2020-03-30
Big morning bike ride. Did 16km in 40m, which is an average speed of 24kmh.
These are nice numbers that work well with base-60. And just the right level to
get elevated cardiovascular function without getting tired out, or having the
legs burn. Very pleasant out there.
I ride in three stages. The first 15 minutes takes me past Heathcote, about as
far as Applecross Tennis Club. That’s bang-on 6km. After a brief rest, I then
ride for 20 minutes back towards home on the other side of the river, ending up
to Yagan Park on Leach Highway. That’s bang-on 8km. After another short rest,
I do 2km through the back streets to get back home in about 5 minutes. Love how
the numbers work out so nicely.
I also have landmarks at 5 minute intevals along the way:
- Footbridge to Aquinas College
- Raffles Hotel
- Applecross Tennis Club
- Raffles Again
- Deep Water Point
- Mount Henry Bridge
- Yagan Park
- Back Home
I try to do that mid-morning 3-days per week.
2020-03-28
Well. A lot has happened. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. I have
written about it
and have
released a dashboard as well.
There’s not much more to say. We’re happy and healthy and taking care of our
parents. And I’m learning to play the guitar.
We are very, very lucky. Lucky to be in Perth, a remote part of the world, with
few cases, relatively speaking, than elsewhere. Lucky to live in a “food bowl”
region, where we produce 300% of what we consume, unlike the UK, for example,
which produces just 50% of what it consumes. Lucky to have kept our jobs. Lucky
that we already worked from home, making isolating with the kids much easier.
And lucky to have saved money for a rainy day.
I want to continue donating blood, and we need to figure out how we can be of
help to other people.
Unfortunately, the family restaurant has closed its doors. For how long I cannot
say.
2019-11-12
Jack (10yo) just wrote a 3-page story narrated by an anthropomorphic treehouse
that was reminiscing about being built by a bunch of kids (“they lifted the
planks of wood onto my shoulders”), but now it’s decrepit and falling apart, and
one of the kids returned as an adult to repair it, and laid his hand on the wood
and said “you’ve always been a part of my life”, and he told me that he started
crying when he wrote it, and I told Eliza and she started crying, and now I’m
crying.
2019-08-24
Great end to the week; fast progress on building new tech at work. Out with
Matthew and Paul, chats over beers at PICA Bar then dinner at Long Chim. Kids at
mum and dad’s for a sleepover.
2019-08-22
Just finished reading “The Passionate Programmer” by Chad Fowler, which I
discovered after writing a program to find great people on GitHub to try to fill
an engineering position at my day job. That book talks about marketing yourself,
and, combined with some other advice on that topic that I’d heard recently
(although I can’t remember where), I was motivated last night to rebuild my
vanity website to do a better job of that.
This lead to me rebuilding my blog, which lead to me
subscribing to Medium and finding an unpublished article entitled “Your Password
is Terrible”, which I published and received a clap for before my hands had left
the keyboard.
I really should become more involved in the local scene here in Perth, so will
look for a conference of a meetup that I can attend.
2019-07-18
Right. I’m slack.
Second week of school holidays. We’ve been keeping busy. Had a great hike around
Lesmurdie Falls last week, which culminated with a splendid lunch at Core Cider.
Visited Wil’s family for dinner, Brewski over last night for some VR action,
watched Yesterday on Monday with Dzungy, visits to the dog park with Bailey,
caught up with Petr at Palace Arcade, where I became a gold member, lots of
reading, not so much exercise.
Limited myself to 6 drinks per week, which was hard, so reneged and made it 9
instead, which is also proving hard. Nine is around 14 “standard drinks” which
is pretty much the definition of a moderate drinker, so not all that bad. Will
keep counting, which is the main thing.
No progress on hobby projects, but have been working very hard on RailRoad,
which is my home-spun omakase web framework, using Sequel and Roda and a bunch
of other stuff. It’s exciting and good.
Will try to keep updating this thing. For sure, this time.
2019-06-12
Stayed up to watch the Ninty E3 direct. Nothing outstanding but fun nonetheless,
and the kids get a rare treat of watching it over brekky before school. Walked
the dog with D. in wintery weather; good opportunity to talk about life after
finding out that a brother of a close friend passed away suddenly. It can happen
at any time. Out to a laksa lunch in the cold weather. No progress on personal
projects, which is unfortunate. Time is slipping away. Need to limit the work I
do on my day job so I don’t get distracted by it when I should have free time
for my own things.