Yu baina ve ?

That's "how are you?" in Mongolian. Hope you've had a safe Xmas period and if you're celebrating it, hope you got to spend it with friends/family receiving lots of great gifts.

Can you believe that it's been 6 months now of the Sunday Surprise newsletter?! My original plan was to see if I could have this going for 6 months and hopefully have at least 100 people who enjoyed it enough to sign up. Looks like that has been achieved with almost every email being seen by 60% of those who received it and links interesting enough that 10-20% of people go on to see what it's about.

Anyway...

A small ask (as always!). If you have a friend who you think would enjoy the this email, maybe forward it on? It helps A LOT! You can even use your own referral link:

Week in the life

It's been the end of a long slog of work and puzzle drop offs for me! I was very glad to have Xmas day off to sleep in and rest. Ironically, we hosted a dinner for a few friends who were Xmas orphans.. in the Muslim household 😂!

One of the guests brought Seedlip (another non-alcholic drink) that we made some mocktails with (thanks Hugh for suggesting it the other week and Dr Pham for bringing it!).

In about an hours time, I'll be off to the NGV Triennial to see the new exhibits. If you live in Melbourne and haven't seen the trailer, check out the NGV Triennial 2020 website. Tickets are free and it looks like a very cool exhibit!

Also, both my cats are in the apartment at the moment. It's very hard to get them in the same photo (since one of the cats is still very territorial) let alone looking in the same direction. So here's a bad photo of them both. You can also just see the wall planters I used in the background.

PxR & Kickstarter update

PxR Store

https://www.photosbyraffy.com/shop

In a mad dash pre-Xmas, I managed to get about 65% of all the puzzles delivered to those mostly near the city and the South-Eastern suburbs. I wanted to have this all done a month ago but with everything in 2020, well laid plans have been disrupted.

I'll be sending out the deliveries the next few days since I expected none of the puzzles I sent out the week before Xmas to reach anywhere quickly and I also had no business hours free to go to the post office! So they should all be out for delivery if you haven't received yours yet in the next week or 2.

Some more puzzles and calendars have sold via online PxR store. If you're after one, click on through! Currently, the 2021 Calendar comes with FREE Shipping in Australia with the code "SURPRISE".

Gadgets & things

Luminar AI

https://skylum.evyy.net/c/1311216/883641/3255

This is one I mentioned a little while ago that's finally been released. Luminar AI is a photo editing app that's been quite fun to edit with. It's like a combination of Lightroom & Photoshop, but MUCH faster to both sort and edit photos with. Great to edit all the holiday snaps!

The "AI" part of the name is due to the fact that they've taken key adjustments and rolled into into several sliders that can assess and auto adjust the image based on their AI algorithm. I have to say, to get an image to look half way decent, it's pretty awesome! What used to take me half an hour of adjusting literally takes 20 seconds. Even sky replacement (which used to take hours hence I never bothered) now takes 1 click!

There's a 30 day trial as well to try it out and use can use the code "RAFFY" for 10% off. Enjoy!

SEE ALSO

Some people keep asking about previous recommendations etc so I'm going to link a few that have come up in conversation in the last week below:

• Lyre's non-alcoholic spirits - Still waiting for my bottle to arrive, but judging by reviews, should be great!
• Floately floating planter - This is still awesome! Very much still enjoying my plants spin around weightlessly.
• Zens Wireless charging pad - My current wireless charging pad of choice. Works with iPhones and most Android devices and it's GREAT to not have to line up the charging coils!

Watch

Sydney Fireworks: 1996-2020

https://youtu.be/CjojCUZvtHI

When the fireworks were going off at the start of 2020, who knew that this was the year we were all going to experience?

This new year is going to be unlike any other in recent memory. Here in Melbourne, the fireworks have been cancelled and I'm sure many parts of the world will have a different rules about density and gathering for the festivities.

So, here's a video looking at how the fireworks and festivities have evolved over the past couple of decades in Sydney. I'll be putting this (or one of the videos) below on NYE to watch on the TV instead of being out and about!

See also:

• Dubai Fireworks 2020 - Classic fireworks show from Dubai
• North Korea 2020 Fireworks - Every wondered what it's like in Pyongyang?
• Budapest 2020 Fireworks - Or in Hungary?

Reflect

2020 Year in Review: Questions to help you reflect

https://instituteofyou.org/year-in-review-50-powerful-questions-to-reflect/

Since this is the final email from me for 2020, I thought I'd share this one which is only a list of questions to ask yourself about the year and some for next year.

Normally, I do an informal version of this anyway, but given what a year it's been, some prompts maybe necessary to see the better parts. You'll recognise one of the questions from here from the last email.

Quote I'm pondering

"You’ll never find rainbows if you’re looking down."

– Charlie Chaplin

This has been a pretty introspective email by most standards so that was a quote I read recently that I thought would be good to start next year with.

Any good ones you've heard? Let me know!

Final thoughts for the year

Sunday Surprise 2020 Feedback

https://forms.gle/8jrw1Ln4sm6KS5Hv5

You know, if the pandemic hadn't hit, you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. It's strange to think how one event can lead to another, isn't it? The initial first wave and lockdown gave me the spare time to turn my random idea at the back of my head into this little newsletter and I have to say, it's taken a lot more time and effort, but also been much more enjoyable than I would've thought.

Most of all, it's been really satisfying receiving emails or hearing in person that people look forward to the emails or notice when it arrives a bit late. The whole motivation behind this little project came from the fact that I thought I hated getting emails but realised I REALLY looked forward to those from Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi and the Barefoot Investor.

So that was the challenge: could I convince 100 people in 6 months to part with their email address and attention weekly? To make something interesting enough to browse through in the noise of the modern world?

By the numbers and the metrics I can track, it seems so, but numbers can lie and often do. So if you're reading this, all the way down at the bottom of the email, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts. Hearing from you is my favourite part of this project and I can only make it better through feedback.

Thank you for giving me the time in 2020 and the space in your inbox.

Stay safe and hope you have a great start to 2021!

- Raffy

PS- I didn't get any book recommendations from the last email! So if you have any or any good quotes let me know!

Sunday Surprise uses affiliate/referral links in the newsletter. While this does not influence the product recommendations or verdict, if there are any that are likely to lead to Photos by Raffy receiving any sort of compensation from, they will be marked in orange. Non affiliate links will appear as blue.