22:25:10 CET It's really into to very last hours of May, soon it's June. It's June already, it is supposed to be summer already. I just can't believe it! Normally, the summer holidays have been planned for a LONG time already, everything is set and it's the time of looking forward to those nice plans. None of that was done! We are still trying to figure out what to do in summer...
We have been focusing on other things, it's special and exceptional times. Forget about the traditional routines, we just have to take it as it comes I guess. The new normal is to live day by day, trying to keep up with everyday life. Now and then life changing things happens and we have to be there as support...it's a matter of perspective and priority. I saw, for what ever reason? A great and fitting Youtube video clipKalle Flodin is one of my favourite Youtubers out there. Such a nice concept - check it out! by Kalle Flodin that pretty much explains it all.
I really had plans for todays post - 3D printings done today, updates about my Prusa Printer and some pictures I took the recent days. But time was not on my side and recent news just put me off from doing it. I will try not to forget about posting it later.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 23:03:47 CET Did you know... that today in 2003 Air France retires its fleet of ConcordeRead more about Concorde on Wikipedia. aircraft.
12:20:35 CET It's finally lunch after a busy start of the day. Start of a new work week.
We finally, and thanks to the great service of derbipartsshop.nl Great service at DerbiPartsShop.nl!, got the needed back wheel shock absorber We have been looking everywhere for this and finally DerbiPartsShop.nl reached out informing us that they have found one... to J's moped.
This morning the workers arrived to fix the roof. If you remember in February that after a heavy storm our roof was damaged. They did an emergency fix to stop any leakage and stopping it from getting any worse. That was in February and now we are almost June - 4 months after the clearance by the insurance company. Anyway, happy that it's getting fixed now - I can live with the loud noise! Hopefully they will not fall through he roof...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 13:57:06 CET Did you know... that today in 1975 the European Space AgencyRead more on Wikipedia! is established.
16:14:05 CET A Sunday completely in the name of studying - well, the task of a parent is to make sure that the plan and schedule is followed. As perception of time is not yet developed in a teenager yet. Ehum...
To be fare, it's been a very special time and I actually love every second of it. In 10 years I am sure I will think back and remember the special moments with my son and how we worked through math and physics together. Isn't that the meaning of life - to ensure your children grows up and become a better version of yourself?
18:41:19 CET I was checking, as one does, my account at Prusa Research (my ordered 3D printer), it's still estimated to be delivered within a week from 30th of May. Meaning that it should arrive in the next week. How exciting is that?!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 17:54:22 CET Did you know... that today in 1953 Edmund HillaryRead more on Wikipedia. and Sherpa Tenzing NorgayRead more on Wikipedia. become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
2022-05-28 15:20:38 CET The study period has begun. According to our plans we kicked it off on the 26th of May. It going to be a crazy time, that is for sure. It's not all bad of course, but certainly a period with a lot of ups and downs. Hopefully it will payoff in the end. Very exciting times!
It's a software update - to version 2.1 Read more about the latest update version 2.1. I hope version 2.2 will fix one limitation introduced in version 2.0 that made AudioWagon non functional. - happening now in my car. I hoped that the fix would be included in this version to un-block media content on the USB-C port. Apparently they have temporary blocked accessing Read the details about the current issues with AudioWagon due to blocking of the USB-C port by Polestar/Volvo! the USB content for "future enhancements".
2022-05-28 18:43:56 CET J was out for an evening drive on his moped in the nice weather - it a great summer evening here - just enjoying. How nice is for him to go on an evening ride now and then. Clear his head from the content input by all that studying. I never ever had so much studying and preparation work as him. After todays work with math that he endured I can only admire the effort he actually put in. I get tired just thinking of it - he has already studied French, Geography and Aesthetics the last three days. And we have not really begun yet...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-28 15:20:28 CET Did you know... that today in 1987 an 18-year-old West German pilot, Mathias Rust Read more about the pilot Mathias Rust on Wikipedia., evades Soviet Union air defences and lands a private plane in Red Square in Moscow, Russia.
18:20:37 CET Today is Friday. Well, it's LIKE a Friday as it's a public holiday tomorrow here where I live. The coffee this morning tasted especially nice. It also tasted nice with all the scheduled calls. Nice to have a fresh pot of coffee giving that extra little enjoyment needed in the conference calls in the morning.
What are the top 5 largest countries in EuropeWolframAlpha query. Check the result!? Or how fast is 17 m/s in km/hWolframAlpha query? I had both queries this week so far and I really recommend WolframAlpha for these kinds of queries. Sure you can use Google, but what is the fun in that? Also, WolframAlpha returns so much more in every search. Really cool!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 18:21:22 CET Did you know... that today in 1977 Star Wars (retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope) is released in theaters.
14:54:30 CET The coffee - home ground - tasted better today. Mystery solved (it was not living up to the extreme standard that we have here in Casa del Pihl) and fear no more , it was just a question of getting the measurements right.
In the post I wrote about it yesterday in this post... yesterday, I mentioned about the "office supply" order The order was delivered today. Neatly packed and in time - day after delivery. The service was great, let's discover the quality of the products - 2500 sheets of paper, printer ink fillers, tip-ex rollers. The pens and roll of tape were gifts. done yesterday and today I received it. All there and intact as far as I can see. It's going to be interesting to see how the printer ink cartridges (ink fillers) will work. I know that printing with white-product ink cartridges before was never working 100%. We'll see how these performs (see if the price difference was worth it)...
That's about what I had time for now but the plan is to do some more updates (cool stuff about Docker.com "Docker" is so cool, like magic..., my Prusa printer My Prusa printer is still being built, I can't wait... and other stuff) today. I have to get back to work, I am having some issue with the internet connection today. Not sure why I am only able to use the slow 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection (gives an error about DHCP)..?
22:23:20 CET Nope, no time. It was however a very nice evening though. Started watching the Netflix mini-series called ClarkNetflix mini-series about Clark Olofsson.. Only 20 minutes in so far but it looks promising. Some preparation work with J for the upcoming exams period - Math and Physics. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks that's for sure - 13 exams between 9th and 22nd of June!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 15:17:25 CET Did you know... that today in 1276 Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
15:00:10 CET Coffee was certainly needed this typical Monday morning. It started out sunny, then moved to cloudy and now the clouds turned dark gray and the rain came. Good for the lawn I guess. Hopefully it's stopped raining by the time J is driving home with his moped...
It's been a pretty busy day at work with some escalations and calls to deal with. Issues and problems are rarely evenly spread - all at once. In a couple of minutes I have another call...I need to put on a pot of coffee with this weather.
15:29:12 CET I did had the time to place an order today, nothing really exciting; just some printer paper and ink cartridges. Ink refill I should say, as the printer I have is an Epson ET-2721 with an ink eco-tank system. It just reminded me how good that system is and, foremost, how cost efficient it is. Unbelievably good and I can really recommend it if you are out looking for a new printer and tired of buying new ink cartridges every month!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 15:17:25 CET Did you know... that today in 1934 American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde Read more about Bonnie and Clyde on Wikipedia. are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
2022-05-22 14:39:27 CET Enjoyed the Sunday morning coffee very much, I ground the coffee beans the night before. It might have been a tad too strong though, slightly too bitter. Or was it that one of the two types of beans just didn't match? Luxury problem I know.
Yesterday we did some chores around the house and some little things in the garden. Getting the grass to grow evenly seems to be an impossible mission. We gave it another try - more grass seeds, cover slightly with soil and finally some minerals to boost the growing process. The final step was the cocktail of life - water. And a lot of it. We'll see how it goes... As long as the pigeons doesn't eat all the seeds it'll be fine. If those stupid little flying terrorists are not leaving crap on my car they are destroying the lawn. Those stupid critters!
J seems coming slowly back to the living as well; he is meeting up with a special someone today. Or I should say; someone that might turn out to be someone special in the romantic department . He is very particular on that front. No matter the outcome, it seems to be a nice girl. As a parent however it's exciting to follow the development - another step in growing up.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-22 14:39:38 CET Did you know... that today in 1906 the Wright brothersRead more about the Wright brothers on Wikipedia. are granted U.S. patent number 821,393Check out the original patent here. for their "Flying-Machine".
22:09:39 CET Today it was a great day. J came home - finally after a long night out - and was absolutely exhausted and full of ..."valuable experience". We, if I can put it gently, had seen better nights. J spent much longer time away before but this time it was just not easy to deal with. For what ever reason. Luckily all went OK, he slept most of the day between 11:30 and 17:30. It was certainly an experience that he will remember for the rest of his life, this extreme tradition!
My workday was mostly spent in online training - I enjoyed the coffee very much. There were also some calls and I could catch up - due to a cancelled meeting - on some administrational chores at work that were downgraded in my priority list of things that had to be done this week. Overall it was a decent achievement.
I will make it shorter here, need to get to bed and catch up on some missed sleep.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 22:40:51 CET Did you know... that today in 1891 the first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscopeRead more on Wikipedia..
22:39:47 CET Another day is running to it's end. But I wouldn't say it's just like any other day. It's important to make every day unique and appreciate the small things. Nothing should be taken for granted. That can be difficult to do some days, days when it's easier to fall into a rat-race. Those are the worst days. Today it was certainly not like any other day, not at all.
I drove J and friends of his to the Fort van StabroekThis is where J spend the day today... or "Stafort Adventure Island" as it's also called. The whole school went there and it was a day full of activities - highland games and paintball. Then later in the evening I drove them home again so that they could get ready to go (by bicycles to the train station to catch the train) into Antwerp for further activities - more of the culinary sort. The conversations they have in the car is fantastic, I am happy to be a part of it!
H and I decided to go out for the evening. Initially both of us just had that mid-week feeling, questioning if we shouldn't better stay home today. But, I am glad we stuck to the plan of going out for the evening. It was a little bit like I mentioned earlier, to live more for the day. It was a great evening with nice food on the terrace of the restaurant. Even the sky cleared up, something I never expected to happen since the weather was terrible today with thunderstorms.
We ended the evening watching a nice TV show called "Viva la Feta" which is about two hosts who spend two days with a famous person as a guest on a Greek island. Only seeing the dynamics between the hosts is great. Tonight it was the famous surgeon - someone who co-founded the Belgian branch of Doctors Without Borders - Reginald Moreels. He seems to be a fantastic person; such a humble open and honest person. Anyway, I wanted to leave with a quote he said: "I know that I don't know about tomorrow"
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 21:53:27 CET Did you know... that today in 2018 the weddingRead more on Wikipedia. of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.
21:53:17 CET Today was, pretty much, a normal work day. Expect the unexpected. Normality is anything but normal...ok, you get it. Throwing around platitudes with attitude. I'll better stop here...
This morning, J drove off on his moped dressed as a gnome. Yes, it was a hilarious sight Looking very focused. But it's a great dress up clothes, all the guys had the same set of clothes. You have to picture the red hat and white beard....
The delivery from Amazon arrived today - I bought the Epoxy resin for my latest design - the vases. I also ordered a set of colour powders to add to the mix. I needed the Epoxy coating to make it water proof (normally there is water in a vase) so why not add some colour to it Here they are, the mini-vases, upside down while the Epoxy is drying. My own design and it will look great with flowers in it - I am sure of it. I show some pictures once done. In the background you can see that I also added a coat of paint to my iphone speaker - I had a lot of paint over... as well?
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 21:53:27 CET Did you know... that today in 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
22:38:49 CET Tiresome day, one of those it feels like you never really wake up. Coffee or not, doesn't help. I was hoping to have time to talk and share something with J, but the time never really seemed right. I am sure it was not meant for today and I should trust my gut feeling. Nothing really serious, something that got stuck in my head at 5 this morning. Maybe tomorrow.
H is out with a friend and I made the best hotdog de luxe this evening. J seemed to like it for sure. We watched a Netflix documentary about SpaceX and Nasa Read more on IMDB. which was really good so far! Think what ever you want about Elon, but it's a true entrepreneur. It was nice to slow down in front of the TV together after a day like today. For both of us.
Tomorrow J will be dressed up at school - gnome theme this time. Imagine him driving his moped in the morning dressed as a gnome... It's the last day. I am happy when it's over. But they still have the other celebration to go to. The one that will start on Thursday morning and keeps going until Friday morning...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 22:49:09 CET Did you know... that today in 1973 the televised hearings begin covering the Watergate scandal Read more on Wikipedia. in the United States Senate.
22:38:21 CET It was a busy start of the week, I didn't even had time to finish my pot of coffee today during business hours. In a day like today, "Business hours" a la home-office ranges from 07:00 until at least 18:00.
I managed to squeeze in a 3D-print today - just a little 2 hours 3D-print. I have a little project that I am doing for H - designing a mini vase. I really like it since I have to use another program to make the design with, namely TinkercadTinkercad is free and completely an online system in which you create your designs. In most cases, TinkerCad is what you start with when you begin with 3D printing and creating your first designs/models to 3D-print.. Nice to do something with a complete new way of thinking. Very easy, once you get the hang of it. Anyway, the interesting is to make the 3D-printed objects water proof. By design, no 3D-print can ever be really water-proof without, what I think is the best solution, an Epoxy resin coating. I did my little investigation and ordered the kit today. It will be VERY interesting to see how it turns out...
J is having a lot of different things to do at school; today they had to dress up with 1980:s theme. Tomorrow it's Maffia theme (we are still busy putting it together) and the day after it's gnome theme... On Thursday they have arranged activities for the whole day, then dinner in Antwerp followed by breakfast at school the morning after (the idea is to party all night long until the breakfast). Can you imagine in what state they will be in on Friday???
OK, for now, that's it. Time for that night-book again...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 22:38:49 CET Did you know... that today in 1888 Nikola TeslaRead more on Wikipedia. delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currentsRead more on Wikipedia. to transmit electric power over long distances.
19:33:50 CET It was a great Sunday but it flew by like crazy! It's been brilliant weather with amazing and unreal temperatures around 30 degrees centigrade. A little bit of studying for J, but it's certainly not been on the top of his priorities today. It might be because he is having a date to go to this evening and his mind is somewhere else. He is still out with her, I take it as a good sign...
Today I celebrate 1 year with this website This was the very first post I ever made on this website!. It's been a very cool project, I learned so much and especially when it comes to all the stuff around owning - but really OWNING - a website. It starts when I investigated (all those YouTube clips, articles and just having those tentacles out there) all the hosting options. That is such a competitive market, it's unreal. Do I chose a payed or free service... the options are almost unlimited. Is it really needed to have a public website? Of course it is, in todays world you need to have one hook out there. Beyond all the social networks and internet services thrown at you for free... Learn and listen to this, those services are NEVER for free - those multinational giants are getting it all back on the cost of you. I have basically stopped updating my "social" life on social medias and moved it all into here. I am choosing what you see, on my terms and to provide you just that. Straight up, Nothing more nothing hidden. This is me.
Tomorrow a work week begins. Not sure that I am ready though...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 20:21:21 CET Did you know... that today in 2021 THIS website started !!!
23:16:57 CET It was a nice slow morning for obvious reasons, it was a very busy evening-night-morning. It started with a birthday celebration - grandmother in law's birthday. We met up and spend a nice evening with drinks in the garden and then dinner. J had the school gala ball to go to. Extremely nice to see him getting ready, dressed up for the occasion. It's something special with white shirt, suit and bow tie. Especially if it's your son! Truly, he is so handsome Here he is, it will not happen many times here, but isn't he handsome?!!
Apparently the school gala ball was a magical time for J. It will be one of those moments that will stay in his memory forever. For him and his parents. That he was home at 03:30, shared most of his evening with us and that we finally could go back to bed about an hour later was not that important. Not even when we had to nag to get him in time for the guitar lesson this morning mad me really upset. I drove him there and could enjoy my walk in the park in the neighbourhood. Brilliant times!
The day continued relaxed and a lot of work was done in the garden. Brought us completely in zen, perks of life to contemplate about it all during poking around in the garden.
I was going to update a driver - the graphic card to be specific. It's not that easy that one can think (if you don't use the Device Manager, that is). When searching around, I found the app called Advanced Driver Updater This application caused some agony...I am questioning the functionality. I thought it was strange that the version number didn't change when I inspected in the Device Manager after a successful update... that would make the processes easier - scan and update all outdated drivers. Looked promising and the reviews were all good. SO I ran the update, all looked good. Then today, when starting the Eneby 30 Bluetooth speaker for some music (we're listening to our favorit Swedish radio channel in the weekend) but the speaker was "blocked due to group policy". No matter what I did (via Control Panel and manually fiddling around in the registry etc), the issue persisted. "Long story short", I finally figured out that it was due to "Conflicting program Drivers"... It was all resolved when I manually uninstalled (with the option of removing the Drivers) it using the Device Manager. So there you go, shortcuts are often not the fastest solution...
It's been 2 days of technical challenges. I upgraded OctoPrint The fantastic OctoPrint system. It truly changed the world of 3D printing! - for anyone who knows what it means to upgrade a system based on Python - I had to upgrade from version 2 to 3. Then I also managed to resolve an issue that appeared all of a sudden. Of course it happens with everything else mentioned earlier. I believe I mentioned that OctoPrint system (what I use to manage my 3D printer) didn't boot. It was actually booting fine, it was not connecting to the network correctly. The issue was with the static IP adress assignment. Well, now it's dynamic and I am using a DNS name instead.
OK, that was a lot of technical details shared but that is actually what occupied my time/mind the last couple of days.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-14 13:00:48 CET Did you know... that today in 1973 Skylab Read more on Wikipedia. I didn't find a lot of interesting stuff today..., the United States' first space station, is launched.
22:32:55 CET It's been a typical work week day full of things. Coffee was needed for sure! J had a math test today (hopefully it went fine), H meeting up for a birthday surprise celebration in the evening. She had also foreseen a surprise farewell for her Swedish "colleagues" (not really colleagues per se, more exchange student program) she took care of during the time they spent in Belgium. They are now going back to Östersund with a lot of nice gifts personally foreseen by H.
Now when the moped is working fine, J is more mobile and can go easier as he pleases. Since nothing had to be prepared for school (more or less) he met up with friends for a swim. It's warm here so I can understand it must have been great to go to a friend for a dip in a pool. We had dinner together and enjoyed the great documentary on Netflix called 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible Read more about it on IMDB! It's really looking promising, we really love it so far. Fanstastic time together.
For the rest, I did not have the time to check Octoprint and why my Raspberry Pi is not booting up correctly. Hopefully tomorrow. I had an important/stressful call today which went fine. Happy about that since there were some key people attending and I was hosting it. All in all, a great day that I have to be grateful for.
I have the distinct feeling I forgot to mention something, but now it's time for that good book again...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 22:39:32 CET Did you know... that today in 1932 ten weeks after his abductionRead more on Wikipedia., Charles Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
22:23:11 CET It was a day full of little tings and events spread throughout the day - it doesn't happen often - normally it all happens at once. Today it was nicely evenly spread for once.
This evening I noticed that I am not able to connect to the Octopi Raspberry Pi computer . Strange, is it a coincident that I changed the case yesterday? That would be strange though... I didn't have the energy to hook it up to a screen and check. Hopefully I have the bandwidth to do it tomorrow.
Oh, speaking of Raspberry Pi... I got an email from PiHut informing that the new autofocus camera Read more at PiHut website about the new autofocus camera for Raspberry Pis... is back in stock again. I am really considering it...
I think I mentioned it before, but I have to mention it as it's something that is really intensifying. When J turned 18, he get's his own account and is able to handle his money as a grown-up. He started opening a crypto currency account and started planning for the right moment to invest. He's started and it's really picking up. He is also doing it with some friends. It's so interesting to follow the progress and how he is dealing with it. It's so different to how he handles schoolwork - like day and night. If he did it with the same amount of interest he'd have top grades.
Something we've also started is planning for the summer - and hopefully the holiday . There are so many aspects to take into consideration - the war in Ukraine, less but still; Covid, days that I can take off from work, Airbnb availability, driving or flying, family... Oh YES, I have to deal with my passport that needs to (for simplicity) be requested and processed in Sweden.
OK, that's about what I have for today. Time for the bed and a good book.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 22:46:58 CET Did you know... that today in 1502 Christopher ColumbusRead more on Wikipedia. leaves on his fourth and last voyage.
21:41:22 CET Today it was a constructive day at work and at home with some ongoing stuff going in parallel. Nice couple of work related conference calls for my projects. Exiting development and nice interesting technology that I have to try to fit into an strict and secured environment. Challenging to say the least but very inspiring.
I also had some 3D print jobs going - in total they took about 4 hours. I had to find a new case for the Raspberry Pi computer that I am running Octoprint One of the greatest software all time in the whole 3D printing universe! with for the 3D printer. I have to move it in preparation for the new printer...remember? This time they came out good, the design The 3D printed bottom part and the top part in white for the RPi case. Great design, working brilliantly. Note the tiny black V-nuts that I already printed long time ago. is fantastic. It's a perfect fit It fits perfect tucked away just behind the screen. You see the flat camera cable going up to the fitted camera on the Y-axis, the power cable and, on the back side of the case, the USB-cable to control the 3D-printer with Octoprint. and I can use the V-nuts and mount it behind the screen.
Today it's the "Eurovision Song Detest" ..."Contest" I mean of course. So far I've seen (the quality of the presenters is painfully low) and heard music on a, let's say for the sake of it, different (=low) level. But OK, it's perfect to have it on in the background while updating this webpage. Something we love to hate.
We suffered enough and turned the TV off. What a miserable show. Time for bed.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 21:42:08 CET Did you know... that today in 1994 Nelson MandelaRead more on Wikipedia. is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
2022-05-09 08:24:08 CET Enjoying the coffee this Monday morning, hoping it will do its magic. I am really tired and I only have myself to blame for that; watching video clip until the break of dawn...idiot.
Updated: 2022-05-09 22:41:22 CET J was this morning on his moped. Finally, I managed to get it all together How it now looks in one piece. A lot of work was put into it. yesterday. It was a lot of work and I feel it in my back today. Sand and cut with angle grinder for 3 hours (I had to make the tank fit again - using the angle grinder and drill some new holes) is definitely not the best for my back. I am proud of the result, better then before and cleaned as a bonus. The shock absorber is still the old but we fitted some compression rubber pieces in the spring of the shock absorber as a temporary solution.
While I was working on the moped, I had a 3D print job going. In preparation for the arrival of the new printer (I CAN NOT WAIT), I am doing some preparation and changes to my little 3D printing area. An area I soon can start reference as my "3D printing farm". I 3D printed a Raspberry Pi case The RPi case came out OK:ish. The printed support was very difficult to remove. I actually broke a piece which I had to fit again with glue. Turned out OK though. that can be fitted on the frame of the 3D printer as I have to remove the current enclosure to gain more space.
OK, need to head back into a conference call now...
2022-05-09 23:05:51 CET I did a quick update in a previous postCheck out the recently added picture here in the earlier post.. I normally don't do that, but I added the timestamp especially to track that. I added a new nice picture to show you how the moped turned out. Not without some proudness. Now I have to go to bed. Well, first I give Mokka some food and then straight to bed. Well, first reading a little bit, but the ...then I try to sleep.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-09 08:57:53 CET Did you know... that today in 2017 US President Donald Trump fires FBI Director James Comey Read more on Wikipedia..
16:26:36 CET A day full of activities - the highlight so far was the car show event in the park of Brasschaat (it's an event that travels around in Belgium, we know it as simply "Classic cars", but this year it's called Touramical). It's the first again since the pandemic hit. There are a lot of spectacular cars there (everything from super cars to oldtimers) and nice events arranged there. J and I passed by, strolled around and enjoyed it very much.
We are now off to a communion (that's what I think it's called) party within the family. J is later off to a birthday party so it will be a late night for all of us...
I just, very quickly wanted to mentioned that I bought the fantastic Prusa printer. I am so excited, I can't wait. The 3-4 weeks lead-time will feel like an eternity. I will write more here about it, but now I have to dash...
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-06 11:33:44 CET Did you know... that today in 1697 Stockholm's royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed by fire. It is replaced in the 18th century by the current Royal PalaceRead more on Wikipedia..
2022-05-06 11:33:12 CET Friday, the week is ending. And what a week it was - busy at work and well, busy everywhere for everyone. It was so busy that I actually missed the "May The Fourth" (may the fourth; as in the Starwars "may the force...") celebrations...
We have started watching the Netflix movie The King Read more on IMDB about this great movie.. It's a really great movie about king Henry V Read more on Wikipedia. which I really recommend. It's nice to have a family movie that all can enjoy - zoom out and leave the world for a while.
Yesterday some welcomed rain fell followed by thick mist this morning. Finally the garden (and the grass This is how it's grown until yesterday. we sown This is how it looked after we sown it. almost two weeks ago) can grow and we can pause one day from giving the lawn and plants water.
Other interesting projects is 3D printing that I am discovering again. Not really discovering, but it feels like it was too long ago. I already completed two printouts - one was an own design and another was an already existing one; a plier holder I used the very old white filament I noticed had cracked. It printed fine, but I can see that the quality of the filament caused "bubbles" in some of the layers. to mount on the tool-board.
Amazing stuff, I am so excited. Two, at least, weeks in the making... 2022-05-06 19:35:42 CET ...I finally did it! Amazing stuff...at least two weeks in making!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 2022-05-06 11:33:44 CET Did you know... that today in 1998 Steve Jobs Read more about the fascinating man Steve Jobs. of Apple Inc. unveils the first iMac.
18:56:16 CET Interesting times... well, exclude all the shit that happens in Europe at the moment. Sometimes we just have to keep it at a distance. Try, at least. The trick to keep some sort of mental health is to decouple from al the negative input and stick to your hobbies and things that you love! I picked up my 3D printing. Back to design and creating again...
It started by an email - newsletter - from my favourite 3D printing supplierFantastic service at 123-3d shop (I am sharing that with 4 million customers). in which they say that prices will increase due to added costs. I see it from a lot of companies. So, I start thinking of possible purchase, which got me thinking - filament, accessories or... maybe a new printer!? I started the research and it's been an interesting journey. Apart from that and by a coincident I noticed - one night when I said good night to my printer - that the filament had broken off. It can happen when it's not been used in a long time. Has it been that long??? So I started printing at once - I have already made two prints of which one is my own new design. I will come back to that one later. But I am buring of excitement starting the 3D printing and maybe invest in a new printer - a Creality Creality is the brand of my printer and I am very happy with it. It's definitely for hobbyists that love spending time tinkering around. or going full out with an Original Prusa Prusa is my absolute favourite 3D printer in my segment of printers.!!! I just LOVE getting into it again, the 3D printing scene is fantastic! I will spend more time in the design (mainly in FreeCad), creation (Cura and PrusaSlicer slicers) and operations (the 3D printer hardware, Octoprint, Raspberry Pi etc) that is the universe of 3D printing. Love it!
I was also asked to do a t-shirt design. The idea was to take the head of a person and combine it with a know super hero, namely Superman. I found a nice image at PixabayJust an idea of what's available at Pixabay. of Superman and merged it with the picture of the person. I made it in Gimp (one of the few fantastic free tools out there) in a couple of minutes. Most of the time was spent on actually finding the pictures. Fun to do!
In parallel there are of course the daily life going on. Tomorrow J has a math test, the second this week. He also had an excursion yesterday for the physics assignment and the moped is also an ongoing project. One of few ongoing projects. The kind of projects that we all need to keep the sanity in a crazy time!
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 19:59:09 CET Did you know... that today in 1626 Dutch explorer Peter Minuit (he was actually from today's Belgium) Read more on Wikipedia. He also founded New Sweden !!! arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.
12:53:49 CET Slow start today, I just couldn't wake up this morning. Coffee only made it marginally easier to get going.
J will spend the day in an amusement park called Bobbejaanland Check it out at the homepage of Bobbejaanland. to do a Physics assignment. It's true, it was suggested by the physics teacher. It's actually a big assignment and the plan is to really do a good job to get some points to compensate the weak result in the previous test.
I don't know about you, but I am getting a lot of calls from "Microsoft support". Obviously it's not really Microsoft support, they are all fake shenanigans. I can't believe that there are people falling for it. But it must be worth it, otherwise these people wouldn't continue. I have now started to have fun with it, trying with a new approach every time they call. It's a fun game. Just moments ago I asked them to specify which computer they needed access to. I was a very difficult customer and I finally said that I do not have a computer with Microsoft Windows installed. Next time I will speak extremely, but insanely slow to them. I also have some ideas in the future to actually setup a virtual computer and grant them remote access to it I will setup and then take control of their computer. A bit like how "Scammer Payback" Watch this Youtube clip by Scammer Payback. It's great! does it.
I am still struggling to get my new laptop setup the way I want. The biggest issue is the poor quality of my Wi-Fi in the home-office area - the signal is not the best on the top floor. It's really terrible (which is strange as there are no issues with mobile phones etc) and it keeps disconnecting/reconnecting the whole time. It's especially a pain when you're on a VPN connection. So what I did to fix this back in the day (the early days of pandemic) was to install wired network in the home-office. It works perfectly, but you need of course to be able to connect the network cable in the device. Duh! It's more of a rule than exception these days that the network connection/connectivity is in the docking station. And I do not have a docking station yet. I resolved it by using the Wi-Fi extender/access point for a better/stronger signal. Until now it's been decent. Audio and video are still troublesome at times.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 12:54:30 CET Did you know... that today in 1978 the first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
15:53:51 CET Enjoyed the coffee and the breakfast this Sunday morning in normal order. Finally a somewhat normal Sunday morning that we are used to.
J and I also squeezed in some math with math tutor friend M early afternoon. Tomorrow J has the first of two math tests in this week. It's of more theoretical nature, namely statistics. I find it rather interesting to be honest and it could be something that J could collect some extra point in. It's really important with a decent result, to build up a margin for his end report later on. It's all about strategy!
We had a birthday celebration in the family yesterday - granny (on my mother in law's side) turned 92 years old. Her grand children and great grand children The great grandchildren in one pic. planned it and got together in an restaurant. It was a very nice time, I actually thought she appreciated it very much!
We are in a new month and I think that means we are officially in summer time now, aren't we? Ongoing stuff in parallel are things like J's future post current school, growing and nurturing our lawn, new work laptop in my home office, fixing J's moped, next 3D printing project, upcoming summer holiday, request of my passport... things enough thus.
Did you know that..? I try to find an interesting historical event that occurred on this day. 16:23:38 CET Did you know... that today in 1753 the Publication of Species Plantarum by LinnaeusRead more on Wikipedia., and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical NomenclatureRead more on Wikipedia..