Daily walks with Maggie

We walk.

Photo of a red/brown dog on a red leash being walked down a residential street on a sunny day.

We check our pee-mail.

Photo of a red/brown dog on a red leash sniffing the grass at the base of a tree on a residential street on a sunny day.

We ask for a treat (when we’ve walked by another dog and haven’t reacted badly to them).

Photo of a red/brown dog on a red leash on the footpath of a residential street. The dog is looking back at its human expectantly.

We take a selfie. (Optional.)

Selfie of a man walking a red/brown dog on a sunny day. The man is wearing a black printed t-shirt, black hat, and sunglasses. The dog is sniffing a patch of grass next to the man.

Lovely day in Melbourne for a walk too!

Photo of a lovely looking residential footpath on a sunny day. There are picket fences to one side of the footpath and a line of trees on the nature strip on the other side.

Saturday night roast

Why wait for Sunday when you can have a roast on Saturday night instead? :)

Photo of a hunk of roast beef lying on a large white platter on top of a dining table. Arranged around the beef are diced roast potatoes and carrots. To one side is a large jug of gravy. There is a two-person table setting around the platter.

Got a nice crust on the beef and the potatoes, too.

Close-up photo of a hunk of roast beef that is crispy on the outside. Next to the beef is a pile of diced roast potato pieces.

No more stinky neighbourhood (hopefully)

The Hobsons Bay green waste paper bag trial has kicked off!

I picked up trial bags yesterday, so from today we’ll be putting our green waste into these compostable brown bags – the smaller of which fit into a the green waste kitchen caddy.

No more stinky neighbourhood on bin day! (Hopefully.)

Photo of a stack of collapsed brown paper bags, one smaller and one larger. On top of the stacks is a flyer with the title ‘Paper bags for food waste’. Next to the bags is a counter-top kitchen caddy for green waste that has been lined with one of these paper bags.

Picnic at Donnelly Weir

Had a lovely afternoon with friends at Donnelly Weir in the Yarra Ranges yesterday.

Rebecca picked an excellent spot for a picnic, and the weather cooperated by giving us a a nice, cool day after the recent heatwave.

Group selfie of eight people in a wooded area.

Donnelly Weir has a picnic area as well – with a three-table gazebo, barbecue, and nearby toilets. It’s not too busy, either. Only one other table was occupied for part of the time we were there.

9/10 would recommend. But only because we had to drive across a shallow river to get to the car park, which not everyone and every car will be comfortable with.

Photo of a picnic area next to a weir in the middle of a forest. A weir is a small dam built across a river to control the flow of water. The picnic area consists of a wooden gazebo with picnic tables and benches, as well as a shared barbecue.

Weirs are always relaxing places to visit, and this one is no different.

You can’t get into the water here though. This spot is part of the rainfall catchment area that supplies Melbourne’s water supply (ie the water from here fills the dams that supply the city’s water).

Photo of a weir, which is a small dam built across a river to control the flow of water. The weir is located in a wooded area and has a log fence built to once side of it.

But that’s fine. You can still take lots of photos of the water :)

Photo of a weir, taken with the camera held out over the stone wall that’s been built to control the flow of water. Towards the back of the photo is is a small wooden foot bridge built across the river.

Both with…

Close-up photo of a weir wall that has water flowing over it. A long exposure effect has been applied to the photo, making the flowing water look smooth.

…and without the long exposure setting on your camera.

Close-up photo of a weir wall that has water flowing over it.

There are a couple of short trails you can wander down as well.

Selfie of a bald man, wearing glasses and a grey printed t-shirt. The man is standing on a walking trail in a wooded area.

But all you actually need to rest and recharge is to be surrounded by all the trees and birds and running water.

Selfie of a bald man, wearing glasses and a grey printed t-shirt standing in a wooded area. The man is looking down into a camera that is aimed towards the grey, overcast sky. Behind the man you can see the full length of the tall trees that surround him.

Not. Happy.

Melbourne’s recent, super-humid heatwave finally broke when several bands of thunderstorms rumbled through the city.

Maggie Does Not like thunderstorms. She ran to Nadia when the thunder started.

I responded to Nadia’s tweet with my own freaked-out-Maggie photo a short time later.

Close-up photo of a stressed looking red/brown dog underneath a desk. The dog’s ears are pulled back and its mouth is open, with tongue hanging out.

Fortunately, playing Midnight Oil’s ‘Diesel and Dust’ album rather loudly helped – with the music easily masking the ongoing thunder as the storm system rumbled along. [x]

Selfie of a man sitting on a chair in a carpeted room. Sitting on the carpet behind him – alert, but not scared – is a red/brown dog.

Heatwave afternoon napping

It is clearly too hot to sleep in the fuzzy orange dog bed today. Of course that means Maggie must sleep right behind me as I stand at my standing desk.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

High-angle selfie of a man wearing a headset and a black, printed t-shirt standing in front of a desk in a carpeted room. Close behind the man is a red dog fast asleep on its side, its nose pointing towards the man. Next to the dog is a fuzzy orange dog bed.

Annual Australia Open selfie 2022

What time is it? It’s time for me and Nadia to take our annual Australian Open tennis tournament selfie!

Selfie of a man and a woman sitting in the stands of an outdoor tennis arena. They are both wearing geeky, black, book-related t-shirts; sunglasses; N95 face masks; and blue Australian Open lanyards.

With the 50% capacity limits placed on attendees this year, we even managed to find a totally empty section of Kia Arena in which to take a slightly less pandemically themed selfie :)

Selfie of a man and a woman sitting in the stands of a large, open air tennis arena. They are both wearing geeky, black, book-related t-shirts; sunglasses; and blue Australian Open lanyards.

One more in our full “hot day at a sporting event in the post-vaccine era” regalia.

Selfie of a man and a woman in front of Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia on a sunny day. The man and woman are both wearing black t-shirts, wide-brim straw hats, sunglasses, and N95 face masks, and have blue Australian Open lanyards around their necks.

Speaking of hot days, Nadia was reunited with her happy place at the Australian Open :)

A woman wearing shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses, large hat, and an N95 face masks walks up to a large fan that is spraying a fine mist of cool water onto people walking by.

Meet Millie!

Meet Millie – our new mailbox spider!

Millie was a little startled when I checked our mailbox this afternoon, but she’ll get used to it.

Huntsman Pat from last year took our daily chats in stride – and he used to spend his time on the mailbox lid (inner flap?) itself!

Photo of an adult huntsman spider sitting at the bottom of a wooden, residential mail box.

Crappy online banking security

You’re always only one SIM-jacking event away from losing control of your bank account.

Screenshot of a smartphone text messaging app that shows four text messages. All the messages read: “Don’t share this code with anyone, including NAB. Your security code is XX for Internet Banking password reset”. That six digit numerical code designated by XX changes in each message.

It’s 2022 and still banks don’t offer time-based, one-time tokens (like when you look up a code from Google Authenticator) as your second factor when authenticating with them. It’s embarrassing.

Action, reaction

For each and every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Action: The weather was lovely so we went for an extra long walk.

Reaction:

Photo of a red dog fast asleep on a sofa. The dog’s head is resting comfortably on a brightly coloured cushion.

Rushing out to get our COVID-19 booster shot

So Nadia and I rushed out to get our COVID-19 booster shot immediately after we became eligible for it a few weeks ago.

Turns out I took the “rushing out” bit a little too literally because I drove there too fast and earned myself a speeding fine!

Given the Australian Government’s omicron omnishambles do you really blame me for zipping over there to keep myself as safe as possible? :)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Photo of a letter from Victoria Police titled ‘Infringement notice’ with a subheading that reads ‘To the operator - offence detected by a road safety camera’. The letter is addressed to Ameel Zia Khan and the photographer is holding his thumb over the recipient's mailing address.

Two trains, one level crossing

Two trains pass each other at a level crossing.

One train goes left-to-right…

Photo of a Metro Melbourne train going down the tracks at a level crossing. The photographer is standing only a short distance away from the tracks. The train is in clear focus, while the rest of the photo is artistically motion blurred.

One train goes right-to-left…

Photo of a motion-blurred, blue coloured train zipping down the tracks at a level crossing. The photographer is standing only a short distance away from the tracks.

Both photos were taken with a Pixel 6 Pro smartphone. The first photo used the ‘action pan’ camera feature, while the second used the ‘long exposure’ feature.

This stinks

It is stinking hot and humid in Newport today.

I mean that literally because food and garden waste bins in the city of Hobson’s Bay are being collected fortnightly instead of weekly. And so wide open, post-rubbish-collection bins with scrapings of rotting food in them are lying all over the place.

Photo of two large rubbish bins with their lids open standing on the side of a residential street. One bin has a red lid, the other has a green lid.

Over the last couple of years the Hobsons Bay City Council trained us to put all our food waste into our green bins via these kitchen caddies – without compostable big bags, which still aren’t allowed. Those green bins were then collected weekly.

Photo of a kitchen food waste caddy with printed instructions on the lid that tell you what is and isn’t permitted.

Now, at the height of summer, they’ve change the green bin pick-up frequency from weekly to fortnightly.

They knew this was going to be an issue so they launched a permitted compostable bag trial that we signed up for back in November last year. But they won’t send us those trial bags till February.

So now every fortnight our streets stink of rotten food. Fun times.

Photo of three rubbish bins standing and lying haphazardly on the side of a residential street on a bright sunny day. All the bins have their lids open, and one bin is on its side. At the bottom of the photo is a dog on a red leash being walked by the bins.