Bye bye 2018

2018 has seemed like the fastest year on record for me. It has absolutely flown past and whilst I think I've done a fair bit of work, I don't think I did very much in my personal life. I think that will be part of my new years resolutions, to do more with my family and more with my spare time. It may mean I'm busier on the weekends but maybe it will make the year not go quite so fast.
I'm still undecided on whether I'll take the kids to see the 9pm fireworks tonight or not and whether I'll stay up to see in the new year myself. 9pm is getting quite late for my kids but it is still the holidays and we don't have anything planned for tomorrow so it might be nice if they sleep in a little. I haven't stayed up until midnight on new years eve for probably close to 10 years, if not longer. If I make it to midnight, I can't imagine that I'd make it much further than that before I hit the sack.
Now that I think of it, I should check out facebook and see if there are any group rides on tonight that are going to check out the fireworks around Lake Burley Griffen, that could be something fun to do and I could possibly that the 360° camera with me too. 

I'm also not on call for another week so having a few beers is very tempting too and unfortunately (or thankfully) beers and bikes don't play well together.
Maybe I'll just go for a ride to the 9pm fireworks and then come home and have some beers and stay up until midnight to ring in the new year. Decisions, decisions.

Bomber
2019 is going to be the year it starts coming together

Did you know...

Did you know that there has been a resurgence in the number of people who now believe that the Earth is flat? At first I was like, these guys can't be serious. Then I watched some of the YouTube videos and, yup, they truly believe that the Earth is flat and that NASA, the US Government, the UN and some other bodies are lying to everyone and trying to keep it a secret. They claim that you can't visit the south pole because one of these government type bodies will stop you from ever reaching it.
The thing that I don't get is that if they are so untrusting and believe that they are being lied to, why don't they just go and test a few things out for themselves. Try and go to the south pole. If they are on a suitable boat with suitable clothing and all that kind of stuff, they can just go there. 
When ever they ask for proof that the world is a globe and someone shows them a photo, they claim that the photo has been doctored. They claim to have done the experiments themselves when in reality, other flat-earthers are saying that they have done the experiments and proved that the earth is flat. I'm yet to hear one flat-earther who has actually done their own thorough investigations and still believes that the Earth is flat. There are so many YouTube videos out there now some how trying to prove it one way or another it has become quite a little industry.
The one that I love is when they claim that a planes autopilot when set to maintain a certain altitude should mean that the plane ends up flying out into space if the world is round. They fail to understand how an altimeter actually works and that it doesn't matter if the earth is a globe or flat, the auto pilot will always maintain the correct height as it works on air pressure, something that is measurable and exists in both the globe and flat models. They also fail to realise that planes don't have to dip their nose to lose altitude, you just have to look at how planes land to see that they can descend with their noses pointing up. Planes wings aren't even horizontal with ground, they often are angled to keep the cabin level in flight. Don't even get me started on the direct flights from Sydney to Brazil that they claim don't even exist and are part of the conspiracy. It's not like the entire Australian Olympic team didn't realise that they were flying over mountains and the North Pole instead of the Pacific Ocean when they all flew direct to and from the Olympics in 2016, not to mention all the families, friends, broadcasters, trainers, etc etc that also flew direct, they must all be lying as it simply isn't possible...
If you want to believe in a flat earth for religious reasons, well that's fine by me, there are Christian geologists, they can scientifically prove that creationism doesn't exist as part of their every day job but they continue to choose to believe in it because of their faith. Unfortunately, most flat-earthers don't believe the earth is flat for religious reasons, they do it because someone made a YouTube video and they saw it on the internet.

Bomber

it's a globe and the government is probably lying to us, but not about that.

Weighing In

I'm down the coast visiting the in-laws at the moment so I don't have all the stats for this past week. Next week I should be back home so I'll weigh myself then and do a double post (except for weight) so I can update the graph I've been using recently.
I have been making no effort to exercise and I haven't been caring about what I eat. I do think that I am eating less junk that I did before due to me trying to be good for a while. I think that I don't have as much of a sweet tooth as I used to.
I'm going to try to make an effort to exercise starting in the new year and try to cut back on the junk. I want to be feeling healthy and well rested when I go back to work, the last thing I want is to be feeling tired and grumpy after having two weeks off.
So far these holidays I've probably spent too much time on the computer playing Fortnite with my son during the day and then at night I try and at least level up once in the game just by playing solo. I also spend a bit of time drafting posts up for occasions like tonight where I'm not at home and I don't really want to spend time trying to type things up on my phone. The point of being away with the family is to relax with them and I can't do that if I've got my head in my phone the whole time.
I've started writing my lists of new years resolutions and I'll probably end up posting them on Tuesday. There is a lot that I want to do next year and I really want to get things started on the Motocamp360 front.

Bomber
surfs up!

Rancho Relaxo

Have you ever seen the Simpson's episode where Marge visits Rancho Relaxo? That's what I equate being on a cruise to be like, it was very much Rancho Relaxo when we took the cruise at the beginning of the year. It seems longer ago and at the same time not that long ago. Whilst I'm relaxing and trying to take it easy, it is a fairly busy time of year. and now that Christmas is behind us I've still got a bit of time to try and relax and try not to think about going back to work in a week and a bit. All I'm wanting to do is to be on a cruise ship, it doesn't even have to be going anywhere as for me it was more about just relaxing, it wasn't about where we were going and I don't think spending a couple of days in port in New Zealand is really "seeing" what that country has to offer. I'd love to ride a motorbike all over New Zealand if I could, even if it was just down to Sounds and no where else. I can just imagine that the roads would be awesome and the sights along the way unbelievable.
One of the highlights of our cruise was waking up in Milford

Milford Sound - New Zealand - The view we woke up to.

Sound. The boat was parked and we went out on our balcony and were blown away by the view, the boat then proceeded to do a 360° turn in place by using its bow thrusters so everyone on board could see every part of Milford Sound. After that we spent several hours just cruising through the other Sounds and it was just awesome. I spent most of my time on the Balcony just enjoying the sights and a few cold beers and bourbons were drunk too. I must have been drinking fairly early in the day that day but I just remember feeling so relaxed and at peace with everything that day.

Bomber
due you think I'm missing cruising?

My History with 3D Animations

Today we took the kids, some of their friends as well as my nieces and nephew to the movies to see The Grinch. I'm blown away by just how good the animation is in these types of movies. I guess it kind of goes back to something that I've mentioned before where I've grown up with an analogue childhood but a digital adulthood. The amount of computing power that must go in to rendering the animated movies as well as all the coding to make sure that each hair moves naturally and individually is just mind boggling.
Back when I was running up my mobile disco business and trying to leave Coles, I spent a couple of weeks working on commission for a company that was trying to sell 3D animations. Basically I spent several weeks going through the phone book (yes a physical phone book) and cold called businesses to try and get them interested in a meeting where we could discuss how we might be able to make a 3D animation for advertising or educational purposes. 
I tried pretty hard for a while and set up a couple of meetings, there was another person doing the same thing as me and as far as I could tell he didn't manage to organise one meeting in the time that I was there. Of the two meetings that we had, the first one the owner of the business I was working for came along and really pushed the 3D aspect hard even when the client was more interested in something 2D. I wasn't happy as we could actually do 2D animation and it would probably be easier and since I was on commission I was willing to do what they wanted. The owner was only interested in 3D which was probably short sighted of him.
The other meeting that I did went really well but they weren't interested in doing anything at the time, they just wanted to see what was out there. They were really helpful in giving us the contact details for other people who they dealt with but nothing eventuated.
After a few weeks I think the owner saw that I was no longer putting in much effort at all and fired me. I don't know if you could call it being fired as he wasn't paying me, he did give me $300 when I was leaving so that at least paid for the fuel that I'd used.
Maybe two years after I left, the second company that I'd had the meeting with started running a really nice 3D ad. I'm guessing that I did have something to do with getting that started and it annoyed me a little but I guess the money I was paid on leaving was probably more than the commission I would have made off one sale anyway.
Whilst I was working there, I shared a small office with the guy who was employed to do the actual animation work. It was interesting watching him work and learning a little about what was involved. I think he was on salary but there wasn't any real work for him to do so he just worked on making things that could possibly help them out in the future. The amount of effort that went into making just a short animation and then the time it took for the computer to actually render it to a quality that was good enough for TV could be several weeks for just a 20 second commercial.
Anyway I didn't really think that the Canberra market was quite ready for 3D animation in advertising and we still don't see a lot of it for local businesses so I don't feel that I missed out on an opportunity there. I never even bothered to put it on a resume as I was still working at Coles and running the mobile DJ business at the time so there wasn't even a gap in my employment timeline.

Bomber
I've worn a few hats

Boxing Day

I know that there is some different point of views about where the name "Boxing Day" actually comes from and maybe they are all close to the truth I don't know. The Boxing Day sales have never really interested me and I don't recall them ever being a big thing for anyone in my family.
My wife and I didn't get each other anything for Christmas this year, for the last few years we've usually purchased something for ourselves or the house leading up to Christmas. One year we got a home theatre, another year we got new phones. I think we've also counted some of the home renovations we've done as Christmas gifts. This year we didn't really get ourselves or each other anything so we're probably owed something at a later date during the holidays when we feel like heading out shopping.
Growing up, what Boxing Day meant for me is basically two things, the Boxing Day Cricket Test and the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. That's all that Dad watched on the TV and then the cricket and tennis was all that seemed to be on for the rest of the holidays.
When I was a teenager we went to see the Australian Open Tennis a couple of times and that opened my eyes to the difference between what you see on TV and what you experience in the stadium itself. It was on one of these trips to the tennis that my Dad offered to take me to see the cricket at the MCG and I turned him down. My brother went but it didn't interest me for some reason. I really didn't like cricket much and from memory it was stinking hot that trip. Now that I'm older, I do want to go at least once to the MCG and see a cricket match or the AFL as I think that the atmosphere would make a huge difference and I'd enjoy it a lot more. I still can't get over that they can fit almost 100,000 people in that stadium, it would be something to be part of. I'd really like to take my son to something like that just to see his reaction. I have a feeling that he wouldn't last the whole day watching the cricket and it would probably be too cold for him to watch the AFL but I just think it is something that he should experience. It would be something that he would most likely remember for the rest of his life.

Bomber
I didn't watch any TV today

Merry Christmas!

This morning the kids were up early and all excited about it being Christmas morning, who can blame them! It really is such an exciting time when your a child. Santa comes into your house when you're sleeping and leaves presents under the Christmas tree, how awesome is that!
Every year I think that my kids get spoiled, not only by my wife and I, but also by our family. It's nice to have a family that care about our children and want to spoil them too.
Lunch was basically how I expected it to be in yesterday's post and now I'm ready for an early night since we were up so early today. 
Tomorrow is the last day that I'm on call for these holidays so I expect to be having a few more beers in the evenings or maybe even some bourbons. I'm looking forward to not having to worry about work possibly calling me and expecting me to deal with something out of the blue. It is unlikely that it will happen in the first place but just having it there in the back of my mind has meant that I haven't fully relaxed just yet. 
The weather over the next few days is meant to be getting hotter and hotter, up to almost 40°C which is about the hottest we can expect in this part of Australia. Usually we get these sorts of temps at the end of January or early February so it is unusual to be getting them this early in Summer. The whole weather pattern however appears to have been about a month ahead of itself the last few seasons for some reason. For the last few years it had seemed that the weather was almost a month late as we were having colder starts to Summer and Winters that seemed to drag on well into Spring. I don't know what happened this year, probably some sort of El Nino or something and now everything is now coming early instead of late.

Bomber
Merry Christmas!

It was the night before Christmas

What's with the BS about not a creature stirring, not even a mouse, on the night before Christmas, whoever wrote that didn't live in a house with kids. My kids will probably be in and out of bed half a dozen times tonight to check on the Christmas tree and see if Santa has been yet or not. Then at probably around 5am they will be running around and shaking boxes and making noise. Finally somewhere around 6am they will come in and wake my wife and I up and ask if we can get up now so they can start opening their presents.
At some stage during the morning my son will probably tell me that he heard or maybe even saw Santa sneaking through our house and how he hid back in his bed so he wouldn't be seen. I tell you what, Santa isn't very good at being quiet or not being seen as my son sees or hears him nearly every year. 
If you want a taste of how an Australian Christmas plays out, you just need to remember that it's Summer and only a few days after the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere (no I'm not a flat-earther). The sun will set on Christmas eve sometime around 8:20pm and it will continue to be light until around 9pm, maybe later. The sun will be up again around 5:45am with it getting light around half an hour prior to that. We'll probably have an early breakfast and then my wife and I will start getting things ready to head over to my Dad's for lunch. Lunch will be around 1pm and drag on until around 3pm when we'll decide that we should have a game outside, in the hottest part of the day, which will be somewhere around 35°C. We'll all get too hot and tired and spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to fall asleep, some of us will not be able to stay awake.
Sometime around 6pm my kids will start pestering about what we're having for dinner, meanwhile, my wife and I probably won't be hungry at all. We'll probably start having leftovers and that will continue for the next few days.
I think a white Christmas might be better in some ways, one year we'll do it, or maybe we could do Christmas on a cruise ship, that would be awesome as there would be no prep and no cleaning up. Maybe when the kids are a little older and understand a little bit more why Santa probably won't find them on a boat in the middle of the ocean we can look at doing that.

Bomber
dreaming of a white Christmas

The Secret is Out

Today my wife found out about the blog. A couple of weeks ago when my son was asking why I was always typing on the computer I told him that I was writing in my diary. He promptly went and told my wife who asked a few questions at the time and I managed to brush them off. Today, for some reason wifey brought it up again and pressed me for answers. Long story short I gave her a link and she started reading. I'm sure she'll keep reading it and eventually catch up to date so good thing I love her and haven't written anything not nice (as she is perfect in every way).
She's already making fun of things that I've said and how I said that I'd have to talk to about things and try to get her on board with some other things.
 So I guess I've broken one of my rules for this blog and that was to inform someone about, like I've said a few times, I wanted this to be completely organic and that if you are reading this then it's not because of something I've done. I've made my wife promise that she won't tell anyone about it or pass a link out to anyone so she doesn't effect what I'm trying to do here.
Just before I sat down to write tonight's post, I saw a post on facebook where a group of riders were meeting up to head out and see as many of the Christmas light displays as they could. If I hadn't just started drinking a beer I probably would have gone and joined them. Good thing I didn't as I would have missed writing a post tonight, I knew beer was good for me, I just didn't know how. Maybe not. It would have been a great night to get out and ride and now that I think about it more, it could have been fun to take the 360° camera along too. Oh well, maybe another time.

Bomber
Hi Wifey!

Weighing In

107 kg
37,668 steps for the week
3,254 average daily calorie burn

Monday I forgot to wear my fitbit but it would have been some where around 8,000 steps, which would still make it one of my worst weeks to date steps wise. I have a feeling that I'm going to put on some weight over the next few weeks. Unless I make an effort to get moving, I'm not going to get many steps in each day. I should try and spend time using the weights bench in the garage every few days if I can. Being at home all the time and eating too much food is probably what my holidays will mostly consist of.
On the plus side, the vertigo has nearly completely gone away, I still feel it a little bit but no where near as much as I was a few weeks ago. It will be interesting to see if the vertigo comes back as I start to put more effort into exercising again. Wouldn't it be weird if that was the cause of it. 
My back has been a little sore recently, I am thinking that I should go to a chiropractor and get them to crack my back or something. It's my upper back and it just feels like a couple of my vertebrae are rubbing or something, it's just not comfortable. I have private health insurance that will help pay for some of it so I really have no excuse not to go and see one. Maybe I'll do it some time early in the new year if I can find somewhere that is open before I head back to work.

 Bomber
that trend doesn't look too good...

360° Photography

Yesterday, after helping to de-clutter the house and giving it a clean I went and got the 360° camera out of the garage and put it on charge. I'm going to leave it in the house for the next few weeks so I remember to use it and take it with me if I head out anywhere with the kids. If the sky is clear at night I really want to try and take some photos with longer exposure. I took the camera out to a friends house last night to capture their Christmas lights. These guys go all out each year to raise money for charities.
Like I said earlier I want to get better at 360° photography and video. I also want to start uploading more content to the Motocamp360 instagram account so even if I'm not filming, I'm at least doing something motocamp related in 360°.
I've been thinking more and more about getting a drone and I think I'll have to do it. The biggest issue I have is that drones that are big enough to carry the 360° camera are possibly too big to take on the motorbike. I've been looking at getting folding drones, or at least ones that you can break down for transport. That's also a reason to reduce the amount of camping gear I take with me. I need to make sure that I have room for a drone. I'm starting to think that I may be better off custom building a drone as I don't need a camera on it and a lot of the drones come with their own cameras attached. If I can remove the camera, it will reduce weight as well as hopefully make it cheaper. I haven't really looked into how easy it is to buy parts to DIY a drone but there has to be a market for that out there. 
Having drone and filming from it would be cool and I'm sure I could get some amazing shots, it would almost be like combining my love of flight simulators with motocamping and 360° cameras.

Bomber
still thinking big

Getting things back in order

I think the end of the year rush has also been getting to my wife. The house has been more cluttered than usual and it was in need of a big clean out. My wife had yesterday off work so she could attend my daughters school Christmas concert. She spent the morning de-cluttering and getting things back in order.
This morning I vacuumed and mopped the whole house in the morning and started to get everything else in order to make the holidays easier on us. I even started drafting some more posts for this blog so I'm not caught out again.
I can already feel the weight of work has lifted. At night when I'm trying to go to sleep I've recently been thinking about what I had to do the next day at work, nearly everything I was thinking about in my spare time was work related. I think I've carried on enough about work and needing and break over the last few weeks and now it's finally here I'm going to enjoy it.

Coming back into Sydney in the early morning at the end of our cruise

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but in January this year, we went on a family holiday on a cruise ship. We went to New Zealand and all I've been wanting to do since we got back is arrange for us to go on another cruise. I think it has something to do with being on holidays in summer again that is really reminding me of the cruise. I think I'm going to pester the wife a little until we book our next cruise.  I could easily become addicted to cruising if they are all similar to what I experienced last time.

Bomber
time to put my feet up

Whew, I made it

I've made it to the end of the work year, thank god.
There isn't really much else to say, I'm so glad that the year is over and I now have 18 days off. I would have preferred not to have been on call for the next week, but at least I'm not going to work and I should be able to forget about what I was doing. I think I've basically cleared the decks so there isn't too much hanging over from this year into next year.
I need to start thinking about my new year resolution, but I'm pretty sure that it will be based around losing weight or motocamping or both.
Eighteen days, it even looks better when you write the word instead of just using two numbers. I don't think that I'm going to be able to get out camping with the family or even motocamping on my own during the next eighteen days but I do have another week off later in January and I've already spoken to my wife about taking the kids camping for a couple of nights during that week. I think I'll hit up a couple of my mates and see if they want to come along and bring their families with them too. I'll probably just head down the coast to one of the family orientated camp grounds with swimming pools and play grounds. Being close to the beach is a bonus too. Last time I went down with my son we spent the morning at the beach, then went and got some fish and chips for lunch. After lunch we had a play in the playground and on the jumping pillows before spending the afternoon in the pool. There isn't really a better way to spend a day with the kids and there isn't really anything else for me to do whilst all that is going in.
I'm really going to make an effort to try and take as many photos and videos as I can with the 360° camera over the next eighteen days too. I really want to push the limits of what I can do with it.

Bomber
the weight is lifting

What I want for Christmas

My wife has been pestering me to tell her what I want for Christmas. There isn't anything that I actually want, well at least that I'd want someone else to buy for me that doesn't cost a small fortune, so I've told her to get me nothing. If I had to get something then I'd want a DJI Spark drone or a new GPU for my computer. I don't really need a GPU as I haven't been playing a lot of games that require a better one, it was more so that I could put my old one in the PC that the kids use so they could have better graphics. The DJI Spark is really too expensive and I don't really know how often I would use it. I'd like to attach the 360° camera to a drone when I go motocamping but I don't really want to spend any more money on that endeavour until I actually start going motocamping and I'm happy with everything else.
Other things I think I would like are a bivvy bag, a new sleeping bag and a new inflatable mattress, but again that's more money for camping kit. The bivvy bag is to make my gear more light weight and easy to set up. I don't need to take as much as I have been taking in the past. The hiking fly and a bivvy bag is fine for one night. I really need to start looking at what I take with me as the less I need to take the easier it will be to set up camp and the less time it will take to prepare for any trip. If it looks like the weather isn't going to be any good I can still take a tent if I want.

Bomber

360° Photos

I've decided that I'm going to make an effort to take some more 360° photos and videos over Christmas. Some I'll use just for myself and others I'll post on Instagram for my Motocamp360 account. I think that this could be a good way to get back into doing things with the camera and getting out riding. I don't have to be planning big trips and filming it all. Just a photo or two every now and then so I get better at using the camera and figuring out what it is good at and what it's not good at.
Playing some more with the camera will also give me more practice with editing and colour correcting footage in Davinci Resolve which is also good. I haven't played with the camera or Davinci in what seems like ages so it will be good to start things moving forward again.
One of the YouTube channels that I follow is holding a competition to win a new Insta360 One X. I've entered the draw, but to date my luck has been pretty bad with these kind of things so I'm not expecting to win it. Having a second camera would be great as I could take different footage on each and also the new One X has a removable battery so I could take extra batteries with me.
I also need to do some more testing with the mic as I wasn't happy with the quality of the audio. I've been watching a number of MotoVloggers and finding out what I like to watch and what I don't, or I guess more accurately, what I'm willing to put up with and what I'm not. I'm not expecting hollywood style cinematography and crystal clear audio, but I don't want too much background noise or electrical interference or anything like that.
I've also been doing more thinking about all the gear that I take with me and how I can reduce it down a little so it becomes easier to set up camp and so I don't have as much on the bike. I think I need to possibly look at a bivvy bag or something like that with a lightweight inflatable mattress. If I'm only going out for one night I don't need to change out of all my clothes so I don't think I need a full tent. I might do a bit of online research and see what I can find.
Anyway, only two days left of work and then I can finally try and get a break. It's a shame that I'm on call as I really feel like having a few beers to celebrate the end of the year.

Bomber
I need to start doing more 

Bonus Motivation

This morning I got quite a surprise. My Motocamp360 Instagram account got some likes and a comment from a random person in Utah USA. They liked the half a dozen photos and left a comment on one of them encouraging me to keep on creating. Like this blog, I've done nothing to promote the Instagram account as I haven't really started doing anything with it. I set it up when I was all excited and motivated to get out motocamping.
I think it shows that there is some sort of appetite out there for what I want to do, I just need to start doing it. The unfortunate thing is that I can figure out just when I may be able to go motocamping any time in the next month or so.
I might try and take the kids camping somewhere during school holidays but I'm not sure what my wife will think about that. I think I'd take them to a "Big 4" for two nights as that's what seems to work the best. They always have big playgrounds and a pool or two as well as some decent kitchen facilities if you need them as being the middle of summer there is usually total fire bans in place.
Once the kids are back at school, I'll take another look at taking a day off during the week so I can head out somewhere. In summer it is so hot that it might be worthwhile heading up into the snowy mountains where hopefully it will be a little cooler. Today it's about 10°C cooler up there then where I live so it could be really nice in the middle of summer up there. There won't be any snow and the roads are meant to be good for riding so I think that's what I'll aim to do. Hopefully there will be some nice photo opportunities and some good roads to film on.

Bomber
got to make them plans

Weighing In

107kg
52,854 steps for the week
3,584 average daily calorie burn

I didn't get as much exercise in as I wanted this week. I did use the weights one night but that was it. I'll hopefully use the weights tonight and if the weather is nicer next week I'll try and go for a walk after work at least once. 
Some of the problem is that I've really been enjoying playing Fortnite with my son and the only time we can really play is before dinner, so I've been playing computer games instead of exercising. I guess it's good to be spending time with my son, even if it is online, but I really should be doing some more exercise.
In a few days I'll be on holidays and that includes not worrying about exercising. I'm on call for the first week so I won't be drinking much if at all but after that I'll probably have a few and really try and unwind and de-stress myself.
I think we're planning on heading down to see the in-laws shortly after Christmas so I may miss a weigh in as I'm not going to ask if they have scales so I can use them. You'll just have to wait and see how much all the Christmas food packs on me when I get back.
I never ended up sorting out some healthy snacks to have at work, so that's something that I'm going to have to figure out for when I go back next year.

Bomber
not long now, just hang in there

 

3 Days to Go

Only three work days left in the year for me and I'm hoping that they are productive as well as easy going. These last few weeks have been hard work and I really really really need a break. I'll stop talking about needing a break once I have one OK.
I think I've previously mentioned that I was thinking of changing jobs but couldn't decide if I wanted to leave the company where I currently am or just change teams. I've come to the conclusion that if I was to change jobs, I'd have to leave the company entirely. There is just too much that would be the same even in a different team doing something completely different.
I'm going to commit to the team I'm in doing the work I'm doing until I reach long service leave, which is something like two more years. Then after that I don't know what I'll do. Hopefully some of the nonsense that's currently going on will have been sorted out and things won't seem so bad. I'm definitely going to take a month off and I'll probably do that during school term time and maybe use it as an opportunity to go motocamping and who knows, I may just end up filming some of it.
Having some long service leave that I can use as well as normal annual leave will be great as I can hopefully take more time off each year as it will continue to grow the longer I stay with the company.

Bomber
I need a break

Wet Weather

At one stage, not that long ago, 100% of NSW was in drought. That's over 800,000 square kilometres of drought affected land and that doesn't include any of the other Australian states. It had been dry for that long that even though we've now had a couple of days of heavy rain, the grass was that dry that it had cured, so it won't go green, it's just damp and after a day or two of sun it will be just as dry and as dangerous as it was before the rain. I have a feeling that we are in for some pretty bad bushfires this year, there are already a lot burning but I think that there is a lot more to come.
Today was the first day in a long time that I put on my full waterproof pants to ride the motorcycle to work in and although they are meant to be some of the best wet weather pants that you can buy, they still leaked in more that one location and so did my top. I was a bit of a wet mess when I got to work. This afternoon I took off a little early as there was a gap in the weather and they were predicting a storm so I thought I'd get away when I could.
We haven't had decent rain in such a long time and now getting it all at once means that maybe the dams will fill up, but so much of it will just wash away down the storm water drains and not soak into the ground. 
What I enjoy doing where there is a big storm is sitting on our back deck and seeing all the rain with the thunder and lightning. I love the smell and the noise of it all. With all our technology we still can't compete with mother nature when she wants to put on a show.

Bomber
enjoying the rain
 

Hump Day

For a long time I never really felt like Wednesday was hump day. You know where the start of the week seems really hard but after Wednesday you're over the hump and it's the weekend before you know it. 
Maybe it had to do with running my own business and working on weekends and that sort of thing to start with and then since then it's taken a few years before I really settle down into a routine. The job I've got now is the one that I've had for the longest, before that it was my first jo, when I worked at Coles.
For the last few weeks it has really felt like Wednesday is hump day, I'm not sure what has changed, maybe I just really need a break. I know I've been saying that a lot recently but I'm almost there now and I don't feel like I need one as bad as I did before, but I am looking forward to have a couple of weeks where I don't have to think about work and what needs doing. I think maybe I've actually caught up on a lot of stuff at work and am not feeling as snowed under as before.
I've got a short week next week as I've taken the Thursday and Friday off as the kids will be on school holidays and I'm pretty sure that most of those days will be shorter than normal as I think I'll be knocking off early each day if I can get away with it. Next week I imagine that there will be quite a few people already on holiday so it should be quieter at work anyway and I'll probably actually get more done each day as I'll have less interruptions.

Bomber
I can almost smell the end of the year
 

Starting again

Like I've said before, this seems to be a recurring or repeating pattern. I get motivated, I have a great week or two, I lose motivation and I have a bad couple of weeks, then I get motivated again. Last night after the kids went to bed I did some weights in the garage. 
It had been raining on and off throughout the day and it looked like there may be more on the way when I got home from work so I didn't head out for a walk. There is a fair amount of rain predicted for this week so if I can't get out and walk I'll try doing some other exercises in the garage. I need to get back in the habit of doing things. I know that I do enjoy it once I get started, I get a feeling of accomplishment and knowing that I'm getting fitter even if the weight loss isn't as apparent as I would like.
I want to get in shape, the before photo doesn't look good at all and I want to be more comfortable about how I look and how I feel. I don't want to look like a body builder but I do want to look fit and healthy and no one would ever say that about me now. 
Looking at myself when not in a mirror, I didn't think I was as big as look in the photo. I don't make a habit of standing in front of full length mirrors very often, especially in my undies, so it was a bit of a shock.
I also want to get back in the habit of writing more on the weekend and being prepared for the weeks posts ahead of time, so I'm not suddenly rushing and writing poor content. I don't want to just be doing a daily brain dump, I want this blog to be something that I can look back on and use as motivation to keep improving myself, to keep getting better.

Bomber
got to keep moving forward
 

Christmas is almost here

Only a couple of weeks left until the Christmas break. I think my wife and I have got everything sorted out, and when I say my wife and I, I mean my wife. We went shopping on Saturday for a couple of hours and got quite a bit of stuff for the kids and I also got my Kris Kringle gift for my family.

I got a small drone and some batteries for it. I don't know what my sister-in-law will think of it and my wife won't want it but, between Dad, my brother, sister and my sisters boyfriend I'm pretty sure that at least one of them will want it and if not, then I'll happily have it. It's not big enough to carry the 360° camera on it and even it I could somehow attach it and it did fly, I wouldn't trust it as it's not very big.
There's something I haven't talked about in a while, the 360° camera. It's still sitting in its case in the garage waiting for the motocamping trip I keep saying that I'm going to do. I never even played with the settings to see what kind of night time photography I could take with it.
I have done a little thinking on the motocamp360 youtube channel and I think that what I had in mind originally is not what I'd actually be good at. I wanted to be kind of a host and put my face on camera, but I just don't know if that's what I'd want to watch, well, at least in my overweight state I wouldn't want to. I know that it shouldn't matter but there were a couple of videos that I watched early on where someone about my age and size made a couple of motocamping videos and it didn't grab me.
I look at other motocamping or just camping videos when they show food preparation and the like, but with a 360° camera you can't really zoom in on the food part, everything is always in the shot, that's the whole point of 360°. I do think that 360° footage should be more about the scenery and a drone would really help that out. I may just have to ask for a drone for Christmas myself, or just annoy my wife enough until she lets me buy one. 
I'm still a little annoyed that I haven't gone out motocamping even once since daylight savings started, when by now I was hoping to have done so quite a few times. 

Bomber
bring on the New Year I say

Gaming

I spent a lot of time today playing computer games with my son, well Fortnite to be specific. I've really been enjoying the game myself and I've been helping my son with leveling up by protecting him whilst he completed some of the challenges. It's been driving my wife mad as we call out to each other across the house as my computer is in one room and my son is in another room on the family computer.
We set time limits for the use of the computer and as much as I'd like to keep playing with my son, my daughter wanted to use the computer for a while so I had to tell him to let her have a go. He gets quite angry when he doesn't get his own way and starts trying to bargain with me. He started trying to say that since he can't play anymore before dinner that maybe he should go in the bath now and then that way he could have more time after dinner to play.
I'm pretty sure that spending the day on the computer isn't what I should be teaching my kids but it is kind of the way the world is going. When I was his age I'd be riding my bike in the park with friends or by myself. I can't imagine letting my kids go play in the park without either my wife or I going along to keep an eye on them. There are just too many weirdos out there and you'd never forgive yourself if something happened to them.
The good thing about playing online with my son is that I know who he is playing with and what they are saying. I've already heard him talking to others about how old he is and what his real name is. I've been trying hard to let him know about online safety and that he shouldn't be telling anyone his real name, his age, where he lives or anything like that. We've already pulled the plug on the internet router a couple of times when he wasn't being as smart as he should. And let me tell you, pulling the internet out from under him is one way for him to get angry. He fully believes that access to the internet is like breathing oxygen, it's free, everywhere and he can't understand how some places don't have it.
I think that playing games online with my son is good for the relationship that I have with him as it builds some trust and communication between us as well as sharing any of the loot that we may get in the game.

Bomber
gaming Dad

Weighing In

108kg
57,684 steps for the week
3,865 average daily calorie burn

So, as I said earlier in the week, I'm not going to continue with the food diary any longer. It's no longer helping me and it was just becoming a chore to fill in. I want to continue trying to lose weight by keeping to the goals that I have already set myself in terms of steps and calories burned each day. 
This week has been another failure in terms of exercise like I said earlier in the week, I do think it is related to how I've been feeling at work and it has started to get to me. I'm hoping by having a bit more of a relaxing weekend that I can start to motivate myself to get walking again next week.
I'm also going to start doing my weights routines again from tomorrow. After a little thinking about the weights I've decided that I'll keep the weight of the dumbbells the same until I can do all 4 sets of 10 reps of the flying lunge. Once I can do that then I'll increase the weight. I don't want to have to keep changing how much weight I put on the dumbbells for different exercises.
I decided to graph my weekly progress of steps, calories and weight. I went back through my weekly posts from when I started recording all three and put together the graph below. I plan to update it each week and include it with the weekly "Weighing In" post.

No surprises that the steps and the calories follow each other, the weight is harder to tell but there is only about 1.5kg variation in my weight over that period of time.

Bomber
feeling like a Pantene ad...

TGIF

We had our work Christmas lunch today, before people start going on holidays for the rest of the year. Half their luck, if most of my team weren't already going on holidays then I think that I'd definitely being taking holidays myself as I'm over it.
After lunch, instead of going back to work I just went home, I needed this weekend to start ASAP. It's meant to be quite warm this weekend before some rain maybe on Monday. My wife and I are hoping to brave the shops tomorrow afternoon to get all our Christmas shopping done whilst the kids are at my Dad's. We know what we're getting the kids and my wife and I don't usually get each other anything as we spoil ourselves at other times throughout the year. 
I also have to think of a gift for our Kris Kringle that we do with the rest of my family. We all spend $30 on something and then throw it on the pile of gifts. The first person opens their present so we can all see it. The second person can choose to open a present of their own or take the present off the first person. If they take the present then the first person has to open another present before the 3rd person can choose to either steal from the first or the second person or open a present of their own. This continues until all the presents are gone. It can be quite a bit of fun and usually people put a bit of thought into the gift.
Sunday, I think the plan is to do as little as possible if we can. My son loves playing Fortnite on the computer and a new season has just begun. I promised him a few weeks ago that I'd buy him a season pass so he could get a new outfit in the game and some other things that he can win by completing missions. It's kind of odd, the outfits that you can buy don't give you any advantage in the game at all and they cost real money. You can't sell or trade your outfits, it's certainly a different time that we're living in but I don't have a problem in paying for something like that. Once upon a time it would have been trading cards or something like that and the odds are that he would have lost them, ruined them somehow or just thrown them out when he was older so I don't see it any different than that.

Bomber
already loving the weekend 

Back at square one

I'm basically back where I started. I'm not watching my diet, I'm not exercising, I haven't used my weights this week at all. I'm a little disappointed in myself. It wouldn't surprise me if I've put on more weight this week. I'm certainly feeling more bloated than I have in a while
This seems to be how I am, I have good weeks and bad weeks, weeks where I seem to have lots of energy and other weeks where I don't. I've never been able to figure out why and perhaps I'll never know. 
I still get a little bit of vertigo every now and then but it is getting better and at least my wife has said that she doesn't have it anymore.
Most of the seedlings that I was trying to grow never even sprouted, the couple that did never even did anything, one of them ended up being a weed and one of the rocket seeds that sprouted basically went straight to flower. I think I have one chilli plant that might survive but I can't eat chillies as they upset my guts too much. I did manage to mow the lawn when I got home from work yesterday, so at least that's done and the yard looks nice.
I'm not on call for the next 6 days so I'm going to relax and probably have a few beers over the weekend. I go back on call next week for two weeks so I'll be on call up to and including Boxing Day, but after that I won't be back on call until early January. I've got from the 20th of December through til the 7th of Jan off so I'm hoping that I can start the new year in a positive way and start getting things back on track properly as I think I need a holiday to reset myself.

Bomber
giving in for now, maybe, don't know
 

What is Fat?

Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen AKA fat

I just watched the best video that explains weight loss in a way that I'd never heard before. I'd never really thought about where the fat actually goes when you lose weight, like where dose the weight you've lost actually go? I while ago I read or heard somewhere that once you have a fat cell you have it for life and that it will never go away, it just may increase in size or decrease in size. What I'd heard was that lipo-suction was the only way to actually remove fat cells. I never thought that was correct but I didn't know any different.
What the guy in the video says actually makes more sense, the fat does actually go away and leave your body and he explains how. It surprised me but it actually makes perfect sense if you think about it. It also makes sense how cardio will help you lose weight more than weight lifting.

I'm still going to lift weights but I'm really going to try and start walking more again and pushing myself harder when I do walk, maybe I'll even do some more jogging or something as it all makes more sense to me now.

Bomber
if you didn't watch the video then you really should

When am I going Camping?

I don't know when I'll be able to go camping next, I have promised my son that the next time I go I will take him. My daughter wants to come as well, which means that my wife will most likely come too. I'm not sure what my wife will be like camping, I'm guessing that she'll be pre-disposed to not enjoying herself so I need to make sure that I set everything up well and that we go somewhere good where the kids will have heaps of fun. My wife has only been camping once in her life and that was when she was a kid, apparently it rained the whole time and her tent leaked so she never wanted to go camping again.
The plan for going motocamping hasn't worked either, I've just been too busy and feel like I should be going to work instead of making sure I was taking time out. Today I was thinking more about how I was doing the lion's share of the work around the office and if I should look at changing teams or even looking for work in another company. The more I thought about it, the more I came to realise that if I just changed teams, I would then still be at the same place and I'd probably get annoyed with seeing how badly my old team were getting things done and that it would probably take ages for them to stop asking me questions. I think that I'd have to leave there completely and make a new start somewhere else. I don't really want to do that as I actually want to get to my long service leave for once, I've only got a few years to go and having all that extra time off available to me would be really handy.
I do like my job most of the time and I don't think that I would find something else in the same field very easily so I'd have to try something new or go back to something that I've done previously. Neither of those options really appeal to me, it got me thinking again about the motocamp360 business. I really think that I need to put less energy into work and more energy into that, even if it doesn't make me any money, it's a release and something different to think about and something else to do besides work.
For now, I'm going to knuckle down and finish the year at work, I've got a couple of weeks off after Christmas so hopefully I'll get a chance to relax and reset my priorities.

Bomber
next year will be better right?

Losing it

As the end of the year approaches at break neck speed, I'm struggling to keep my diet under control. I've been eating not as healthy as I could for lunch, like today I had fish and chips with a can of coke. I've been snacking on chocolate again and I haven't been drinking as much water as I should. I've decided that keeping the food diary isn't helping me eat better so I'm no longer going to keep track of what I have for each meal in the week. I'm still going to try and eat better but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. 
I think I've been getting a little stressed out at work and I am  feeling like I'm doing nearly all the work myself. If I leave something for someone else to do, then it doesn't get done or, they do a really bad job of it which just frustrates me. It's starting to get to me and if things don't improve in the new year then I'm going to have to say something to my boss. 
My displeasure at work doesn't help things when I get home. On the weekends I used to have three or four beers to help me relax and forget about the week. That's how all this blogging and wanting to go motocamping started, sitting around the firepit drinking a few beers. I haven't been able to do that in weeks as I've been on call or had other things on. I'm starting to lose my motivation to do things, this seems to be a repeating cycle for me, perhaps it is just how most people are.
The lawn is in need of a mow and I could have do it this afternoon when I got home from work, but I didn't. I also didn't go for a walk this afternoon, I did get over 10K steps at work so I used that as an excuse not to. I didn't do any weights yesterday when I could have, I did end up spending time with my son and then going to my daughters end of year performance, but I could have made time in the morning to either mow the lawn or do some weights but I didn't do either.

Bomber
not giving up just yet, just lightening the load

this is getting embarrassing

I'm sitting in a theatre foyer waiting for the doors to open for my daughters end of year dance concert. I completely forgot to prepare a post for tonight in advance. What I did this afternoon after dropping my wife and daughter off was put up the christmas tree with my son and then we watched a movie together. It was nice just chilling with my son but I had planned to use the time to draft a few posts so I wouldn't get caught out this week... oh well.
When we get home tonight I'm waiting to see how my daughter reacts when she sees the tree and the lights I put out the front on the porch. Some years I've gone all out with lights but the last few years I've been more reserved. One year I'll go all out and maybe get some of those blow up reindeer or something.
Anyway the doors are about to open on a three plus hour show with something like 50 to 60 acts so I can see my little girl on stage for maybe 3 minutes....

Bomber
I may need coffee

Weighing In

108kg
My diet has not been as good as it should have been and I didn't go out for any extra walks this week. I'd like to say that the gain is from muscle growth but I think I'd be kidding myself. I'm still happy that I'm working out with weights in the garage, but I do need to make the effort to head out for my walks. As I've been doing the weights later in the day, often after the kids have gone to bed, there is no reason why I couldn't also go for a walk on those days too.
I left my fitbit at home by accident on Monday so it didn't record any of my steps or additional calories that I burnt whilst at work, but it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
I can't believe that Christmas is almost here and I'm a long way from being 90kgs. I really did drop the ball on that goal but maybe it was a little ambitious to begin with.
Hopefully I'll be able to continue exercising through the festive season and not gain too much weight from all the food and drink that will no doubt be consumed.

Saturday
Breakfast - 3 crumpets with marg plus a large coffee
Lunch - pizza and garlic bread with Dad
Afternoon Tea - large coffee
Dinner - Zinger combo box from KFC with a can of Pepsi
Desert - Large slice of chocolate cheesecake
Beers - 0
Steps - 5,155
Calories Burnt - 3,568

Sunday
Breakfast - 3 crumpets with marg and a large coffee
Lunch - 2 chicken, cheese and mayo sandwiches
Afternoon Tea - large coffee
Dinner - 2 beef burgers with lettuce, beetroot and cheese
Desert - Large slice of chocolate cheesecake
Beers - 1
Steps - 4,070
Calories Burnt - 3,163

Monday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - fisherman's basket with chips
Dinner - Beef stroganoff
Desert - Large slice of chocolate cheesecake (and it's all gone now).
Beers - 0
Steps - 424
Calories Burnt - 2,192
(I left my fitbit at home on the charger all day)

Tuesday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch -beef and vege pie, potato salad, pasta salad and green salad
Dinner - 3 beef tacos
Beers -1
Steps - 7,090
Calories Burnt - 3,739

Wednesday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - chicken salad
Dinner - chicken salad
Supper - packet of potato chips and a can of coke
..and then later - two left over beef patties in toast with cheese
Beers - 1
Steps - 10,760
Calories Burnt - 4,877

Thursday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - large beef kebab with a 600ml coke
Dinner - Red rooster stripsub and large chips with a 600ml coke
Beers - 2
Steps - 9,530
Calories Burnt - 3,884

Friday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch -chicken and salad roll with an apple juice
Dinner - Chicken Kiev with potato gems
Beers - 2
Steps - 14,725
Calories Burnt - 4,494

Total steps this week: 51,754 + plus roughly 7K for Monday
Average daily calories burnt: 3,702

Ah! it almost happened again

I need to start making sure that I write enough each day so that I don't suddenly find myself caught out. I again thought that I had a post already scheduled for tonight and was just going to start drafting some more posts when I noticed that nothing went up on time tonight. Good thing I don't have any followers otherwise someone might have noticed!
Yesterday evening I did go and do some exercise in the garage. It included doing squats and today my legs aren't as sore as they were the last time I did squats, so that's a good thing. I did some extra routines with the dumbbells so I only did four sets instead of the five that I thought I was going to do, I was pretty knackered after four so I figured that it was better to stop then before I end up hurting myself.
I'm not sure what they are called, but I did something where you kind of hold a lunge and have the dumbbells at your side and try and raise them up, kind of like you're flapping, that really hurt. The first set I managed to get 10 in, the second set I got to 5 or something, the third set I did another 5 and I didn't even manage a fourth set of them. I'll try them again tomorrow and hopefully I'll get better at them. 
So I'm now doing
10x squats
10x biceps curls
10x triceps extensions
10x chest presses
10x box row (one arm)
10x box row (other arm)
10x shoulder press
10x flying lunge (5 reps on each leg)
then repeating that four times.
Once I'm able to easily do four sets then I'll look at increasing the weight.

Bomber
I do want to post daily

It finally happened...

I missed a daily post. That's three and a half months straight and then for being tangent man, I missed a day. I had even started writing up a post and for some reason I didn't finish it and then last night I was stuck at work late again but was sure that I'd finished the post and scheduled it to post on time so I didn't bother writing anything on my phone. Some of the below is what I started writing for last night.
I did end up going and doing my little routine using the dumbbells on Tuesday night. It only took me about 10 minutes to get through it all. I'm not doing it for cardio, I'm doing it with the aim of hopefully putting on more muscle. I think that if I put on more muscle then that will help me lose weight as what I eat will go towards maintaining the muscle instead of turning into fat. The worst thing that can happen is that I get stronger and I keep my existing fat, which to be honest will be a little annoying but at least I'll be more fit than I was before.
I do think that 10 minutes is probably a little too quick so I'm going to do a bit more research into other exercises that I can do with the dumbbells and the bench and add a few more things to the routine. Again I chickened out of doing squats as they really burned my legs up for a few days last time and again I was still in my motorcycle pants as I hadn't gotten changed when I came home from work... this is where I went off and actually started researching different exercises and never got back to finishing the post.
What I discovered was that there were a couple of exercises that I could be doing but I realised that I should also be doing those squats that I've been avoiding. Today I'll do them for sure and I'll also try one or two other things to see if they work different muscles or the same. I only did four sets on Tuesday so today I'm going to do five.

Bomber
sorry for missing a day :(

My Wife is Dizzy Too

Last night my wife told me that she was feeling a little light headed and that she was feeling a little dizzy. When she rolled over her eyes were moving like the room was spinning. This can't be good.
My vertigo is still hanging in there, some days are worse than others but now that my wife is experiencing it too it seems like it might be viral or something. If my wife mentions it again we'll probably all have to go to the doctors. That could be interesting for them, both of us with the same symptoms. 
Today I am meant to do some weights in the garage and I still hope to get out there and do some, but now I'm having a beer so who knows. I just seem to lose my motivation, I should have gone for a walk yesterday and I should have had so much to eat for lunch. That seems to be part of my problem. I've also been getting really hungry in between meals. Today I had some almonds when I got home but I then had two handfuls of party lollies. I did buy some nut bars to snack on but they are quite sweet too and seem to have a large amount of salt in them so I'm not so keen on them (like party lollies are good right).
I just wish that I could keep my head in the right zone and not worry about this sort of thing. Writing this is motivating me a little to go into the garage and do some weights, not sure how that will go on a full tummy of dinner and half a beer but I guess I'll see how I go.
Today I heard that my son and his best friend got in trouble at school for lifting up some skirts. I'm sure that there was nothing in it except trying to annoy the girls but it's the kind of behaviour that you have to come down hard on as it's not right and shouldn't be tolerated and you have to teach kids at an early age about what it appropriate and what isn't. Hopefully my son noe understands that it's not accepted and he won't do it again.

Bomber
maybe exercising, maybe not

Ooops!

I was sure that I had a post all set up and ready for tonight. Good thing I checked that it posted as I didn't have one. I almost missed a day, but I'm here now so it's all good.
On Saturday I took my son to swimming and I made sure that I put my swimmers in the bag too. As it turned out the one lane that is usually left for casual lap swimmers was vacant and after a bit of procrastinating I got changed and hopped in for a swim myself. As soon as I started trying to swim my pants started to fall off, I was struggling to keep them up whilst kicking. I ended up doing maybe 10 laps of breast stroke as that wasn't pulling my pants down as fast. I did have to stop half way down the pool each time to pull them up a little but I got there in the end. The pool is only 25 meters long so 10 laps isn't as far as it might sound.
The swimmers are a pair that I've had for a year or two and the used to fit me really well. I guess my waist has shrunk a bit which is good.
On Sunday I did some weights in the garage and everything was feeling a little easier and today I don't have any pain in my arms. I didn't do any squats as I chickened out, but tomorrow I plan to do some.
Instead of going for a walk today, I knocked off work a little early and went for a ride instead (on my motorbike). When I got home I didn't know if I wanted to head out or not so I asked my son if he wanted to go and ride his bike. When he said no, that's when I decided not to walk. I probably should have as my diet hasn't been the best the last few days and I don't want to fall back into old habits.
Tomorrow is another weights day so hopefully I remember to do them. I'm going to try and do 5 sets of each tomorrow as the weights are already feeling just a little bit lighter. Once I've got 5 sets down without issue I'll look at increasing the weight and going back to 4 sets.

Bomber,
better late than never

Changing Focus

Now that I seem to have gotten over my lack of weight-loss and have a routine that I'm currently happy with, it's time to try and switch my focus back to the whole Motocamp360 business. 
As I mentioned in Wednesday's post, Mark Victor has stopped his Bike Bits Australia Man Cave Tuesday videos after two years straight. Mark went into a bit of detail as to why he was stopping and also why he thought that he wasn't getting the level of engagement that he wanted out of his audience. Mark believes that part of the problem is that he has too much diversity in his channel. He does bike reviews, camp cooking, gear reviews for motorcycle kit as well as camping kit. He rides three different bikes that each appeal to different audiences, the Man Cave Tuesday videos also include beer tasting and clips of him doing work around the house. I must admit that I often skips large chunks of his videos as it doesn't interest me much or he rambles on too long about something that I'm not really interested in.
Biker Bits has over 20K subscribers but from what Mark was saying a he only gets roughly 2.5K views per video, but from what I can see it is probably closer to 4K views, in the first few weeks which would most likely be from subscribers, some of his videos get more as time goes on but if you look at his most popular videos, they are from years ago. With an average of 4K views per video you could easily make the assumption that even though you have 20K subscribers, not all of them watch every video. If you go through all his videos, the Man Cave Tuesday ones are some of his least viewed videos so he is obviously not engaging with his viewers as well as he could.
Biker Bits Australia's most popular video by a long way is a short review of a motorcycle jack, it's had 324K views in six years. The most popular Man Cave Tuesday video only has 4.9K views from the looks of it. If you do a little research into how much adsense pays on average for monetised videos on YouTube, you get paid somewhere around $1 to $2 per thousand veiws, so for filming a heap of things he does each week and editing it into a 20 minute video, would take him at least an hour or two each week, possibly more depending how much footage he has to go through, he's ending up with around $5 a week for all that effort. That's a lot of work for not much reward and when you're trying to use it as an actual source of income to help pay bills, then there is no way you could sustain it.
I feel for Mark as he is really giving it a good go, but somehow he just hasn't quite managed to have the break through that he needs. What I have learnt from this is that I need to make sure that my content is consistent and of a good quality. If I get subscribers to my channel I need to give them more of what they subscribed to so I can keep them engaged. Sure I can try a few new things out here and there to see if it has a positive or a negative effect on the growth of the channel.
Just writing all this down is starting to give me a little bit of the motocamping itch again which is good. I still want to try out the microphone again to see if I can get better sound than I did last weekend and if I can get that sorted then I just need to plan a trip and then go out and do it.

Bomber
it will happen, if I stick at it

Weighing In

106.5kg
I'm happy with what I'm doing. Maybe I'm not losing as much weight as I could I was doing things differently but I'm definitely happy with what I'm doing. I'm exercising, both cardio and muscle toning, this is something that I haven't done since I was 18 or 19. I used to ride my push bike around and for a few months I went to the gym a couple of times per week with a mate. I didn't really like going to the gym and then I got a car so stopped riding everywhere. As far as I'm concerned this is awesome, if someone had told me 12 months ago that I'd be working out with weights at home and going for hour long walks on a regular basis I would have laughed at them. I do need to make a few more steps each week and lose a few more calories, to keep to my targets but I think I've almost got my routine sorted for now.
This week I'm going to take a photo of myself and then in 6 months time I'll take another photo and post them side by side. It will be interesting to see how much of a change I've managed to make.


Saturday
Breakfast - 4 crumpets with marg and honey, plus a large coffee
Lunch - battered fish and chips
Afternoon Tea - large coffee
Dinner - beef tacos
Beers - 2
Steps - 4,885
Calories Burnt - 3,106

Sunday
Breakfast - 2 crumpets with marg and a large coffee
Lunch - 2 chicken, cheese, lettuce and mayo sandwiches
Afternoon Tea - large coffee
Dinner - Roast chicken with roast veges
Beers - 3
Steps - 6,569
Calories Burnt - 3,801

Monday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - beef stir fry
Dinner -2 chicken burgers with lettuce, cheese and mayo
Beers - 0
Steps - 15,559
Calories Burnt - 5,124

Tuesday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - foot long roast lamb sub, chips and a 600ml coke
Dinner -beef stir fry and rice
Beers - 3
Steps - 8,138
Calories Burnt - 4,028

Wednesday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Morning - medium coffee
Lunch - chicken and salad wrap
Afternoon - Large coffee
Dinner - Chocolate milk and some mixed nuts
Supper -  small server of beef stir fry and rice
Beers - 1
Steps - 14,694
Calories Burnt - 4,960

Thursday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - Steak Sandwich, chips and a glass of coke
Dinner - crumbed fish with carrots and cauliflower and cheese sauce
Desert - Chokito bar and a slice of caramel mud cake
Beers - 0
Steps - 7,157
Calories Burnt - 3,802

Friday
Breakfast - 3 weetbix and milk
Lunch - Beef pie and an apple juice
Dinner - 3 BBQ chicken kebabs, a cob of BBQ corn and some sweet potato chips
Desert - 5 choc chip cookies
Beers -1
Steps - 11,018
Calories Burnt - 4,267

Total steps this week: 68,020
Average daily calories burnt: 4,155

Bomber
you don't want to see the before photo

Happy Friday!

Friday is here and I'm glad the week is over. The start of this week seemed to take so long but the last couple of days have gone pretty quick. Wednesday definitely is hump day at the moment.
This weekend my wife and daughter are taking off to Albury to attend a baby shower on Saturday afternoon and for the first time since selling my car and getting a motorcycle, we've hired a car for the weekend. Tomorrow my son and I are heading over to my Dad's for lunch and then my son has swimming in the afternoon, I'm also on call so we decided that it was probably worthwhile investigating just how much it would cost to hire a car for the weekend and we were surprised by just how cheap it was. We managed to get a Suzuki Swift for $60 for the whole weekend. We picked it up this afternoon and have to drop it back before 5pm on Sunday. The car isn't too old and is in pretty good shape. The only additional cost is for fuel, we have to give the car back with a full tank in it, that shouldn't be too hard as we won't be using it too much. The only think that could possibly be a drama is the insurance has a $6,000 excess on it, so I don't want to be running into anything. I could have reduced the excess but that would have cost something like an extra $20 a day and it just didn't seem worth it.
I've told my son that we can have whatever he wants for dinner on Saturday night and that if he's good he can stay up a little bit later than usual. I'm not sure if we'll play computer games together or watch a movie, but I'm betting on him being good for the next 24 hours as staying up late is such a treat for him for some reason.
I've been feeling healthy this week and my vertigo has been coming and going so I don't know what's going on there but overall, I think I'm in a good place mentally and I'm getting my physical side in order too. I look forward to using the weights in the garage and today I got over 10K steps up at work. It is still a little cold and very windy today, that combined with having to pick up the hire car has meant that I haven't headed out for a walk today but depending on the weather I may do something whilst my son has swimming lessons tomorrow, not sure if I'll swim or just go for a walk, but I'm going to try and do something.

Bomber
TGIF