employee working with me that night and it turned out to be fairly busy at dinner time. Erin came through the door and I only noticed her as she progressed through the line. As soon as I realised that she was there, my heart raced and I told my fellow sandwich artist to go empty the bins which would allow me to chat to Erin again. She was last in the line which meant I could chat to her without being too rushed. Unfortunately for me, my colleague decided to take Erin’s order and disregarded my request to empty the bins.

I had about 2 minutes to think of a way to communicate with her without intruding on her order. I rushed out the back and grabbed a pen, and wrote something like “Hi Erin, I think you’re really nice and I’d love to take you out sometime if you’re single”. I left this note at the checkout for her to take. I don’t think she realised, but it was the only way as another customer had come through. I told her that the note was for her. She read it on the spot, and I could see her blush as she read through it, probably embarassing her. My face went red also.

Erin sms’d me that night and she said that she would love to chat and that she had a uni exam that following day. I replied by wishing her luck and that i’d talk to her afterwards. We had our first date that friday night at “Tanja’s” at Garden City.

I’m not going to talk about things I regret doing, but instead just say that I understand how much she went through to be with me and I also understand why I felt I had no other option. I can’t change the past, but I can be better informed for the future. Erin is one the best things to happen to me.

2. Exited Renderpro

2005 was supposed to be the big year for Renderpro, but it didn’t happen. It went the other way. Both Daniel and myself had different passions in life and it was only after some severe financial mismanagement that we had to make the decision to “close shop”. Having a dedicated office underneath our house at Loganholme, our costs increased to a level which made our business unsustainable. It was a very tough thing to leave as both Daniel’s and my parents had invested a lot of time and money into our venture.

There were only few loose ends to tie up at the start of 2006 and once they were done, the exit was complete. I thoroughly enjoyed running a business with a close friend, I’m sure we’ll cross paths again with business ventures.

3. Started Bowman Digital

I changed the name of my business Christian Bowman Productions to Bowman Digital. This was to both simplify the name but also simplify my commercial operations. I adopted Digital Video and now Digital Photography in my service offerings. Mum has also passed on the reigns of her company Bowman Photography Pty Ltd to me and I look forward expanding this with my current services. My first big client under the trading name of Bowman Digital was RSPCA QLD, who I acquired the contract to work on the World for pets online store.

4. Learnt how to understand women/being a man and attraction

One of the primary things in my life that I always want to improve on is my communicaton with other people. This year, I made an effort in trying to understand women and attraction between the two sexes. Having several months to analyse and make sense of decisions I made with my personal life, I needed to source info from others in the world. I had found lots of books, web sites and videos on understanding women, men and attraction. I studied as much as I could to see what I could gain from it all. I’ve learnt a lot about this area and for me, they were also easy to translate into other areas of my life.

The key things that I’ve learnt are as follows:

A. Learnt to be a man - For me there was never any initiation into manhood, no formal training nor resources apparent to become a man. I’ve mentioned this before, but becoming a man doesn’t automatically happen when you start growing hair on your face. It’s much more internal, its about being committed to life. I think women can even take this view. Being committed to life means you’re committed to yourself and those around you. Life starts to fit into place because you start thinking about “HOW do I want to live my life?”. Without asking “How?”, you can never know what needs to be done.

A man also passes on experience to others. Discussion about experiences and findings to others means you allow yourself to evolve and become wiser. I realised that I get a much better understanding of things learnt by teaching others. I watched “We were soldiers” last night and one line caught my attention, “Learn your superior’s job and teach your job to the person below you”. Definitely one way to constantly evolve.

Being a man around a woman means you are respectful of them and take responsibility for things said and done around them. A man should never blame something else in his life if he has mistreated a woman. He should also never play the victim. A man does what he can to be responsible and make wise decisions. I’ll forever be learning.

B. Be attractive by being yourself - I couldn’t do this one without doing the first one. It’s also knowing what you’re best attributes are and leveraging on them. Dress stylishly, here’s a tip - find your style of clothing by trying a style of clothing you’ve never worn before and just go for a walk down the mall. Better still, just ask the people working at the clothes store, try things on and get their opinion, they’ll always be honest. Try to get an assistant and not a manager (different motives). I’ve learnt that if you want to be serious about dressing stylishly, buy good clothes. Balancing your expenditure on things like clothes with other spending means that you actually have a budget for new clothes. For example, I spend a lot of money on computer equipment. If I spend less on that and more on clothes so that I spend an equal amount on both, I can usually afford to get decent clothing. Remember, its not about getting the bargains, its getting what makes you look your best. If it doesn’t make you look great, don’t buy it. If people don’t comment on your nice clothing after you buy it and wear it around them, don’t buy that style again.

C. Having a default thing to do or say for any situation - One of the best ways to know how to deal with a situation is experiencing it. No matter how much you can read up, be told and see on television, none of that can replace actual experience. Knowing what the right thing is best to say to a girl at a bar, in the mall or even on the internet always depends on the situation.

Usually every situation is unique, learning pick-lines etc are fairly ineffective as they do not account for your own personality, locale or mood of the situation. I’ve learnt about dealing with different situations, I’ve even put myself into a lot of uncomfortable situations. This is a forever changing thing and thats why you really need to have your inner game in order. If you have that done, you can adapt to most situations natually.

One example of one of my defaults is, when I take a picture of someone and they ask if they look ok, I’ll respond with “It’s ok, I can fix you up on the computer anyways”. Obviously I say this with a bit of cheekiness, but both male and females respond to this. It’s fun and cheeky. It’s never offensive or demeaning, the delivery is also very important here. Saying something like this is a lot more fun and attractive than, “Oh yes you look beautiful”- Everyone says this. Be different.

This tip translates to so many things in my life, and if you look at business, nothing looks more organised than when you ask someone a question and they confidently have a good answer for you. For example “What’s a nice church to get married at in the City” - I’ll say, “St Stephens cathedral, it’s recently been restored, has free parking and can fit lots of guests”. Having a confident response demonstrates experience which equals knowledge and understanding.

One I used when dealing with the rejection of asking a girl if she was single was “Are you single? I’ll say, “oh you’re not, that’s great, I don’t have to worry about having you try and pick me up. Hey listen, lets meet up and do something fun, I have lots of fun friends to introduce you to!” It’s nothing decieving, just having something to say or do for positive AND negative scenarios.

4. Surrounded myself with wiser and smarter people

As I was no longer living with Erin, Glenn my old roommate, work colleague and business partner moved in. Glenn is one of the most intelligent people I know and whilst I sort of always knew it, I’ve been much more open to actually listening to what he has to say this year and it’s influenced a lot of the ways I do things. One thing I’ve learnt from Glenn is to share knowledge. I’m now much more transparent with how do things, particularly with my technical skills. Previously, I’d never disclose anything to others about how I do things, but I have learnt that talking to others about it, I instantly feel like I’m evolving my skills as I explain how I do certain things.

I made a new friend in Cass Brisbane this year and I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with her and I really enjoy the time spent. Cass is a walking encyclopedia, she seems to know a lot about everything. It’s always great knowing that if I have some thoughts about why something is the way it is, she will usually have a fairly in-depth understanding of it. I’m a much smarter person knowing Cass. She also lets me be myself, and she loves Neo. I think she’s being my friend just to get to Neo.

5. Woke up to myself

I realised this year that not every decision I make is a good decision. Sure I trust that I’ll work it out, but if I keep making the same mistakes, i’m not paying attention to life. 2006 was a real eye-opener for me, and finding my place in this world meant a lot of preconcieved notions about myself and decisions I made have changed.

As mentioned earlier about being more transparent, I’m also becoming more accountable in things that I do. Having a blog, for example, means that if I talk about something that I do, as much as I can, I make sure I know what I’m talking about. I’m not the best designer in the world, nor am I the best photographer in the world. Whilst I can definately strive toward these things, I can become those things much quicker if I actively engage in conversation about how people better than me work and teaching others who are less experienced.

6. Added another tool on the belt

As mum was retiring from full-time photography, I inherited mum’s studio equipment. Originally I was just gonna have it in my garage and just get a cheap digital camera to take studio portraits. As it turned out, I ended up getting a digital SLR and getting deep into the world of Photography.

The big turning point for me in terms of photography is meeting Carly Faragher, a fashion graduate from the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE fashion program. I originally met Carly at the EKKA races, where I was taking photos of people and sending them to my website.

This one contact alone gave me a foot in the door to the following fashion events:

MSIT Fashion Graduation and Premilinary judging parades
modaitalia fashion scholarship parade
QUT Fashion Graduate Show
Sweat Diva Activewear Fashion
Swimwear from Oz - Swimwear
NRA Fashion Awards.

Whilst Carly wasn’t always directly responsible for these extra contacts, I was able to leverage on my work with the MSIT to get media passes to other events. It just goes to show that from putting in the hard yards, and being proactive in networking opens up a world of possibilities.

7. World for pets online store

The World for Pets online store is a new initiative of RSPCA QLD in making their wide range of pet supplies and accessories available to customers on the Internet. I was initially contracted to develop graphics for the site and, once involved, I proposed to develop a feasibility analysis and then a business and marketing strategy. Leveraging on my experience with e-business with previous business ventures, I was able to effectively develop the foundation for all online communications for the World for Pets online store. Working with the open-source shopping software OSCommerce, I created strategic plans, implemented new technologies, and provided measurable results to fulfil the Retail Manager’s sales requirements. I thoroughly enjoyed working for the RSPCA and always found it challenging to work efficiently and with minimum resources.

8. Home is no longer home - Family life

Christmas in 2006 was to be the last at our previous address of 28 Innes Crescent, Cornubia. The week after Christmas was to be an extremely exhausting week. Helping mum move and with the help of Cameron Priem and Cass Brisbane, it took 6 truck loads on day one, then 3 truck loads on day 2 to finish the job, all of this in a 3 tonne truck (the largest drivable on a standard license).

The settlement of the house was equally exhausting, especially for Cass who spent a lot of her time and energy doing the conveyancing for the transfer. The settlement was cancelled 3 times and we finally get it done last friday (Jan 5, 2006). The poor people that were buying the property had to stay at a caravan park whilst they waiting for the transfer for to happen (they travelled up from adelaide).

Mum is now in a rental property at Shailer park in preparation to find something new to buy.

9. Looking to the future

I am now looking at the future with confidence and I am excited to see what this year has to offer. I have a few goals and on new years eve I wrote down a list of things I want to see happen in each of the areas of my life:
A. Health

Do not eat chips - I’ve done this for a whole year previously, but I’ve already stuffed this one up at a party a couple of nights ago! But the idea is that if i at least try to give this up, it was steer me away from most fast food.

Play sport or to do an outdoor activity once a week

See the Dentist

Only drink alcohol once a week

B. Family

Make an effort to speak to my mum, nana and each of my siblings once a week
Respond to calls from my family with top priority (I was pretty slack last year)
Be responsible for Neo (my cat), give him the attention as required and let him enjoy life.

C. Personal

Manage my finances with budget planning and to save for a holiday.
Always be open to love, if it presents itself embrace it.
Allow myself to enjoy life, keeping a balance between work time and my time.
Be responsible and safe

C. Career

Try and obtain one new client a week
Leverage on my experience with RSPCA
Look toward working with MSIT, QUT, NRA and moda italia for fashion work.
Learn to really chase leads - eg. Phone up existing clients and get contacts for new ones.
Be really organised as I would expect from any other business.

New year’s resolution:

Be committed to my goals, and hunt down opportunities to improve and evolve.

Best wishes everyone and thank you for visiting my site!

Christian.