No Nose Smiley :)

I wrote this in 2017 but never published it.  Not for any real reason but just because it wasn't finished and I forgot about it.  In August 2018 I'm resurrecting it and publishing it.  Just in case it helps someone.  A few weeks ago we shut down 99interns 😢 after a few years in the market and good market recognition.  I shut down oddswop a couple of years ago (well kinda shut down.  I still need to deregister the company and finalise all the tax stuff).  But I still had New Home Review which was setup relatively recently and BadgerMe which was a couple of years old.  But even those are being shut down.  The BadgerMe back end was closed out last week and New Home Review, I've advised Ciaran and other people working on things that I'm shutting it down as well.  Because... I'm going all in on one startup.  Yes ONE .  And it's not even mine.  Well it is mine but I won't be the Founder.  I'll be the co-founder. It'...

I spent about a month with minimal added sugar and wheat.  And this is what happened... I'm sure that sounds familiar.  Maybe some clickbait type headline?  I've been wanting to reduce my wheat and sugar intake a bit and do some experimentation.  But needed a good way to force or convince myself to do it.  A mind hack.  Mind Hacks I love a good mind hack.  To me it's something I setup as a quasi constraint (ie a constraint totally made up by me!) that helps me towards a goal or something I want to achieve.  It's like setting artificial deadlines.  Fasting One of my major mind hacks is fasting.  Some of you may know that I've been doing my version of 5:2 where I fast two days a week and eat normally on the other 5 days.  Usually a 5:2 diet will allow up to 500 calories on the fasting days.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays (or days starting with "t"), I fast.  This doesn't include any coffee or tea or hot chocolates even...

Somehow I stumbled on the Magic Mirror project and of course I wanted to build it.  Forget that I was in the middle of another mirror project (still not finished) but this one is now built! Here is the finished product (still a bit messy as I put a small console type table under the mirror):  The console table was added... as I needed to hide the power point from my dogs who like munching on power cables if too accessible.  Before I mounted it on the wall I had it propped up on a dining room chair...  There are plenty of resources on how to get the magic mirror tech side of things done.  The key resource is the Magic Mirror site: https://magicmirror.builders/   I've also used Google a lot and Jayen helped me a lot too on various bits and pieces.   The main thing that is different is the way I put the frame/mirror component together.  Here are the high level details (oxymoron?): 1. bought mirror tint from Ali...

I recently bought a car!  Yay me!  It's a second hand 2008 Honda Jazz VTi Manual. I bought the car via Carsales from a lovely lady based in Thornleigh.  And dragged Patrick from work along with me to test drive the car.  (Thanks Patrick... esp since we were stuck in traffic for such a long time!)  It's my first car in a long time as usually the car ends up in W's name and I don't actually enjoy driving so... it's really not my call as to what car to get.  But I was happy with my purchase.  It put me back $6200 (was listed at $6500).  I'm sure I could have probably gone down to $6000 but I don't like bargaining when it's for the sake of it. The car however didn't have things like reverse sensors or Bluetooth for hands free calling.  So I could get both of those things installed or go the whole hog and get something a bit fancy.  I had been spoiled as I was driving my mum's Mazda 2 with all the bells and whistles which had a heads up ...

Since we got back from our latest holiday/vacation I've been baking bread. I'm  not sure what caused my need to bake bread.  Certainly I have tried it in the past but for whatever reason didn't really continue.  Maybe it was because I was using a bread maker before... and maybe it's because it really isn't this hard... and I'm getting encouragement from colleagues and friends about how good the bread is.  And it's not just empty flattery.  Even I think the bread is good :) It started with me watching this video on the plane: The key words "no sugar bread" were probably the reason I watched this one rather than another one.  That and the promise (or advertising) of 8 minutes of prep time! The day we got back I was trying to stay awake so thought to bake the bread.  It was pretty amazing.  Especially for attempt one! Bread in oven on pizza stone Baked bread.  Looks and smells so good! The issue with this first one was that... ...

I've been a fan of square foot gardening for years.  Our first one was in Kellyville Ridge where we had one bed with the squares.  The concept just makes sense.  Break down the spacing based on a 1 square foot square.  In metric terms that's a 30 cm (ish!) square. This time I bought some garden beds from Bunnings and just used them.  We have finally landed on a design we like incorporating our chicken coop and the 4 garden beds. This is what we ended up with in the front yard. One of the garden beds has been in storage so looks very new!  Over time it will age.  Each square is just a tad under 1.2m.  It's actually about 1.140m on the inside.  So each square will be around 28.5cm. I just bought the equivalent of Mel's mix.  It's expensive!  But worth it as we have tried the mix before and it does work well. The mix is 1/3 each of vermiculite, peat moss and a mixed compost. I bought most of the mix from Enfield Produce ...

I'm big on tiny houses.  I suspect it's a holdover from when I was a kid and loved cubby houses and dreamt of making a usable space out of things like a car (this was when I was really really small!) or a bus or a railway carriage.  Or a shipping container. In the last 10 years or so the Tiny House movement has taken off.  And I fell in love with the tiny houses being built by Jay Shaffer and  Tumbleweed  homes.  Jay has since moved on and started  Four Lights Tiny House  homes.  I've spent many hours looking at the houses, floor plans and investigating what is required to do something similar in Australia and the rules and regulations for building a tiny house.  But it's been a bit of a dreaming only. So when I saw there was a crowdfunding campaign for a flat packed tiny house in Australia I was in! Greetings from a flatpacked tiny home! Articles about the home here: http://inhabitat.com/tiny-new-flat-packed-off-grid-homes...