I have worked in the surface science area since 1986 and at synchrotrons from 1990. I have operated beamlines at the old Daresbury SRS in the UK and at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble. These beamlines ran in the X-ray regime between 2 to 30 keV using double crystal monochromators, at both facilities I was mainly interested in using the technique of X-ray Standing waves to locate the position of adsorbates on single crystal surfaces though I was also involved in some high energy XPS and some surface diffraction studies. Coming to the Australian Synchrotron in 2005 I had to help design, install and commission a beamline to cover the range 90 to 2500 eV using a grating monochromator. The initial Soft X-ray branchline returned more to my roots of XPS and photoemission. The beamline continues to develop and I had to design a new time sharing branchline for microfocusing using a zone plate. This will be running in 2013. I am developing an appreciation of NEXAFS and a deeper understanding of low energy photoemission