Women's T20 World Cup final at the MCG

This year’s ICC Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup was hosted by Australia and the final was held at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground on International Women’s Day (8 March 2020).

Nadia couldn’t make it (she had a deadline), but I was there with 86,173 other people to watch Australia and India compete for the trophy. (Australia won their fifth title.)

Crowd inside a stadium. A massive screen in the background says: “Attendance 86,174. Australian record!”. A spectator in the foreground has their arms raised as they cheer this announcement.

The MCG is such a fantastic venue for both live sport and music. I enjoy myself immensely every time I go there. (Also, yay for wide angle lenses for smartphones!)

Wide-angle view of the cricket pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from just behind the seats on the lowest level.

At this match I happened to be seated behind the hundreds of girls who danced with Katy Perry in her fantastic pre-game performance. They were a fun bunch to sit behind: not tall, not rowdy, very enthusiastic, and very dancey. Even if they do look all composed and sober during the national anthems!

A view of the cricket pitch in a stadium. Everyone is standing at their seats while the national anthems play. The seats in front of the photographer are occupied by hundreds of young girls wearing all-purple sports/dance outfits.

My favorite nearby spectators, however, were these siblings. The little girl was particularly thrilled with Australia’s batting performance, pumping her fists or raising her 4/6 boundary sing every time a batter scored a boundary. In the second innings her brother joined in on the standing-and-cheering action as well.

The section I was in was mostly full of Aussie supporters, but there were a few pockets of India fans dotted about the place as well. We also had the inevitable Indian-Aussies who’d brought both flags with them.

There are pros and cons to watching a match at the venue as opposed to on the TV at home.

One of the pros of being at the stadium is that you get to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Watching the Spidercam zipping around doing its thing, for example. And checking out the staff as they do their jobs: like these security guards (who didn’t have much to do since the crowd was so fantastic) and the crew pulling advertising decals off the ground while Katy Perry’s roadies prepare her stage in the background after the match was over.

Arguably the best thing about watching a match in a stadium, however, is that you get to participate in a Mexican wave with eighty six thousand other people :)

Lifting party 10 at Barbell Babes Brigade

Last year Nadia joined the fantastic Barbell Babes Brigade: a powerlifting training centre run for women, by women.

Not every member joins BBB to compete, of course, so every few months they organise their own ‘lifting party’. This is an event that gives all members an opportunity to come together in front of a hugely supportive audience of trainers, peers, and invited friends and family while they attempt personal-best lifts.

The assembled crowd cheers and celebrates a successful deadlift. Those are Nadia’s upraised arms in the foreground :)

This is the second lifting party that Nadia has participated in (and that I have, therefore, attended) and they’re always so much fun.

Nadia watches someone off camera attempt a deadlift. Nadia is wearing her BBB top with their ‘just strong’ tagline written in large, bold capital letters across the back.

Also, it turns out pigtails are super handy when you’re a strong badass who is lifting heavy weights in her shoulders :)

Nadia warms-up before her squat attempts.

This year Nadia managed a 75kg squat (up from 55kg last year!), 47.5kg bench press, and 65kg deadlift. Click those links (to Nadia’s Instagram account) to watch videos of her doing to those lifts.

If you’re a woman who is interesting in powerlifting and wants to be trained by (and train with) a fantastic bunch of women, I cannot recommend Barbell Babes Brigade enough.

Group photo of the participants at the March 2020 lifting party.

Miss-a-bitchy

When you’ve found the brand that reflects your outlook on life, you might as well tell the world about it :)

A silver car is parked on the side of the a residential street. There is a sticker on the left rear window with the Mitsubishi car brand logo and text that says: miss-a-bitchy.

Levels of snuggles with Maggie

Calm morning snuggles with Ameel.

A red dog leans her head on the stomach of a man lying in bed. The man has one of his hands on the dog and is scritching her.

Warm, cozy snuggles on a chilly evening with Ameel.

A red dog is snuggled up next to a man on a sofa. The man has placed a towel on the dog to keep her warm and cozy.

Nadia, when she’s feeling particularly fond of Maggie: “I will kiss her and love her and squeeze her and call her George.”

A woman and a dog are on a sofa. The woman is hugging the dog and the dog has a resigned expression on its face.

To be fair, Maggie is actually okay with Nadia hugging her all the time. It’s having a camera pointed in her face that Maggie isn’t overly fond of. Though she’s kinda used to that now too because she knows nothing bad will come from it :)

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.