Fixing Picasa3 suddenly freezing on Windows10 (July 2025)

This evening, Picasa suddenly started freezing on Windows 10 here.  (Yes, it has been officially discontinued for years now... but for my workflow, it is still much better than many of the alternatives I've tried, and so, until I manage to get my own self-built alternative up and running, I'm continuing to use it...)

After a whole bunch of sleuthing (including deleting my old DB and rebuilding it, in case of some database corruption there), it turns out that the culprit was Windows Defender!

TLDR:  To fix this, add an exclusion for the following setting (i.e. "Block Untrusted Fonts") for Picasa3.exe 

EDIT:  Posted too soon!  While doing that gets things moving a little at least, a few seconds later, after letting you scroll, it will again lock up, while it now starts another batch of CPU activity.  Doh!   (Trying again with disabling a whole lot more to see what sticks...)

EDIT 2: Tried a bunch more stuff, but annoyingly each "fix" only seems to last about 5 seconds before Windows Defender catches on and locks down even harder!

Things that didn't go down well:

* Going through disabling *every* checkbox in that infernal program-settings-override dialog.  Doing that just makes it worse it seems!

* Switching "Compatability Mode" to "Windows 8" - This worked for about 5 seconds (i.e. longer than when just doing "open + scroll" tests, but still it locked right up!

Ultimately, after an hour of testing this crap, I'm going have to call it a night on this here, and have ended up filing a bugreport with MS about this... hopefully they do resolve it!  Gah!

(PS:  The project to again try to migrate my personal workstation to Linux ahead of October just got another massive boost again tonight!)

A Piece of Old Christchurch History - First "Jade Garden" Location

Many people know this old building as the old "Canterbury Public Library" building

For me, this was and always will be: "The Original Home of 'Jade Garden' - Dim Sum Chinese Restaurant"  (although apparently, they may have been in one other location before this one IIRC)

 

I was inspired to write this little oral history down for posterity when stumbling across the photo below earlier today (complete with the caption that showed below it). It was one of the first times I'd come across a decent photo of the place, so thought it was a good chance to write this down. 

Canterbury Public Library 19 December 1981. Exterior of the former Canterbury Public Library building on the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street. Christchurch Star archive photo

(NOTE: Once again, am reposting this long-form post from my Mastodon for archiving - though this probably means the AI's will now ingest this too... sigh)

WhioDoc Updates - Version 1.1 just released

I've just released a minor update to WhioDoc to add some clarity + tweaks around the formatting of range-specifiers, and guidance on how "complex type specifiers" should be documented (i.e. "there is no established standard here yet, as you're probably doing something wrong if you need it")

 

Links to WhioDoc Repo:

* The Repo:  https://github.com/Aligorith/whiodoc

* Today's Updates:   

    https://github.com/Aligorith/whiodoc/commit/66aba8762073eabd948872e149323f17584a2b87

 

Key Points:

* Changed the delimiter for "type vs range" parts of the range-specifiers to use "::" instead of "-" 

   This has been changed after I realised on my current project that the "-" is really not too visible in my text editor (where I usually have "show all whitespace" enabled now - long story for another day), and a more heavy-weight symbol was needed.

  i.e. The recommended format is now something like:

         (Num :: 0.1 <= v < 0.9)

 

In other news:

The lack of news / updates here recently is because I'm currently hard at work on a bunch of projects, with a view towards getting some of them in a shippable state. And with that, I need to get back to actually building stuff, and less time talking about building it!  Over and out!

Blast from the Past: Cathay Pacific 747 Cardboard Model Plane / Glider

When doing some long overdue cleaning of one of our bookshelves yesterday, I ran into the following fun little guy:

IIRC, it's a Cathay Pacific 747 cardboard plane model from a Meadow Fresh milk-carton promotion here in NZ. It would have been from the mid-late 90's (as it uses the "brush tick" tail).

(At least that's what I think it's from! I could be wrong, with it potentially having come from an in-flight activities pack for kids instead, since I do have a few of those... somewhere...)

 

Thoughts on Windows 11's "Recall" Feature

Seeing one of the latest threads this morning about Win11's Recall feature, I'm not surprised that it does what it does TBH

Some of these points overlap with comments I made earlier when news of this feature first broke. I can't easily find those now, but if/when I do, I may amend this post with those notes as well, as they better cover a bunch of other insights I don't think I've captured here as well.

 

EDIT:  Cool, according to this Ars article, they do seem to have put in place most of the reasonable safeguards I'd expect / recommend them to have.

PureQML Followup - Initial Code Audit Notes

Following on my previous post, I did some more poking around the PureQML code as an initial stage towards vetting whether it is a suitable and/or trustworthy codebase to build any projects with.

Here are some observations I've made regarding things I'd want to fork + hack the codebase to do before I did anything more serious with it. I thought I'd post these here in case I lost the file I kept these notes in when I came back to try to work on this later (and also for anyone else considering using this)

DISCLAIMER:  I still don't know all that much about this project, so some of these may be able to be fully disabled + fixed in ways that I haven't found yet.

 

EDIT 2025/04/25:

* Have forked the pureqml/qmlcore repo with these changes to

    https://github.com/Aligorith/pureqml_qmlcore/tree/PureQML-Clean

* Added "Issue 5" below

 

On Approaching Composition Line-By-Line (i.e. Per Voice) vs Vertically (i.e. Chord Progressions)

Just saw a very interesting video looking at music theory / analysis at a different way than "chord chord chord chord chord" (to paraphrase the video) 😜

Instead, this video argues that we should be focussing more on the horizontal movements of the parts (i.e. "voice leading"), which thus helps draw your attention towards the flow / journey of the piece more...

Link: "Inside the Score - Most musicians learn harmony wrong"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYj57TUKj

 

MediaSlurper Updates - Ep2 - Introducing a basic GUI + Cute Mascot

Time for another (hopefully) quick + brief writeup following another busy but relatively successful weekend of hacking away on this project. In short: I managed to tick off the biggest todo I had planned for the weekend (along with a few other smaller tasks), and with a few additional bonus points for good measure.

Introducing, the initial MVP UI for "MediaSlurper"

1) MediaSlurper  MVP GUI

Perhaps the biggest achievement this weekend was managing to put together an initial functioning UI for the media-backup scripts I've been working on for the past few weeks (see screenshot above).

Functionally, it's still very very crude (i.e. those buttons just call the existing scripts, but then they just execute in that existing terminal window backing this GUI (instead of in a dedicated GUI-wrapped window, OR via nicer GUI-driven UI's). But, most importantly, it serves the original goal of implementing this GUI in the first place (i.e. allowing me to launch these tools in ~2 clicks from the Start Menu, without needing to keep open a dedicated terminal window with 2 tabs - one for each script - open so that I can run them on the near daily / every-other-day basis that I end up needing these)

PureQml's Python-based QML Compiler - A tempting starting point for Kea's UI-Definition Compiler...

I know I already have too many open / unfinished projects (and a bunch more un-started yet)...

BUT, I was "doing the rounds" again after work today on HTML/CSS alternatives to doing web-deployable apps, and ended up looking at the QML situation again...

(Unfortunately, while I'll try to finish current project using HaxeUI, I'm running into too many weird update bugs + other hard-to-overcome limitations that I'm currently inclined to go back to looking for another solution for the next test project / whatever will be used to implement Parus)

 

TLDR:  Am again getting itchy hands to jump back into building my "Kea" language compiler in Python (possibly either hacking OR deriving significant inspiration from "PureQml"'s Python-based "QML-subset -> HTMl5 / Javascript" compiler), but focussing first on the QML-like UI-definition syntax   (before adapting the wider language later, and for non-web backends for those other parts)...

 

Stocktake of Current Projects in Progress (23 March Edition)

Time for another stocktake of all my various projects currently on the go. I typed this up more for my own benefit than anything.  (Also, considering that my last attempt at such a list from early January ended up being 6 pages in my notebook, this is already the "cut down" version LOL 😅)... 

* 1) Revival of app in HaxeUI for Dad  (Hard Deadline: Mid May) = Stalled. Am facing intractable toolkit related bugs.

* 2) Media Import/Backup from Devices = In progress / partially working. Need another push to complete.   (A blog post was in progress about the state of that from last weekend, but may now hold off until I'm done with it, as finishing it is more important, than ranting about half-progress)

* 3) Picasa Replacement = Not started

* 4) MusicViz = Paused. Haven't had time to start showcqt-hacking phase

* 5) Kea = Paused again. Too many concrete projects to do first. (Had dabbled with the UI language side of things a few months ago, initially starting to work on trying out the 7Guis tasks... that said, satisfying those succinctly may direct things in a bad direction relative to all the "real problems" I encounter in general instead)

* 6) Parus = On hold. Was originally going to use #1 as a testbed for doing it in Haxe + HaxeUI, but I now have to rethink those plans...

* 7) Collagen (i.e. Collage Making Tool) = On hold. Pending Parus being usable in some or other language, so that I can actually build the thing without wasting time doing more plumbing (like I'm doing on #1 currently)!

 

Others (Lower Priority):
* WhioDoc = Spec written. Tooling will have to wait till I have time

* Music Sketch Pad = Comes after Collagen and Maybe After Diagramming Tool (but may need to come first)

* Diagramming Tool = On hold indefinitely, but definitely needed more and more.

 

 

 

 

PhotoTool Project Updates Ep 1 - Initial Steps Towards Scripts to Ease + Automate Import + Backup of Media Data

For the past few weeks, I've been having a blast hacking away at a pair of scripts for automating some steps of my current photo management workflow that have thus-far been very labour-intensive to perform:  Namely, importing/backing up photos and videos from my camera (R5)'s memory card, and doing the same with my phone (Android).

The Last Lunch

Wow, it's been 5 years ago to the day when this photo was taken.

Yum Cha at "Tai Chi" (Spitfire Square, Christchurch) in March 2020

 

It was from our last "dine in" meal at a restaurant before the first COVID lockdown (that we headed out for shortly after Ardern's first 1pm nationwide address).

This photo then went on to be one that I wound up staring at longingly for *months*, desperately craving some Cheng Fun (and being unable to make any ourselves). You could say it got me through the pandemic...

On "Sci-Fi" and "Fantasy"...

TBH, I personally generally dislike most "Sci-Fi" and "Fantasy" stories / media. Among other reasons... they suck! 😜

[MusicViz Project] Part 3 - Breakdown of FFMPEG "showcqt" Experiment

This is the third installment of my ongoing series of posts on one of my long-term projects to develop a new automated technique for visualising music.

To motivate today's discussion, here is the final video clip rendered from the experimental technique being discussed in this post: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTMpzmdI9qQ

 

And here is the command used to render that:

ffmpeg -y -i 20230803-v02.flac -filter_complex "[0:a]showcqt=s=500x1920:axis=0:cscheme=0.6|0.7|0.1|0.1|0.8|0.5,crop=500:1392:0:4000,setsar=1,transpose=2[vcqt]; [0:a]showwaves=mode=cline:s=1920x100[vs]; [vcqt][vs]overlay=y=H-100[v]" -map "[v]" -map "0:a" -c:a aac "mv_20230803.mp4"

 

Let's annotate that to show the different parts more clearly (see the breakdown following this for a rough description of what each part does):

ffmpeg -y -i 20230803-v02.flac -filter_complex "[0:a]showcqt=s=500x1920:axis=0:cscheme=0.6|0.7|0.1|0.1|0.8|0.5,crop=500:1392:0:4000,setsar=1,transpose=2[vcqt]; [0:a]showwaves=mode=cline:s=1920x100[vs]; [vcqt][vs]overlay=y=H-100[v]" -map "[v]" -map "0:a" -c:a aac "mv_20230803.mp4"

Flow - Blender Animated Feature Film

As many in the Blender world will know by know, Flow - a Latvian animated film created by a small team in Blender, and rendered using Eevee just won this year's Oscar for Best Animated Film!

Woah! What a moment! The first Blender animated Best Animated Feature award winner! WOW!  😱🤯😍🥳

A *VERY* big congratulations to all the team who worked on this!!! A very well deserved win!

Introducing... "WhioDoc" (formerly "Quack!" / "QuackDoc")

I guess this weekend can be considered somewhat successful on the projects front (even though I only really got around to 1 of the 3 projects I'd wanted to work on, though it *was* the most important one I wanted to knock off too)

Following a few sessions of toil, I have successfully put up an initial attempt at formalising all the conventions I've been using for writing inline code docs for all my projects over the years!

While there are still a few small loose ends to tack on, at least I can finally point to this thing and say: Here's the spec!

(And eventually: "Here's all the docs-compiler tools + editor plugins everyone asks for these days")

 

https://github.com/Aligorith/quackdoc

https://github.com/Aligorith/whiodoc

 

Reflections on my time working with Lilypond

Recently, I saw a post from a music student mentioning that they were thinking of writing up some stuff on the techniques they'd learned while using GNU Lilypond - i.e. a LaTeX-like "music typesetter" with its own custom input/programming language (doused / polluted with a heavy dose of Guile-Scheme).

This post gathers up some of my own notes on my own journey with these tools, and how this has tied into where I am today. Come to think of it, this year actually marks something like "just over two decades ago" that I was doing this shit (since IIRC, I probably started doing all this back in 2004!) - jeez... time flies and makes you feel old when put like that!

C17 Landing at NZCH - 2025 02 24

Here are bunch of heavily-edited snaps from the C17 (8202) landing at NZCH earlier this week that I quite like.

I really love the combination of dramatic lighting, tyre smoke, and the funny look on the faces of those sheep - especially on that second one!

Had to heavily edit to improve colour + contrast - mainly to just bring out a bit more colour from all the washed-out / desaturated light and dark areas (which were a consequence of shooting into the sun near sunset... granted, the lighting would conventionally be better considered "better" from the other side, but the roads on that side are scary, and you wouldn't get to see the smoke backlit like this either!)

Nike Eskilstuna Drafting Table

Earlier this evening, I came across the following video on Facebook of a 1950's vintage architect's drafting desk - apparently manufactured by "Nike Eskilstuna" from Sweden.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2626640980856219

 

Wow! This is so freaking awesome! TBH, if I had the floorspace, I'd probably get one for my office-space / living room, especially if I got hold of one with wheels for easier moving! 😍

Rant About Office Chair Sizing

Sigh... it's looking increasingly like I'm going to have to give up on this new office chair after all, after using it in anger for a few days with an adjustable desk that I can try to work around its height-limitations with.

The problem is that it is ultimately way too low for me.

So, just as it was 3 months ago, I'm back to square one in my search for my next long-term office chair it seems.

 

Trip Down Memory Lane + Resurrecting An Old Project

I know it's technically a "work night", but I just went through my drawer trying to dig out my ancient mockups for a project I've recently revived.

I had originally built it as a thing for Dad to use for outreach activities - Back in the day (i.e. back in 2009, from the comments in the source code I've been porting between machines), I'd managed to get the core engine running, but ultimately ran out of time (+ also, a suitable distribution tech stack back in the day), so had ultimately abandoned that project.

Anyway, recently I've been resurrecting it as a motivating toy app to play with Haxe + HaxeUI. 

 

* This seemed like the perfect project for learning this stack + playing around with it. It was a relatively simple + straightforward little piece of tech that is small enough to be easily implementable / portable (i.e. within constraints of what I can safely manage energy-wise + time-wise on top of long days of fulltime 9-5 weekday job commitments). 

* It was also an almost perfect case for this tech stack (i.e. the HTML5 deployment option is particularly attractive for someone who has never been able to get CSS layouts + Javascript coding to really sit well with my worldview).

 

In other words, this was the PERFECT type of small toy project to tinker around with during the evenings now, as I try to re-establish a small pipeline for me to get a bunch of small fun projects done for myself, where I have full + complete control over every aspect. No questions asked. No input from third parties accepted or needed. 100% owned by me, and for the sole purpose of me having a creative outlet to do fun stuff for myself.

Canon R5 - One Year On Review

Yesterday (or actually two days ago now, if I end up finishing writing this post tonight) marked a year since I got an R5 as the successor for my 7D. Its funny how, earlier this evening, I'd been wondering: "Hah... I wonder what day exactly it was that I got my new camera last new year... I'm sure it was around this time of year-ish"

This is a follow-up to my earlier posts a week in, and a few months in. 

Key Points:

* Overall, I ended up filling 2x 256GBmemory cards (give or take) this year with this camera - Which also means, I've quickly burned through half a TB of disk storage (vs under/around 150 GB a year previously)... More on this in a bit

* By and large, it has now ended up becoming my daily driver. While initially it was just to get used to it under different lighting conditions, later the increased image quality + better performance in a wide range of lighting conditions was a major drawcard.

* I've been on two multi-day trips with this camera now, so can say quite a bit more about how it handles for such usage

* In terms of battery life - I've got a total of 3 batteries, though in practice, I've only really needed 2 (with the third coming into its on those occasions where I'm too lazy to charge the one in use (and forgot to charge the other one, which had gone flat a while earlier). For typical cycles, they usually average around 400-600 (centered around 550 ish), though sometimes that figure can be as high as 1100 - 1300. Lowest would've been around 250 - 300 ish.

* The improved light gathering capabilities have really come in handy with the increased major Aurora storms this past year, meaning that I've been able to see + capture Aurorae for the first time in my life

Observations on Grading Assignments (and Parallels with Screening CV's)

Earlier I came across an article discussing the findings of an interesting study (i.e. https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-last-name-skew-grades/) where the authors claimed to have detected evidence of a systematic bias against students whose surnames fall later in the alphabet than those whose surnames appeared earlier (when assignments / exams get presented to the marker in alphabetical order, due to the increased used of Learning Management Systems that commonly sort in alphabetical order by default).  

TBH, anyone who has spent enough time grading large sets of assignments (*) can probably explain why:

The first time you see a particular mistake / class of stupidity, you do tend to react kinder to it. But by the nth time, it really starts to grate...

 

A similar thing applies when screening through CV's and applications for a position:

The first time you see some new-grad / early career applicant mention doing an internship or something with some name-brand company, it does sound pretty impressive. However, if they have the misfortune of also applying for the same position along with a bunch of other new-grads who also took part in that same internship / etc., this now starts to count against *all* of them (i.e. "meh... it was maybe just a class assignment / group project type situation, where all the interns were held in an sandpit and given some kind of toy / training exercise")

[Firefox Tip] Useful Shortcut for Checking on What's Going Bad (Memory / CPU Usage)

Just learned of a useful tip for current versions of Firefox to bring up the "about:processes" page (that shows memory + CPU usage of various pages + extensions)

It turns out you can use the "Shift-Esc" hotkey to quickly activate it 

Noting this here so I can find it more easily for myself in the future

Thanks @carey@mastodon.nz for the tip!

Thoughts on Teaching Human-Computer Interaction University-Level Courses

Those who've followed me on various other platforms will probably have heard bits of this spiel before, maybe worded slightly differently in each instance, but ultimately discussing the same ideas / talking points. So I thought it'd be good to write up a canonical version once and for all - especially since it's unlikely that I'll end up doing this anytime soon anyway  (i.e. never say never, but at least for the foreseeable future in the next 3-5/10 years, I'm honestly not really that interested in a return to academia or teaching).

Key Points:

1) I've seen things. Perhaps a whole lot more than most people get the chance to see, and with a bunch of variables controlled for (or at least held somewhat constant).

2) From my observations, left to their own devices, the majority of students gravitate towards doing certain things that, left uncorrected / undiscovered (until too late usually) practically mean they probably don't learn half the lessons they probably really ought to  (i.e. From my perspective, they practically learned nothing (beyond maybe picking up some new trivia that'll be gone soon after the final exam) and just tried to get an easy pass on a course they may have thought was one of the "easier" ones they may be required to take).  At least IMO.

3) "UCAPT" - A useful mnemonic I developed during my time doing this, which I adopted for evaluating student's work (+ and also later in my own practice) to check if all the necessary things have been accounted for.

The Quest for a Replacement Office Chair - Part 1

For the nth time in as many years, I've recently been hunting for a new office chair for my home office setup.  Unfortunately, every time I go for another round, the options seem to have gotten way worse than the previous round!

To put everything in context, here is my list of (seemingly impossible to satisfy in the current market) requirements:

  a) I want something with an "executive chair" type high-back form factor with sufficient base + back padding 

     (i.e. It should be suitable for someone about 6 foot 1-2'' tall to comfortably sit/slump on it for hours (i.e. no sore back or butt, and head able to easily reach the headrest without having to lean/snap backwards to do so), and also allow me to easily + freely sleep / recline on it via the "butterfly tilt" mechanism - where the whole L-shaped seat tilts back instead of just the back)

  b) It should NOT be made out of fucking "PU Leather" (as I'd have the same problem again in 2-3 years, with yet more bulky trash to find a way to dispose of, along with having to deal with all the flaky mess in the meantime)

    TBH, I don't care now whether it's real leather or fabric. But this fake plasticy leather alternative is definitely out (and I strongly urge you to avoid these too for ANY products you may be considering getting)

  c) Needs to have a gas cylinder that would put the seat at at-least 50cm (and would have weight rating to sustain that, to not degrade over time). 

     It seems that pretty much all newer seats are NOT being made with suitable ones  (either they are too low - i.e. usual situation;  OR  they are don't have their weigh capacity I'd like to have a safety margin on it failing and repeatedly sinking below a usable height)

     Also, I'll get onto this later, but WHY is it that they don't make recliner chairs that sit MUCH higher off the ground?!   (It is a serious mystery why so much of the world is built + designed for mystical MIDGETS! Gah!)

  d) I want *long* padded armrests at decent/adjustable height + a headrest (suitably positioned high up and forward-facing) that I can easily reach it when leaning back for a nap

  e) Does not give me back pain after sitting on it - either just a < 5 minutes trial, or after sitting on it doing work for a ~10 minutes

  f)  It should be built to last (i.e. should be able to take daily punishment for >= 10 years) vs failing in 2 years

  g) For bonus points, it should come fully assembled (vs trying to mate bottom-back cushions and arm rests together... ugh! The last three I've build were physically-taxing *hell* on that front)

 

At least in my corner of the world, a chair matching ALL of these requirements does NOT exist on the market today. I know, as I've gone through the various shops trying all the ones they have on offer.  (There were a few others seemingly matching a good subset of these that I've been interested in trying, but no one *ever* seems to have them on display - in a few cases, they actually left the showrooms like the day before I got there)

Getting Old and Realising that Some Projects *Do* Fall into the "Too Hard" Basket...

Every time I see the mass of multicolored cable bundles behind the dashboards of cars and planes, and also the trouble that folks go to to not only access those areas to begin with (i.e. pretzel sausage origami, plus effectively dismantling the whole interior - stripping away panels / etc.), but to then make tweaks +  fixes (i.e. tracing what each cable does and where it goes, etc.), I'm glad I decided to stay away from DIY-ing any stuff like that OR working in fields that do it.

 

The SWE part of me wonders why they don't just like simplify everything to like aggregate all the cables into bigger feeder boxes for each subsystem that then only export a single cable that goes to a central thing that delegates throughout the rest of the systems... then you'd maybe only have ~5 (?) fat cables to deal with?

Then again, if they did that, that removes a lot of the redundancy and systems isolation (i.e. single direct circuits!) we kindof expect safety critical systems to have 😬

 

On Outsourcing, Delegation, Code Review + Mentoring of Juniors, and Alternative Paths Not Taken

This started as a series of response to a thread discussing Boeing's disasterous decision to outsource the coding of their firmware "to the lowest bidder", with the thread starter originally claiming that "you still have to spec and test" the outputs of those outsourced workers. In general I agree that, the senior folk who were responsible for writing the specs that the code followed (AND most likely should also be responsible for testing/verifying that the obtained results were fit for integration into the codebase)  *SHOULD* bear some responsibility for ensuring that the work done is up to required standards. However, I'd also like to point out that in many ways, this way of working is in many ways much harder for everyone involved, so the blame-torch shouldn't be aimed at these folks dropping the ball (save for complete systemic dereliction of duty). My own mini-thread of response follow (inlined together + tweaked to follow read a bit better).

2024 Recap

Happy New Year!  Time for a brief recap of 2024 I guess.

Main Highlights

* Trips to Mt Cook, Sydney, and Wellington

* First full year at work supporting the important operational system we're responsible for (and getting it stable / fixing all the major-ish quirks that popped up after it launched in late October 2023)

* Taking the plunge and getting a new camera setup (Canon R5 - Mirrorless) after years of using my trusty Canon 7D

* Capturing multiple Auroras, after years of trying unsuccessfully

* Starting a mini collection of my favourite aircraft as detailed diecast models at 1:200 scale (i.e. Emirates A380 + Cathay Pacific 747 in old "green-white-stripe" livery)

* Finally getting a heatpump for my main home-office  (hot room days be gone!)

* Hosting visitors a few days ago + reconnecting with a bunch of old friends

* Returning to actively posting longer-form posts on here (after a few years away mostly posting on Twitter) 

   * I'm still trying to figure out some plans for migrating off this platform onto a more stable / sustainable solution under my own control...

 

Firsts

* Spending time actually exploring the Mt Cook national park  

* First overseas trip post-COVID 

   * And, actually, having this happen after actually contracting COVID for the first time - probably at a local healthcare facility

* Flying in Premium Economy - especially on an A380 flying out of my home airport - that I paid for myself.

* Visiting the Blue Mountains + various other Sydney locations

* Seeing + Photographing an Aurora for myself... and from my back yard at that!  Then getting to do so again multiple times again during the year!

* Capturing a kookaburra + pelicans + "garbage bird" in Sydney