It's always jarring when you realise how much you can enjoy life over a four day weekend, and contrast that with all the five day work weeks you live through in your life. Always better to have loved and lost, though. So here's some memories in photo form that my brain will confuse for actual memories a few years from now.

Good Friday began with a sunrise walk around West Lakes and several fish impressions from Nash. And breakfast.

Cowan with his haul, despite wearing an inappropriate shirt for the occasion.

Later on, it was the 18th annual Easter Beer Hunt. I continue my decline and again finished last in terms of found beers. But I still have love for the game.

On Saturday we enriched our usual morning stroll to the Central Markets with some home-made dark chocolate and apricot eggs, to go with excellent coffee and then a spree of cheap fruit and vegetables.

On Saturday evening we had dinner at Mum's where among other things I enjoyed these over the top table decorations.

On Sunday morning the usual bakery was closed, but Nash was kind enough to tolerate a full size sausage roll from one that was open.

In the afternoon, to mark our anniversary, Vanessa and I went to Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens for a walk and a few rounds of Articulate.

There weren't a lot of autumn colours yet, but it was still sunny and pretty.

After a lot of walking in the sun, we chilled in the beer garden at the Crafers pub and I drank this triple choc easter stout which was very chocolately, and delicious. Actually contained more chocolate in a cup than the table at Mum's.

After beer it was pizza for dinner with my beautiful wife. I also ate some of that pizza on Monday and Tuesday, to keep the anniversary going.

Monday was a more chill day, but I did have time to make a batch of hot cross buns that I also ate some of today to keep the easter holiday going. I also did some work on a professional blog site, which is not pictured here.

I did not got to any big box hardware, which I am very happy about.

In the final week of Spring I was putting the finishing touches into the musical playlist that I intended to embed memories of the past months in. Spring 2023 had been pleasant, as best as I can recall it now. The fading glow of Giunio 23 had carried me through Winter. My work/life balance was correcting itself. My body parts were coming together with enough cohesion that I was even able to complete a mini, late-30s equivalent of Bulktember. A more age appropriate approach. Rehab repetitions prioritised over moving weight. Balancing pain signals with progression. I suffered only moderate lower back pain.

By the end of November, despite a recurrence of my dodgy, left shoulder I was moving well, energised by technology and the future. There was bacon in the Barossa, panini on lunch breaks, lamb roasts in the slow cooker, burgers before basketball games. Lots of coffee. Flowers were blooming, the outdoors was calling, and by mid November my index finger had some blood back in it.

Life was not perfect, but I was enjoying it. It felt like, as spring turned to summer around me that in my life too would bloom into sunshine and blue skies and a semblance of control.

Alas, storm clouds approached, as spring will do. Literally, initially, as late November rain pummelled the house and got into the gym literally hours before we were to set off on a cross country road trip.

December from start to finish was problematic. The road trip that was supposed to be a break was plagued by injury, weather, snakes (actually those were cool) and actual plague. Driving long distances in the rain just to isolate in cheap motel rooms was not fun. It was becoming apparent that my wrist injury was not minor, and the Napoleon movie totally lacked historical accuracy and nuance. In fact, I was craving a return to home life and work routine by the end, knowing fate would choose that moment to at least clear out my sinuses. We returned to a mouldy, ruined gym, more rain, a sad puppy and a whole train of minor inconveniences. The final two work weeks of the year did bring some sense of normality back, and then I got covid and missed out on Christmas. By the time it was 2024 I was exhausted. And I'd felt comfortable enough with where my feelings were to share my Spring playlist that just served to remind me of happier times.

Time never stops though. And through all of this, and the continued wrist pain, insurance drama, back pain, life stress, and shoulder pain it did feel like I've done this all before. It did feel that all I had to do was keep getting through work days, keep doing rehab morning, lunchtime and night, keep going to the beach at the end of hot days, keep making phone calls, keep taking the dog for a walk and mowing the lawn after limbering up that things wouldn't necessarily get better, but they might average out. I listened to the Spring playlist a lot, and of course new music and so I added to it already aware that I was now making a Spring/Summer double album playlist. In some ways it made sense, under the influence of the narrative fallacy: Spring was a rise and fall, summer would be a fall and rise. The perfect sine wave. With gym repairs scheduled and two weddings at the end of February to look forward to it seemed appropriate that by the end of summer I'd feel balanced and I'd have a second collection of songs.

Well, it worked to an extent. My wrist still hurts most days but not that much. I have no idea if the next storm will flood some part of my house. Jobs still cause stress. But I have a Spring/Summer playlist. And I know that I will listen to it for years to come sometimes when things are going bad and sometimes when things are going well and sometimes when some things are bad and other things are good. This is life. I am accepting it. Because I can't change it. Seasons will continue to come one by one and I'll relish posting a mixtape for each one for as long as I can.

Memories of:
Driving down South Road in sunshine. Lifting light weights in the gym. Driving to a bonfire. Books about Mars, and Nipples. Taking coffee breaks in the backyard on WFH mornings. Being in the groove in front of VS Studio while looking out over the Adelaide hills. More hours on my back on the rubber mats on the floor. Long stretches of country roads. FLOWERS BLOOMING. Feeling sad. Being in the groove in front of CS Studio with the air conditioner on and the curtains drawn. The same walks around Croydon. Memories of Paris. Passionfruit. Trying to hold a plank.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I took quite a few photos of the double rainbow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The day after I posted last week's entry about reading less books, I took the lift down to the city streets at lunch with the intent to stay in the shade and stretch my legs. I didn't have anywhere specific to go, and the urge crossed my mind to walk to the city library and look at the books. Those withdrawals came a lot quicker than I expected. I didn't go to the library. I walked on the north and east sides of streets and listened to music instead of audiobooks.

The next day I was at home and it was the perfect lunchtime for sitting outside eating a giant salad and listening to an audiobook. Well perfect is an exaggeration, it was 34 degrees outside and I had to put my bowl in the freezer while I chopped up my lunch so that when I finished preparing it and took it outside the lettuce wouldn't wilt before I finished eating.

My original plan was to read two books each month. But, around that walk nearly to the library I decided that starting February's books a week before February would be okay, as that would still be finishing it in February. February was a lot more than a week away on the twelfth of January, but I started a new book anyway. I promised myself I would only consume this book at the same time I consumed salads on sunny days. With the recent heat wave, this has been every day.

This morning when I was out walking before work I saw this chalked on the sidewalk...

Every Monday of 2023 I made a short, coffee related video.

Coffee and my phone, basically the only two ubiquitous aspects of every day of 2023.

Less than three days after professing to having implemented a semantic search with a generative AI front end without any idea how I'd done it, I found myself in a conference room delivering a Powerpoint to about twenty people with authority on the same subject.

This wasn't actually bluster! If you stumbled upon this article due to keyword searching... Since Monday I not only learnt to understand RAG, Semantic Search and hosting models in the cloud a lot better, but I even implemented a Flask UI for one! That's how fast things move in the world of AI in 2023. Or perhaps a sign of how simplified some of these cloud services actually are thanks to the actual geniuses working for the AI and Cloud giants who I admire greatly. Also technically the AI generated the Flask UI for me.

I rode my bike home exactly 160 minutes before sunset. The weather was perfect. Blue skies, a couple of wispy clouds, golden light. I rounded the corner under the King William Bridge and into a panoramic view of beauty. Rowboats cutting through the water. Vibrant grass. Glass buildings shimmering. Water features bubbling. People out enjoying an afternoon beside the Torrens. It was nearly offensively beautiful. What right did I get to pedal my way through a scene like that. I mean the smell wasn't fantastic, but other than that, I felt blessed.

The last week of September has been the kind of unrealistic spring weather you dream about in winter. Sunny, warm enough to wear shorts, but not so hot you can't go outside. Basically perfect, if you don't suffer from allergies. I've been riding my bike into town when I'm not working from home. Drinking coffees in the sun. I can't help being fascinated by flowers and the lifecycle of plants.

On the weekend we went to the Barossa to dog sit, and took Nash along for the ride. This presented more opportunities for enjoying the weather. We did the full Kaiserstuhl walk after having to cut it short last time due to injuries. I ate cereal, fruit and yogurt on a log in the morning light watching the birds before striding on up the hill and it felt like this was what my body was made for.

While in the area I also tried award winning bacon (it tasted like bacon smells like) and visited Greenock Brewery for a tasting paddle. I also walked around a lake and took in the golden canola fields.

The second brown snake spotting made us to decide on cutting the trip short, and we packed the second dog into the car for two more nights of dog sitting back in Adelaide.

I feel like I will finally sleep well tonight.

I've been wanting to journal lately. There is a lot happening in life, but nothing that fits neatly into a few paragraphs with some narrative structure plus a pun.

The last two times I have ordered a flat white at a café I've received a cappuccino. This kind of made sense on a sunny Sunday after our walk around St Clair and viewing of moorhen ducklings (henlings?) among the mosquitos. I phrased Vanessa's cappuccino order as size, then variety combo, whereas when I ordered the flat white I started with variety and ended with size. This could have caused confusion. Whatever. I'm not afraid of a little chocolate sprinkled on top of my frothed milk.

Today there was no Vanessa or second order. I handed over my keep cup like it was 2019 and I paid $4.50 for a flat white like it was 2019. There was no size specified because they just give you whatever amount of coffee fits in your keep cup. Again I received a cappuccino. Also I'm not sure, but I think they called my order out as "Brett" rather than "Brad". But what are the chances that someone with a similar name to me and the exact same recycled aluminium keep cup ordered a coffee at the same café as me? And no Bretts yelled out "Hey, that's my keep cup!" as I walked out, screwing the lid on to cover the thick layer of chocolate powder sprinkled across the top.

Am I subconsciously sabotaging my own coffee orders, and requesting chocolate on top without even any memory of it? Or does my deep voice in a noisy café saying "flat white" sound like - when half-drowned out by the milk frother - I'm saying "cappuccino"?

Well, powered by caffeine and cocoa, I picked up where I left off yesterday in trying to improve the performance of a flow that needs to generate a 700MB file with 96MB of java heap. And I did make a lot of progress. I had to pause mid afternoon for my follow up with the rheumatologist, who confirmed that I don't currently have rheumatoid arthritis. I worked this out during our initial consultation when he was poking around at my bones. My finger still swells up when it's cold, and despite no almonds since autumn I am now entering my seventeenth spring of chronic back pain. Neither of these things are caused by an autoimmune condition or lupus. That's good. He did say I have a remarkably straight thoracic spine. He said people would "kill for it". I hope not, it would be worse than back pain.

I googled it later today, and maybe it is not a good thing. There's something called flat back syndrome (not cappuccino back syndrome) that can cause lower back pain and/or heart conditions. Am I going to need to spend another $400 on specialists to get told there's nothing to worry about again? Maybe.

I returned to an office in glorious sunlight. I was walking fast so I could get back to benchmarking, and also because I forgot my headphones when I left. I realised when I was in the elevator down at 2:20pm and I didn't go back up because my appointment was at 2:40pm. I arrived at 2:39pm, and the doctor called my name (not Brett's) at 3pm. So I could have gone back to get the headphones. If I'd done this my ears would have been a lot warmer though by the time I got back.

I spent the rest of the afternoon testing and tweaking acknowledgement timeout settings, before a call at 5pm which delayed my bike ride home until 5:30pm. This made me a little uneasy, as the sun felt a lot darker than it actually was - especially in the canyons of Adelaide's central business district, and I didn't want to get hit by a car. I felt my usual sense of relief when I reached the Torrens path where I would be out of reach for most cars for the rest of the way home. Every time I had a view to the north I felt a nice, warm breeze. The sky, in the golden hour, was all sorts of vibrant shades of orange, pink and yellow. Fluffy clouds lined the horizon, which looked beautiful. But I was wearing my sunglasses the whole way because I don't want any more bugs in my eyes. However the polarised lenses muted the colours quite a bit and made the clouds look like the plain, frothed milk on the top of a flat white.