Birds of Feather - Birding on New Brighton Pier in Strong Winds

This is one of my favourite photos from the other day when we headed out to New Brighton over the long weekend 

I got a whole bunch of footage I'm quite happy with, but what I loved the most from this set was all the photos I got of the seagulls being able to literally hover at a fixed point in space with their wings outstretched, due to the really strong winds out there that afternoon (which seemed to really pick up by the time we were halfway along the pier)

With this particular photo, I'd been taking photos of the gulls just hanging in the air, and then I hear + see this AirNZ jet starting to turn in for a northern approach, so i knew I just had to try and line them both up together in a frame together... somehow! 😂  

Upper Riccarton War Memorial Park

Last night, I finally got around to paying the Upper Riccarton War Memorial Park a visit. It's recently been opened on the site of the former War Memorial Library, utilising a few heritage items from the former library in its design.

What was most surreal though was standing there trying to photograph this "most Kiwi" of artworks (complete with a Buzzy Bee, Anzac Donkey, and Red Poppy), while smelling the fragrant dinner-rush exhaust from the nearby Chinese restaurants!

Crusade Against Smoking

It should probably come as no surprise to most folk that I am avowedly and firmly in the camp that is against any of the following:

* Smoking

* Vaping

* Recreational Drug Use

 

And yes, in case you're wondering: 

* I class "cannabis use" under "Recreational Drug Use" 

* I can't stand the smell + taste of alcohol either 

 

Windows 10 EOL -> Linux Migration Attempt - Part 1

With this week's official EOL of support for Windows 10, the impetus to try to look into migrating to Linux again for my personal desktop workstations has grown stronger again. Especially as I refuse to have my personal machines associated with Microsoft Accounts that will inevitably mean that various personal info gets inadvertently leaked onto OneDrive (including various sensitive files / settings / etc.), it feels like time to give this another crack, now that I'm using actual desktop workstations instead of laptops with weird hardware...

As I documented on this blog many years ago, the last time I tried switching to Linux, things didn't go so well back then. Particularly, as I was on a HP laptop that had a bunch of very-hard-to-support crap, and I was trying to dual boot it. I'm hoping though that things go smoother this time through a number of different decisions!

Tiffany Poon's Vlog on Visiting Ravel's House + Playing His Piano

 What an interesting mashup of two artists I quite like!

1) Ravel is one of my top 5 (maybe top 3 even) favourite composers. The others being Tchaikovsky and Thomas Newman.

I certainly went through a phase a few years ago of listening to his works while plugging through some rather tricky stuff at work (i.e. a "JSON diffing/patching/rebasing engine" *ahem*).

 

2) I've also loved watching Tiffany's vlogs for a long time now. Among other things, I've gained a *much* more thorough understanding + appreciation for piano music and the nuances of piano-to-piano differences + effects of playing technique. (Also, finally seeing how/why people always about spending time "practicing"... yeah, there are some things I could've done different in the past LOL).  Gotta also love the random squirrel / chipmunk sightings too!

 

3) Wow, it's very interesting seeing Ravel's house! That mix of an idiosyncratic little cottage filled with so many little interesting trinkets + art, surrounded by a nice garden with some colourful trees + water features. 

 

4) Also, it's always special getting to see talented artists getting to bring to life the instruments of historical figures. There's always something special about getting to experience a composer's music in the spaces they once inhabited, as they may have first heard them.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWvV62BAhd

Impressions of WOW 2025

As has become a bit of a family tradition in recent years, we've recently popped up to Wellington to attend the "World of Wearable Art" Awards Show (i.e. "WOW") again this year.

IIRC our first one was in 2015 (???), and again in 2016 and 2019  (with gaps in between due to busy years, with lots of other things / other big trips + travel taking place). Then COVID happened, before we finally started heading back the last few years again. So yeah... we've done this trip "a few" times now...

 

Overall Impression: This year was a massive improvement on the last few editions, re-centering the show on what made it great in the past (i.e. bringing it back to what it was like the first few times we came, pre-Covid).

Thoroughly enjoyed it, and more importantly, left creatively re-invigorated + inspired to try to do more awesome stuff again in what little free time I get.

The only real quibble I had about this year, is that I personally thought most of my personal faves were robbed / overlooked for prizes, OR even just placings (as at least in the awards presentation, they only had like a winner and a runner-up, instead of like "Top 3" as in previous years IIRC). Then again, a few of the categories had so much awesome stuff, it was hard to really pin down who *should* have won in that category, so it was tough work to be a judge I guess!   An interesting problem to have I guess!

On "Life's Greatest Pleasures" After A Period of Travel...

One of the greatest pleasures in life is having that first bath / shower after travelling - especially the first one when returning home to your own bathroom after being on the road! 😊😍

~~~

The next best one is collapsing in your own bed again, which I'm feeling is gonna happen very soon.

The "first sleep" will probably not be evading this insomniac for much longer tonight...

What may be a challenge though is staying asleep after waking up in the middle of darkness, still absolutely exhausted and buggered, but also not enough to go back to sleep for longer than a shallow almost-an-hour burst...

We shall see! The land of nod beckons!