Enjoying some time off. Also trying to figure out how to make posting images from mobile to this blog easier…
I love how YouTube just combined two of my interests - Japan and pancakes - to serve up this ASMR-inducing cooking video. It’s maybe the most delicious looking pancake ever?
This weekend marked the beginning of something new for me: Gardening.
I love being outside, in the woods or mountains, near a lake; anywhere in nature, really. But living in a big city makes having a garden - i.e. your own little part of nature - very difficult. Thankfully, Cs aunt invited us to share their garden in Brandenburg with us late last year. You can’t imagine our joy!
But also: We have no idea. I have no idea. Like, I’m super interested in growing vegetables, but… how?
I’m so excited to learn all of that!
First week of 2023! Happy new year, everyone!
It has been a rather slow start into the new year for me - and I enjoyed it very much. I started to work on January 2nd but since a lot of my regular projects were still in hibernation, I had time to focus on some writing: Synthesising learnings and ideas from past jobs and research into something sharable.
Over the last couple of years I have been building an archive on knowledge and thoughts with Obsidian, and it is incredible how helpful it was when writing these articles. If you have not checked it out so far, please do. It is a wonderful tool.
Speaking of gathering knowledge: I’m also currently experimenting with the new RSS app from Readwise to see if this could replace my current Reeder & Feedbin setup. I have been using “regular” Readwise for a while now to collect highlights from the books I read. With Reader I can now have the same experience with RSS feeds (and Twitter, YouTube, PDFs, etc.) all in one place. It also really helps that it has such a tight integration with Obsidian: Every part that I am highlighting from an article gets synced right into my Obsidian vault - meta tags and all. It’s really great!
I’m ready for Nintendo to announce the re-release of Zelda - Wind Waker for Switch. I’m about to finish Luigi’s Mansion with my son, and playing that Zelda game next sounds like it would be a great time.
We found a new flat and I couldn’t be more happy! Actually – we already moved (yes, it’s been a while since the last update, I know, I know). But you know how it is: There are always some boxes left to unpack, some furniture to rearrange and some lamps to attach. But the biggest hassle is already done and I am so relieved. Next week we are giving back the keys to our old apartment and I hope that this concludes this awful topic for good.
But this is not the only exiting personal news. This week also marked the start of Johann’s school life. He is – understandably – nervous about what this new phase will bring (the same is true for his parents, tbh!). A whole new chapter awaits.
And this is not all: Professionally things are moving in a new direction as well – but I’ll have more on this in the next update. Maybe even in its own post, who knows…
Snail week! Yes, the kids are completely obsessed with snails at the moment. My wife bought a little terrarium and I went out into the woods with the kids to collect some snails for it – and now we have at least five new household members. My mom told me that I was obsessed with snails at age five or six, too, so apparently it runs in the family.
Speaking of kids: We also needed an invite for Johanns birthday party. I did not have much time to spend, so I set myself a very strict limit of one hour to come up with something.
Yes, there are a million things to improve – but I’m actually quite happy with how it turned out in that time. Putting arbitrary constraints on yourself is often quite helpful to generate ideas. Even (especially?) if it’s just a limit on time.