Weighing In

I didn't end up heading out for a ride today, it was pretty cold and very windy, that doesn't make for a good time on a motorcycle. I basically spent the day at home doing nothing much, just relaxing and watching the rest of Chernobyl. I checked to see how many more photos I have that I an upload to Instagram and I have two if not three that I'm happy with so I have a little more time to get some more photos taken.
I still haven't got my diet under control so I'll try and start again tomorrow. Last night I didn't have any beers but I had about half a block of chocolate, I can't control the cravings yet, I need to remember to drink water when I'm craving as that's what I did previously and it seemed to work. Early in the week I started feeling like I didn't care if I lost weight or not, I enjoy eating food and drinking beer, why can't I just be happy and not worry about my weight. Then yesterday I realised that if I lost weight I would probably be happier and live a longer life and not be at greater risk of disease or other health issues. If I can lose the weight, I should be able to keep it off, I've bene pretty successful at maintaining my weight at the moment, so sure if I lost weight I'd be able to maintain that too? Maybe it's not that easy but if I don't ever lose the weight in the first place I'll never know.
I almost made it to 70K steps this week, if I hadn't spend the Tuesday at home with my daughter I would have done it for use. I'm not upset that I didn't make it, I'm actually pretty happy that I got close to it after taking it easy on Sunday and then again on Tuesday.

Weight: 108.3kg
Steps for the week: 65,588
Average daily calorie burn: 3,881

Bomber
Food need to be my focus

What are Weekends for?

Last night when I was in bed I realised that I hadn't put the 360 Camera on charge and then this morning I completely forgot about it until I had already left and was on the way to work. The weather on the way home was clear and sunny so I could have taken some great shots so it really was a missed a opportunity.
It didn't start raining until this evening but it was quite cloudy from around 2pm onwards and my wife had take my daughter to a birthday party so I was at home with my son. I ended up watching a three episodes of Chernobyl. I knew a little about the disaster already and a few years back I had actually researched it a little out of curiosity, the mini series is really good and I've enjoyed the first three episodes a lot.
Tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm doing, the weather bureau think that the afternoon is going to be mostly sunny so I might try and remember to head out for a ride to take some photos. I still have two or three photos left to post to Instagram from my last trip with the camera but it will be good to keep having some ready instead of feeling like I have to rush around and take them so I can keep posting new ones each week. Since it was raining I can't get too adventurous as my rear tyre won't have enough grip on any wet dirt, but I'm sure I can find some places to go that are interesting enough.
I filled up with fuel and checked my tyre pressures on Friday afternoon so I'll be able to head out without too much drama. Now that I think about it, I may just head out towards the mountains on the paved roads and see what I can see. There may have been some snow falling at the higher altitudes on the mountains around Canberra.

Bomber
Budding Instagrammer

An Update

It's been a while since I last posted about doing things around the house so I thought I'd give a quick update.
Solar Power - Everything is currently booked in and it will be about another three weeks until the system gets installed. I then have to wait for an inspector to come and look at the installation and also get my electricity supplier to get everything set up at their end so I can start exporting my excess power to the grid and get paid for it. Winter is really seeing our electricity usage go up, my wife was looking at our usage the other day and the weekends were costing us close to $20 a day in electricity. We cook with gas and also our hot water is gas so the $20 is for lighting (which are all LED), TVs, gaming consoles, computers and the biggest expense will be heating. The heating and cooling costs are what I want to offset the most by getting solar.
Recycling - I've been putting all the bottles and cans that have 10c refund on them into containers and every couple of weeks. The first time I went we gave the vouchers away to a homeless man. The next time I used the app and got the refund transferred to my PayPal account. The third time I forgot to take my phone so I just got vouchers when I then used to buy some lunch stuff with at the supermarket. The last time I went I used the app and got the money transferred to PayPal. I then used the money in my PayPal account to buy a new gasket for my motorcycle (which is still leaking oil by the way). The app keeps track of how many items I've recycled and how much money it's refunded to me. So far I have recycle 116 containers and earned $11.60. It hardly seems worth it from the money point of view but it is good to be returning the items which I know will actually get recycled. In Australia at the moment, we're having trouble recycling a lot of our recyclables and plenty of it is just ending up in landfill. I know that by putting the cans and bottles through the reverse vending machines that they are getting sorted properly and have a greater chance of actually being recycled.
Renovations - I never thought I'd be saying that word just yet, but we're looking at getting some work done in the fourth bedroom/study. We would really love to have a wall bed and a built in desk with some more storage so we can make the most of the room. Currently the room has the desk that I built myself at the last house which was great for there, but we don't need hidden away at the new house. We're looking at getting some quotes in the next couple of weeks to see what we're in for.
Fire Pit - I haven't done anything further about making a more permanent fire pit in the back yard. I still want to do this and I may set up some pavers in the next few weeks so I can have another fire. Where I did the last fire I put some pavers down about half way through the night and there is a dead patch of grass in the lawn which I'm not too impressed about.
Moving House, Healthy Living and Habits -  these all tie into what I was saying the other day about going for walks and it becoming second nature. I got home from work and my daughter is sitting on her bike out the front of the house waiting for me to come home so she can go for a ride when I go for my walk. I think we did make the right decision moving out to Googong, I'm enjoying living here and I feel like we have a better quality of life then we did before. I'm looking forward to Googong growing and more parks and playgrounds being built for us to explore and enjoy.

Bomber
Enjoying life.

Kind of, not really.

I wanted to try and watch my diet this week more than usual and I'm sorry to say that I'm failing. I'd managed to keep away from junk on Sunday and was drinking plenty of water but I was craving for something sweet. When my wife offered me some ice cream, I should have said no, but I didn't.
On Monday my wife's brother came to visit so I had a beer with him, only one, but still I wasn't going to drink beer this week. I spent most of Monday at my desk but I at least managed to get out for a walk when I got home and got over 9K steps for the day.
Tuesday my daughter was sick so I spent the day at home with her. I have bacon and cheese rolls for lunch as well as two slices of caramel slice for morning tea. I didn't have any beer and I don't think I had any other sweets but we did have pizza and garlic bread for dinner. My steps were way down for the day.
Today I was busy at work, but couldn't help myself at lunch, I got two potato scallops, a chicken snitzel burger and a bottle of coke. When I came home I'd already clicked over 10K steps and I was thirsty for a beer. I surprised myself when I reached for my sneakers and felt like going for a walk when I got home, so I did. I then had two beers and left over pizza for dinner.
Needless to say, I don't think that I'm going to lose any weight this week but I am feeling healthy and I seem to have more energy than usual so I'm going to try and keep moving and I'm going to keep working on cutting down on the junk food.
It's only Wednesday so I'll try harder over the next few days before my next weigh in, but the damage is probably already done and I'm not really that upset by it.

Bomber
Maybe I'll be overweight forever.

How Much is Enough

First off, I swear when I write a post on my phone it looks so much longer than it does when I look at it on the screen. Maybe it's just that it is so much harder to write on the phone or just the size of the screen tricks me into thinking that I've written more than I have. Anyway...

This week I'll get the biggest pay that I've ever got in my life. I am pretty happy with how much will go into the bank this week, not so happy about the amount of tax coming out of it but I guess that's what happens unfortunately.
This evening I was playing a silly game on the computer where you have to do this repetitive task to earn money. To unlock the next level you have to spend the money that you've earned. Each level costs more than the previous to unlock however you can earn more money per task at the higher levels although I don't think that it is proportionate, meaning that you have to do a lot more tasks at higher levels to earn enough money to unlock the next level.
As I was playing this game and seeing my savings go up and up so I could get to the next level, I started wondering just what my true earning potential was in real life. Just how much money could I make each week and would I ever reach a point where I'd think that I was earning enough and that I didn't really need to earn any more.
I was thinking a similar thought earlier in the day too as there is an $80,000,000 lotto jackpot that could be won tonight. I have a couple of tickets in it but that also got me thinking, just how much is enough to retire on.
If I don't really see the point in retiring whilst the kids are still in school and if we need to support them going through University, then we probably need to still be working until they have finished their education and are living out of home self sufficiently.
That makes me think that I have at least another fifteen years of work ahead of me.
I'd love to travel with my wife at some stage, but again it is really expensive to travel with the kids when we have to pay for everything for them. I think that we'll probably do at least one big family holiday overseas where we take the kids with us, that will probably be in a few years time so we have the chance to save up for it and the kids will be old enough to remember it for the rest of their lives. Other than that I'd like to think that my wife and I will travel a little in our retirement, that's the other reason for wanting to retire as early as possible. I don't want to be too old to enjoy travelling, too old to spend an entire day walking around seeing the sights. Somewhere around 55 to 60 is when I think I want to retire but if I can earn enough to retire earlier then I will certainly consider it. The unfortunate thing is that I really don't think that we'll be in a financial position to retire until closer to 70. That means that we will be getting too old to spend an entire day on our feet.
This all ties back in to what I think my earning potential is. I am quite well paid for what I do currently, a few years ago I wouldn't have said that but I've worked hard and earned a few pay rises along the way to the point that I now think that I am getting paid what I'm worth for the job I do. Could I earn more? Possibly, it would take another few years to get to the next level and then I'd actually be in more of a managerial role and not as hands on as I currently am so although I would be earning more, I don't think that I'd have much job satisfaction. I could possibly get paid a little more for a similar role at another company, but the conditions I have at the moment are pretty good and I don't think I'd find another company that would allow me to have the flexibility that I currently enjoy.
This all comes back to earning more money from a second job, or a hobby. This is what I forget sometimes, I need to look at the bigger picture. Sure I'm happy with what I'm earning and yeah, I've got a good job. We have a nice house, I have a great wife and a couple of awesome kids; But if I want to retire in my 50's I need to earn more money. I think that I can build a YouTube channel that attracts an audience, I believe that I can do that and from what I know about myself, if I believe I can do something then most likely I can and I can probably do it quite well.
It's been almost a year since I started this blog and it has changed focus a couple of time but now I'm going to start to focus it back on YouTube and focus myself on getting on with it. I have a few ideas on where to start and a few things that I want to change about my initial plan but I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it well.
I don't expect to earn enough money to be able to rely on it as my sole source of income, but I believe that I can earn enough money to allow me to retire in my 50's and most likely continue making videos to supplement my retirement and fund greater adventures.

Bomber
I must suffer from cabin fever in the Winter.
 

Growing an Audience

This afternoon I posted another pic on Instagram and within the first hour I had already received 10 likes and a new follower. I've now got 75 followers and I imagine that number will grow over the next week. Most of the likes weren't even from my existing followers which is really promising.
I'm hoping that by growing my Instagram following, when I do eventually launch my YouTube channel that I'll be able to convert some of my Instagram followers into subscribers.
I didn't manage to get out on the weekend for a ride, hopefully I'll get a chance this weekend. I have go work on Saturday morning and I'm thinking that I can take the camera with me and get some photos on the way home. Hopefully the weather will be good and I can catch the photo I've been planning in my mind for a while now. If I can get it right it should look awesome.

Bomber
On my phone again.

Weighing In

I weighed myself every day for the last two weeks and put together a couple of different graphs to try and map the results out in different ways. The new scales I have somehow measure my BMI, percent of body fat, percent of muscle and hydration level. I don't know how accurate it is but it is something and can't just be a made up figure. As there isn't much change day to day, the graph looks a little pointless at first but then I noticed that although I didn't lose any weight weight this week, I decreased my percentage of body fat and increased my percentage of muscle, so that's not really a bad thing if it is true. 

Next week, well actually starting today, I'm going to try and concentrate on not eating junk for lunch and not snaking on sweet things after dinner. I'm also not going to have coffee or beer for the week. I still want to achieve >70K steps for the week but I'm not going to push myself to get above 10K today as I feel like my legs need a rest. I managed to get above 10K steps yesterday too, so I beat my previous record of only have 6 days in a week >10K steps

Weight: 109.1kg
Steps for the week: 79,997
Average daily calorie burn: 4,398

Bomber
The weekly graph is looking better.

I'm so close

So now that I've tidied up Thursday's and Friday's posts, here is today's.

I knew that today was going to be a big ask to get to 10K steps and I'm not quite there. There are still a few hours until bed so I'm going to try and get the extra steps in. It's really cold outside but I may have to go for a short walk after dinner just to make it there. I'm not going to try and make myself get 10K steps tomorrow, I think I need the rest. My hips are feeling a little over worked at the moment and so are my knees. I'm still going to try for over 70K steps next week, but if I don't get to 10K tomorrow, I'm not going to be upset.
I'm not sure if I'll get to go for a ride tomorrow or not, well at least I don't think I'll be able to go for a long ride. We have some running around to do and have to set up the study as a guest room as my brother-law is coming to stay for a night or two.
This morning we took the kids to a place called Inflatable World, which is basically an old indoor soccer place that had maybe 10 different inflatable jumping castles set up and the kids just ran themselves ragged for a couple of hours.
This afternoon we all went down to the park to kick my son's football around for an hour or so. I was so sure that I could get to 10K steps and then have the evening at home with my feet up. No matter what, we had a good day and got out of the house more than we would have if I hadn't set myself the goal of getting 10K steps each and every day this week.
I think it goes to show just how busy I am at work when most days I can easily get close to 10K steps or even exceed it just by doing my job. I think it just reinforces the need to improve my diet if I really want to lose weight. I'm moving lots and I definitely have more stamina now than I've had in a number of years, I really need to just be stong willed and stop eating junk all the time.

Bomber
just keep moving ?10K today
 

TGIF

Here's Friday's post:

I made it.

This week seemed a lot longer than others that I've had recently and I'm looking forward to the weekend. Winter is well and truly here, this week we had -4°C on Thursday morning and it would have still be been around -1°C or -2°C when I was riding to work. Nice and chilly. I'm still just wearing my normal motorcycle jeans but I've been using my heated grips and my helmet is fogging up a little even though I have an anti-fog insert that is meant to prevent that. It's not so bad that I can't see, but I need to open the visor when I stop at the lights to try and clear it up and I don't close it until it's clear again, which doesn't take long.
I've managed to get over 10K steps each day so far so as long as I manage to do it tomorrow too, then that will be a record for me.
I've been weighing myself each morning for the last two weeks and will put all the figures together on Sunday, it's not that exciting and more than anything it just shows that diet is a large part of losing weight, exercise is great, but if you really want to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories. There's plenty of studies to back this up so I don't know why I thought I could do it just by increasing the amount of exercise I do. I think that I may have figured this out already, but then I kind of lost momentum and am starting it all again. I'm not back at the weight I was when I started at least, but I'm still heavier than I was when I was really trying.

Bomber
>10K today

A Longer Ride

I sat down to write tonight's post (Saturday) and discovered that both Thursday's and Friday's post didn't get published for some reason, so here is Thursday's post.  

This weekend is meant to be cold but mostly sunny, so it could be another opportunity to head out on the bike with the 360° camera. I might do similar to what I've done once previously and take along some cooking equipment so I can boil some water and make a coffee whilst I'm out and about. It'll have to be on Sunday as we already have plans for Saturday.
I mentioned earlier in the week that I wasn't sure if the Insta360 One shot photos in time lapse mode or used the video settings, from what I can tell, it uses the video settings in time lapse, but you can set it to take photos in sequence too. I think that I might try and do that this time to see if I get better quality images or not.
I may go for a bit of a longer ride if my wife will let me get away with it. There is a loop that will take roughly 3 hours to complete. Up into some of the mountains south of Googong, I've checked it out on Google maps and the route looks awesome, I don't know how rough it will be but I want to give it a go all the same. Taking some food and water with me will probably be a good idea all the same, more so I have to stop for a break than anything else, but also to keep my energy levels up. 3 hours is a long time for me on the bike. I usually only ride the 30 minutes to and from work so that's what I've become conditioned to. I want to start doing longer rides so that they become easier and so my backside doesn't get as sore as easily.

Bomber
>10k today

So my diet isn't the best.

Whilst my exercise seems to be back on track this week, I still haven't got my lunches back under control. Dinner has also not been the healthiest options for the last week, but I've always said that I wasn't going to do anything about dinner.
I'm still having my three weetbix and light milk for breakfast, more often than not I get a coffee with one sugar in the morning. For lunch I've been having a variety of things, sometimes Subway, which is probably fairly healthy except I've been getting them toasted with cheese and having them in a meal with two cookies and a bottle of coke. But today I had fried chicken and chips, which is ok sometimes and wasn't too oily or greasy, but when I had KFC for dinner last night and the night before that we had takeaway chinese that we still have leftovers of and is what I'll probably be having for dinner tonight, it's not looking good. Add that to the fish and chips we had for dinner on Friday and the home made pizzas we had on Sunday night, I think I'm eating far too much bad food. I'm going to have to really try and have better lunches and not let my wife or kids persuade me into thinking that takeaway is a good idea too often. The drama I have is that I really really like food and bad food in particular.
I still need to be drinking more water during the day and I'm going to start making more of an effort to avoid the bottles of coke and the cookies and the bits and pieces of chocolate and lollies that I've been eating in the evening and cut down on my beer drinking and really really really try to eat better when I can.

Bomber
>10K today

Bettering

Being a better Dad and Husband has been one of my goals for some time now. This is the kind of target that can never truly be ticked off as completed as it's not like that I'll be a better Dad and Husband for a week and then it's ok to say "well, that's ticked off the list, don't need to worry about that anymore".
I have been spending more time with my kids recently and taking them with me when I go for walk. Yesterday afternoon as soon as I got home my daughter wanted to go for a ride to the park and my son wanted to walk with me so he could bring his football along to kick around the oval with me.
These kind of things I never did with my own Dad. I honestly can't remember going outside to play with him very often as a child. When we were on holidays we'd play french cricket at the beach as a family or tennis, but I don't recall a lot of one on one time with him. I used to play games with tennis balls with my brother, so maybe that was the difference, having an older brother to play with so I didn't need my Dad to play games with me.
I enjoy playing outside with my kids. I've never really kicked a football much myself and I've been enjoying kicking the ball around the park with my son and daughter. I really enjoy just spending time with them even if it is just sitting on the couch watching a movie together. 
I've been trying to have more patience with the kids too and I think they've been trying to be a little better behaved around me too, this has all been helping us have less arguments.
I have also been trying to be more considerate of my wife and help out more around the house. She does a lot for me and I don't do as much for her so I'd like to try and balance that a little more. I'll have to start making more of an effort with house work at the very least and not leaving the vast majority of it to my wife.

Bomber
My wife is probably rolling her eyes and saying "yeah right".
>10K today

Starting to get Social

I have started posting photos to Instagram on Mondays, well at least I posted on last Monday and another today. I have a few other images saved to my phone so I can upload them for the next few Mondays too. 
I didn't get out on the bike on the weekend just gone but as long as the days are sunny, I should be able to get out for an hour of so the next few weekends and try and take some more video that I'll be able to convert to photos.
It would be better if I actually took photos instead of video as they would be better quality, but I don't think that I can set it up to take photos automatically and I don't want to have to try and use my phone whilst I'm riding, not only is it illegal, it would be heaps dangerous. I may be able to use the time-lapse feature, I'll have to play with it next time I head out. I'm not sure if that is based off of the video settings or the photo settings.
I do try and touch the photos up and apply some effects or filters to them if I feel that they need it, I don't have a problem with that and I quite enjoy playing around with each image to see what I can make of it. 
Using Instagram to engage with Social Media isn't really a way to make an additional income, I'm sure that there are others out there that do make money by selling photos or, through sponsorships and promoting products, but most people just do it to engage with their audience in another matter and maybe more often than they do through other platforms like YouTube.

Bomber
>10K today

Weighing In

I managed to weigh myself every morning after my shower this week, there were only a few grams in fluctuation so that could just be how I stood on the scale and at the end of the week there was no real change. I will keep going for another week, so next week I'll put all the figures together.
Last Monday being a public holiday meant that I had a quiet day at home and I also had the fitbit on charge for most of the day so it didn't record any activity. Yesterday was another quiet day at home as I was recovering a little from the big day that I'd had on Friday at work. I did a fair bit of heavy lifting at work and had something like 14,000 steps but the time I got home. I then decided to push myself and took the kids for a walk before heading out to have dinner at Dad's. That's why I ran out of time to actually post anything on Friday. I did sit down for about five to ten minutes to write something but I was lacking inspiration so I didn't end up writing anything at all.
Sometimes I wonder if I will keep on going with posting on the blog and other times, like now, I find myself really quite enjoying writing down my thoughts and ideas or even just rambling on a bit like I am now.
Anyway, the week wasn't a great week targets wise, but I did try and eat healthier when I could and I didn't drink as much beer as I was on call. I'm still on call for most of next week and I'm going to try and get 10,000 steps in each and every day. I went back through the fitbit app and noticed that I think that although I've had many weeks with over 70,000 steps, I don't seem to have even one week where I've got over 10,000 steps on each and every day.  

Weight: 108.8kg
Steps for the week: 60,663
Average daily calorie burn: 3,721

Bomber
>10K today.

Escaping Winter

Last night we went around to my Dad's to have fish and chips for dinner instead of seeing him for lunch today as this morning he headed off on holidays. My Dad is off to Ireland for two weeks, one week in Northern Ireland and then a week in Ireland before heading over to London for a couple of days. He was lucky enough to win in the ballot to be able to purchase tickets to Wimbledon. 
I knew that the tickets were done by some sort of ballot or raffle but I've never understood how it actually worked or how you could get in the ballot. My Dad entered the ballot through his local tennis club somehow and was lucky enough to secure two tickets to  Centre Court to see some of the round two matches. The tickets were just for Wimbledon, he still had to pay for his own travel and accommodation so he is taking advantage of flying half way around the globe and having a greater adventure. My Auntie (Dad's sister) is going with him for the whole trip and I think that they are going to have a great time. I'm a little jealous as going to Ireland and also going to see Wimbledon are both on my bucket list, well I don't really have a bucket list but I do like my lists so I really should write one down somewhere.
My Dad has always been mad for tennis and my Mum enjoyed playing and watching it too. Dad still plays tennis at least once a week with some of his old cronies and he watches all the tennis that the TV has on free to air as well as any of the pay TV channels too.
When I was a teenager, twice Dad took the whole family to Melbourne to see the Australian Open. Both times Dad purchased three tickets to the first ten days of the tournament and between the five of us we took it in turn going and spending the day at the tennis, except for Dad, I'm pretty sure he went every day.
A few years ago I took my wife to the Australian Open for one day, we flew down the day before and flew back the day after. Unfortunately my wife had sprained her ankle the week prior to going so she was hobbling around the place so probably didn't enjoy it as much as she should have. I think we'd both like to go again some time but I would love to go to the Men's Final or at least one or two of the night matches as I've spent many days sitting in the sun at the tennis but not once gone to a night match.
I don't enjoy watching the tennis on the TV as much as my wife does and neither of us are as fanatical about it as my Dad, but there is something about seeing it in person that really makes a difference.

Bomber
Sorry about yesterday, I was pressed for time.

Trying again

Last night I spent a fair amount of time re rendering the video from the weekend and using the flowstate stabilisation feature. The videos aren't identical but they are pretty close and if you watch them side by side, I think the new version looks a lot better. It's definitely a lot more stable and is easier to watch. The clarity of the image is still not as nice as I would like but I'm not sure how much more I can do about that with the camera I have. 
I'd love to know just how much of a difference the new Insta360 One X would have over the Insta360 One, I've looked at a number of videos and it does seem better but I'm not sure if it is really that much better that it is worth spending money on it. One of the YouTubers that I follow thinks that there may be a new camera on the way from Insta360 as they seem to follow a six monthly release cycle, this means that the new camera may be out in time for Christmas so I think I'll wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed that by then I'll have more experience with using the camera and that I'll actually have more of an idea on whether it's worth continuing to persist with the YouTube channel idea or not.

Bomber
Glad to be back to writing about what this blog was originally intended to be about.

Video Quality

Looking back over the footage from the weekend I'm not really happy with the quality of the video. There is no way that I'd pay to watch the 360° footage on Patreon if it looked that bad. I think that I'm going to have to try and find a better way of editing the footage or possibly purchase a better camera. It's kind of a bummer that I purchased the camera when I did as the new improved version of the Insta360 One came out not that long after. I think that to get really good footage I have no option but to spend some money. I won't be doing that for a while as we have some big expenses coming up, with the solar system and my daughter needs some orthodontics, they will be taking a chunk of our savings. I'm going to have to do some overtime at work to try and build our savings back up and to also be in a position to ask my wife if I can spend some more, I'm not looking forward to that discussion. There is no way that I can spend thousands on a camera, the new Insta360 One X is currently around $800.00 which is still a lot more than I'd like to spend, but it is the best camera for under $1,000 and has lots of rave reviews. To go to the next level I would be looking at several thousand dollars and I don't know if I'd want to be strapping that kind of camera to my motorcycle anyway.
I think that I may have missed a step in making the video the other day too, I don't think I put the stabilisation on correctly in post production. I might try and make it again later this week or on the weekend to see if I can make the footage more stable and maybe a little clearer.

Bomber
To make a better case for a new camera, I should start using what I have.

Motorcycle Training

I was updating the monthly update post that will come out to mark 12 months of blogging and I realised that the goal to get some adventure motorcycle training was coming up fast and that I needed to start to organise something if I wanted to achieve that goal.
I found a couple of courses that are running in spring so I will do a little more investigating and then hopefully book something in the next week or two.
Going for a ride on the weekend really made me think that I should do some more training and also made me glad that I purchased an adventure motorcycle instead of something else. I originally thought that I wanted a cruiser of some sort but I didn't want to get a Harley. The main reason for not wanting a Harley was that they can be pretty unreliable and they are too noisy. If I could have two bikes then I may consider a Harley as the second bike but I really enjoy hitting the dirt roads and going places that you couldn't on a big cruiser.
I'm not sure if I've told this story before or not, but when I was looking at upgrading from my learner bike, I was out riding in the country side and considering what type of bike I should get. I really liked the cruisers and they seemed so comfortable as they effortlessly rode along the country roads. The weather was perfect for riding that day and there were bikes everywhere. At one stage I took a turn that all the other bikes that day weren't taking for some reason and after a short while I found out why, the road turned to dirt. I stopped at the edge of the dirt and considered my options, I'd never ridden on dirt before but knew that basically any bike could ride on dirt if the rider was careful. I decided that it couldn't be that long of a dirt stretch and to give it a go. It was pretty unnerving for me as I'd never ridden on dirt before but that was all it took for me to decide that I wanted an adventure bike. I didn't want to be out riding somewhere and have to turn around because of a dirt road.
With the right tyres on my adventure bike I can go places that no cruiser could never go and even with road tyres on, I can go places that sports bike would dare to.
I'm very happen with my decision to buy an adventure bike and I think getting a 650cc instead of a 1000cc was also a very good decision. The 650cc has more than enough power for me and is a little lighter and more manageable off-road than a larger bike would be. If I was to replace my bike, I would replace it with another adventure bike. If I was to get a second bike, I'd possibly get another adventure bike too and have one set up for daily riding and the other set up for more adventurous off-road riding.

Bomber
N+1 is the number of bikes that every motorcyclist wants.

Great Fun

I got out for a ride on Sunday morning, I took the 360° camera with me and shot about 40 minutes of the ride in one consecutive piece. I was having issues with the camera pole staying up but other than that it was good fun. I was originally going to go into Canberra and ride around the lake and over the bridges that go over Lake Burley Griffin, but at the last moment I decided to head out to the Captains Flat radar in Tallaganda State Forest. I thought that there may be a little bit of dirt just getting up to the radar but there was more than that. Thankfully most of the dirt roads were in fairly good condition and only a little damp from the dew over night. If it had rained in the last day or two it would have been probably impossible for me to make it with the tyres that I currently have on the bike.
The actual road up the radar was a fire trail that wasn't in very good condition and I really enjoyed challenging myself and getting out of my comfort zone riding up it. I'm sure a lot of other riders wouldn't consider it a hard ride but it was the roughest trail that I have been on so far and there were a couple of very large slippery puddles to ride through too. Once I got to the radar I stopped for maybe five minutes and put the 360° camera on it's pole on the back of the bike and rode home.
I had so much fun, riding back was easier than riding there as my confidence had increased and I also knew that I wasn't going to come around a corner and find a really slippery patch or a tree across the road. It was great just to be out in the sun riding the bike without a care in the world.
I spent Sunday evening looking through the footage and creating some still images for Instagram and I also played around with creating a short video of the ride just to see if I remembered all the tricks I learnt when I was playing around with video footage all those months ago

Bomber
Hopefully it won't be too long before I do this again

Weighing In

This week was definitely better that last week, I even managed to get out after work on Thursday and go for a walk. It's still not where it should be but it was harder when I was away for work and I spent a fair bit of time sitting in the car this week and working from a desk instead of on my feet. Also eating junk for lunch and big dinners doesn't really help things but I just can't help myself when I'm travelling, the food is too good and you can't have a meal in a pub without having a couple of beers, I'm sure that there is a law against that, or if there isn't, then there should be :)
I went to Kmart yesterday and bought the new scales so I haven't been weighing myself daily. The scales link up with an app on my phone so it will record and graph my weight for me. They also show a BMI and some other figures too that I haven't really looked at yet. I'm going to try and remember to weigh myself after my shower each day for the next couple of weeks and then I'll put the details the weekly weighing in post. I might even do a separate graph for the two weeks just to mark down steps, calories burnt and weight for each day, I'll see what the figures start looking like and decide from there.
I tested the new scales side by side with my old scales and they both showed nearly identical weight, if anything the old scales were showing slightly heavier than the new ones but by only a few grams so I'm not going to readjust anything on the graph or any of the historical data.

Weight: 108.7kg
Steps for the week: 57,044
Average daily calorie burn: 4,070

Bomber
This is harder than I thought it would be. 

Where to Next?

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

For the first time in a long time, my wife and I don't actually have any plans for an upcoming holiday. We often plan well in advance so we have something to look forward to and so we can spoil ourselves a little.
After going on the cruise ship we discovered that we really just like relaxing and not doing anything much at all. Going to the Gold Coast earlier this year confirmed that for us as we didn't really go anywhere or do anything besides taking the kids to Movie World and I had a quick visit to Dick Johnson's garage to see a couple of his race cars. I think that going to a resort somewhere could be pretty good. Somewhere with a big swimming pool for the kids to enjoy and a nice restaurant that isn't stupidly over priced could be good. I don't want to be cooking every night and I really like on the cruise how everything was taken care of for us. The only real down size of the cruise was the size of our room, the four of us in a small room was too much and if we were to go on a cruise again we'd want more space.
I think that somewhere like Hayman Island could be really nice but I was looking at the prices and thought that the daily rate was the rate for the four nights that I'd put in, sadly no. For the amount of money to stay four nights at Hayman we could get a four night all expenses paid cruise in a suite and still have spending money left over.
I think I've said it before but I do think it's time to plan and book another cruise.

Bomber
Cruising is the best.

Time for Another List

It's time for another list. This one is just stuff that I think I should do over the long weekend. There are a few things that I've been putting off and others that just need doing. I'm going to try and make sure I get these done this weekend as it could be a while before I get another block of free time.
Saturday morning will just be the usual, taking it easy before heading over to Dad's for lunch. After lunch my wife wants to go to the nursery and get an indoor plant or two. Saturday afternoon will probably be spent potting the new plants and just taking it easy. I'll probably have another fire on Saturday night and have a few beers in memory of cracker night. Sunday morning I am going to head out with the 360° camera and take some video and some photos. I still haven't managed to do this since I set myself that goal and the weather is meant to be good. 
Sunday afternoon and Monday I will spend sorting out the garage and garden shed so I know where everything is and so my camping gear is organised. Monday has some rain forecast so it will be a good time to be in the shed.
Last weekend when I was setting up for the fire pit I couldn't find my camping hatchet anywhere and I was knocking over other things in the garage as I was rummaging around. Then when I changed the oil in the bike I couldn't find my roll or towels or my latex gloves. I know that they'll be in there somewhere but it's time I got everything sorted out. I'll probably need to go and buy some more shelves so I'll do that too.
Once everything is tidy I should be able to tell if I'll have room in the garage to set up my homebrew or not as I still want to do that too. If there is room, I should look at insulating the garage door as it does get very cold in there at the moment and I'm sure it'll get very hot in Summer.

Bomber
Ah, the old Friday Listday returns.
 

It's not the same without them.

This weekend is a long weekend to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. Traditionally in Canberra, the Queen's Birthday long weekend was when you were allowed to set off fireworks in your backyard or at approved events in the community.
Growing up we had a bonfire in our yard one year as Dad had cut down a tree that had been putting roots into our drain and blocking it. Bonfires were often held at different peoples houses or in the green space between suburbs. When I was in Scouts we used to hold a big bonfire in a suburban park and all the local residents would come along and set off some fire works. Everyone would enjoy seeing each others fireworks and we'd have a good time.
As I got a little older, at least old enough to purchase my own fireworks, my mates and I would purchase as many as we could and then we started modifying some of them to give a bigger bang or, shoot the parachutes higher. I seem to remember my favourite firework being called the "Double Parachute with Crackers". The crackers were Tom Thumbs so I used to open the firework to get the Tom Thumbs out and then I'd combine two or three of the charges that actually launched the parachutes into the one firework. Sometimes it would launch them extra high, other times the extra charge was too much for the cardboard tube so it would explode more than launch anything.
We managed to get in contact with someone who could get their hands on professional grade fireworks one year and we stocked up on lots of fireworks that were significantly more powerful than what we were used to. We weren't using them to hurt people and we were always careful to make sure that we didn't set fire to anything. Unfortunately the type and size of fireworks were actually illegal for us to be using without the correct permits so we had to be careful about where we used them and how many we set off as we didn't want to be caught with them.
I remember one time we were out in the middle of an oval next to a shopping centre. The carpark at the shopping centre was fairly full but we were a long way out on the oval and were setting off a couple of the bigger display fireworks. At one stage we got some cheers and applause from people in the carpark so we thought that we'd probably attracted enough attention, however, we decided that we would set off something called a "Thrashing Thunder". I think it may have been some form of Roman Candle, it basically shot nine explosives into the air, it had a short sharp and really loud bang, with just a small flash of light.
So, we set off this "Thrashing Thunder" and when the noise from the firework stopped echoing around the place we started to hear this ringing or beeping noise and we didn't know at first what it was from. Looking over at the carpark, there were roughly half a dozen car alarms going off, maybe more. It was then that we decided that we were done for the night and it would be best if we moved on to somewhere a little quieter.
Unfortunately, the year or two after this they completely banned fireworks in Canberra as they claimed that they were too dangerous. We all still have our fingers, sure we got the odd firework that didn't go to plan but that was part of the excitement.

Bomber
I may have blown my goatee off one year, but it grew back.

We Are Doomed

I made it back from Sydney this afternoon and my wife came to collect me with the kids after they'd had their swimming lessons. She dropped me off at work on Monday so I didn't have to leave the bike in the carpark for the two nights I was away for. The trip was pretty good and we got done what we needed to but I tell you what, the Gen Z who was helping me, if he's like other Gen Z's or Gen Y's (as he's kind of at the end of Gen Y and the start of Gen Z) then we're all screwed. I know that I must be getting old when I'm complaining about the kids of today, but this guy takes it to a whole different level. 
We had a heap of work to do and I'd go through the next two or three steps with him and he'd get the first part done, but maybe not completely and then he'd stop. After a few minutes I'd notice that he's not doing anything and I'd ask if he was done and he'd say "yeah". I'd then check what he's done and get him to re-do some of it and also ask about the other things that needed doing. He'd then be like, "oh yeah" and then go do one of the other things and then stop again. This went on for the whole trip. 
Simple things like arranging to meet in the foyer of the hotel in the morning, or, in the evening when we were going to get something to eat together, we'd arrange a time and then I'd be there a couple of minutes early and he'd be maybe five minutes late. I thought that maybe his watch was slow, so later in the day I asked him what the time was as I thought my watch was wrong, he confirmed that his watch was showing almost the exact same time and as mine.
This morning when I was waiting for him to show up in the foyer of the hotel, I ordered a coffee while I was waiting and was sitting down drinking it when he shows up. He then notices my bag in front of me and asks "are we taking our bags with us?", when I said yes, he went back up the lift to grab his bag and I finished my coffee and was still waiting.
When he shows up with his bag he proceeds to walk out of the hotel without handing in his room key or actually checking out. When I remind him he says "oh yeah" and goes to the hotel desk to check out. 
We'd left the car at the office so we didn't have to pay for parking in Sydney, we'd walked to the hotel with our bags on the first day, he knew we were leaving after lunch, what did he think we were going to be doing with our bags? Did he think he could just leave them in the hotel room until we were ready to come and get them after lunch? Was he expecting to walk back to the hotel to get them or, did he want me to drive him back and circle the block half a dozen times whilst he packed his clothes and brought his bag out?

Bomber
I'm going to teach my kids the right way to do things. 

Cold and Wet

I'm away with work again tonight and I thought that I'd be able to come up with something to write about but, to be honest, I'm struggling.
The weather has been pretty miserable, windy and raining, but that doesn't really affect me when I'm working as I'm indoors.
The hotel I'm staying at is ok, if I put my head against the window and look sideways I can just see the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's all lit up at the moment for the Vivid Festival. From what I can gather, Vivid is about lighting up buildings in pretty colours and putting on sound and light shows. It looks like they've covered the bridge in LEDs and mounted some big moving spotlights on it. I'd show you a photo but that never seems to work when posting from my phone.
I head back home tomorrow, hopefully the drive will be ok. On the way up we had to go on this massive detour out into some little country towns, I never found out why but I'm guessing it was for road works. They were letting the big trucks continue on the highway due to some low bridges on the detour but I don't know how long they had to wait to be able to get through.

Bomber
I could not live in Sydney.

Finally

Yesterday I finally managed to change the oil and oil filter on the motorcycle. I set my self up in the garage with a large sheet of cardboard under the bike so I wouldn't make a mess as I needed to use some degreaser, chain cleaner and chain lube, not to mention drain the oil and put in some new oil too.
I ended up with such a mess on the cardboard and a little bit around the side of the cardboard too. Once the bike was done I took it into the driveway and gave it a good clean. I then started to tidy up the garage and that was when I discovered that a lot of the mess had actually got under the cardboard and it was a big mess. I managed to get the cardboard out without too much issue but then used a can of degreaser to clean up the floor of the garage. My hose is too short to reach all the way around from the side of the house and into the garage so I then had to use a bucket to try and wash off all the degreaser by sluicing it all around and try to force it out the door. I ended up using a broom to try and sweep the worst of the water out of the garage.
I was finally done and was looking forward to sitting down and having a beer when I realised that it was time to start the weber if it was going to be ready in time to cook the leg of lamb we were having for dinner. I also didn't have any beer left in the fridge.
Once I started the weber and things were looking good I thought I might just sit down and right this post. Just about in the paragraph above I realised that it was Sunday and I need to write my weighing post... guess what I'm doing next.

Bomber
It's like I'm writing the future in the past.

Weighing In

I am dead set useless at remember to weigh myself on Sunday mornings. I didn't weigh myself during the week as I thought that I'd remember today. I think the issue is that I often sleep in a little on Sundays and then read or watch TV in bed before actually getting up. By the time I get up I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do for the rest of the day and I'm usually getting a little hungry.
I had a shower just before dinner tonight and weighed myself after that. I haven't had the most active week this week. I've spent a lot of time at my desk working through some issues and I have had a lot of data entry to do too, so that doesn't help. Add to that the fact the sun has set or is only a few minutes away from setting when I get home I haven't been out for any walks either. I wasn't going to let the cold be an excuse and it shouldn't be. I just lost a little momentum so hopefully I can get it back this week.

Weight: 109kg
Steps for the week: 45,590
Average daily calorie burn: 3,849

I realised today that I somehow missed adding the graph in last week. I've put in the totals from last week into the graph as well as this week. I've also changed the size of the graph a little as it was getting crowded with the dates at the bottom and was starting to cut them off.

Bomber
Got to keep pushing

A quickie

I'm standing in my backyard, in front of the firepit, enjoying the first night of winter 2019. Life's pretty good. There is a photo, but again my phone won't post it, so you'll just have to use your imagination 😉

Bomber
Taking it easy.