Today in Cats of Kingsville

Today in our continuing series: the Cats of Kingsville…

Seriously? Not only are you walking a stinky dog you’ve brought it to my doorstep?

A white cat sitting in front of a door at the top of a residential driveway looks on grumpily off screen where there is a good on the other side of the front gate.

Dog? Yeah I noticed it. Don’t care; I’m in the sun.

An orange cat lies comfortable in a sunny patch of garden just inside a house’s front gate.

Fricking dogs. Can’t even take my morning walk without one of these stinky creatures turning up.

A cat watches and waits next to cars parked on a residential street, waiting for a dog on a lead (that’s off screen) to walk past.

Footscray station architecture

I’ve always loved how, at Footscray Railway Station, designers and architects managed to meld the original red brick structures with modern metal and plastic ones so well. That contrast of straight and solid old with angular and swoopy new works so well.

Entrance at one side of a train station. There are red brick buildings in the background and a large metallic rain shelter over the ticketing turnstiles in the foreground.

Also, can I say once again how much I love Moment smartphone camera lenses? This photo wouldn’t have been possible without their 18mm wide-angle lens.

Contributing to Google Maps and Open Street Map

Turns out the 63 photos I’ve uploaded to Google Maps over the years have had over half a million total views!

Though just two of them — that Peninsula Hot Springs pizza one and the one from the helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles — have contributed to 200k of those views.

Over 500k views of my photos on Google Maps!

It’s cool of Google to keep sending update emails to their contributors that tell you how your contributions are performing and how they’re are helping other Maps users find what they're looking for. That’s gamification done well, and it certainly keeps me motivated to continue to share my local knowledge with them.

If you’re a regular user of Google Maps I recommend you sign up to be a local guide yourself. (I’m now a Level 6 local guide). What goes around comes around, as they say. And your contribution helps keep that wheel turning.

Importantly, data sets like these could do with more contributions from non-majority demographic city residents. So please review, rate, and share photos from non-mainstream places you love. That’s why, for example, I make sure to review every South Asian store and restaurant I go to in Melbourne.

And please don’t just contribute to closed, commercial data sets like Google Maps. Also contribute to open data sets like Open Street Map (where I’m also a contributor). That’s not as easy to do, I know, but the extra effort is worth it. Plus you learn a lot about map-making in the process — so that’s a win-win :)

Fuzzy caterpillar

And you thought hanging fuzzy dice from your rear view mirror was cool.

A white SUV parked on the side of the road with a colourful and long (car-width long) fuzzy caterpillar wrapped around the bull bar that’s attached to the front of the car.

Melbourne pride march 2020

Happy Pride, Melburnians! And happy 25th anniversary of the first pride march in Melbourne.

The backs of two people wearing body-length rainbow pride flags on their backs. The photo is taken in a large sports field with lots of other people in the background.

This year the Victorian bisexual community had the largest marching contingent ever!

A group of people are sitting, crouching, and standing in a large sports field. People are wearing bisexual pride flags colours are holding flags and signs that say things like ‘live and let bi’, ‘bi-fi’, and ‘not a phase’.

The weather was lovely, the crowd was great, and the march was lots of fun :)

A group of about 75 people are cheering as they post for a group photo. The group is wearing bisexual flag colours and are holding up flags and signs.

The biggest cheer of the march — and rightly so, particularly this year — went to this group, though: the Country Fire Authority.

Firefighters from the Country Fire Authority hold up large flags: one for the CFA and one rainbow pride flag.

Sadly, despite the plethora of dogs at today’s march, I only managed to photograph a few of them. So let me end with a photo of the adorable, friendly, and all-round good boy Charlie :)

A small brown poodle on a rainbow coloured lead.

Ludovico Einaudi at Sidney Myer Bowl

After a day at the Australian Open tennis, Nadia and I went to the the Sidney Myer Bowl to watch the fantastic Ludovico Einaudi on his Seven Days Walking world tour.

This is ten minutes before the performance started.

A large crowd is seated on a hill overlooking an open air stage area, the front of which is visible to the extreme left of the photo.

And here’s the man himself, along with his accompanying performers on violin and cello.

A stage showing a man playing a grand piano while two performers on the other side of the piano are playing a violin and cello.

My favourite bit of the performance, I think, was when the three musicians improvised what they were playing based on the outline of peaks of three mountain ranges in the Alps (where Einaudi was when he came up with the music for Seven Days Walking).

Three performers are stage on playing a grand piano, violin, and cello. They’re looking at a massive screen behind the stage, across which three coloured lines show the outline of mountain ranges. The musicians are each following one line and are adjusting their music based on what these overlapping coloured lines are doing as they’re drawn across the screen.

Even if you’re not into classical music you should check Einaudi out. If nothing else listen to ‘Night’, which is my favourite track from his 2015 ‘Elements’ album.

Australian Open 2020

It’s January, which means it’s time for our annual Australian Open selfie :)

Selfie of a man and a woman, both wearing sunglasses and straw hats.

This year’s Australian Open was fun. We didn’t wander around too much, but we got excellent seats at Court 3 and stayed there for most of the day. (The joys of getting there early and getting lucky with the day’s schedule of play so that most of the matches you want to watch are all being played on one court.)

A woman crouches low in front of the net on a tennis court while her partner - behind her, at the other end of the court - serves the ball.

One of the doubles matches we got to watch on this court included top-ranked Australian player Ash Barty. The queues to get in just before that match were the longest we’ve seen in a while.

Long queues outside Court 3 at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

Fortunately we’d arrived early enough to watch the match from a nice, shady spot :)

World #1 Ash Barty waits to receive a server from her opponent.

Also, we were sitting just below one of the Hawk-Eye cameras that tracks the ball during play. I only learned today that this ball tracking technology is accurate up to 3.6mm!

A camera mounted to a pole around a tennis court.

Today in macro photography: wide brimmed hats

Today in macro photography and selfies: the textures of my various wide brim hats.

Bushwalking hat

Starting with weathered polyester…

A dense, dark brown fabric weave with lighter coloured fabric threads woven in.

…which is from my Cancer Council hat. This hat is tough, water resistant, crushable, and washable. I’ve had it for years and it's super dependable.

Selfie of a man in sunglasses wearing a tough-looking, wide-brimmed hat. The man has a backpack on and is standing in front of a rock formation. He appears to be on a hike.

Gardening hat

This is rush straw…

A criss-cross weave of straw that's not tightly woven, but isn't too loose either.

…from the hat I wear when it’s sunny, but not too hot (ie when I don’t need hardcore sun protection).

Selfie of a man lying in a garden in front of a house. He is on his side, with a sleeping dog leaning on him. The man has a wide straw hat placed on the side of his head, protecting his head from the sun.

Picnic hat

A textured weave of relatively narrow straw.

This is paper straw (in a crushable braid weave)…

Selfie of a man in a large public park. There are tall trees around him and people sitting on the grass in the background having a picnic.

…from the safari hat I wear when I want sun protection and I want to look good :)

Backyard party hat

Finally, this is toquilla palm straw…

A tight criss-cross weave of high quality straw.

…from my Panama hat (made in Ecuador, which is where Panama hats originated from and all good Panama hats still come from). I wear this when I want to look proper stylish.

Selfie of a man in a residential lawn wearing sunglasses and a stylish Panama hat. He is giving a thumbs-up to the camera.

State of the watch collection 2019

I got two watches in 2019.

A Mondaine Official Swiss Railways stop2go in September – which was an awesome birthday present from Nadia (thank you!):

And a Boldr Expedition Everest that arrived earlier today (30 December 2019) – with a hat tip to T3 for bringing Boldr to my attention a few months ago:

Achievement unlocked!

The coolest thing in 2019 was that I completed this Mondaine trifecta that I’ve been trying to pull together for several years:

A Mondaine wristwatch, desk clock, and wall clock.

I adore Hans Hilfiker’s Swiss Railway clock design and, thanks to Nadia who got me that wall clock in 2018 and this wrist watch in 2019, I get to see this design all the time.

#MyWifeIsAwesome

State of the collection

So, at the end of 2019 I own seventeen timepieces: fifteen wristwatches and two clocks.

Of those fifteen watches only twelve are in rotation – which is convenient, since that’s the size of my watch box.

(The other three are older Casio quartz watches that I bought when I couldn’t afford much else. Those have since been superseded and boxed away.)

A box full of watches.

The timepieces I have might not be super expensive, but seventeen is still a big number. I am privileged that I’ve been able to afford this many items that I don’t strictly need.

I am also privileged to have friends and family who’ve bought or contributed to four of those timepieces. Thanks, folks!

A theory of watch classification

A photo of watches in a box is a standard ‘state of the collection’ fare (#SoTC). But you know me: I like to take things a step further :)

In my head I organise watches in two ways: I either group them by activity (eg watches I’ll wear to work) or I plot them along the complexity-robustness axis that I think works best to broadly classify a diverse group of watches.

Here’s what that looks like in graphical form:

State of the watch collection 2019: all watches

In case that doesn’t make sense…

As you go from left to right along the x-axis, robustness increases. That’s why my vintage 1950s Wittnauer is on the extreme left and my carbon-fibre strap G-Shock is on the extreme right.

As you go from bottom to top along the y-axis, complexity and functionality increase. That’s why time-only and time-and-date watches are along the bottom and watches with rotating bezels, chronographs, alarms, timers, and so on are along the top.

And generally speaking:

  • the watches along the left are what I’d wear if I was to dress formally,

  • the watches along the right are what I’d wear if I was doing any physical activity (everything from mowing the lawn and walking the dog to swimming and bushwalking), and

  • the watches in the middle are everyday watches, ie what I’d wear to work or on weekends – depending on style and functionality requirements.

Slicing and dicing by watch type

It’s also useful to look at a watch collection by watch type.

So, these are my dress and casual watches:

State of the watch collection: dress, casual watches

State of the watch collection: pilot, military watches

State of the watch collection: field, dive watches

2019 wrist time

The watches that got the most wrist time this year were my Stowa Flieger, Seiko Alpinist, and Mondaine stop2go. These I wore on rotation to work every day and also on weekends. On weekends I wore those or my Casio G-Shock and Techné Goshawk.

The rest of my watches I wore far less regularly.

I expect the Boldr Expedition will feature heavily on my wrist particularly in the next few months.

Where to from here?

I don’t have 20/20 vision so I have no idea which watches (if any) I’m going to get this coming year. And, now that I’ve got the Boldr Expedition, I don’t have a hole in my collection that I want to fill either.

There are still lots tool watches I’d love to get, of course – so I might get something from Seiko, Sinn, or Hamilton. I’d probably want to start with the gorgeous Hamilton Intra-Matic chrono. Or maybe I’ll get something dressier from Oris or Nomos.

I’m also hoping to afford an actual (second-hand) luxury watch in the next few years. I’d love to get something from Cartier, Grand Seiko, or Omega. Though, if I am stepping up to that tier, I might as well go all-in and get my grail watch: the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional.

Or maybe I’ll scratch that long-time space/moon watch itch with a Bulova Lunar Pilot, Fortis Cosmonaut, or Dan Henry 1962. Who knows? I guess it’ll depend on what my year-end bonus is :)

In the meantime, I have a fantastic bunch of watches and I plan to wear the hell out of them in 2020. So here’s to another fantastic year in horology!