The Daily Update...

Mon Jul 1 2024, 2:48:31 pm CET The work-week started after the fully planned weekend that was. It was busy weekend in a laid back way, I think describes the weekend the best. Today the coffee tasted especially good. Greatness in a mug...

I just left off in the last post about meeting up with friends for the planned Escape room and dinner evening. H. and I parked the car in Antwerp and met up with friends M. and B. for a quick drink. Then we went to the Escape room which is called Kraakfabriek The Kraakfabriek in Antwerp is the best of Escape rooms so far. We did The Heist. Read more about it here. for further adventures. It was great fun, and yes, we managed to get out with the diamond in our possession.

We were invite to J's girlfriend's parent home for her birthday. She'd planned out her birthday party to the tiniest detail. We met and socialist with the family properly for the first time. We met with family members and the relatives and had a very nice time. We were back again at around 22 o'clock after the hour drive it takes.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Mon Jul 1 2024, 2:46:18 pm CET Did you know that today is International Joke Day read more about it here..

Fri Jun 28 2024, 9:02:31 pm CET Today came the crescendo of the work week, one call after the other which then culminated in one call with global participants. It went great, to be honest and was probably a real eye-opener for some of the participants. The frustrating part was more that it left no time for anything that I had planned for the day. Anyway, I took the time to have lunch (almost 30 minutes before I had a call) in the garden enjoying the nice weatherwith a nice cup of coffee.

J. had something he needed to do at the university and meet up with girlfriend K.. He was back later in the evening and his plan was to later on practice with his guitar , as he has a performance coming up soon. BUT, the new normal these days, the plans changed. He is now meeting with his friends. Before he left to meet up with his friends however, we could enjoy a great dinner together, talk and laugh, just the 3 of us.

Tomorrow we will meetup with friends M. and B. in Antwerp for a game of Escape roomand then dinner. It will be a great laugh to see them again.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Fri Jun 28 2024, 9:02:31 pm CET Did you know that today in 1880 is when Australian bushranger Ned Kelly Read more about him on Wikipedia. is captured at Glenrowan.

Wed Jun 26 2024, 8:45:30 pm CET What can we say about the day that was, the work day thus. A fairly ordinary workday, if such exists, I'd say. Team meetings, escalations and solutioning.

J. and K. left for Antwerp this evening, they have booked a very cool open-air party that's been booked for a long time in advance. It is at the very spectacular building called the port house AntwerpHave a look at this very spectacular building which champion the port of Antwerp.. The weather is perfect and Belgium is playing a football game (the European Championship is going on) tonight as well.

H. is meeting with friend W. this evening and I am home alone. Pizza evening This is where I enjoy my pizza this evening. The evening is absolutely fantastic! Doing some updates on my webpage as well...! All of a sudden it is very quiet and calm. Good for one evening...

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Wed Jun 26 2024, 8:45:57 pm CET Did you know that today in the year 4 is when Augustus adopts TiberiusRead more about him on Wikipedia..

Tue Jun 25 2024, 8:37:43 pm CET Today was one of those days that just flew by - workwise (a lot of strategic and critical planning related stuff), leisure, logistically (J. to the hairdresser, picking up K. from train station) and chores. The weather is crazy warm today. I think that these couple of days will officially be the Belgium summer of 2024.

I registered early the interest by a new AI service called Claude (created by Anthropic Check it out here.). If I remember correctly it is a French company behind it, always interesting voting for the underdog in the game, I think. I wanted to see if I can use the Claude model with Ollama, but no such luck since Claude is not opensource. I found, however, an interesting comparison The very interesting article is here... between Llama and Claude.

We have decided to celebrate the beautiful summer day today. We are in a summer holiday mood. Even-though there are still a couple of weeks until we can go full out. J and K are here and soon there will be some friends of them turning up. When? Well, no one seems to know. But OK, we will (try to) not interfere with their "plans". The friends arrived just on this very moment, they are spoiled by H. cooking and our service, that is what creating memories are all about...for us as well.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Jun 25 2024, 7:16:28 pm CET Did you know that today is the Global Beatles Day Read more about it here..

Thu Jun 20 2024, 11:00:53 pm CET The work week starts again after an absolutely fantastic weekend. It was however, in a positive way, a bit weird atmosphere. Unusual, is probably a better word to describe it.

We had our neighbour ladies over for dinner on Friday night, then Saturday we drove to Brussels to meetup with friends that we have not met in ages. It was great to catchup with them again, a really nice time in Overijse with friend J's in her new house together with friend E. and their boyfriends. Then after that we had to head back home to be in time for the next appointment - namely brother in-law's birthday party. It was a very busy Saturday, but it was a really nice day!

Yesterday I took the time to fly with my drone. It was finally great weather for it and I could also check the solar panels on the roof. Check out the drone flight here:

Now, I plan to get out and take my call during a walk.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Mon Jun 24 2024, 3:05:08 pm CET Did you know that today in 843 is when the Vikings sack the French city of Nantes Read more about it on Wikipedia..

Thu Jun 20 2024, 11:00:53 pm CET Today and yesterday were typical working days - nothing too extreme in any way but certainly not too calm either.

I have started another little 3D printing project, my tobacco pipe stand Here it is, my 3D print is progressing fine as we can follow on the Octoprint monitoring page....

J. arrived earlier today back from the city Lier Lier is a municipality in the province of Antwerp. . It's a nice city and one of his friends at school live there. J and a couple of friends went there yesterday and had a great time together after the exam period. Tonight he left with his girlfriend K to go and work at the metal festival called Graspop. I wrote earlier about it and provided a link for more details, but now it's in the news due to the extreme wet weather which is making the situation problematic - the festival terrain is basically under water and mud. Let's hope it goes well!

We are also trying to finalize some holiday plans, we are hoping to have some time to go to Sweden this year. But, for reasons unknown, it is more difficult than ever to find something available for a good price. Everything seems to be booked out... Anyway, now it's time for bed.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu Jun 20 2024, 7:35:23 pm CET Did you know that today in 1791 is when king Louis XVI Read more about him on Wikipedia., disguised as a valet, and the French royal family attempt to flee Paris during the French Revolution.

Tue Jun 18 2024, 6:33:27 pm CET Today it is cold for the season, rainy and generally a grey day. I am enjoying some leftovers for lunch and soon I will have to drive J to the tram station. He has one of his very last exams (still one to go; French tomorrow which marks the end of the exam period for this time) today.

We are home alone this evening, and we are planning a decadent dinner with meat, fries (served with a real pepper sauce) and wine. How is that saying, "when the cat's away, the mice will play". Maybe I will have a picture later...

Like I was saying earlier, the order I received The filament from Polymaker is my favorite. from 123-3D arrived yesterday and I am rather excited about it. It is always great to receive filaments; to see the colour in real life and imagine the projects that will match. But I also ordered a PEI heatbed plate for my Creality 3D printer. As you can see it is the original Creality gold plate kit. Meaning that it has the bottom part that glues stuck and then on the other side a magnetic coating on which the PEI plate rests on. This is a rather big thing on a printer having the old school glass plate.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Jun 18 2024, 12:49:58 pm CET Did you know that today in 1858 is when Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace Read more about him on Wikipedia. that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.

Mon Jun 17 2024, 7:40:39 pm CET The busy week - mentioned in the previous post - started with a couple of calls. The crazy schedule was adapted due to the Eid al-fitr Read more about it on Wikipedia. holiday. It celebrates and mark the end of a month long Ramadan. So, today the Muslims are all eating way too much...and because they are all off tomorrow with stomach issues.

Today I received the order from 123-3D - my favourite 3D supplier by far! I ordered a new 3D printing filament and a PEI heat-bed sheet for the Creality printer. In normal high standard, it was delivered fast and in supreme packing.

Tue Jun 18 2024, 12:43:49 pm CET OK, I am just posting this today, I never got the chance to upload what I wrote yesterday so here we go...

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Mon Jun 17 2024, 7:28:39 pm CET Did you know that today in 1397 is when the Kalmar Union Read more about it on Wikipedia. is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark.

Sun Jun 16 2024, 6:11:33 pm CET Another perfect Sunday, chores around the house but mainly it was to the the garden in order. My mission was getting the back-terrace tiles clean from "the slippery layer of bird evilness". Yes the terrace is located under trees - below the meeting place of all the birds in the neighbourhood it seems. "yes, come and sit down right here next to me and take a dump my friend", is what the evil birds are telling each other. I can just hear them! Their friends are sitting in another tree above my car at the front of the house...

It was a nice day with a nice result after all the work in the garden. Nice and pretty and the terrace tiles are like new. It was planned to go to a restaurant, but we decided to have a cosy dinner at home since the youths have a very busy week, starting off with exams. It continues with celebrations, meeting up with friends and then they will work at a festival called  Graspop Metal Meeting This is one of the bigger metal music festival, an old school rock event. It is not at all their kind of music, they are simply there to earn money. But I am sure it will be a nice memory/experience for them, it's a pretty spectacular music line-up..

OK, another busy weekend day that seemed to just have flew by. Kaboom, now I am sitting here on a Sunday night. Nicely tired, stiff back and ready for the bed. I am looking forward reading a nice book on my Kobo e-reader.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Sun Jun 16 2024, 6:22:19 pm CET Did you know that today is the World Refill Day Read more about it here....

Sat Jun 15 2024, 10:18:46 pm CET It was a great Saturday. We just didn't care about the strange weather - one minute is it like the rain is going to start any second and then the sun came out. Then extremely windy and then the rain did came, then back to sun again...you get the picture. We just didn't care and went out to continue getting the garden in order. We still had to finalize the hedges and clean up around the flowers and plants. I cut the lawn (everytime I use our lawnmover I am so impressed that it still work. Last time I had to clean the electric spools in the motor) and trimmed the edges and I also spent some time to improve the water pipe that goes from the water filter back into the pond.

The youths came together in the afternoon, J had to continue the studying but they joined us sporadicly in the garden now and then during their breaks. Fantastic times.

Tomorrow we will have to continue some gardenwork (hopefully I can clean the 3-chamber water filter) and then in the evening we will have an night out with the youths in Antwerp when we drop them off at the apartment there.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Sat Jun 15 2024, 9:57:49 pm CET Did you know that today in 1502 is when the Christopher Columbus Read more about him on Wikipedia. lands on the island of Martinique on his fourth voyage.

Fri Jun 14 2024, 9:47:22 pm CET Friday at last. It is finally here, not a day too early. We are all together and J. has an evening free with his friends before the study weekend comences. H. and I are also finding our selfs in a state of blis. It is such a fantastic bunch of friends that he has. Just like I had, it will be depicting his life. Trust me, I know speaking from 30 years later, it has formed you for the rest of your life...

It's been a busy work day, it seems I am writing that in every post, but today was really a busy day. It started at 07:30 and I had about 30 minutes break at 14:30 to have lunch (to eat and do some stuff around the house) and then it was right back at it. It continued until 17:00 when I had to start with the admin stuff to complete the week. Some strategic emails just had to go out. A crazy day, but there are no problem if I am doing meaningful things like today.

It doesn't mean that I have no time for the important things in life, one being 3D printing. I have designed and 3D printed my tobacco pipe This is the design and I developed in OpenSCAD today. I am happy with the result. My Savinelli pipe model 601 likes it too... stand. I made the prototype in gray but in a wooden material it will probably look more genuine. I ordered a new 3D print filament from my favorite provider, let's see if it is delivered tomorrow.

OK, now I will take some time to relax. A few glasses of wine and let's see how the night will develop...

Fri Jun 14 2024, 10:10:14 pm CET I just received the newsletter from Savinelli about the latest released models. How amazing design is that What a fantastic design, look how nice they are!???

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu Jun 13 2024, 3:15:27 pm CET Did you know that today in 1158 is when the the city of Munich  Read more about it on Wikipedia. is founded by Henry the Lion on the banks of the river Isar.

Thu Jun 13 2024, 3:47:31 pm CET A couple of busy days behind us, J with all the studying and exams which also means some logistical and coordination tasks for us, the parents. But this is something that we find being one of the perks of life and, I would even go so far to say that it is what I consider to be the meaning of life. At least it falls in that category. It has also been a rather busy time at work, mostly in a positive way with some interesting challenges.

I also took a moment yesterday to contenplate over Frank, the person who's been my boss the longest in the company. A person I knowned for 25 years and whom I consider had the role of a mentor. Frank passed away 2 years ago. Rest in peace Frank.

Yesterday was a great day when I managed to help out my father in law and H. in between calls who had taken on the project of trimming our hedge. It is a huge project and something that need coordination and takes a lot of time and effort to complete. It interesting that it was planned almost on the same day a year ago, but that was a day Without knowing, we scheduled it almost exactly a year ago.  when we also were struggling with extreme weather.

OK, now I need to get back to a scheduled call.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu Jun 13 2024, 3:15:27 pm CET Did you know that today in 1952 is when the Catalina affair Read more about it on Wikipedia. started when a Swedish Douglas DC-3 is shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.

Mon Jun 10 2024, 6:58:39 pm CET OK, an interesting day so far. The day started with calls scheduled to start at 8 in the morning and it continued the whole day until 5pm this evening. Meaning it the calls ended at 6 pm (except for a window of 30 minutes during lunch time). Without going into too many details at one point in the morning I had 4 calls at the same time... Of course you can not participate in all, then you have to prioritice. That's been the story the whole day. Not neccesary bad, just the reality.

Also, my pipe arrived today. Yes, I ordered one of my favorite pipes last friday and today it arrived. I must say that I picked a great company based in Maastricht. The tobacco pipe It is really a fantastic pipe that I have in my posesion. Purely fanstastic! is simply just fantastic!

Another huge update here, even though you hopefully did not noticeit, is the move to CloudFlare. For a short period of time this site was down for service due to the move. I have not only move this site but also included the futire solution to the new domain, but temporarylly on a suddomain level, namely new.mathiaspihl.com Here it is, the new site. Soon it will be the reality....

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Mon Jun 10 2024, 6:54:36 pm CET Did you know that today in 1523 is when Copenhagen is surrounded by the army of Frederick I of Denmark, as the city will not recognise him as the successor of Christian II of Denmark.

Sun Jun 9 2024, 12:27:24 pm CET Today we have some nice weather and it looks promising that it will stay like that today. Tomorrow the forecast doesn't look as promising. Today it is election times here (national- and EU elections) and total focus on the outcome. Let's see what that brings...

Today will be a calm day around the house doing some chores and enjoy the nice weather. The plan is to limit plans as much as possible..

I have started looking to tobacco pipes. I have always had a fascination for pipes and I have always known that one day, I will get a pipe. I have started looking up nice designs It is a fascinating hobby, great designs and interesting community. Here we can see a Savinelli model 601 rusticated. and reading up on the trends and what one needs to know. It turns out it is a whole philosophy and a very nice community around pipes and pipe smoking.

Tonight we will bring J. to Antwerp as he starts early on Monday with his exams - tomorrow he's got two! It will be a strange/hectic time for him the next coming two weeks with little time for anything else than school work and preparations. OK, that is a quick update for now.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Sun Jun 9 2024, 12:26:10 pm CET Did you know that today in 1534 is when Jacques Cartier Read more about him on Wikipedia. is the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River.

Sat Jun 8 2024, 2:29:43 pm CET Today the weather can best be described as whimsical. The sun can be shining and then all of a sudden it's grey and cold. Will it start raining or do we carry out the cushions and get the outdoor sitting area in order? I will observe the weather mostly from inside sipping coffee today, I think.

The air compressor was delivered in the week. Normally it was initially planned for 19th of June, but now I received it 14 days earlier. I am really happy with it, it's bigger than I expected, really solid and nice quality. It was delivered by UPS, it's not often used and I have a feeling that it's the best carrier company. The local post company here is BPost which is also good (often it's the same delivery person) and the worst are GLS and dpd, there are often shady people turning up in soft pants delivering parcels with zero service mindset.

J. is studying hard this whole weekend, on Monday the exams period starts.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Sat Jun 8 2024, 1:40:32 pm CET Did you know that today in 1887 is when Herman Hollerith Read more about him on Wikipedia. applies for US patent #395,781 for the 'Art of Compiling Statistics', which was his punched card calculator.

Tue Jun 4 2024, 9:50:05 pm CET Tuesday evening, but it feels like Friday evening. Maybe not Friday, but it feels like the last two days lasted forever. But not in a bad way, just very busy with a lot of different projects at work.

I also continued working on one of my own little projects, namely the new web site. Which lead into some minor changes to the design of the current web site, things like font size and font weight, the background image and some follow-up adjustments. I have actually already launched it at Cloudflare Have a look at it and take it for a test ride here, it is almost all done. but not mapped it to my URL yet. I still have to finalize the last bits so consider it still being in development stage.

We have just finished the dinner together with the youths and then cleaned up. We made - turned out great - shrimp sauce with tagliatelle. Now preparing for tea and a movie evening Read more about "The Gentlemen" on IMDB. It's a really good Guy Ritchie TV-series so far..

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Tue Jun 4 2024, 7:19:59 pm CET Did you know that today in 1970 is when Tonga Read more about it on Wikipedia. gains independence from the British Empire.

Sun Jun 2 2024, 3:14:45 pm CET All of a sudden it is Sunday. Where did the time go? I am barely ready for the weekend and it is almost over. Additionally, we are already in June. Crazy times!

We did some chores around the house today and kabooom, it is afternoon/early evening... Anyway, it's been a nice day so far. Yesterday we were invited to dinner at our friendsM. and W. and their daughter M. It was such a long time since last, but we all lead busy lives and in certain periods it is not easy finding a day that suites all of us.

J.'s still in a study period and it will be like that for some weeks more. He is doing a great job, but he's never found it easy to find inspiration to study for something that is long in the future.

Yesterday I took the time to work on my future plans for this website  I will use the experience that I have collected during the 3 years This site was born almost exactly 3 years ago, 15th of May 2021! I have had this site. I did some ongoing enhancements but this time I have some big changes in store. I will change the service provider, the underlaying technology, but I will stay true to the design and layout with only some basic changes.

I finally got around to order an air compressor. For 20 years - at least - I have always wanted one, we always had one growing up. It is really a memory from my childhood (memories like our first VCR It was a Hitachi and it looked something like this..., the first microwave Not sure what it was, but I do remember the story my dad told me about how microwave heating technology was initially invented to dry timber with., the first game console Oh, how I remember how my brothers and I played with this one. I remember the Pacman and a shooting game with airplanes and submarines. It is called the Philips Videopac G7000 in the European market. and when dad came home with his Sinclair ZX81 Oh I can even remember the box it came in. On this I developed my first program in a Basic like language......these memories are stuck in my brain and I can remember some very specific details of them). It's extremely useful and it was used a lot. Anyway, the one I ordered now finally was one with a 50l tank, on 1500w producing 10 bar. I also added some basic equipment like a 5m hose, nozzles and air pressure valve.

Sun Jun 2 2024, 8:07:51 pm CET OK, just a moment ago (irrelevant for you) I made some updates on this site. Notice the background image? For the person into detail you spot it at once. Yes, it is my fabulous 4 EUR mechanical keyboard from Temu you see in the background. So far, I am a fan of this little keyboard.

Did you know that today in ... is when ... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. Thu May 30 2024, 10:25:38 am CET Did you know that today in 1692 is when Bridget Bishop Read more about her on Wikipedia. is the first person to be tried for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged.