Finished reading: Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield 📚
I think this is one of those books you need to read a few times to internalise it, and this was my first pass. I’m also wondering to what degree this book applies to my ambitions: whether or not I really want to “turn pro”. Guess we’ll find out.
Just set up a reading goal in Micro.blog for 2023. I kinda like how a book only counts to your goal when you write a blog post about it. A good way to keep track of what you’ve read in public.
Anyway, let’s see if I can reach the ambitious goal of finishing 5 books this year. 🙄
Finished reading: The Song of Significance by Seth Godin 📚
An enjoyable book to read, as I expected from Seth. Will need to look out for opportunities to apply these points in practice.
TIL you can enter a photo description in Google Photos. Select a photo, click the Info icon, and a free-text “description” field is revealed. Not super sure what the description is to be used for, but I’m hoping to use it for photo captions.
Tip for anyone traveling to Australia via Dubai: do not buy a bottle of water to drink on the plane. Drink it before you board, otherwise it will get confiscated at the gate.
And yeah, this just happened to me. And yeah, I’m kinda annoyed by this. 🙁
Last day in Switzerland, and indeed Europe. Did little aside from seeing a bit of Zürich. I enjoyed my visit, but it’s good to be heading back home.
Nerding out at the Swiss Transport Museum, in Luzern. Super interesting! Can definitely recommend.
Mark one more off the bucket list: travelling through the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
Hired a car and spent my last full day in Italy exploring a bit of the wider Veneto region. Visited the town my grandparents grew up in and also went on a small bush-walk up at Cansiglio Forest. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking. The photos I took do it no justice (and I took a lot of them).
I know Venice is known for its canals, and they’re certainly something to behold, but this single rail tram-line blew me away.
Edit: it occurred to me that these “trams” are running on regular tiers, and use this rail for the return current. That means they can get away with using just one overhead wire instead of two. I guess they can also use the rail for guiding the vehicle around curves as well? Seems like a bit of a disadvantage over other trolly-bus systems with trolly polls that can move around traffic.
Venice in the morning.
Vincent’s post about Tinylytics recognising www sub-domains is a welcome one. I’ve had a domain setup for a week in Tinylytics that was recording zero hits. I thought it was because I placed the script tag in the header. But, no: I naturally forgot the “www” when registering the URL. 🤦
Dealing with the coin laundry driers suck. You buy more time by putting more money in, but the laundry points don’t make it clear that you’ve already paid for time and all you need to do is press start on the machine. I paid for drier time I didn’t want twice on this trip.
I was wondering what to do for my second day in Bologna until something told me that Florence was less than an hour away. So I decided to take a day trip.
Spent a bit of time in the small but lovely university botanical gardens in Bologna this morning. Walking around a new city, I’ve found myself being attracted to parks and gardens. A bit more serene than the hussle and bussle one finds at buildings or squares.
Breakfast in Parma. Naturally parmesan cheese is on the menu.
Helped someone set up their eSim this morning. His phone only allowed an eSim setup by scanning a QR code, so I had to take a photo of the Airalo QR code, just so he could take a photo of my photo. The process worked, but the experience was utter crap (fix your software, Samsung).
Front of the Palazzo del Governatore, in Parma, on a warm and lazy Sunday afternoon. The street was closed off for an event but most of the other streets were just as quiet.
On the shore of lake Como. Plenty of boat activity on the water today. For myself, I was happy to stay on dry land.
