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If you met yourself from the future, what would you ask your future self?
What if they wont tell you anything?
One day I will install a copy of MediaWiki on my NAS to maintain a knowledge base of all the mundane things I have to learn or understand to maintain my car, house, body, finances and all the rest of life's details.
So I don't forget today's lessons, and because the drill's manual seems to assume you know exactly what you are doing, here's the way to drill holes in bricks without standing there for thirty minutes to make a tiny hole.
1. Be Safe
2. Charge the battery
3. Mark where the hole is going
4. Lock in a smaller masonry drill bit and make sure it's not crooked
5. Put it on Hammer mode
6. Set the numbers thingy to 20
7. Flick the switch on the top to 2
8. Make sure you're not in reverse mode
9. Drill a pilot hole with the small bit, then replace with the bigger masonry bit
10. Repeat 5-8
11. Drill the full hole
12. Sweep the dust out and put the anchors in
13. Change settings to screw mode.
14. Screw in the screws into the bracket/anchors
15. Wash hands/face/clothes
16. Drink beer
I have a 2022 Keep note with a list of potential journal entry titles, and after a while it became a list of journal entries that I didn't get around to writing.
This list includes "Yest We Forgot" - which was some thoughts I had after seeing a little war memorial in the suburbs last ANZAC day with no wreaths on it, as well as a note admonishing me for not writing a review of Phil Jackson's autobiography "11 Rings".
It also had an entry called "Crossroads" which was a hint to start me writing a potential entry in late May about if it was time for bradism.com to make a left or right turn, maybe start writing more entries about evaluating your API Strategy and ways to assess an organisation's integration maturity. Given that June's entries focused mainly on injuries, zooper doopers, the weather and photos of the garden it's clear that bradism.com ploughed on straight ahead without slowing to yield, and my decision not to reflect on my decision at these crossroads seems justified as I didn't hit anything and I'm still going in the same direction. What the fuck am I talking about? I got acquired by a big consulting firm, I tried working for a big consulting firm, I decided I preferred working for small consulting firms and so after a few months of business development, pitches and invoicing I had my last day today. Well, officially my last day is in two weeks, but I have some leave to take between now and then. During which we're going for a road trip which, due to Adelaide being a long road away from anywhere, will involve a lot of roads, but not many crossroads.
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Breakfast in South Australia (apple, oats, chia and yogurt), lunch in Victoria (pepper steak pie), dinner in NSW (schnitzel and pizza).
Everything worked as expected today. The new windscreen wipers proved their worth, the $30 phone holder held my phone for 800km, my shoulders did not fall off, the Hay Plain was boring and beautiful in the golden light, Google maps took me down a dirt road for 30 minutes to try and save fifteen seconds. The road trip playlist only got two skips between 7:30 am and 6pm.
Woke up in Griffith, coffee in Barmedman. Did not drive through floodwaters and the road back towards Temora was sunny. Saw many sheep, cows and horses. Flowers in Cowra (and, this...). Showers around Young. Gloom in Blayney. Showers in Bathurst and icy winds in Lithgow. For a new-camera holiday I failed to photograph any of these stunning scenes, but I did make good time. Finally trekked up to Hassans Walls lookout and took a photo.
Took a long walk for this nice lookout and a couple of chicken and salad rolls.
On the way back to Blackheath we stopped at the Hydro Majestic Hotel which half lived up to its name (it was raining again).
Last night I cooked sausages on a BBQ in subzero winds, and today I ate them at 110km an hour.
This morning we had breakfast in Blackheath's grand canyon.
Then two Coles Express coffees later (actually, very reasonable for the price) we arrived for sunset in Port Macquarie. I tried using the "animal" and "bird" autofocus features of my new camera.
Most of my entries so far this holiday have been about what I've seen, but not much about how I've felt.
I've driven for over 24 hours already since Saturday which has actually been mentally fascinating, one of my hidden human senses is an instinct as to how far from home I am. I am very far from home. This sense might be behind my shoulder blades...
I have seen an incredible amount of Australian countryside and it has mostly been immense and beautiful.
I've been able to dedicate time to playing with my new camera, which I hope will reward me with better photos at some point.
I have not been working.
I've been hiking and using my whole arm again.
And I have been less cold. I soaked in more sun on the walking and driving today than all of the last week in Adelaide. I'm not wearing socks while writing this.
Today was Yamba Day, a 24 hour itinerary I'd originally drafted for my birthday but thanks to flexible holiday scheduling we decided to do it on the ascent instead. It was a fantastic day. We walked around picturesque coves as the sun rose. The sky was blue all day. After breakfast on the balcony we walked and rock hopped from Pippi Beach to Angourie. At the other end we ordered coffee and visited the Blue Pool.
Sitting in the shade of that coffee shop, hearing the ocean, watching the ferns, and smelling the coffee was particularly serene.
After racing the tide back and a quick swim we went to the local brewery for lunch and a tasting paddle.
A lazy afternoon followed which included drinking beer at the seaside and sunset walks, and finally delicious chicken stir fry.
What a beautiful day, definitely deserving of a birthday.
Last decade I was invited to a wedding in Lamington National Park which revealed to me that there is an awesome national park in Australia that was named after the same guy who the Lamington was named after.
Alas, I wasn't able to make it to that wedding but 10+ years later I am finally here.
While taking a holiday was supposed to be an escape from much of life's routines, I was not expecting to abstain from eating almonds for over a week. Finally this weekend I have resumed my almond and apple morning teas in the presences of some grand waterfalls in Springbrook and Lamington National Parks.
Guardian of the bridge, and supervisor of breakfasts. After concluding that he wasn't getting any banana, weet bix and yogurt he vomited, shat, then flew off.
At sunset I went back up the mountains a little to take photos of spectacular cows.
Honestly I have too many sunset cows for a single entry, so contact me directly if you need more.
After nine days of driving, relaxing, hiking and driving some more today I reached what most certainly was the furthest point of the road trip. From Lower Beechmont I drove up the very long, extremely windy Lamington National Park Road to Green Mountains - an experience both twisty and magnificent. Then after parking and breakfast with the birdlife we walked another eighteen kilometres to Toolona Lookout which, funnily enough, I could not see my house from.
1,565km as the Crimson Rosella flies.
It has been an extreme privilege to have a car capable of taking me such a long distance across what I have been reminded constantly is a diverse, beautiful country that has roads connecting it all over the place. I mean I’ve paid a lot of tax in my life, but not enough to cover the thousands of kilometres of motorways, winding mountain passes, bridges, bypasses, retaining walls, and other infrastructure that has carried me from Adelaide to here. I also appreciate those who have mapped out and trodden all the hiking trails past waterfalls and scenic vistas up and down the eastern seaboard.
While up on that lookout and taking photos I noticed I had 4G mobile reception, and I was able to check the security camera in my living room, so I guess thanks to all this infrastructure I could see my house from there.
After finishing the hiking and getting back in the car I had a headlight out, so after we got back and before I ate 5000 calories of food to refuel I had the privilege of changing a headlight bulb. Luckily I had the foresight to pack both a spare headlight bulb, and a Pirate Life to drink afterwards.
All the driving, while not distracted by overtaking caravans, listening to Agatha Christie, and appreciating the views, can be a bit repetitive. One of my favourite games is to play "Pokemon or Australian Town Name?" For instance, does Mooball evolve into Bullabarra? Or are these places in the Tweed Valley and Blue Mountains? Can you teach surf to Kungabung?
This is a much nicer game than my other Pokemon themed pastime, which I call "completing the daily roadkill Pokédex". :(
Today on multiple bridge supports some hundred kilometres apart someone had stenciled a series of statements such as "vote like a girl" and something about not trusting any government. The first one I saw was a quote about living in harmony with nature... I missed the second part because a massive, bloody kangaroo was spreadeagle on the shoulder right next to it.
Last night I was walking on a bridge in Tuncurry around sunset and I thought to myself, "decades are not a lot like waves." It was exactly ten years ago I was in this town, looking at these waters, and reflecting on the nature of the passage of time and honestly it does not feel a lot has changed since then. If the 2002 version of myself had come to Forster and I’d been able to draw the comparisons to my 2012 version ten years ago I think that would be considerably different. But in 2012 I was an IT Professional and husband and an aspiring writer and aspiring photographer, and fifty-fifty in my attitude between feeling like I fit into the world and apathy. In 2022 those attributes are all basically matching. Yes, now I have a dog and a house and more life experiences up my wetsuit sleeves. Yet a skim of the past ten years reveals not a lot of progression. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. I am predisposed to becoming more maudlin on my birthday as well as at the tail end of holidays and I may have underestimated the impact of scheduling the both of these things together…
This picture is not a metaphor.
Always good to visit Sydney occasionally and remind yourself of your own insignificance.
It's hard not to draw comparisons on this trip through NSW to times from last decade. Wentworth Point, for instance, has changed dramatically. In 2013 I drove from Sydney to Mildura in a single day. I'm sure a lot of people have. But before today I was only 99.95% confident I could replicate that much driving in my now 38 year old body. Last time I did the drive it was immediately after disembarking a flight from LAX, but at least at 29 I had the advantages of a toll tag and a few more hours of sunlight.
So, I was pleased to roll onto Deakin street shortly before dusk this evening. Maybe this time, with enough REM sleep, I will remember the journey. Coffee at Sutton Forest and Gundagai, lunch in Narrandera, endless clouds for the final five hours. Not long to go now before the sun sets on this road trip.
Today's distance.
There may be claims that internet algorithms rule our lives, but after Vanessa and I curated the 26 hour, 45 minute Mega Road Trip 22 I clearly had too high expectations for the power of Shuffle.
It wasn't just that despite sixty hours of driving I don't think I heard a good chunk of these songs. But the thing that bothered me the most was Spotify's seemingly poor timing of random tracks. For instance, Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, as well as Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again by Cornershop both got played in the first five hour of the drive. Further, Snow (Hey Oh) came on a couple hours premature of our arrival on the Hay plain, and Go West by the Pet Shop Boys featured on a very eastern drive between Griffith and Young. Live's Lightning Crashes played on a sunny day. The Cure's Friday I'm In Love was the soundtrack to a Saturday morning, and The Wallflower's One Headlight came on the day after I successfully replaced a blown globe in Lower Beechmont.
Crowded House's Weather With You was at least appropriate, it played on the drive home and today in Adelaide it was sunny and warm.
As I have been back from holidays for five days and haven't done any coding for more than that, plus now that I have a new camera, tonight I decided to eat a Maxibon and add full screen overlay mode for large images on my site.
