The January review, a month over already.
A couple of things for the miscellaneous section.
- The fires in California were all over the news for a couple of weeks
- Lots of destruction and lots of uninsurable homes
- Journalists from around the world descend on the area just to be able to report live from the scene
- The likely upcoming interest rate cuts were another popular topic
- The media still only considers people who can't afford their mortgage and need relief
- The next round of house price increases and reduced savings aren't important
Back to normal things starting with running. Only one trip to a regional parkrun over the holiday break, since the additional midweek parkruns didn't really work for travelling. Reviewing my parkrun results for the past six months I noticed I had been stuck around 18 minutes for nearly the whole time, but I think I'm showing small signs of improvement and hope to get back under 17:50 soon. Having so many interruptions for longer distance races probably had an impact, but I'm trying to do more interval sessions at the track now - so far with no improvement.
I got a third pair of Puma Magnify Nitro 2, this time in bright orange, while the first pair is still going at about 950 kilometres. They aren't special but comfortable enough for daily running and very durable.
My first race for the year and managed to avoid all the hot days. The Rosebud Australia Day Fun Run was back again, this time the course kept on the road for longer at the start, and there wasn't extreme winds like last year either. The rest of the course is still not very fast due to being on a narrow trail with lot of tight turns and change in surface, but I continued to improve towards the end of the 10km race and never got overtaken after the first 500 metres had settled down. Around 37 minutes and top 25 was my best effort out of six attempts. I only wore some old New Balance RC Elite v2 with 300 kilometres of wear since I didn't want to use a new pair on the rough surfaces - and I had to run another 8 kilometres back the other way afterwards, so also needed something comfortable.
Also reviewing my shares history for the past few years, and it really hasn't changed a lot. The Australia top 500 has only gone up about 10% in the last 3.5 years after the worst of the covid years had passed. I was having my best month for quite a while until a big AI related technology drop at the end of the month, impacting Nvidia in particular. My super balance has done a little better, but that is a combination of growth and monthly contributions - mandatory plus a bit extra.
Since the bank savings will be dropping soon - probably several times - I may start putting a bit more money into shares again - once I've paid off many thousands of dollars in bills - annual council rates, annual car service, and quarterly tax bill pre-payment.
Only the NFL superbowl is left to play this season, and like most people I've had enough of the Kansas City Chiefs already. I only watched the weekly highlights up until now. I remember when working from home first came in I thought I'd be watching lots of NBA and NFL during the week, but that never happened.
This review is taking longer than usual, so need to hurry and up and finish, starting with the to do list.
- Blog
- 2024 running review done
- Have to do the other yearly reviews and previews
- Computer
- Portable DVD drive
- To copy data off old CDs and DVDs
- Some were so old they wouldn't read properly anymore
- Seagate HHD 5TB
- Had to buy this to replace the expensive junk Samsung SSD 2TB that just hangs in Windows Explorer with any file operation
- Holiday
- Have to make a decision on a winter holiday destination
- Europe
- Expensive non-economy flights
- Long travel distance
- Japan
- Better value
- More language challenges
- Reports of locals unhappy with over tourism - I would skip Kyoto
- USA
- Bad exchange rate
- Expensive non-economy flights
- Long distance
- Room clean out
- A holiday task that didn't see much progress
- Got a bunch of plastic containers and tried to throw out some other rubbish
- One large container is full of old basketball cards
- Running
- 7 events for 2025 now paid for
- Ballarat 10km registered
- Brisbane 10km registered + flight + hotel
- Winter holiday uncertainty has put a hold on planning races later in the year
Obviously not much happening at work with two weeks off, plus a study week. Should be ready for a Red Hat exam soon, but didn't really get started on the Java exam.
Finally that's it for this month.
- Books
- None
- Movies
- None
- Music
- None
- TV
- Celebrity Hunted UK season 6
- More unbelievable than ever
- 2 out of 10
- Squid Game season 2
- Even being a Korean show the characters were very predictable and made for television
- The majority wanting to continue in the game is the most unbelievable part
- Another six months to wait for the conclusion in season 3
- 4 out of 10
- Video Games
- Xbox One
- Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
- Spent weeks in one of the bundled DLC areas
- Finally back to the main game area now