In 2014 this dog and this expensive, high power pet vacuum came into my life and today the dog won.

Also in 2014 I signed up for my OzBargain account, leading me to a free dinner and dessert with random OzBargain people plus Chow this evening. The pineapple pork ribs and brownie made up for only getting one stamp on my loyalty card when I bought two coffees at the bakery this morning.

Rounding out a pretty full day, I was also a participant who helped complete the Speakeasy escape room with fifteen minutes to spare. Technically this proficiency may have actually made it less good value for money.

Technology brought me to Melbourne this week.

I needed dinner late, and fortunately the hotel's restaurant was still bustling at 8:30, and they found me a table for one.

I had to order via a QR code, which was slightly annoying but I guess this is the future. And then this robot brought me my dinner. To the wrong side of the table, requiring me to stand up to retrieve it.

The Demon of Unrest had been on my to-read list for a while, and the end of October/Start of November 2024 suddenly felt like the right time to read about Lincoln's election and inheritance of a divided America, and how the American Civil War broke out.

I am not implying that there are specific parallels to be drawn between 1860 and today, none that I want to explore. It was an interesting time in history, written about in an engaging and well structured way by Erik Larson.

While much of the book's material was sourced from Lincoln's papers and from the records of those facing the cannons on either side of the water of Charleston Harbour, the era was enriched further by excerpts from the diaries of "normal" people such as Mary Boykin Chesnut. And just like I did in 2020 during the Churchill book I found myself feeling like I should put more effort into my own diary journal in case Erik Larson or some future GPT version of him needed some source material for some book about events in 2025. But what significant world event would I need to add my observations on? And how was anything I wrote in Adelaide going to have relevance to that event? It would take some kind of major, global history making thing to happen for me to have any relevance.

Hmmm…

The dictionary definition of a "bay" is "a broad inlet of the sea where the land curves inwards". But Watsons Bay, as a Sydney locality, is kind of the inverse. A head on the eastern suburbs like a broad outlet of land where the sea curves outwards.

On a holiday, this means...

Sunrise by the Sea.

Breakfast by the Sea.

Birds by the Sea.

Trees by the Sea.

Paddleboarding by the Sea.

Post Paddleboarding Beer by the Sea.

Naps by the Sea.

Walking by the Sea.

Sculptures by the Sea.

Sunset by the Sea.

Basically, the Sea by the Sea