Lack of Posting

I don't really have a good excuse for not posting anything here for the past month and a half. I'm thinking about a juicy Perl/concurrency-related post though.

Australia Day Weekend Camping

Last weekend, for Australia Day, Cherie and I went camping up in Thornton. We weren't completely roughing it (showers/toilets/BBQ were on-site), but it was a great few days next to the Goulburn River and just reminded me how awesome camping is.

Cherie and I have camped together a few times now, so we get our camp setup pretty quickly; we both get the tent out, I peg the thing down, we both get the poles setup and erect the tent, and I finish pegging it down and setting the guy ropes while she unpacks the gear from the car. Smooth and efficient!

All our tents were setup around the camp fire. Being able to have a camp fire was great since many other places we've camped won't let you have fires anymore, especially during summer. We cooked everything from chicken wings, sausages and steaks to bacon and eggs. A whole chicken was even roasted in a pot.

Jeremy with his awesome contraption to cook food over a fire

She just wanted to roast them, not eat them

Even though there was a pool on the grounds, swimming in the river was the real treat. Even though the weather was hot, the river was ridiculously cold, but after you got over the initial shock, diving under was invigorating (and good for you). It was a lot of fun. We even taught our friends' kids how to skip a few stones, or in some cases, how to throw the biggest and heaviest stones in the water for the biggest splash.

Skipping stones

It was a great weekend! I love camping, I love summer, I love swimming and I love spending quality time with friends.

2016

Happy New Year!

Last year was a fantastic year in all facets of my life. I got engaged to my lovely girlfriend, Cherie, I competed in a bunch of strongman competitions, I learned a ton of stuff about low-level systems programming and also about massively scaling systems, I learned (and blogged) about a few handy skills to make me a generally more useful person, and I had a heap of good times with my friends and family.

This year I've got a bunch of exciting stuff to look forward to; turning 30, engagement party, competing at the Australian Arnold (pending qualifiers this month), more food, more handy skills, more blogging, more fun!

Time to get on with it!

A Night for Mates

This past Sunday night, a few of my mates organised to catch up for the first time in what felt like months. I mean, we've all seen each other for various reasons recently (playing basketball on Tuesday nights, birthday's, engagement parties, weddings, etc...), but we rarely see each other just for the hell of it. There's usually some pre-planned event going on and as such, our attention is spread a little thin on those occasions.

It wasn't anything big; just a couple of beers to try out a new pub in the area and some souvlaki's for dinner. It was just a lot of fun to sit around for a few hours and chat about what's going on with each other, and even what's going on in the world around us (terrorism, season 6 of Game of Thrones and $5 Raspberry Pi's).

Having just read the latest Art of Manliness post, How and Why to Throw a Gentleman’s Dinner, it got me thinking about why I enjoyed that night so damn much, and I think the article hit the nail on the head: these nights are a kind of therapy.

From the article:

The truth of the matter is that you have to constantly make friendship a priority. Surrounding yourself alongside men who challenge, support, mentor, and call you out on occasion is all part of our never-ending journey of manhood. If you don’t seek such counsel, don’t expect to grow.

And now a few of us have already planned to get together again after the Christmas period.

Early Mornings Again

About six years ago, when I started working full-time, I got into the habit of waking up at around 5am (along with the habit of going to sleep early), but slowly, over time, that creeped up and up until I was finally getting out of bed at 7am, which left me with just enough time to quickly put some clothes on and run out to the bus stop by 7:15am so I can go to work and still get there just barely on time at 8:30am.

I was still tired when I woke up. I was getting to sleep later. I was skipping breakfast until I got to work to buy something from a cafe. I was coming home still tired and exhausted. Add basketball and strongman training on top of that and I was a bit of a mess. And the worst part is that I was spending less time with Cherie.

Well, as of about six weeks ago, I've started waking up at 5am again, getting to work by 7:30am and leaving work just after 4pm. From there, I go past Cherie's work and we travel home together.

I go to sleep earlier, I get home earlier (which gives me more time each night to do things), I see Cherie more and, overall, I feel so so so very much better during the day than I did before.

Feels like a win to me.

"If you want to get shit done, wake up before the sun comes up." - Jim Wendler

The Year Ahead

Happy New Year! Last year was a lot of fun, with two strongman competitions and my first powerlifting meet in the books, reigniting my interest in assembly language, reverse engineering and online wargames, and a hell of a lot of food and cooking with my best friend and girlfriend, Cherie.

So what's on for the year ahead?

More strongman and powerlifting competitions! Furthering my skills in reverse engineering and assembly language! Some more basic game development for fun! Breaking into some new territory where computer security is concerned, specifically around RF hacking! Some handyman skills for home! A tiny bit more blogging than last year! And hopefully more!

I'm planning on having a productive year!

Excited About Spring and Summer

Every year, I look forward to the end of winter. No shit, right? Doesn't everybody? Well Cherie loves winter, but she seems to be the exception.

What do I get excited about?

The days get longer and daylight savings kicks in. That means when I wake up at 6am for work, the sun is already out. It means I don't need to cover myself in 5 layers of warmth for fear of freezing during the night. And if it gets hot, just having a fan turned on is good enough most of the time. It also means when I get home after work I still have an hour or two of sunlight to do stuff. Perhaps I'll get in a quick conditioning workout in the backyard with my kettlebell, or perhaps Cherie and I will eat dinner outside before it cools down.

Oh and speaking of food, in the warmer months I love lighter meals. It's a great time to grill everything; steaks, lamb chops, chicken breasts, fish (when it's cheap) and all kinds of vegetables. This is also when avocados start to taste amazing, so they're a quick addition to many meals, although the price goes up accordingly to the point of ridiculous around here, so maybe not every week. Even a fresh bowl of rice with a can of tuna thrown in with a pinch of lemon juice hits the spot.

It's a great time to be a strongman, given that a lot of our training happens outside. Training outside is hard in the wetter, colder months and spending any more than an hour training starts to suck, but once spring gets here, training is a lot more enjoyable. Even if I don't have to, I'll train outside.

It's just a great time to be outside in general! I can go for a nice walk on my lunch break rather than hang around at my desk and look stuff up on the internet (or write blog posts). My group of friends can have a BBQ together and actually sit outside together because it's still sunny and not freezing cold. I actually like Christmas time with my family and friends for the same reason (sorry USA, you can keep your White Christmas).

Yeah, I think it's safe to say I'm a summer person.

Being a Groomsman

Last Saturday, I stood alongside my cousin, Julian, at his wedding as one of his groomsmen. Now, aside from the wedding being a fantastic day, the part of the wedding I really enjoyed was being in the inner-circle; the group of people who don't just attend the ceremony and eat and dance at the reception, but spend an extended amount of bonding time together in support of the bride and groom and their families.

I feel like the best part of being a groomsman, apart from being by the groom's side during the ceremony and the reception, is about creating memories. Things like spending a few hours on the Friday afternoon at a barber getting beard trims and cut-throat shaves while enjoying complimentary beers. Or eating pizza at a bay-side restaurant while shootin' the breeze.

Or drinking coffee after coffee and chowing down on awesome food that Julian's mum, Norma, provided early on the morning of the wedding, including the best quiche I've ever eaten. Or, when getting into our suits in front of the photographers, having to re-tie our ties multiple times because only Adam and Julian knew how to actually tie a tie properly and were then forced to teach the rest of us. Or receiving another present from Julian; super-hero cufflinks for our French cuffed shirts with Dan as Superman, Adam as Spiderman, Dillon as Iron Man, myself as the Hulk and Julian, of course, as Batman, his childhood favorite superhero.

Maybe the beautiful view of Melbourne on that sunny Saturday morning while getting photos taken on the rooftop of the apartment complex before heading to the church.

Or head-bopping along like an idiot to every song on the radio while the limo drove us to the church. Or constantly asking Dan if he still had the rings in his pocket; a question we'd continue to bombard him with even long after the ceremony was over.

Or sitting in Fitzroy Gardens eating ham and cheese sandwiches that Leah, the bride, had prepared for all of us while we eyed off another wedding party whose bridesmaids also had purple dresses and were thus, our enemies. Or standing outside the reception with our bridesmaids, ready to walk the room to the bridal table, across the dance floor to the left of the wedding cake, only to realise that none of us knew what direction the dancefloor was in, or where the cake had been placed, let alone where the bridal table was.

I could go on and on (and I feel like I have), but it's the small things that made the day that much more memorable and I am grateful that I was asked to be apart of it.

Everyday Carry; A New Hobby

A few years ago I stumbled across a reddit thread in which a bunch of users detailed what they would do in the case of a zombie apocalypse. It was fascinating. Some of the detail that users went to was astonishing, and it got me thinking about how unprepared I was for any kind of disaster situation. Not that we experience a lot of natural disasters in Melbourne, let alone zombie apocalypses, but it's always good to be prepared for anything.

So, as you do when you read stuff about the impending zombie apocalypse, I went a bought a bunch of stuff; a big backpack (too big, of course), multi-tool, first-aid kit, various tools and containers etc... I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about survival tips and techniques ("I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder School, and I thank you for your support") and read more and more stuff about bug-out bags and preparedness for various situations.

Eventually I came across the everyday carry (EDC) community. The basic premise behind EDC items are things you carry with you everyday (maybe for a particular period of time) in an effort to be prepared for particular situations; camping, hiking, work, school, holidays, etc...

Of course, I already had my own EDC, although without purposely having it; phone, keys, wallet, phone charger, bottle opener, water bottle, pen, USB drive, etc... all in my pockets or backpack, which I take with me almost everywhere.

Putting the usefulness of these tools aside, there was also a kind of aesthetic beauty attached to it, whether the owner was going for a tactical look, a smart and classy look or a vintage look.

So how bad is this new obsession? Let's just say it could be worse. A lot worse.

Since February I have bought four flashlights; a Fenix E05, a Petzl Tikka 2, a Fenix LD12 and a Klarus Mi X6. Who the hell needs to buy four flashlights in the space of 5 months? And there are two more flashlights that I'm eyeing off too; the CountyComm AAA copper flashlight and a Foursevens Mini ML. I guess I'll have to wait until later in the year, or even next year, for those. A titanium flashlight would be nice aswell...

I'm just glad Australia has some laws that make it tough for me to carry knives around for no reason, otherwise there would've been a few purchases from Spyderco too.

Multi-tools. I don't even know where to start with these. I'd love to buy a Leatherman Skeletool CX, or a regular Skeletool with a non-serrated knife if it still existed, to keep in my backpack, but they're stupidly expensive in Australia! I guess I'll stick with my Leatherman Fuse and Victorinox Spartan for now. I'm carrying a Pry Bar from Tofty on my keychain at the moment, but I'd love an Atwood tool, like a Weevil, except it's stupidly hard to get these from Peter Atwood's site, due to the timezone difference and how fast his batches sell out, and they are marked up a lot if you want to buy them from a third party.

And bags. At least I can justify buying bags because I carry one every day. That's a good enough reason, right? If I get the 5.11 MOAB 10, I can carry it to work every day, and also take it overseas as carry-on luggage, since it easily fits the size limitations. That's pretty doable for $100 AUD. Or I could get a GoRuck GR1, for nearly $300... Or maybe I should just settle on a REI Flash 18 for a much lower price tag.

Or maybe I should just get out now, before all of my money disappears...

Lifting Weights Away from Home

I recently spent around 10 days house sitting with my girlfriend, Cherie, for her brother-in-law's parents. Given that I usually lift weights at home and not at a gym, I wanted to take a couple of pieces of equipment with me so I could get some work done. I wasn't looking to break any new ground or anything, but I wanted to keep myself busy and not feel like I was being lazy.

The equipment I took with me:

• 20kg kettlebell
• Adjustable dumbbell with 40kg of plates (2x10kg, 4x5kg)
• FatGripz
• Chalk

The only thing I would change is bringing more plates. Last time I tried to press a 40kg dumbbell, without FatGripz, I nearly dropped it and left a dent in my dad's car which would've resulted in me getting a boot in the ass. This time I was pressing it with relative ease.

I wanted the workouts to be very simple:

• Heavy-ish, low volume, 1-2 exercises at most. Mostly technique work with the dumbbell.
• Hard conditioning. Just to gas myself given the low volume lifting.

Next time I would add some kind of bodyweight/gymnastics training to this.

Some of the workouts I did:

• Fat dumbbell snatch 4x2 @ 30kg. Fat dumbbell clean and press 4x1 @ 40kg. 40kg bear carries 3-5 sets of 100-150m.
• Fat dumbbell clean and press 6x3 @ 30kg, 4x1 @ 40kg. Bear carries as above.
• Fat dumbbell clean and press AMRAP sets at 60, 75 and 90 seconds. Bear carries as above.
• Turkish get-up 4x4 @ 20kg. Sprint 10 lengths of 20-30m, record time, repeat for 3-5 sets, etc...

This was a good opportunity to do some technique work for some strongman movements that I want to nail and don't usually prioritise at home. I hit all the reps I wanted to hit, and walked away feeling like I got some work done, and that's all I care about.