This week we took delivery of the painting we recently bought (by Aussie artist Kate Nielsen) and had it hung in the living room. I caught up with multiple friends like Maria Shvedova and my old AWS Zürich colleague Ksenia Wahler. I started sewing a baby quilt top, and I sewed myself a pair of shorts in linen. I’ve also been working on an import of my entire Twitter history, more than 4300 days worth of tweets. More details on all this over on my blog… https://www.web-goddess.org

Happy birthday, Dad! I hope the day brings you roast beef sandwiches and beaver nuggets galore. 🩷

Popping in for my weekly update. This week I learned to weave and finished a floor rug for the dining room! Rodd and I made another dessert from the CWA 1965 cookbook – “Coffee Velvet” – which resulted in a FAIL for me and a winning upgrade for him. I shared about the proposed giant hostel for Chippendale, sent my feedback to the City, and blasted it out to my networks. We also started our project to walk all 80km / 50mi from Manly Beach around Sydney Harbour to Bondi. And I spent several days migrating all my Instagram photos over to my blog so I can start the process of deleting my account over there, because the tech broligarchs can SUCK IT. Details on all this over at my blog! https://www.web-goddess.org

I normally consider myself to be a YIMBY. I live in the big city for a reason, and I like amenities. I like new restaurants and bars, and new apartment buildings, and mixed use zoning. But right now I’m flabbergasted by the proposal to turn the old Telstra building on Broadway into the world’s largest backpacker hostel. The hostel would have over 1000 beds, and the DA proposal admits that it would have no car parking and likely hundreds of Uber pick-ups and drop-offs a day. The rubbish generated would be substantial, and waste management is already difficult in a mostly residential neighbourhood with narrow streets. I don’t understand why the City would approve something like this, when there is such a need for new permanent housing in the city. The only public amenity appears to be a rooftop bar. And why put a backpacker hostel here? We aren’t near a beach or anywhere backpackers would presumably like to visit. The suspicion is that it would turn into stealth student accomodation, and that calling it a hostel is a way around planning restrictions. The only people who would benefit from this hostel are the business owners, with everyone else in the neighbourhood forced to deal with an influx of transient visitors who – let’s face it – may not be the most respectful neighbours. If you also think this is a bad idea, please consider making a submission to the City of Sydney via this form. (Deadline is February 4th.)

Inspired by Eileen, Rodd and I kicked off a new project to walk all the way around Sydney Harbour – 80km / 50mi. 🥾☀️😅

Manly to Bondi Walk – Leg #1

Acquiring a new skill! This weaving business is addictive. I’m starting to regret not having enough room in my house for a floor loom… ☺️

Some fun stuff happened in the past week: I caught up with multiple friends (including my amazing old Canva buddy Auguste Levanaite along with her husband Sean and baby Lucy); I was interviewed on a tech podcast about early retirement (I’ll share when it goes live); I had a great chat with a new mentee; I sewed myself a new pair of shorts; and Rodd and I finished up our volunteering at the Sydney Festival. The final event we supported was Vigil: Gunyah at the Barangaroo Reserve. We got to hear from three amazing First Nations women talking about self-care, staying connected with community, and how you can keep fighting even when the problems you face are systemic and too big for any one person to solve. I found it really inspiring, especially after a week when tech companies are deleting the diversity sections of their websites and kowtowing to bigots and xenophobes. I’m proud to have helped out with this event and the Festival, and happy to contribute to making Australia (and the world) a more vibrant, tolerant, welcoming place.

(And yeah, I will continue to minimise my time on this website going forward. Feel free to bookmark my website https://www.web-goddess.org if you want to know what I’m up to more regularly.)

I have to know some Amazon CloudFront experts who have experience with WordPress, right? 😉 I’m having an issue with my personal site. When I set it up, I used the official AWS for WordPress plugin to create my CloudFront distribution (best practice at the time). Guess what? The plugin has since been abandoned, and I’m now having caching issues. As far as I can tell, there is/was zero official AWS guidance on migrating away from the plugin. Anybody encountered this issue before? More info over at my site…

Problems with WordPress and Amazon CloudFront

Signing out of FB and all Meta products for the next week. You can find me on my website or other social networks if you need to…

I was excited yesterday to find at a Mittagong antique shop a set of 6 placemats depicting artworks from the famous Australian artist Tom Roberts. Mr. Snook was similarly excited to find a red metal EAT napkin holder for $2 at the Vinnies. 😂❤️

We had a fantastic lunch from a Michelin-starred Thai chef (who relocated from Bangkok to Mittagong) at @pasteaustralia… and followed it up that evening with meat pies and sausage rolls on the train ride back to Sydney. 😂 #classy

Mittagong and Bowral

Another shift at the Colour Maze! Today I was in the swinging ball room, making sure that kids didn’t brain themselves too hard or strangle themselves in the nearby rope room. #sydneyfestival