2023-04-01 13:25:28 CET OK, I did not do an update yesterday as planned, the last day of March. I'll come back to that soon. Today it's already the 1st of April and I have to make a monthly update soon - I reckon this post will live both on the March- and as well in the April pages.
I am enjoying the coffee tremendously today, the first day of April. I can appreciate the slow start today after the busy work week behind me. I can take the time to sit and fiddle with stuff and doing some research while sipping coffee to the nice music that is playing in the background.
Yesterday, the last day of March, ended very nice. Loads of stuff happened unplanned and the things that were planned changed or turned out differently. Very unpredicable, to say the least. After an eventful workday in the office in Brussels I drove home in crazy traffic. J arrived home with girlfriend K from being in Antwerp 2 days and one exam. They had a party to go to in the evening. Everything around kept changing (I spare you the details) and in the end the boys ended up here and the girls at someone elses place but met up later in the place they needed to be for the party. During the evening J's friends kept coming, my brother in law K suddenly arrived (we missed his SMS so he almost ended up in the veranda where the boys were sitting, thinking it was one of the friends arriving). It was very nice with the spontanous chat and a glass of wine. Much later than expected we could finally enjoy our homemade pasta.
This morning we learned that the youth arrived around 3 in the morning, the oldies were already long time at sleep. Today we are all going to a family birthday party. Can be a very interesting, for sure very loud, evening. Night. Morning...
I asked ChatGPT for an April Fools' Day joke..
Sure, here's an April Fools' Day joke: Did you hear about the restaurant called Karma? There's no menu, you get what you deserve.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-04-01 13:49:56 CET Did you know that today in 1924 is the day when the Royal Canadian Air Force Read more about it on Wikipedia. is formed.
2023-03-30 09:56:39 CET The weather started out gray today, but it is now shifting to blue skies and sun. Good for our solar driven energy . I am charged by the great coffee that I am enjoying this morning.
Arificial intelligence and machine learning (deep learning, even) is something that we work with within IT on a daily basis these days. Most business applications offers functionalities within these areas; without it you're loosing out. You need to have it, especially withing the business sector. Hell, how can we trust humans these days? Scary thought. Anyway, I am subscribing to Bill Gates news letter called Gates NotesVery interesting and nice content is shared by Bill, Mr Microsoft himself.. It's great! This morning I read about his ride in an AV in London. You can see the clip here Have a look at the Youtube clip when he is riding along with an AV - autonomous vehicle..
OK, time for a conference call...
2023-03-30 13:57:45 CET So funny! What are the chances that our professor friend T. Our friend T. is being interviewed on national TV Our friend on national TV. How cool is that?! You have to scroll down abit until you find the interview, once you see "...gesprek met professor Tom Lenaerts..." you found the video clip. about.... yes you guessed it, it was about the future of AI - artificial intelligence - and how the AI development is progressing too fast.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-30 09:17:51 CET Did you know that today in 1867 Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about two cents/acre ($4.19/km2), by United States Secretary of State William H. SewardRead more about him on Wikipedia..
2023-03-28 19:45:28 CET So, today was one of THOSE days, if you know what I mean. I had to struggle with everything, it was simply a heavy working day. The ones that you just want to forget about after it's done. Not in the sense that anything went terribly wrong, just that it was a lot of heavy lifting. Feet placed up high and just acknowledge that it was one of those days, but glad that it's over and hope tomorrow is easier...
Talking about tomorrow, we have the inspector over for the heater/boiler and chimney. Remeber? Last time he was late and thought that it was only to inspect the heater/boiler. You guessed it, he/they are comming tomorrow to do the inspection.
The last couple of days have been days close as a family. The 3 of us were close and did everything together - talking, laughing, studying (indirectly of course), eating and watching Netflix etc. Very nice! Tonight he left for Antwerp and his girlfriend. Fantastic for him to have his time of course, but it's always sentimental, in the most positive kind of way of course. If that make sense?!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-28 19:35:00 CET Did you know that today in 1910 Henri FabreRead more about him on Wikipedia. becomes the first person to fly a seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion, after taking off from a water runway near in France.
2023-03-27 19:03:09 CET The workday is over and we can enjoy the evening. All three of us. J has a very difficult exame behind him, on to the next one - French. Baguette! It's a good day, we have things to celebrate. Positive health checkup results from H and my parents, J's exam done and I was informed today about a nice bonus this year. We have to celebrate big- as well as small things!
And also, and something completely different now, I discovered a very cool thing! I discovered something that really gives me satisfaction, I saw something that seemed interesting, tried it out and it's actually better than I thought. Now I have added it to my toolbox and you can find it on my bookmark page, in the Applications, Tools & Services section called ExcalidrawExcalidraw is a great, the best free online drawing diagrams tool there is...currently!. It is fantastic!
Another interesting thing is the progress of J's project. I think I mentioned it, but just as a recap, they have started to actually selling their product and activly started to marketing the product. Really interesting to follow it and, but only in the background, being a part of. I think thay have almost reached their break-even target already. They are actually making sales!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-27 19:08:06 CET Did you know that today in 1886 GeronimoRead more about him on Wikipedia., Apache warrior, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.
2023-03-26 13:08:30 CET I am especially enjoying the coffee today! Why can we not just stop the hazzle with the daylight saving time? Last night/this morning Europe turned the clocks forward 1 hour as well. To confuse just a little bit more US did it 2 weeks ago already. It's just a mess when you're trying to arange a call and have to take that into consideration. "Losing" that hour in the morning is always painful.
OK, so the day started with rain and gray skies, it's a typical stay-inside-and-try-to-stay-awake kind of a day. Hopefully, I can continue on my writing projects... Let's see what the day brings.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-26 12:54:37 CET Did you know that today in 1954 the Romeo shot of Operation CastleRead more about it on Wikipedia. is detonated at Bikini Atoll. Yield: 11 megatons.
2023-03-25 11:30:13 CET Some interesting developments happening yesterday, it all started when we received the news that J failed terribly on a test, he missed on one formula which resulted in a terrible overall result. I still have problems receiving those kind of news! Then J had a friend that stayed for a little while and then later in the night he had friends over on a little get together. So, no real time to talk.
This weekend is a study weekend for J, but he then received information that he needs to be in a shopping mall to promote their product for their business project. Of course that has to happen today - the panic is a fact, no real time for it. There will be some late study nights!
On the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have written about it earlier number of times, it is interesting how true it is that bad news rarely comes alone. It is like the saying "when it rains it pours down". Or the Swedish saying "en olycka kommer sällan ensam". I have plenty of recent examples that proves that statement...
2023-03-25 18:30:36 CET It was a long time ago, but I used my Zorin OS (based on Ubuntu) machine again. It's actually one of my absolute favorite Linux distribution for desktops and laptops. I am actually using it when writing this post.
J and H are both home since a while back. H had to go to help someone out with German (yes, she is a wiz in languages). I went and got J at the shopping mall around 15:00 o'clock. It was interesting to see him in "action" at the stand with the project group selling their product.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-25 11:30:26 CET Did you know that today in 1948 the first successful tornado forecastRead more about it on Wikipedia. predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
2023-03-24 19:05:45 CET Today was a productive day at work, but still relaxed. I could take the time to focus on the things that had to be done today. I could do it only because I decided last second to work from home, sounds maybe strange, but there was no time to get to the office.
Today is homemade burger day...and I am the grillmaster. I actually really like it, cooking the meat or doing BBQ is really something I like to do. It seems to be a family thing - my younger brother is hooked on BBQ (he is doing it year around).
Today I could also do some small 3D printing - I did a little cable tie print to test out the flexible filament. It turned out great. I could also do a bigger one after that, once I saw that the printer was OK, I started a vise protection 3D print. It was a perfect 3d print (quality and functional wise) and it fitted just perfectly on the vise that I once got from my dad.
Now I am off to the kitchen...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-24 19:16:29 CET Did you know that today it is the National Cocktail Day Read more about it here..
2023-03-23 10:24:40 CET Waking up to another gray and rainy day...at least what I thought. All of a sudden that turned around and now I am enjoying full sun with a blue sky. That is when you appreciate the nice weather even more.
Yesterday J's project site 'tStadcards.comThe site is here. It's a very good start! went live. It's not yet 100% complete but the layout, navigation and structure is done. It looks pretty damn good, if I can say it myself.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-23 10:24:22 CET Did you know that today it is the National Near Miss DayWhat that exactly is; read more here..
2023-03-21 10:16:56 CET I am able to enjoy a more relaxed morning today with a nice big cup of coffee. As it should be. I was able to focus on some admin tasks before the calls start today.
I am still struggling with getting that perfect 3D printed TPU (flexible material) bellow done. I produced one much better (by reducing the speed, adjusting temperature down to 220 and some other tweaks here and there) yesterday, but still not 100% satisfied. I have to do some more research and see what I can do more.
OK, off to the mines...
2023-03-21 19:25:56 CET OK, so out of the blue I received great news! At around 15:30 they called from the garage informing me that my car was ready to be picked up. What the ...? The wrongly received part was only going to be available earliest on the 27th of this month...but here we are. The car is done!
So that was the initial and practical view of things. Driving back in my new old car with my Spotify playlist playing, seats adjusted just perfectly to my back (more than important for a herniated back patient). But, if you think about it, it is not just about the nice superficial things, it also about what happened - the accident. It is still something that happened outside the grasp of my reality. Anyway, it is about getting back to the normality again. It is weird that something as unimportant as a different car means other habits, new adaptions and other things that influences life in the end. And now it is back to how it used to be again. But now it is charging on solar energy. Another change...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-21 10:16:42 CET Did you know that today in 1804 Code NapoléonRead more about it on Wikipedia. Interesting that it is still valid. is adopted as French civil law.
2023-03-19 18:42:14 CET OK, so that was the weekend then... really, how fast can two days go? It was just a great weekend and Friday evening we were invited for an evening at H's brother's family - my brother in law thus. It was really nice, an evening just to connect and talk. Except the talks, food and drinks were important ingrediencies of course.
3D printing; I have started a really funny 3D print job/-project. Funny is maybe a too strong word at this very moment. The print job consists of three object, one of them need to be printed in TPU - a flexible filament. A rubber like-object thus. Two of the three objects printed perfectly - an airplane and a airplane launcher. The third object is the bellow stomping thing Cool thing to print and it's in a completely new filament type for me, but at the moment it is causing a lot of issues... If you look closely, it contain holes and is not airtight. that you press to shoot the airplane away. The rubber thing that I am printing is giving me issues at the moment.
Time passes in crazy speed and we are spending a lot of time to complete the summer holiday bookings. Yesterday was the second holiday trip confirmed - we are also going to Greece. The three of us as family (we lost 2 years due to pandemic), I am looking forward to it so much! Will it be the last time that we can enjoy a family holiday in this concept?
I am enjoying an extra glass of wine, raising my glass, cheers . We are here today and now, let's enjoy and make the best of the moment we have now. One thing is for sure, one thing I can promise you with 100% certainty; the moment will never come back!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-19 18:51:37 CET Did you know that today in 1932 the Sydney Harbour BridgeRead more about it on Wikipedia. is opened.
2023-03-17 12:17:02 CET It's really nice that we reached Friday, we are already over halfway into March. Crazy! It is especially nice after the rough ending of the workday yesterday. It was already a heavy scheduled afternoon with 3 calls, 2 conflicting each other. Then in the middle of a call, goes down. It is especially painful since it is a system I am the owner of. The hell broke loose! Luckily I have a great team to work with and in 30 minutes it's back up again. But the aftermath and admin follow-up is ongoing.
I ordered some filaments - always nice to investigate and order filament - for the 3D printers . This time it is especially interesting as I have bought blue TPUI am really excited about this one from my favourite brand so far. (the 95A material hardness/flexibility type) for the first time. I also added white PLA+This is also very interesting, the PLA+ which is the "high-end" type PLA. It's stronger and prints overall better with higher specifications. I love Polymaker for their PolyTerra products - environmental friendly and a tree is planted for every sold product! to the order. It will be great to discover printing objects with flexible "rubber like" feature (like phone cases etc.).
OK let's do some follow-up...
2023-03-17 18:30:38 CET Finally end of a workday and end of a workweek. Workwise, it's been a interesting but heavy week. Now it's done and I will enjoy the weekend!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-17 12:17:08 CET Did you know that today in 1862; the first railway line Read more about it on Wikipedia. of Finland between cities of Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, called Päärata, is officially opened.
2023-03-15 21:40:56 CET Today was an ordinary but a very busy workday. Wednesday stands out because it is the day that the school systems have a half day off here. It is also applicable for H since she is working for a school but it is not applicable for J anymore. He has however been with girlfriend K the last 2 days - they did a daytrip to GhentRead more about it on Wikipedia. It's a nice town in the west of Belgium. among other things.
The last couple of days our mission have been to plan our summer holiday this year. We are trying to combine a Sweden-trip and also a trip somewhere else. I always have mixed feelings doing it; stress to get everything together as good as possible, requesting and arranging the holidays at work, seeing how expensive everything is but at the same time having the nice feeling of have something like that to look forward to. We have booked the flights - this time girlfriend K is joining us to Sweden - and we also found a nice house with Airbnb. We still have to rent a car for the time, but that will be for another day...
J arrived back home. We enjoyed the evening together around the dinner table, it is so nice when he comes back home telling us about what he's been experiencing and how the time was. I prepared the dinner, a nice Madras curryRead more about it on Wikipedia. with rice. Now time to relax in front of the TV...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-15 21:00:55 CET Did you know that today in 44 BC that the assassination of Julius CaesarRead more about it on Wikipedia. takes place on the Ides of March.
2023-03-12 19:43:19 CET It was a fantastic Sunday again, but it just flew by. Where did it go? It seems I was not there...or only partly. Not sure. Again, a lot of small things and chores here and there.
I have been working on the new website of 'tStadCards.com and it is getting really nice. Soon ready. The design and concept is done, still some content to be added.
In parallel with everything else, I picked up on Hugo and Bootstrap website development. I went into depth with the structure (and especially the templates) of Hugo. Bootstrap implementation is pretty straight forward. Templating in Hugo can be very easy if you stick to the basics, but you can basically go as complicated as you want. It's a great, great framework. The more you use it, the nicer it gets!
We are enjoying a glass of wine and soon a dinner with the 3 of us, we will enjoy the Sushi dinner that we just ordered.
2023-03-12 20:21:07 CET As a family when we are all together, we are following the TV series "The last of us""The last of us" is, I probably sound like a broken record, the best TV series/movies ever broadcasted... Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are absolutely fucking sublime!. We are busy with episode 8 and it is ABSOLUTELY fantastic. This is the first time that I can say without a doubt that it's my favorit movie/TV series of all time. If you have not seen it... well, SEE IT!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-12 19:44:21 CET Did you know that today in 1913 the future capital of Australia is officially named CanberraRead more about it on Wikipedia. I have something with Australia. Ever since we started planning to migrating to Australia when I was a kid. Those plans that my dad presented and talked about in our family sauna sessions..
2023-03-11 10:33:04 CET I could really sleep in this morning. I had it difficult to fall in sleep and later when J arrived, I woke up again. It's nicer to know that he arrived, then I fall right back in sleep.
The ending of the week was full of things to do and planned appointments. The biggest being whether my car was ready or not. Or specifically, if they received the missing part - the safety-belt tensioner. They managed to get two for the left side. I received a minor chock when they called and informed me that they will probably have it on the 27th of March. Will it be delivered by bicycle?
Then next disappointment, the chimney and heater inspection appointment. Due to the massive traffic jams last Thursday, the inspector was late but called as informed that he was on his way to check the heater. It was clear that something had gone wrong in booking as he was scheduled for a heater inspection only. Doing both would take too long and another appointment was planned for next week. Sloppiness is the new normal these days.
At least the solar panels installation and all around it is working great. So far, at least. I do not want to jinx it. I just have to be happy with the 1 of 3 ratio, 33% is not bad.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-11 10:34:08 CET Did you know that today in 1946 Rudolf HössRead more about him on Wikipedia., the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, is captured by British troops
2023-03-08 20:42:04 CET It was a very early morning today, we got an SMS late last night that the inspector (for the solar system installation) would come by between 06:45 and 07:45 in the morning. He arrived at 07:00 and we were ready for him with coffee. Was it the coffee or a good installation (or combination of both), but it was approved and he was back out in the snow again in 30 minutes.
It's interesting, every time when there is someone working with electrical installation or phone systems I think back to school when we had this work life experience program ("PRYO" or "PRAO", as it was called) and I was placed in the state owned telecommunication corporation called "Televerket" (it was state owned until 1993Read more about how "Televerket" state owned company started 1853 and transformed into private ownership in 1993.) for a couple of weeks. I thought I'd received the worst place, but I was to be very surprised. I could work together with a cool guy and come with him in the car visiting people for servicing phones or installations. Often we went to very remote places. We even went out with a boat in the archipelago to people living on islands... it was great!
Tomorrow we have another appointment, another inspector coming over. This time it's to have the heater and chimney inspected. On Friday it might be that my car is ready...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-08 20:45:44 CET Did you know that today is the International Women's DayRead more about it and about some events related to it here....
2023-03-07 11:27:16 CET Today is the 7th of March, lucky number 7. Let's see if they will contact me about my car today...
Now and then I get some emails sent through the contact form on this site of various value. One person (I do not think it's a robot due to the safety features implemented) keeps ask me about "my price". Interesting thing is that it's in a different language every time. I conclude it is someone who found out about the Google translate service.
Anyway, today a friendly soul sent me some very kind words along with a great tip (which I added on my bookmarks page). Thanks a lot my mystery friend K.
2023-03-07 21:28:44 CET By accident I came across, like you do, a great Youtube clip. It's so cool when you discover a "non-youtuber" produces fantastic materialFantastic clip about a great combination of technology. The pleasant Australian accent doesn't make it any worse ;-) of something so fenomenal as Hugo and Bootstrap 5 in one concept. I am still exploring it in detail and will certainly write more about it in the future.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-07 11:54:34 CET Did you know that today in 1900 The German liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der GrosseRead more about it on Wikipedia. becomes the first ship to send wireless signals to shore.
2023-03-06 22:28:30 CET The workweek started rather relaxed at work, it was my cold that made it somewhat of a challenge. It's not too bad, it's more of an annoyance having a flu, sleeping bad, painful joints, coughing and having to run and blow the nose constantly. I actually did another Covid test today, it's still negative, as it feels worse today than previous.
I saw an article today I was always pro Anders and the Swedish approach in fighting the Covid pandemic. It's a cool guy! (in the newspaper called Dagensnyheter) about Anders Tegnell Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist in Sweden during the Covid pandemic. He was often criticized for his unique approach on how Sweden dealt with fighting the pandemic. Now, retrospectively it is clear that he was actually right, his tactic was the most efficient and resulted in the country that had the lowest fatality number.
This week can be interesting. I mentioned that my car might be repaired (I don't put my hopes up too much), but we also have an appointment to have someone passing by to officially do the inspection of the solarpanel installation. According to Belgium legislation it has to be approved by officials - paperwork and administration at it's best. Then on Thursday we have an official coming over to check the chimney and heat installation. Another official thing that need to happen for the home insurance.
But now, it's that time of the day to zoom out...call it the day, go horizontal...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-06 22:29:10 CET Did you know that today in 1899 Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark.
2023-03-05 18:00:35 CET It was a, more or less, typical Sunday. We all stayed home today doing chores around the house and some of us are busy with schoolwork. We could enjoy a cozy breakfast, fantastic cups of coffee (no breakfast without the cup of goodness) and talks that we only have time for on these day.
It is an extremely nice family day today, a real energy boost, charging our batteries (not at all a reference to our solar panel batteries or batteries in my EV...) and connecting as family. J has done a lot of work - for different projects - for school yesterday and today.
We had friends over for dinner yesterday. It was something that was postponed since Christmas, so we were doing Christmas games and handing out Christmas gifts yesterday night.
We have planned the schedule of next week. It is absolutely necessary in a family with everyone having their own schedules and parallel lives in a busy workweek that we are all leading. Talking of which, it will be interesting if my car is done, it was promised to be repaired in the first week of March. I have really missed it and I am curious how it's going to feel getting it back, will it be the same driving it, will it feel the same...
I think that was it for this weekend in a nutshell. Another week stand infront of the door, let's see what that brings...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-05 16:55:50 CET Did you know that today in 1836 Samuel Colt Read more about him on Wikipedia. patents the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.
2023-03-03 11:54:08 CET Today I woke up feeling that I am coming down with a cold - slight cough, little bit of a sore throat and snot. Not too bad and nothing that coffee wont cure...
As you can see, I am now using the monthly archiving cycle. For the ones who pay attention to details, I have started doing some cleaning up in the archive too. I have done November included so far, but I will take my time. Obviously it has some impact on the Google indexing and search function that I am using, might take some before it's fully working again.
The last couple of days I have been monitoring the solarpanels installation. I think it is really fascinating. I was lucky of having two days of full sun and it was charging with 3.7 kW. With that rate the batteries are fully charged at around 13:30. I have been using sun energy 100% so far. Fantastic! Today however, it's another story, the sun went away on holiday, nowhere to be found. Interestingly, the solarpanels are still producing enough energy Very interesting to follow along how the solarpanels are performing, what we are consuming and the overall status. for consumption, charging of the batteries and give back to the net.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2023-03-03 12:38:58 CET Did you know that today in 1938 oil is discovered Read more about the discovery on Wikipedia. in Saudi Arabia.