🗓️ Weeknote 2026-W36

2026-09-07 14:46

House-sitting a mate's place at the mo, in an area close to where I grew up. Leafy suburb close to public transport, beaches and shops. As I write I can hear a siren and trucks in the distance over the top of nearby cockatoo and magpie caws. Speaking of, I'm grateful for the early morning rise as sunrise approaches, from when the birds start calling their mates and the rustle of the trees in the wind, up to the first truck heading towards the city. I'd struggle if I never experienced that quiet.

Occasionally a bush turkey appears in the backyard, or a blue-toungue lizard. I've found some therapy in removing onion weed from the garden, enjoying keeping the place maintained, mowing, edging, sweeping leaf litter. I fixed A's car's left headlight - turns out it was not a busted bulb, but it had fallen out the back of its socket. I removed a couple things to get in there and reconnect it all. That's all helped me feel a little more like I deserve the house-sit.

My back got better. As expected, after the initial delegation to the floor for 3 days, it was a quick progress for the rest of the week up to a point that there was no pain at all. That said, my muscles around it have been in protection mode, and not being used as per normal, so I'm treading careful not to put something else out.

At least I thought I was... I'll come back to that.

I decided to meet some fam down at Kiama on the south coast, opting for bus and train rides to get me there. There were weekend trackworks so I had to use the bus train-replacement-service for part way, making it a bus-train-bus-train trip. I'm still going without mobile data, so saved a PDF route plan to my phone so I knew what platforms I needed to get to. I planned for missing a service, but only had a near-miss with train 1 being delayed 3 minutes, meaning I had only 1 minute to get to my bus at the other end. Signage was good at Central station though so I got there just as they were closing the doors. Luckily I peed at the previous stop because there was no such time for that here.

No matter the transport type there's always someone slurping, chewing or muttering in the seat behind me. I enjoyed the views from the train the most. Get to see the town edges. Backs of parks, schools and industrial areas. Unmaintained rewilding. Bracken and scrub, rose briars and the odd plastic bag caught in its claws. Desire lines between suburban third places. Interesting graffiti. Peeks into backyards of junk.

Fat ebikes everywhere. Even on trains. Kids can get around far and fast these days.

At my destination, my neice was waiting with excitement at the train station. Over the couple of days I got to hang with her, spend time with Dad on father's day, and run with sis. A swim at the beach. This was where my recovery-not-so-recovery crept up on me. I put my neck out jumping into the surf. Some nerve thing that shot down my left arm. So now I'm nursing that. Movement at least helps it, so running is not affected. I just have a rotten kink in my neck and have to turn the whole body when looking around.

We went out for South African cuisine, I found another second hand bookstore (bought an Alain de Botton book (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work), and forced myself not to buy more), visited the Berry markets, found yet more books and again had to restrain myself.

I came back "home" with sis, the vehicle drive less spectacular than the bus-train-bus-train travel. Happy here again going at my own pace, which is slow. I just want my neck better now. I'm aware travelling is not the best for my body right now. I'm weighing up my return to NZ and what to do then.

On that, we are getting 30C days here in Aus, and back in NZ I saw it was just 7C the other day so I think I've nailed the timing of this trip. Hoping when I get back it will be somewhat warmer.

🛠️ Projects

Current projects keeping me busy via tree -L 1 ~/01-Projects/current/:

/home/zkbro/01-Projects/current/
├── 20251212-aus-trip-2026
├── 20260531-just-a-thought-course
├── 20260807-first-things-first-reboot-project
├── 20260807-trading-reboot-project
└── 20260826-notes-site

Not much changed there. Aus trip continues, and I've started tinkering with a new "notes" site which links to my personal notes system. Having a lot of geeky fun there.

📺 Watched

• Holy Motors (2012) *** - Saw this one on the big screen at Dendy Cinemas, Newtown (they've got some pretty rad classics showing). This French flick was an odd one. My take on it is it's about owning or not owning your identity in the world. It follows a dude being driven around to various "appointments" for the day, all of which are different characters he is seemingly acting out. Little bits between appointments shed light on what's going on, and sometimes blurs the line between "work" and reality, stressing the tension and likely the actual meaning of the film. There were moments of dark humour and violence, and so completely odd that it was well worth the watch.

• Hardware (1990) *** - Woah what a grimey one. Not much plot but it's a fairly gory one with a couple of interesting characters, and the visuals are very cyberpunk. Turns out its based off a once-off 2000 AD comic in prog 612 titled Shok!, and of which I am an owner of, so I'll have to dig it out when I'm back in NZ. Lemmy and Iggy Pop have small parts in it too.

📚 Reading

• Finished Mastery (2012) by Robert Greene - ***** - So many nuggets. It debunks the narrow thinking around what "mastery" has come to mean as butchered by self-help "gurus", and dives into what it means to live and breathe a life of actual mastery. It's not about goal-setting and sticking with it, it's about acknowledging the complex human mind and leaning into it with our own unique selves. It explores some core ways of mastery via the lives of famous "geniuses". I particularly liked learning about writer Marcel Proust, his early struggles with writing, but how eventually by leaning into his curiosities, intertwined his writing with real-life experience, building characters by finding these people and communities in real life and understanding them from the inside out, he came to build his behemoth In Search of Lost Time which became his life's work. So much so, as he was on his deathbed he re-wrote previous written scenes of deathbeds and got his assistant to update that text. This is one of those books I'll return back to frequently, absolutely positive it will spark new thoughts and understandings each time I revisit.

🏃 Activities

The runs from my current abode have been fun. I've enjoyed reconnecting with some trails out the back of the burbs I grew up in.

The terrain is rocky and sandy (lots of sandstone), and native flora can get dense, sometimes having to crouch through tunnels of scrub.

Other Sydney happenings

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