The problem of attaching your ego to Google Analytics and other metrics is that at any moment or month the opaque workings of tech giants can flip on you and ruin your mood.

Maybe my Android phone is always listening to me, because it feels like every time I warn someone that building successful websites is completely dependent on Google algorithms, those algorithms then result in bad news.

After solid and then incredible growth last year, autumn has seen falling visitors, revenue and search rankings for a site that I've only been enhancing.

Maybe it's because I disabled the obnoxious auto ads that Google is punishing me.

The only other issue I can see is that my LCP timing for mobile is averaging 5 seconds.

To try and address the latter, I spent the weekend optimising the front end and back end to try and increase the speeds. I didn't learn a lot about React, because I got AI to refactor that with some lazy and suspense commands.

Memcached is cool, because it's triggered by a visit to a resource, and then it stays in memory of a little while, making it faster and easier to recall again.

It made me realise that a lot of my memories of life are about things I journaled about, or took a photo of, and are therefore cached. Unlike MySQL, human memories deteriorate over time and you can't export them, so using forms of cache is super helpful for tethering your existence to reality like a trail of breadcrumbs through space time.

Here's some things I want to cache from this exercise:

• Turning on compression in CPanel really helped the speed and download size
  
• Pre-Caching a bunch of stuff by making fetch requests to the controller instead of just loading the content through a SQL query is inefficient, but saved me a lot of development time.
  
• I probably should have learnt a server-side rendered framework first instead of using React with a PHP back end. Oh well.
  
• After doing all the work on the weekend, I realised on Tuesday that I could actually radically improve performance by reducing a chain of dependent API calls and instead do a location lookup inside the event look up. Fuck me for trying to implement a RESTful architecture, right?
  
• I do so much IT during my work times, and yet I spent a sunny autumn Sunday implementing memcached. However, the same amount of time could have been used to watch a couple of football games and a movie. I didn't do that, I rarely do that anymore. I just enjoy solving problems with technology. And I really want to beat Google at their ruin-my-mood challenge.
  
• Breath of the Wild doesn't hold your hand much. Either that or I'm missing some tutorial somewhere. So when I did take a short break and played it, I had an amazing ah-hah moment when I realised that I could knock down trees with bombs and use the fallen trunk to cross a chasm and reach a shrine. As gaming goes, it was a really rewarding experience and much better than the adrenaline filled checklist ticking exercise that AoE2 build order into resign was back when that was my game of choice. It also has dynamic time of day and when I knocked the tree down it was sunset and so quite a picturesque moment of triumph. I am caching that memory for sure.
  

I went to a concert tonight to see an old (relative) man sing old songs for me, who is also becoming an old man. I brought ear plugs and wore fingerless gloves and comfortable shoes.

I enjoyed the set, mostly the old songs. At one point, probably during a new song, I had to mentally check to see if I had attended a live concert since I turned 30. The answer I think is basically just Jebediah at Schützenfest in 2016. It seems hard to believe I spent so much of my twenties attending live music and then completely stopped.

I did not stand in front of anyone. I didn't buy a t-shirt for causal Friday. I did enjoy the bass and the drums and the nostalgia.

Coming home from holidays
always curdles me with nostalgia,
and the end of daylight savings is also
a sure-fire reminder of my own mortality.
I'm not sure why I thought
it was a good idea
to combine the two...

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.