South Aussie With Bradism

Today was almost a quintessential South Australian day. Here's an itinerary so you can relive it.

Get In - We're Going for a Trip

The morning started with a free ride on Adelaide's tram. Destination: a stroll along the magnificent boulevard of North Terrace (for about 50 metres) and then a visit to the Adelaide Central Market. There I bumped into people I knew, and enjoyed a large, strong coffee before loading up a backpack with fresh, cheap fruit and vegetables.

After another free tram ride and some Foodland yoghurt and locally grown passionfruit for morning tea, it was time to get stuck in South Road traffic. Then there was lunch at one of Adelaide's iconic Vietnamese takeaway restaurants for a Bún Bowl.

After lunch and some more weekend traffic it was time for another Fringe show as part of the fabric of the end of summertime festivities. I've been to a few shows this year, today's was the Sleep's Hill tunnel, an audio visual display of colour and mushrooms in an old, disused railway tunnel south of the city.


Me in a tunnel.

Following the Fringe, and more South Road traffic, it was time to take a road trip down to the south coast. There, after even more South Road traffic I enjoyed a dinner spread by one of Adelaide's spectacular beaches. The day ended with a sunset walk overlooking the cliffs of Aldinga, before dealing with road works on the expressway on the drive home, and then more South Road traffic.

Not pictured - traffic.

It was also good to see two lots of extended family, two lots of old friends and families, and two dogs.


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The woman with the fake tan stepped into my office, sat across from my desk and lit a cigarette.
At least, she would, sometime in the next 20 minutes. Smelling the future has advantages, but precision isn’t one of them.


Living with PAIN - or - LIVING, with pain

My night time routine is pretty solid these years. Stretches, clean my teeth with Sensodyne, toilet the dog, and then climb into bed while arranging all the pillows between my knees and other joints before adjusting the mattress firmness for my back.

I've contemplated adding some private journaling into that routine. A few minutes to capture the inputs and outputs of my day without any pressure to make jokes or Lightroom my photos. It would be a great way to solidify lessons learned, as well as inscribe some memories of days I hope to one day look back on fondly.

What prevents me from ever doing this is knowing that nearly every night I will be describing pain. Like, if today was an example, it would have gone: woke up, knee was sore. Walked the dog, then making breakfast fucked off my wrist. That's been giving me sharp pain all day, except for when I sit too long and the ache in my hamstring sometimes takes precedence. I spent most of the day writing abstract RAML type definitions and then implementing them in a second library so that they could be imported into consumer API specifications in an extendible way. After work it was cool enough to go outside without melting so I mowed the lawn and like clockwork my dog was dropping a turd on it by the time the grass catcher was back in the shed.

I accepted many years ago that I was never going to get back to a pain free baseline, and until I implant my consciousness into a shitty claw machine attached to a hoverboard that I am going to be living with pain, not tucking my shirt in, and I may never sit on a sofa again.

But there is living with pain, and there is LIVING, with pain. I am choosing the latter and while it is not June, 2008 the principle does bring me some mental stability. Which, in part, comes from physical stability. Rehab and mobility exercises would also be on my daily journals, 2-3 times a day. They don't make me invincible, but I hope that by doing them I make little tweaks like today hopefully just little. They make the bad days okay, and the really bad days just bad. I think this helps me do more living than pain.

I guess it does help knowing that if I ever get truly over it I can sell everything and go hang out in Paris for a while. I might be living with pain, but I will be LIVING. And by that I mean, spending time under trees not moving.

Heat

It was a pleasant, sunny morning on February 29th and I told my wife that I love Autumn weather. And then that night at the Haldi, while we were sitting outside, it got pretty chilly and as we got in the car to drive home I told my wife that I hate Autumn weather. This is the kind of quality japing that goes on as you NEAR FORTY as well as twelve years of marriage.

Anyway, March has been around longer than that and it's been a minute since we had a nice go fuck yourself heatwave and what better time to endure one than over the long weekend.

Friday was hot too. I had to interview someone for work and after turning up in shorts and offering a very professional, "How's it going, bud?" I got through that at an outdoor table thanks to an iced latte.

A visit to Gluttony with old work people for beers and a stand up show was good while in the shade.

At least in March there is a looming equinox and due to the quirks of daylight saving the sun doesn't even rise until after 7pm. So it's possible to get out and about while the temperatures are still only in the mid to high 20's.

On Saturday morning that meant making it about halfway to the central markets on our bikes before the heatstroke kicked in.

Fortunately the central markets has a lot of food in it, and is therefore kept at refrigerator temperatures. We loaded up with salads and fruits and rode home in the shade.

The rest of the day was spent as indoors as possible, preferably on the lower level of the house. There was an unexpected, very welcome burst of rain around 5pm. Just like the cold taps in my house, it was warm water coming from the sky.

After dinner we went to the beach where it was much cooler and much prettier. There was a double rainbow for twenty minutes while the sun set. Then it got warmer again on the way home.

I took quite a few photos of the double rainbow.

On Sunday morning we got up even earlier to try and get a walk to the bakery done with Nash before the heat hit.

This went very well, and we were home again by about 8:30 with no ill effects from the heat. Or so I thought, until the milk I poured into my smoothie jug came out with the consistency of unstirred gravy.

I scooped that sludge out with a spoon and then finished off the ingredients, adding four of the hundred passionfruits that have dropped off the vine over the past weeks.

There was nothing to it but waiting until the evening and returning to the beach for more swimming, and then driving back home for more sweating.

By Monday I was exhausted just from the effort of staying cool, and constantly trying to extract heat from the upstairs through the use of the bathroom extractor fans.

It was too hot to even bother going to the beach again. We just walked in the morning and the evening around the neighbourhood, and waited for Tuesday to return to the office and its industrial strength air conditioning.

I did keep myself cool developing a tag adding and tag filtering component to my latest Sveltekit project.

This morning I woke up early and rode my bike to town for work. It was still hot.


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An Auspicious Date - March 4 2024

Nash took us for a walk around the neighbourhood, then we settled down for some oat flour and banana waffle bowls for breakfast.

I had to work in the morning, and made a surprising amount of progress on some automation development - partly powered by a taken home cupcake from the evening before. Then it was time for the final wedding of the weekend. Jarrad - who I hadn't even seen for two years (Fringe, 2022). Jarrad and his fiancé are both living lives of music and art as they approach their forties, so I expected that their wedding was not going to be traditional. That said I did not wear my Kurta.

Around 3:30pm we took the tram into town and walked in The Garden of Unearthly Delights, which was very sunny and empty, which made it easy to identify the other wedding goers. Everyone was mingling in front of the red Spiegeltent, and like the ceremony on Friday there was a lot of colourful outfits but at least one more sailor costume.

Like a Fringe show, the doors opened and we were ushered in to find a seat. Like a Fringe show, the chairs were not super comfortable. Unlike a Fringe show I was handed a glass of champagne, and had the option of some free pickles.

The ceremony was scheduled for 4:30pm. As that time came and went the suspense started to build, but eventually to loud cheers from the surrounding crowd we got our first glimpse of Jarrad and then an even more theatrical entrance from the bride.

It was a real wedding, however, so there was the standard playbook of ceremonial events although with a little more crowd interaction and whooping. And during this were the contrasting yet equally beautiful vows as compared to yesterday.

After the ceremony I tried my first "Pickleback" (whiskey shot with pickle juice chaser). That explains the large pickle platters from before the ceremony. Then we hung out in the artists bar for a while, ate some tacos and a pork bao, before eventually returning to inside the tent which was now sans-uncomfortable chairs and more of a dancefloor.

There were a few short speeches from the family, but then in place of bridesmaid and groomsmen speeches like Sunday we instead got a live show. Satan's Cheerleaders played a couple of songs, earning them their second mention on this website. Shaolin Afronauts then followed up with a longer groove session of afrobeat and dancing. Jarrad moved from the drums to the bongos.

After the music, the bride's side put on a collection of cabaret bits. Starting with a small girl in big heels singing absolutely beautiful opera while simultaneously performing puppetry with paper butterflies and a big folding fan that she used to keep them fluttering above her.

Then things took a darker turn, and a lady walked out to play with fire, eat it, and then breath it with the help of a very muscular man wearing a leather vest over his tanned upper body.

I have written these long entries about this wedding weekend because I wanted to remember the things I saw and how I felt. Already I feel like the chaos of Frantic February is fading into the ether. By the end of this five day weekend of weddings I felt inspired by the back to back exhibitions of beauty. I've witnessed so much love, in all sorts of ways. Romance, family, friendship. Listened to touching speeches. I've been enveloped in so much colour and happiness. It really was a human experience, leaving me quite exhausted but also very happy to have been there. Even Nash has enjoyed the weekend. Every night alone has been balanced out by a long morning walk along the river, or a lake, or up the hill to Prospect. She too will be content that it's over.

That all said, the last thing I saw on Monday night I will not describe because I do not think I will ever forget it. And if I do, I will just search for the number one single by "Hot Butter" from 1969 and I am confident everything will come flooding back.

I left the tent shortly after that. More music was starting up, but the time had come to call it a day and prepare for another week of software delivery, rehab, shaving, dentist appointments and dog walks. As that continues indefinitely, these entries will hopefully help engrave in my brain some of the happiness that came from the last month.

An Auspicious Date - March 3 2024

Nash enjoyed having humans at home on Saturday night, and she enjoyed her Sunday stroll and traditional sausage roll through North Adelaide as well.

This is why I am completely open and non-judgemental of all cultures and customs. Every Sunday I take my dog to a bakery for a pastry.

I am NOT comparing this to a wedding. Although I do think Nash would enjoy sweet pastry balls.

After the walk there was even some time for a new version of Fireworks Tonight with time based Seasonal Theming, which was necessary because the Lunar New Year theme was still in place. I added some dates to themes and now they apply and disappear automatically, and I even set up the Christmas theme for December so I don't have to make any changes between now and then if I don't want to.

After that there was even time for a workout and some deadlifts, to ideally build some hunger for more food in the evening. Following salad for lunch I dressed in my suit, with vest along with the tartan tie and initial cufflinks that Alex had gifted me.

Tartan Fam

The Hills
It was a nice, sunny afternoon for the drive into the hills, past Mount Barker and along the country roads to Lot 100. Alex had given me a role to coordinate the starting of the music with the readiness of the bridesmaids. While everyone waited at the altar under an extremely long sunset.

Eventually the bridesmaids had their path to the aisle defined and I got the music started. Then I had a seat up the front for what was a beautiful ceremony, with heartfelt vows exchanged in front of a warmly lit backdrop of green hills and trees. Alex's vows were particular heartfelt and well spoken. Then there were kisses, a showering of petals from the crowd, applause and drinks.

The gap between the ceremony and the reception was spent by everyone trying to take a good photo in the evening light. It was quite strong still, but many good family shots were captured along with Mismatch beers.


Reception
Steve and I had MC duties, but no microphone, so we sorted that out and after everyone was seated and sampling their Antipasti we stood up and got through the housekeeping, the introduction (with more drums and boogieing) and brotherly speeches by both me and the bride's brother.

The audio situation was a little challenging, with a lot of low end and not great audio. Alex said he enjoyed my speech, which was good. Dad said he couldn't hear it. For future reference it is in the Keep note "Alex Wedding Speech".

Dinner followed, with generous servings of lamb, chicken, and barramundi served out across the long tables. This long stretch of night was very pleasant, talking to family and Alex's friends and enjoying the vibe of love, happiness and supper.

Before dessert there were more speeches from the bridal party. After the bridesmaids, all of Alex's five groomsmen delivered a summary of their favourite Alex memory and it was a privilege to be party to these insights into what a nice young man he has become. From always being there for his friend going through a newborn during covid, to holding his friend by the back of his belt so he could take a leak off the rear of a moving golfcart.

This time the loud music and dancing came after the speeches, and a solid dance floor for a Sunday night took place. Punjabi MC and Gasolina got a reprise. I did get low once, and otherwise had a good time. Shirt now untucked, sleeves rolled up, the boogie went on for a while. Then, around 11:05, we all lined up on either side of a path out the door with long sparklers and created a tunnel to send the married couple on their way for a second time.

After that it was just a long drive home down the freeway, through some tunnel construction work, to arrive just a minute after midnight. Only one more wedding to come.

An Auspicious Rest

The wedding weekend rest day began with a walk around West Lakes with Nash, and breakfast overlooking the lake under a tree.

Nash went for several paddles, and then got a bath on the way back.

We did some food shopping, then in the evening Steve came over for a BBQ and I spent a couple of hours child proofing his child's laptop.

It was a mistake to add 65,000 lines to the hosts file and then flush the DNS, and that wasted an hour of my life.

Eventually I set up some new DNS Server IPs for his home WIFI, while on my WIFI, and hopefully that will keep my nephew from being turned away from heaven.

Also, my passionfruit bruise preventor finally worked once.

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