Weekly Notes 22/2026

What's been happening

It's been a very wet and rainy week. My swimming classes have been going pretty okay. I'm still struggling to sustain my swim beyond three strokes - after two or three strokes, I end up folding my knee a bit, and that pushes my head over the water and then I lose momentum. I haven't been able to improve on this. It's been supremely frustrating, but I guess I have to keep at it.

Jo has been sick on and off through the week - on Tuesday she was sick enough that she didn't go to work or come into the gym. She's feeling better now but not quite a 100% - especially mornings have been rough and she's not been sleeping well. Hopefully, she will get better.

Because of her sickness, Jo couldn't join in for Tuesday's PT but she did join on Wednesday (and promptly regretted that after the workout).

The work's been pretty okay. I focused on getting my performance test built out and was fixing some bugs that I discovered that was causing the performance test to exit out earlier than expected.

On Friday, I was working from home and Jo had to go into the city since she had some tests that were scheduled. After about two weeks of cloudy, rainy weather, the sun also came out. By evening, the backyard lawn, which had overgrown quite a bit, had also dried up completely so I decided to get the whipper snipper and the lawn mower out and got the backyard all nice and clean.

Overgrown lawn, and how the backyard looks like now after the mow.

On Saturday, Amrita & Sathya invited us over to their house for lunch and we went over. It was good to catch up after a few months. They'd been to New Zealand recently and I was keen to hear about how the experience was - particularly since they did a road trip from Queenstown up North. And of course - some yummy food was had.

Lovely views from Amrita & Sathya's house

Saturday night was probably the coldest we'd felt yet and Jo woke up again with a blocked nose. The cold has been particularly painful with the sheets which makes it even colder than it is, so we decided to head over to Rouse Hill shopping centre and have brunch and then do some follow-up shopping and got some flannel fitted sheets and a nice warm blanket. While returning, Jo went over to the market and got some fruits while I had a long overdue haircut - not particularly a good one at that. Ah well, it will grow back soon.

After we returned home, I told Jo we should do the front yard (meaning just mow the front yard lawn and trim the sides) and somehow she interpreted this as doing our side strip makeover, which had been pending for a while. Thus, we spent a few hours trimming the lawn on the side with the whipper snipper (can't use the mower here as we have some plants growing). Once the lawn was trimmed, Jo put cardboard on it, watered it to set it down. Jo then layered it with some soil, compost, and weed block mulch to stop grass from growing. It looks a lot neater now.

What I've been playing

Civilization VII - With the new update out this past week, I have been playing it for a bit and wrote a post about it.

What I watched

30 Rock - I started watching 30 Rock during my morning commute and was reminded how good it is.

What we ate

Moss Bros Cafe, Rouse Hill - We stopped by here for brunch. I ordered the Chilli Chorizo Croissant while Jo ordered the Corn Fritters. I was pretty surprised by the portion size of my croissant - it was a lot bigger than I thought. Thankfully it wasn't just the size that was good - the food was really good too. Jo said her corn fritters were ok - she didn't expect them to be deep fried. That said, the coffees were good as well.

Milana Pizzeria, Stanhope Gardens - We had been to this pizzeria a month ago and revisited this place last Thursday. And like last time, we had a great pizza. This time we ordered a half-and-half - half of Giuliano (tomato base, chicken, garlic, pineapple, BBQ sauce, cheese) and half of Tandoori. I was expecting to like the Tandoori better than Giuliano but it was the other way around.

Music of the Week

Franz Ferdinand does a live play of their song Take Me Out. Shoutout to the drummer Audrey Tait for the fabulous work on the drums.

Link of the week

AI is [...] going to revolutionize the way we work [...] Everything getting faster and easier would be an extraordinary boon to all of our lives. Can we have a day off then?

Can we have the day off?So, apparently we are at the cusp of the entire world’s white collar workforce (and, by extension, much of the US workforce) undergoing a revolution in productivity. AI is the technology that is going to revolutionize the way we work, the way we interact with the world, the way we learn, the way we socialize, and all of this. This sounds great. Really, it does. Everything getting faster and easier would be an extraordinary boon to all of our lives.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for reading and have a great week ahead.