Spent most of the day with dad clearing out our cellar and his old stockroom and driving all the things to various recycling facilities.
Things finally had to go.
I don’t think I am required to do any additional sports this week.
And the highlight of my day was returning home: I’m currently rarely gone for an entire day, which is probably why Zoe was so happy to see me again. She gave me the biggest and longest hug I’ve received from her ever. Best thing in the world! :-)
While I am speaking of Zoe: she is so much fun at the moment! She’s walking and running, she’s talking (sort of, in her toddler way), she’s dancing, she’s cuddly, she understands a lot of what we say, she’s curious, and – to our great delight – she started giving out kisses, too. 😍
Today I got a wisdom tooth removed. I’m just grateful that we live in times of modern anaesthetics. Didn’t want to have to go through this procedure on Whiskey alone.
They only had time for one of the two teeth that are causing problems, so next week I have another appointment…
I’m now one month into my writing-every-day project. And I’m very much enjoying this. I’ve been publishing short articles or thoughts on web development, (film) photography, music and some random, more personal journal entries. This is no surprise, because that’s basically me.
I wouldn’t say that everything I’ve published so far really qualifies as “writing”, but that’s ok. My goal is more to publish at least a little bit of originally written text every day, and build a new habit.
And once again, I find that writing is one of those things that seem easy, but when you actually do it, it really isn’t.
It feels intimidating to still having eleven months to go, but I remain optimistic. As I mostly do.
Journaling again. That’s how it goes when you don’t have anything pre-written. Because so far into this project, I’ve been writing day-to-day, which sometimes means my writing turns out really short or meta. Or it’s a journal entry like this one. So, here we go.
Yesterday night was pretty unusual: Nicole and I went out together, which hasn’t really happened much since we had Zoe. We went to see Mastodon and Kvelertak in Oberhausen. Felt exciting sitting in the car all by ourselves, with a Wegbier, driving into the night. ;-)
And we had a great time. Kvelertak put on their sweeping performance and had the best sound of the night. And Mastodon played an amazing 100+ minute set. We just wished they’d thrown in a couple more of our favourite songs.
Usually I take my camera everywhere, but this time I thought, “nah, let’s just enjoy the gig and do not carry the camera around”! And I regretted that decision. What was I thinking?
Then today I got the other left wisdom tooth removed. This time it was from the upper jaw; maybe that’s why afterwards it’s not hurting as much. Definitely feeling better than last time.
Today started with a shocker: Our camper was gone from the spot I had parked it a couple of days ago. My heart started racing as I thought it was stolen. I sent Nicole into shock, too, before I realised, I might have parked too close to a fire brigade access – although I took care I wasn’t when parking it1. Sure enough that was the problem and the camper only got towed. Phew! Still, this wasn’t and isn’t a cheap mishap: a big invoice for the towing plus more fines to come, when I interpret the note on the windshield correctly. I guess that’s fair enough. But man, I didn’t have a good day today.
To my defense, suitable parking spots for campers are hard to come by in the city. ↩︎
Went to the cinema yesterday and watched “The Favourite”. It was extremely entertaining. There is much to love about this movie: the absurd story, the location, the music, the typography, the filming, the portrayed characters and how well they were acted, and all the well-written – and super funny – dialogues. Basically everything. I laughed a lot.
It’s Friday night. I’m now done editing photos for the next journal entry. Now writing its text. Update coming very soon!
I’m using an early 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro. Still! It’s now almost eight years old. And it’s plagued by that issue with its discrete graphics card. After Apple replaced the logic board twice – for free – I got it repaired late last year again (by a third party), and then a couple of days ago another time (under warranty). Before going with the repair, I thought about getting a newer model. It remained being just a thought.
Apart from being a waste of otherwise still very capable hardware, there are three main reasons for this:
I’ve heard and read about too many instances where keys on the new keyboards would stop working properly – even on their latest iteration – that I’m very hesitant to buy one with those in them.
Then there is the price for SSD storage. I want a 1TB configuration, so I can comfortably fit everything I need internally. I don’t want to deal with external drives and all the complexity that comes with that. Annoyingly, upgrading a current MacBook Pro configuration to feature a 1TB SSD instead of the 512GB version costs an additional €500. Which I feel is a rip-off!
And I’m sceptical of the Touch Bar, too. I use the Esc key a lot, and think I would miss having a hardware key for its functionality. So, I’d much prefer a row of function keys.
And that’s why I’ll keep using my trusty old 2011 model. It still performs well with its quad-core CPU, all-SDD storage and a renewed battery. I’m still hoping Apple will get its act together again soon.
The weather’s been pretty mild lately. And sunny, too. It’s a welcome change.
Unless this is because of the ever warming climate. In which case this is worrying.
But anyhow, we’re are enjoying some warm sun rays and are spending more time outside again. Zoe likes it, too: she gets to ride on bikes with us and is playing much more outside on various playgrounds – which feature many more other kids again now, too.
But I have to wonder: will all those kids get to enjoy days like these with their own kids, too?
The ear cushions for my Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones have been falling apart for a while. So, I was checking, whether they could be replaced and ordered separately. They could. And I used the Amazon website to both learn about it and find the correct replacement part.
But then I thought: why not check on the Sennheiser website directly. Often enough, doing this is much more inconvenient, though, because you don’t know what to expect. The actual company might not even offer the part on their site, and/or the site might be cumbersome to use. Plus you have to enter all your address and payment details.
But this time, it was worth it. Not only did they offer the ear cushions, finding them was super-easy, the buying experience was very pleasant, and they were cheaper than on Amazon, and included free (and fast) shipping on this ~€20 product.
Sometimes it pays off to look for an alternative to the big monopoly. I’ll remember that the next time I’m going to buy stuff.
This week is and was a bit chaotic – but in a good way mostly. But now I’m looking forward to the weekend, despite having to catch up on a bit of work. But it should be less hectic.
Today I drove into Düsseldorf to do some street photography again. Finally. I haven’t done any since we were in Paris in October.
The most promising scene was a Dalmatian on a passenger seat. Took a few frames. It’s kind of a cliché, but who cares?
Now having a little break before heading over to the Schumacher brewery for some beer with Bernd.
Last week – unexpectedly – we signed a contract for our new flat.
Our current apartment was meant as a temporary solution right from the start, because it’s too small (even for us, who are used to motorhome-small). So, we’ve been looking for a new place to rent for a couple of months now.
And we were really surprised we received an offer this time, because the competition for apartments in Düsseldorf is currently substantial – with often well over fifty parties interested. There’s a lot of demand, especially for the more affordable and desirable ones. And that was the case with this one, too. After the viewing, we were mentally preparing for another rejection.
But we were lucky this time. Maybe because we offered we could move in in March already. Who knows. It doesn’t really matter. We’re very happy to have found something and can enrol Zoe to Kindergarten now.
The apartment is in Flehe, which was our favourite suburb. It’s directly on the Rhine, not very densely populated (we can easily park our camper, for example!), yet pretty close to more urban Düsseldorf.
And so everything will go pretty quickly now. We plan to move in by the end of March.
At the start of the year, I picked up swimming again. For the most part I managed to go once per week. It’s the one simple and accessible endurance sport that works for me.
I really enjoy being in the water, listening to the sound it makes as I move through it, and gazing down the blue pool. It’s a good full-body workout, but also very relaxing. I can easily let my mind wander. Which, in contrast, was never true for me when running (which I also occasionally tried in the past), and a big reason that didn’t work for me.
I currently swim a distance of 1500 meters – which means sixty 25-meter lanes – in around 35 minutes. Half breaststroke, half freestyle. That’s a very comfortable pace for me.
Since we’ll be moving soon, I’ll probably won’t go as often during the next month. But I hope I’ll start going regularly again once that’s done.