Husband, father, marriage celebrant, photographer, technology nerd.
Gosh I hate marketing/advertising my business in 2026. It used to be that we would send money to local wedding fairs, expos, magazines, blogs, directories. Now those dollars have a terribly low ROI. W...
I can’t help but feel that this line will feature heavily in the documentary a future generation makes about this time in history: We unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with crea...
One consistent tension I’m navigating: The pull to be at the vanguard of technology (learn Claude Code, install OpenClaw, vibe code everything!) and hurriedly experiment and drop ~$50 worth of credits...
First snow of the season on Sleeping Beauty
On this flight home from Sydney I achieve Qantas Lifetime Gold status. 14,000 status credits. 14,000 status credits means thousands of weddings around the world 830 flights with Qantas or its partners...
I’ve had Mark’s email sitting in my inbox all week and I just keep on reading this. I’m posting it here so I can keep on coming back to it in the future: Hot take: AI is going to be better at helping ...
They’ve probably found weapons of mass distraction
The scariest thing I’ve realised today is that making a really good static website based on Astro makes me feel the same way as delivering an awesome wedding ceremony.
I’m offended seeing items I once used as part of my craft and art now in a museum display
C.S. Lewis on what matters most: To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor. The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking o...
Only show work you like, or you’ll end up being hired to do things you don’t like. – Victoria Pater, Designer
I’m scared
Late last night I stopped at McDonald’s drive-through for a coffee while on the way to a late-night aurora tour. The guy serving me was amazed, the 61-year-old local in the car ahead had never been to...
Random Aurora Australis sighting on Mount Wellington/kunyani tonight
If I was getting paid $10 million a year to co-host a breakfast radio show with Kyle Sandilands you could watch a really cool slow-mo video of me gathering my thoughts in the space of about 5 seconds ...
It’s cool how really high tech streaming platforms make it seem like the placement of ads is a mistake or an error as they abruptly interrupt a program instead of gracefully crossfading like the olden...
Astronomy is cool
Is Carl Lentz the King David of this era? Does some cool stuff, also screws up a lot, repents, publishes a book.
I’m “yelling at chickens to be kind to each other at 10pm” old
Is red bad?
You shouldn’t worry about criticism from someone that you would never ask advice from. – Aaron Rodgers
Brian Halligan on people: The older I get, the more I think outstanding taste in people is the only real alpha.
Please sign my petition to have the title of the Greatest Generation reassigned from people born from 1901 to 1927 to people who were in their twenties in 2009 and got to live through the release of T...
I love the green tail of the Qantas A220 VH-X4A
I love how much my kids love museums
Today I used the satellite emergency feature (which launched in Australia in 2023) on my iPhone for the first time. I was the celebrant at a wedding in Nichols Rivulet in the Huon Valley. Zero mobile ...
I have moved this blog from micro.blog to Astro hosted on Cloudflare Pages via Github and honestly I’m freaking out to try and post this status via Apple Shortcuts …
I’ve never publicly admitted it but the main reason I was sad about leaving Twitter is because Yoko Ono, President Nixon, and a guy who knew Chris Hemsworth followed me. I was the very definition of a...
List of countries where I feel like I have delivered an enthusiastic “G’Day!” and it’s been diplomatically & positively effective plus brought joy upon recipients. Listed from most effective to le...
Self-proclaimed “not a professional historian” Peter Timms begins his 2009 book, In Search of Hobart with the most captivating line: 'Too far south for spices," Abel Tasman wrote dismissively in 1642 ...
Took my Canon R5 with a 35mm plus Mike Stevens to The Hague’s Louwman Museum on Saturday and you wouldn’t believe it but I made photos. You win points if you spot the MG, the oldest surviving and firs...
People at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, finding things beautiful.
Monday’s WWDC 2025 keynote event in California delivered plenty of excitement for tech enthusiasts, but it was a particular announcement about Apple Wallet that caught my attention as a frequent flyer...
📍Sarakiniko Desert, Milos, Greece
“Have ABC or the Courier-Mail run it yet?" That was the standing order when I worked the CMS at 4BC radio. No matter how solid the tip or tweet, nothing went live until a “bigger” outlet blessed it fi...
How I create a ceremony
Here’s my big idea for the day: A music festival of one-hit wonders. No filler. No B-sides. Just back-to-back greatness. A full festival, massive stadium PA system, but every song is only the one song...
I was asking for a Mac app recommendation from Claude but now I’m a Mac developer.
An ounce of originality is worth a pound of imitation. – Orson Welles
There is only one thing worse than being imitated, and that is not being imitated. – Coco Chanel
I sat next to a young honeymooning couple from Guatemala on my flight home to Tassie tonight. They booked their entire Australia holiday based on ChatGPT planning their itinerary. I added some local u...
New blog post on my wedding celebrant website: The long and gradual cancellation of Josh Withers
The way we’re going here we’ll be on ICQ soon and I am here for it: Friendster is back.
My favourite Charles Bukowski quote is “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Mainly because when you share it, some...
Today’s another one of those weird days in the best and most beautiful, yet also so strange, wedding industry. Sometime in a few years over a beer remind me to tell you the story about the Tasmanian W...
My only experiences with electric vehicles are in renting them, and I rent quite a few as I travel. The out-of-home charging infrastructure is bad. Three stories from today: I’m staying at my mother-i...
Modern man is in a terrible predicament. He is helplessly enamoured with the beauty of what the old world built, yet despises the beliefs that inspired them to build it. – Jeremy Tate
On the same day Fuji announced invest a new camera (which I would love to own!) I discover an app that shoots in one of the Fuji’s built-in aspect ratios, made famous by Hasselblad: 65x24. The thing t...
picked up a new cool domain name for my non-personal and non-wedding blogging: thesmh.com.au
Over the past two years I have become really disillusioned with advertising and marketing agencies. I’m in a weird, niche, very unique field, so it’s possibly my fault, but on all the accounts I can r...