October Review

 Nearly forgot this month.

One quick topic for the miscellaneous section, there was about one day of excitement when negative gearing was back in the news, then it was quickly shut down again. So just the usual strategy for political parties taking no risks and doing nothing of significance.

Another month with similar running results, a collection of 18 minute parkruns. I've substituted some midweek 10 kilometre sessions with 9 x 1 kilometre intervals - so far no benefits and my legs feel a bit more banged up the next day. My one race was the 10 kilometre event at Melbourne Marathon, which had a disappointing slow start but got better towards the end and finished about 36:45. I didn't run a really good 10 kilometre race for the whole year, hopefully next year I can get back under 36 minutes at least.

A good month for shares only because all of my annual dividends came through. Overall I made close to 3% from dividends after tax, which is not bad considering some are growth companies with little or no dividends. With 30% company tax already deducted it comes out similar to a 5% bank interest savings account before tax - and which will probably start dropping soon.

In local sports I went to my first state gridiron game for the year, but the Croydon team isn't doing well this year and are currently bottom of division one.

For the to do list:

• Holidays
• One month to go, but I don't want to leave everything to the last week
• Singapore
• I got scared by a flight change email, but it was only adjusted by 30 minutes
• No visa, but arrival card can be submitted three days before departure
• Vietnam
• Visa issued, I read stories about them having mistakes but mine looks correct
• Running Holidays
• Nothing else for this year or early 2025
• Many races are already open for registration and some fill up early
• Tax Return
• Finally after paying quarterly in advance for years I got some of that money back this time
• USA visa lottery
• Registered again, but they might cancel the program again like last time

Haven't got final confirmation for work shutdown for the year, but sounds like it could be three weeks. If I had more notice I might have planned something, but there's nothing I'm that interested in locally.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Music
• None
• Movies
• None
• TV
• The Office Australia season 1
• Better than feared
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Xbox One
• Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
• Still wandering around the huge map adding quests
• Not even sure what the main objectives are anymore