Dolly Parton’s America podcast is awesome. I’ve suffered the Tennessee Mountain Trance myself. castro.fm
Microblogvember: We have seen our intense hot weather in Perth abate but since it’s not even summer yet, I know it will be back. I look forward to summer through winter, and then it arrives… it doesn’t live up to the hype!
Microblogvember: It blows me away the things that humans have been able to build. For all our failings, we make some amazing things.
Game
Day 18 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
I’m not a gamer; this month I unsubscribed from Apple Arcade because I wasn’t playing any of the games on offer despite a number of them being good. It’s an opportunity cost issue. There are only so many hours in a day and I find enjoyment doing other things ahead of gaming… most of the time.
I say that because rarely I do become obsessed with a game. My most recent example is Zelda: Breath of the Wild. With that game, I would sneak away with my son’s Switch and play it for hours. At first I was making my way through the game naturally. Then as I progressed, I got more serious and downloaded an iOS app to help me track the locations I had been, and which areas I still needed to unlock.
I continued to upgrade my character, beyond that which was necessary to claim victory over the big boss. I didn’t know that at the time of course, but given how relatively easy the final boss battle was, I’d say that I had swung the scales significantly in my favour.
Zelda was an epic game. It captured my mind for months. It was an expensive game but on an entertainment per hour basis, was incredibly cheap. I don’t know when I will encounter another game that captivates me in that that way but I’m sure it will happen, I’ll become a gamer for a month or two, then go back to normal non-gamer life.
Microblogvember: Bryce Cotton is a superb basketball player for the Perth Wildcats.
Cool, I’ve set up a Keybase.io account. As is typical with this stuff, I know nobody else who uses it.
Party
Day 17 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
I’m not one for parties; my introversion means I’m diametrically opposed to them.
Having said that, I’m actually attending a party this afternoon/evening. It is a 60th birthday celebration though and should be a nice one. It is incorporating a showing of Blade Runner. I haven’t seen that movie in about 20 years, so I’m interested to see my interpretation of it now.
Another party issue arising is planning to host a 4th birthday party for our youngest son. Trying to decide what to do for that is a puzzler as well. Do we host it at home, or out somewhere? Who to invite? We don’t have friends who have kids of a similar age, but it won’t be much of a party if he doesn’t have some similar-aged kids around. We need to get moving on the planning so we can get the invites out, but we’re having trouble generating motivation. That’s not good parenting, is it!
Animal
Day 16 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
Our family might be about to lose our second animal of the year to old age. Our Standard Poodle, Jeff, is not holding up so well. He has developed large cysts under his skin, his teeth are wearing out and now he seems to have hurt his paw.
Earlier this year we had to say goodbye to our Airedale Terrier, Indi. Her absence seems to have accelerated the decline of Jeff. He relied on her so much to be top dog and I don’t think he has been the same since she has been gone.
I recall a couple of months ago when we were at the dog beach with Jeff, and we saw another Airedale Terrier. Jeff went running up to it, and you could just tell from his body language that he thought it was Indi. A sniff and a closer look confirmed that it was a stranger. If a dog can look deflated, Jeff did in that moment.
We bring animals into our lives knowing that it’s not forever and that one day we will need to make hard decisions about their future. The knowledge of that, however, doesn’t make the reality of the situation any easier.
Microblogvember: The old proverb is that it pays to be selective. Don’t just settle. You can do better than that.
Renovation
Day 15 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
About three years ago we did a house renovation. We had our kitchen gutted and rebuilt, our bathrooms reconfigured, wood floors sanded and interior walls painted, and a new front deck.
A huge job already was made bigger because we had to move all of our furniture into storage and move our family into a short-term rental for the duration of the project. It reminded me why I don’t like moving house. Packing is the worst!
The renovation grew our mortgage significantly but improved our quality of life. We spend so much time in our home that making it a comfortable environment was worth the investment.
We had an excellent builder on the project. I’m no handyman so it was absolutely necessary to employ a professional to do the job right. That’s an element of our renovation for which I hold no regrets. It’s also a standing principle of mine: if you’re not good at something and have no interest in learning the skill, pay somebody to deliver. Money is a resource that can be deployed strategically to save your own frustration and heartache. When it comes to a renovation, if I were doing it myself there would be plenty of both. I’d rather be without the money!
Microblogvember: I don’t enjoy swimming in bodies of water where I cannot see below my feet, into the murky depths.
I want to remove the www from my andrewcanion.com domain but I somehow have a weird mishmash of redirects to `http(s)://www' that I can’t figure out what to change, where. Anything I’ve tried to do has broken all access.
Recycling
Day 14 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
Recycling is kind of a big deal in our house. Our council runs a three bin system for rubbish management: one bin for food and organics, one for rubbish, and a third for recyclables.
My wife Hannah works in the recycling industry. She is the Head of External Relations at Western Australia Return Recycle Renew (WARRRL). This organisation has responsibility for establishing a new container deposit scheme for our State. That will mean that for every drink container brought back to a recycling point, 10 cents is given to the recycler.
As well as reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the scheme provides an opportunity for community engagement. I could choose to have my recycled containers benefit an organisation that elects to participate. For instance, if my son’s local Scout group gets involved they can use it as a fund-raising measure.
Western Australia is a geographically huge State and this is rolling out across it all. Hannah and the entire WARRRL team have been working hard to get this initiative up and running and I am proud of the work they are doing. It will be exciting when the system is ready to launch!
Microblogvember: Our poor old dog Jeff has a big lump at the top of his neck.
Beverage
Day 13 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
My favourite beverage is coffee. There is no contest. There is not much better than an Australian flat white.
Italian coffee is great but it’s a transitory drink. You get it at the bar, drink it and leave. Don’t sit down because it will cost you a fortune.
American coffee is bad. It’s either sweetened and flavoured to the point where its more milkshake than coffee, or its drip-filtered and been sitting in storage for a while.
Australian coffee has the quality of the Italian style, but there is a social norm of sitting down at the coffee shop to drink it. Our baristas are great at frothing the milk to achieve micro-foam rather than aerated fluff, and we benefit from a delicious crema when they pour.
Regarding other beverages, I enjoy sharing a pot of tea at home with my wife. She is addicted to tea and doesn’t drink coffee at all. I think that’s weird, but there you go. I rarely drink soft drink. Perhaps an occasional Coke Zero. Never in my life have I had a Red Bull or other super-caffeinated beverage. I can’t see how they can possibly be good for me.
Microblogvember: I write this microblog from an event that I have been able to organise. We have a room of people undertaking strategy development and financial forecasting.
Smells
Day 12 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available.
A smell can be a most evocative sense. It can stimulate memory, facilitate calm or revulsion, or provide us with timely information.
If I smell new carpet, I am transported back to my Year 1 classroom which had been renovated and new carpet laid. That’s an associated formed around 35 years ago. The smell of a basketball stadium: that combination of sweat, dencorub, and timber treatment to this day hastens my heart beat.
Today I was between meetings so I had the opportunity to park near the beach for a few minutes. As I opened the car window, my olfactory senses were treated to that wonderful scent of salt air traveling on a warm breeze. That is much nicer smell than that of a dirty nappy, which over the past 8 years I’ve become far to familiar with.
A smell I miss is the cooking of roast beef and yorkshire pudding. That was a staple of my childhood diet but I don’t have the time or inclination to make it myself these days.
Of all our senses, I think smell is the most associative. I don’t think vision, hearing, touch or taste can transport us back in time or recall memories of a person or place the way a smell can. We should probably take more time out to appreciate our noses.
Microblogvember: This morning I wanted to stayin bed. Unfortunately, a want was insufficient reason to do so.
I’ve watched the first episode of The Spy on Netflix. Highly recommend! 📺
Apple Arcade games drain battery way too fast. I’m guessing it might be the DRM? Anyway, I’m canceling for a while since I’m not much of a gamer. Maybe Apple will sort it out over time. Apple Arcade games drain battery way too … - Apple Community