Mon Jan 8 2024, 4:22:51 pm CET A couple of days have passed until my last update. It's just crazy how time passes these days. Christmas and New Year celebrations passed and we are charging up for school (students and everyone employed by schools alike) start. Most of us also enjoyed some time off to recharge our batteries.
Talking about holidays, I have taken today off to arrange some stuff. I thought that I would have plenty of time and could really plan out my day to maximize the day. But all of a sudden, believing I will have enough time, it's already passed 16 o'clock...Crazy ! I am starting to panicking about lack of time.
When I was back from my holiday last week, it started all at once. Everything - work and life - started on all valves. My plans on a slow start was wishful thinking. At work; projects and plans came to life. There are discussions about travelling and planning out resources, deadlines, priorities etc. Of course this comes at a time when life is busy as well. "Murphy's law" ...to use another infamous epigram.
I have not been able to 3D print at all lately, it was way too long ago. I grabbed the bull by the horns and simply started a 5+ hours print So far so good. I do not want to jinx it, but it looks promising so far. But I am still in the early stages and a lot can happen... Can you see what it is? earlier today. It simply was a necessity.
Maybe the most exciting news I can share, is that we finally found our holiday destination for the summer. We booked our holiday to Madeira Madeira looks really nice and I have only heard good about it. I am really looking forward to spend 10 days there in July! - the flight, accommodation and a rental car - in July. We are super excited about it.
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Mon Jan 8 2024, 3:03:32 pm CET Did you know that today in 1877 is when Crazy Horse and his warriors Read more about him on Wikipedia. fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.
Tue Jan 2 2024, 7:15:59 pm CET 2023 is history and 2024 has just started. What will happen in this year? Hopefully there will be more good things on our path than bad. We can only hope. 2023 was certainly a great year, we shared a lot of nice moments and I was fortunate to do some great travels with my loved ones. We were blessed to be included and share life with our son who's transforming into a fantastic young man. It is amazing to be able to share those wonderful and important moments in life.
The last couple of days were great (but we missed our neighbour ladies) and to close 2023 with a bang, the New Year celebration was especially great! Strangely enough, it feels like it happened weeks ago, probably because of everything that happened. The first workday after such a nice time off doesn't make it any easier.
In between I took some time to do some, and I would call it doing some "relaxed research", in web development, layout and design. It is mostly oriented around Hugo, GitHub, Netlify, Cloudflare and also what is possible with service providers like Namecheap etc. I also checked out the writing platform Medium again. It's changed a little bit, but I like it. I published a little article My article about the movie "Leave the world Behind" in my place at Medium. mostly to try out all the new functionalities. You might have noticed the small updates here and there here at my website, just some small improvements discovered while I was working on the new site. It is getting closer and closer, it will be a small improvement in early 2024...
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Jan 2 2024, 2:07:28 pm CET Did you know that today in 1967 is when Ronald Reagan Read more about it on Wikipedia., past movie actor and future President of the United States, is sworn in as Governor of California.
Thu Dec 28 2023, 1:45:10 pm CET It was a completely grey day today with a lot of rain and wind. I was not even open the front door today, it was enough seeing it from the window. I stayed indoors with a big cup of coffee.
While H and J were studying I did some nice progress on researching and developing in Hugo. I also took some time to write and explore that area further. I discovered something strange in the iA Writer tool, but I will leave it for now. Not sure if it is a real problem.
At least I made my Casio wrist watch Check this out at the home page of Casio. It is such a cool retro watch, the AE-1200WHD-1AV! I actually got the idea from a Youtuber who praised it as one of the best buys of 2023... operational - adjusting the wrist band and setting up the default time and world time zones. It is such a cool retro watch! Brings me right back to my childhood time (when the friend of my older brother's dad went to Japan and got THE coolest watch)... Coolness!
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Fri Dec 29 2023, 7:04:21 pm CET Did you know that today in 2003 is when the last known speaker of Akkala Sami Read more about it on Wikipedia. dies, rendering the language extinct.
Thu Dec 28 2023, 1:45:10 pm CET And all of a sudden the Christmas of 2023 is over. Weeks - maybe even months with all the coordination, gifts and planning - in preparation and now all of a sudden it is over. It was a wonderful time, I would go so far to say that it's definitely one of the best Christmas celebrations ever . I think back and remember the great time in Monschau with J and K, the intimate evening out with H in Gå Nord and all the Christmas dinners/parties with friends and family. Fantastic!
Now I am looking forward to the second phase of the Christmas/New Year holiday, the celebrating New Year. As late as today we finalized the plans for our celebration. Hopefully, it will stay like that.
Today is dedicated to help J with his academic English Paper and an English presentation that he needs to work at for his exams. He has chosen a very interesting topic about Richard Branson.
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu Dec 28 2023, 12:37:25 pm CET Did you know that today in 1836 is when South Australia Read more about it on Wikipedia. and Adelaide are founded.
Fri Dec 22 2023, 1:25:17 pm CET Today is it another grey and windy day. Not that rainy and windy (it was almost storm yesterday. Hopefully are the solar panels In October there was another storm over us and I had to check it out with my drone. OK on the roof...) as yesterday, but the rain is on the verge of starting any minute it feels like.
Yesterday was our nylon wedding - we celebrated our wedding day for the 21st time. We had a very cosy time The fantastic atmosphere at Gå Nord in Antwerp! at the restaurant Gå Nord Read more about it on their website. I strongly recommend this restaurant! Thanks to ladies M. and D. ;-). It is one of our absolute favourite restaurant where the service is still taken seriously and you can enjoy an unpretentious friendly atmosphere with the personnel. Yet again, they delivered and we enjoyed it to the fully!
For the rest I am enjoying my Christmas holiday trying not to look at any job mails...so far I am proud of myself! I did some writing (but not as much as I hoped for), I had an interesting meeting with friend M. about a potential "future personal project" - I'll see how it goes. And of course, what comes with the season, both of us are doing Christmas preparations on different levels. Waku, minimal React framework..
On a technical level I did some reading up on 3D printing (input shaping in the firmware from Prusa is getting more mature), internet development (one interesting article was about Waku, the minimal React framework...). My son J. is also writing a paper as an English assignment and that got me reading up on how to write academic papers and the tools and systems available. Very interesting! I also want to finalize the next version of this website - my Hugo solution. It would be great if I could launch that.
Well, I think that is what I have time with for now.
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Fri Dec 22 2023, 1:28:47 pm CET Did you know that today in 1971 is when the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders Read more about it on Wikipedia. is founded by Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists in Paris, France.
Thu Dec 14 2023, 7:18:50 pm CET Today is my last day before the Christmas and New Year celebrations. As always before a holiday begins, there are a lot of stuff that needs to happen before I can logout and turn off my work laptop.
I have not update the last 4 days, the weekend included. To my defence, we travelled to Monschau (in Germany) for some Christmas atmosphere - we visited the Christmas market.
Tue Dec 19 2023, 11:00:52 pm CET We are just back from a very nice dinner with friends M., B. and B. at the restaurant Tine's Stoof. We visited it just about 13 months ago The post I made about 13 months ago... with the same group of friends.
OK, we are just back and after a very hectic day it will be great to zoom out and go to bed!
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Dec 19 2023, 1:53:39 pm CET Did you know that today in 1924 is when the last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Read more about it on Wikipedia. is sold in London, England.
Thu Dec 14 2023, 7:18:50 pm CET Today was an eventful day and of course everything happened in one day, like it was squeezed in purposely in one one day. All the calls today - privately and professionally, changing of the winter tyres in Brussels, some orders were planned to be delivered and J needed to be in Antwerp... all for today.
...but yesterday was a special day, we had a fantastic night out at a restaurant with our neighbour ladies on a Wednesday. Great to have an enjoyable time being able to listen laugh and share everything amongst dearest friends. As a bonus, the food at the restaurant was great. I had a "game stew" with a baked pear and a Westmalle trappist beer. Pure enjoyment!
The day of Lucia Read more about what it, this magical day, is all about on Wikipedia. that was yesterday ended thus amazingly! I did not celebrated it traditionally, but it was certainly not anything less with how it turned out. Sure, I miss how I used to celebrate it and sure it will always be sentimentally attached to my childhood (which is the theme lately). But it is certainly not a bad thing, it is only a proof that I had a wonderful childhood.
As mentioned, the winter tyres were fitted today. Luckily, I was able to change the planned appointment on 27th of December to today, two days before our trip to Monschau Read more about Monschau where we will hopefully enjoy a cosy and charming town in full Christmas atmosphere... and the Christmas market there together with the youth. The plans turned out great! Now I will continue the evening together with my love...
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu Dec 14 2023, 7:14:45 pm CET Did you know that today in 1911 is when Roald Amundsen's Read more about him on Wikipedia! team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.
Tue Dec 12 2023, 3:51:13 pm CET Today is a day when I can focus on work with limited interruptions. I am seriously considering blocking one day in the week to have these "focus days". It is very productive. Ploughing through emails and focusing on deliverables and sipping coffee. Talking about coffee by the way, I have begun drinking one of the coffee types Read more about the coffee called Dallmayr Prodomo on their home page. From what I can see, it comes from Germany. I ordered This is the order I placed to try out how it works. Until now, I am very pleased with the service at Koffiemarkt.be! some time ago. I can say that I am very pleased with it.
The weekend that was, passed by with lightning speed. It was crazy, madness I say. So fast that I had issues remembering what happened. I do remember I worked a lot in the floor planner application called FloorPlannerCreator at floorplancreator.net. I tried out a couple of them until I found the right one. It's really great! I also did some work in the fantastic and well known design solution called Canva.com! The AI, or magic functions as they call it, is impressive! This online solution is a great service that I strongly recommend when doing any kind of design work.
After a challenging workday, it is especially nice zooming out and relax with the family. Tomorrow H. has her doctor's consultant appointment and J is going off to school. On Thursday I have an appointment to change to winter tires...so for now, NOTHING!
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Dec 12 2023, 3:20:42 pm CET Did you know that today in 1901 is when Guglielmo Marconi Read more about him on Wikipedia. receives the first transatlantic radio signal (the letter "S" [•••] in Morse Code), at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.
Fri Dec 8 2023, 7:55:57 am CET Again, it's been a while since I posted something here and now I thought, "why not a morning post like before", to go over some things that keeps me occupied with a nice cup of coffee. Sipping coffee while the sun raises over the horizon and see how the morning turns into day is really the core idea of this website.
Since I was alone yesterday, the plan was to do some work on the website last evening, it was the perfect opportunity to write a post, doing general updates here and there and continue developing the future website solution (I have big plans in store, but more later). But that clearly didn't happen, after chores around the house were done I had payed some bills which led me into some further "Christmas shopping research" (spent time on shopping sites like bol.com, Amazon, Banggood, 123-3d.com etc) before it was time for dinner (while watching a very nice episode from Kalle Flodin's Youtube channel) it was just too late for anything.
I mentioned Kalle Flodin Check out this episode from one of the Youtubers I am subscribed with. You will get the idea just by watching the intro... Check out this guy, it's really a nice atmosphere that he gives with very nice footage showing off a spectacular scenery located in a breath taking nature with typical Swedish picturesque setting. I can really enjoy watching him now and then.
OK, now it's time to get ready before the first call of the day. The plan is to make another post today, but we will see. I know myself...
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Fri Dec 8 2023, 8:39:20 am CET Did you know that today in 1955 is when the Flag of Europe Read more about it on Wikipedia. is adopted by Council of Europe.
Sun Dec 3 2023, 10:57:40 pm CET It's been a couple of days - from mid-week until the weekend. It's been on the edge of being too much at work for both of us, so being able to slow down and spend a couple of days together in our own pace was perfect. I took a recup-day on Friday and the master-plan was to start with the Christmas decoration (and not just decoration here and there... No, it the full-blown deal here) and prepare our garden for the season (having friends over, drinking mulled wine Read more about Glögg, Glühwein and svařené víno etc. on Wikipedia. in the nose-dripping cold with the garden heaters on). I am very happy with the result and it was satisfying working in the cold, moving things around and preparing the flowers and trees for the cold to come.
This morning we arranged a little surprise "Sinterklaas" breakfast Read more about this important especially day in the Benelux region. before we drove J's girlfriend K. to work.
Now we are all having a little bit of a Sunday-blues at the moment, as you have after cosy times. Like every year, I am downloading every "Julkalendern" episodes (from 1st of December we have 24 episodes to look forward to). We did not yet start watching it, but soon we will. Like every year, it is a tradition, together with tuning into the "Julkanalen" radio station (dedicated only to Christmas music) to get that Christmas spirit flowing.
In addition we had time for other chores around the house, the weekly call with my parents and we could also spend some quality time with the youth. The highlight for me was finding a great Christmas gift ever for my which is so satisfying. I find that being the best with Christmas, finding the best gifts. Fantastic.
OK, that will be it for this time. I need to head for the bed...
Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Sun Dec 3 2023, 6:24:14 pm CET Did you know that today is the international 3D Printing Day Read more about this IMPORTANT day here. Something Chuck Hull started one day in the early 80's...
