Cleared the area behind the sea container Sunday, 06-Oct-24 22:07:19 CEST

Finished the rain roof Sunday, 20-Oct-24 21:44:34 CEST

Sunday, 13-Oct-24 22:21:42 CEST

Moved the rain roof

This week, we moved the rain roof out of the way so that we will be able to build the stable as well. I played a DJ set.

Monday 7 October

Good morning. It is week 41. 7:03 AM. Outside, it is 14°C, and inside it is 21°C. It is now pitch dark. I believe it's the first anniversary of the hostage crisis in Gaza.

DW is going to the office today, and I have a day off.

So, I started preparing for the DJ set by building it in the living room. That way, I thought I would be sure I would have all the cables, bits, and bobs with me.

The first thing I brought was the ironing board. I will use it as a stand for the laptop and DJ controller. I noticed right away that one plastic foot was broken. If I had my 3D printer up and running and a lathe, making replacement feet fit in the pipe would be a piece of cake. That's not the case yet, so I took duct tape to repair the feet.

I put two towels under the controller because, believe it or not, the DJ controller is bulging at the bottom, so it cannot lie on a flat surface. On top of that, I brought the tablecloth I got from colleagues with the text DJ Jens. Now comes the funny part: the DJ Controller itself and the laptop.

Let's not forget the charger! Yesterday evening, when practicing, the charger got disconnected from the laptop, and I suddenly ran out of battery. I've had the same experience during a DJ set I played at the office, so now I decided to duct tape the plug to the laptop. It's coming off too easy.

Then I have some cabling to do. Do I need a headset? Done yet? I am done. I had forgotten one thing, but not a single hair or brain cell had thought about it when leaving the house.

At 10:15 AM. I had finished packing the car. Then I started deliberating. When should I leave? I should be there a little bit after 12:00 PM. If there were no traffic jams and I didn't take the wrong route, it would be 45 minutes. But I'm actually sure I will encounter both.

While packing the car, a magpie was sitting on the backs of the sheep, teasing it. They didn't bother. I tried to take a photo of it. Using a telescopic lens would have been better, so I took out my Nikon camera, but it was too late. The magpie was gone. It's actually sunny weather. We've been blessed with many days of sun.

So that's it, I'm leaving too early. But not so quick. First, I just wanted to have a glass of water. So I returned to the kitchen with my shoes on, and the soles were filled to the brim with mud, so I left a mud trail behind me. Alright, I had to clean that first. Merida was looking at me with huge eyes. What is he doing? So. Yeah. That is fixed. During this mud episode, I could have encountered one item I had forgotten to pack into the car, but I somehow did not do that. Amazing.

It is now 10:30. I'm sitting in the car, ready to drive away.

I drove for 45 minutes, and you could have guessed it. I did not miss any junction, and the traffic jam was dissolved. I arrived one hour early. I did not drive to the venue directly; instead, I stopped at a farm shop. They had a cafe where I could sit down and blog.

I got myself a cup of tea and a snack. I bought a chocolate bar, although I'm not too fond of chocolate. The tea was delicious, though. I did not realize that having a cup of coffee was well overdue.

Behind giant windows, chickens were walking around in a large barn. This was the farm shop of a chicken farmer, Lagerwij Buurmalsen. They had a fully automatic system for maintaining the chickens. It looked charming.

I arrived at the venue on time. It is a regular dairy farm with an escape room and a meeting place. At that moment, I had to go to the toilet, but there was no time for it. After unloading the car, I realized I had forgotten 2 items. Extension cord and the ironing board. It could have been simpler if I had brought those two items.

The first thing I did there was to hav e a meal, a lunch. While I was eating lunch, a table and extension cord were provided. I've got the DJ gear set up just before the guests arrived. The guests were provided lunch, and I played the set while they were eating and had their first introduction.

Then, there was a pause, and I played louder during the pause. After the pause, there was another presentation from the farmer himself. During that presentation, I didn't play. After the farmer's presentation, I played again, and the DJ set ended.

I packed my things, and then I went to the toilet. Wonderful. Then I went home. I was tired, and I couldn't understand why I was so tired. Was it because I had not been to the toilet for several hours, or was it something else? Then I realized I hadn't had a cup of coffee the entire day. So when I got my coffee, I started to recover.

Late in the evening, when I was just about to go to sleep, I realized I had not unpacked the car, so I unpacked the car in the middle of the night, and then I could sleep.

Tuesday 8 October

At 7:07 AM, it was 16°C outside, and inside it was 22°C. Today, both DW and I will work in our offices. I will make a smoothie with banana, pear, and apples. We are still eating from our Swedish apples.

Then we drove to the office, and I arrived at my desk on time. I had a lovely day at work. People asked me to play music in the afternoon, and I played the Afro-house playlist. It was appreciated.

In the evening, we drove to a grocery store before we drove home. DW wanted to buy crackers for an event she will attend tomorrow. It is a wool-spinning event.

When we came home, we had a visitor. I saw Merida around this cat last weekend. It looked like this was a friendly guy. I have no idea where it comes from.

Our sheep were intruding into our vegetable garden. They were close to breaking in. I had to put up a temporary net to avoid them succeeding with that. We need to redo the fencing around the vegetable garden. That is for another time this coming winter.

Wednesday 9 October

It is 7:26 AM. It is 13°C outside, and inside it is 22°C. It is dusk. Yesterday evening, we started talking about the stable. The stable is a separate building from the shed. DW and I have different ideas about the stable. GW wants something simple, a kit that we put together. I did not understand how such a kit would work with a foundation. I suggested making the stable ourselves, but DW did not like that idea.

A kit is a lot of work, too. It sounds so easy to have a stable kit, but those things need a proper foundation. We have already decided to get poles for the stable's foundation. It is not possible to slide a stable kit over those poles. To make it work, we need a concrete foundation on top of the poles; that construction works as a basis for a kit. The thing is that making a concrete foundation is not an easy thing. The idea of taking the most straightforward route does not hold when considering the foundation. Another thing is that the concrete construction takes up a lot of space.

If we had plentiful money, the shed company would have also built the stable, but we decided to do it cheaper. I think it could be great fun to make it myself, but DW doesn't share that same feeling with me. If others were to make the stable, we would still need to explain what we want.

We don't want the concrete foundation; we want the sheep to walk on the ground. It takes up the least space.

DW and I also got different ideas about where the stable will be placed. She would like to have it not obscure the view from the kitchen windows. I want it separated from the tiny house and the main building. I want to be able to drive around the main building with a digging machine if that would be necessary. I also want some distance between the buildings for safety. We talked through the different standpoints, but no firm conclusions were made. Perhaps the stable could be placed where the rain roof is now?

In the morning, DW was picked up by another wool eventgoer. They have quite some activities today. They will have a great time.

I worked from home in the morning. That went well; I had a research morning. I was researching a particularly stubborn issue, and I found the solution. I worked out how to solve it, but I did not make the solution. I left that as an exercise for tomorrow. When I decided to log out from work, I was 1 ½ hours overtime into my free afternoon. The plumber called me. We talked about the work he will do in the shed project. Next Wednesday, he will come to us to sit down and discuss the project. He will do the plumbing and the electricity in the shed.

Then I had lunch. After lunch, I filled the small trailer with garbage and went to the upcycling center. In the morning. While working.

Usually, this small trailer is rock steady, but now I feel some form of vibration while driving on the motorway. That isn't very pleasant. Well, when I am unloading the garbage. I will see if there's mud in the trailer wheels. If I remember to do that, of course. The time is 12:53 PM. I think it's charming that I'm not arriving just before closing this time. I have had that a little bit too much lately. I've finished emptying the trailer and forgot to check the tires. I realized that in the evening while blogging.

I did not do much hard work this afternoon. I moved scaffolding parts away from the area where the pole driving machine needs access. For the rest, I did not do much. I had a walk with Merida among the sheep. They are interested in her. In the beginning, they were a little afraid of her. They stomped hard with their feet when she came near them. Merida was afraid of them as well. Now, they are getting used to each other.

DW had a magnificent day at the wool workshop.

Thursday 10 October

The time is 7:08 AM. Outside, it is 13°C, and inside it is 21°C. Last night, Merida slept next to me. She even managed to get her favorite position right over my left arm. You can imagine how it is to have a 4 kg weight on your arm while sleeping. So I took the arm away, and she did not become upset. Instead, Merida came lying next to me, purring loudly.

Both DW and I went to the offices in the morning. I played music for my colleagues the entire day. I started with a super chill mix. Then, I switched to Afro House. I also played Top 40 numbers but skipped most of the Dutch songs.

It became a really long day. I arrived at 8:15 AM, and I left at 6:00 PM. But I was productive. I really nailed a challenging, stubborn part of my algorithm. There are issues left that I need to fix, so I am not out of work just yet. I started working on the things happening at the end of the algorithm. I hope I will finish that by tomorrow; that would be great. It would be a great way to start the weekend.

Then I picked up DW at the train station, and we went home. She cooked ajvar and rice, and I burned my mouth on it, so that was a little less nice. I wasn't energized, so I didn't blog in the evening. But for the rest, I have been up to speed on blogging this week, and it feels good.

Friday 11 October

At 7:11 AM, it was 5°C outside, and inside it was 21°C. I'm going to make the regular smoothie for breakfast this morning.

I'm trying a new microphone. It clips onto my jacket. I bought it to record a violin course in Austerlitz. I was not too fond of the sound quality; it was not good enough. Then, I stopped using the microphone altogether. The last time I biked home from work, I recalled having a microphone to clip onto my clothing. When wearing thick gloves, holding the earbud in hand is not handy. A microphone that clips onto the clothing is much better. The earbuds are shaped like small slipper soaps. I have tried it for a few sentences, and it works well. It's picking up the words quite well.

It is gorgeous here. Trees on both sides of the road. I stopped and took two photos.

 

And then? My telephone said the phone memory was full. Uh. I had to do some IT tasks on the phone, and now we are ready to go again. The time is 8:38 AM.

This morning, DW told me that she had reached her weight goal. Well, she immediately set a new goal. So that's about that. But it's great because it means our new weight program is working. I am also doing well with my weight.

I stopped and took another photo of the wide canal on the bridge near the survival park.

It was here I found the DAF 33 cars a couple of weeks ago. There's only one DAF 33 left.

So, if you are a Trump supporter but you don't want to say it out loud, then you would probably try to sugarcoat him and normalize him. But if you realize that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, not only in the United States but around the world. I don't think you would sugarcoat him. Of course, you can be critical of Taylor Swift endorsing Kamela Harris. But what about Michael Luttig? The constitutional scholar. What does that say?

Today, I am going an alternative route. This is also a continuation of the previous time I biked. So, I biked across the industrial center and picked up the bike lane next to the road.

Yesterday, I made a new playlist with music from artists endorsing Kamala and artists who officially requested that the Trump Organization stop using specific songs on the campaign trail.

When biking this route to work, I have a park on my left side and houses on the right. There were workers doing maintenance on the park. The sound of brush cutters and leafblowers. A little noisy this time.

At a big pond, I stopped and took photos of the pond.

I think houses for people with special needs are next to the pond. The following bus line. And then there's the school on the left side, and then housing is still on the right as we advance.

Then, I passed the field with cows. At that point, I am almost at work. I can bike the whole route next to or into a park to work. I arrived at 9:08 AM.

It is 6:05 PM. I am on my way home. It's sunny, but not that warm. Decided to take the same way home as I came this morning. That means I pass the field with the cows and then under the railway. It takes a bit of fiddling to get dictating in Word going. I had to turn off data transfer and on again before Microsoft Word would realize I actually had a network connection. I passed the school.

When I arrived at work today. The radio was playing, but I put on my own music. Without discussion even. I was a little brutal. Should we put on other music? No, I just did. Then, I did a bit of Jukebox Friday. People requested songs, and I put them in the queue.

How did my work go? I cleaned up the code, and I started on the next phase. And so, the idea now is that I will go over a list of cases and verify that they work. Already on the 1st item on the list, I stumbled into problems. So, I started fixing those and will continue with that on Monday. My expectation is that it goes faster and faster. We will see. We will see.

Now I'm already at the industrial park. What if I can continue along the road under the motorway? Where will I arrive when I continue that road? Let's try that! Exciting bike experiment. I have never been here. At this industrial park, there are many car companies. I biked under the motorway and over the next canal onto the bike lane along the canal. This bike lane over the bridge did not exist here a few years back, so let's try it. This might not be the most efficient way of biking home.

There are houseboats along the canal. They're like mansions. Castles. Sometimes, it is two stories high with straw roofs. Why?

Here I am back to the extensive canal at the survival park, where I took a photo in the morning. There is a bridge without a name from 1992. I took a photo of the bridge illuminated by the evening sun.

A mother and her daughter were on the bridge. The daughter is on the bike, and the girl is rolling down the hill. I'm sure it was exciting, she was laughing. It's not that windy but a bit cold. When I took the photo. Word decided it was time for a hiccup in the dictation.

DD called me at work today. She wants to visit us this weekend. It will be great fun to have her. It was a long time ago I saw her. How is she doing? But one practical thing is that she wants me to pick her up at the train station. Well. It would not be so nice to pick her up with my bike. I suggested biking home, taking the car, and going and getting her. She agreed on that, so that's the current plan. I don't need to get stressed because stress is not part of the plan.

The landscape is so beautiful when the sun is in the golden hour. Amazing.

Do not try to dictate Dutch road names in an English document. Forget it; I am not even trying. If you really want to follow how I bike, you need to read the story and find the formations in the landscape. Almost there. People are up in the air about how fantastic artificial intelligence is. Let me say this: the day I can dictate Swedish, Dutch, and English in the same document. That day, I will be worried about my job. So I'm not worried about my work just yet.

I came home, and the sheep called me. Hi ladies, how are you? Then Merida, who was not visible, also talked to me. I could not see her thoughts. Merida, I can hear you. Where are you? She arrived and came to me and gave me a friendly head butt. Hi Merida! Are you hungry? I gave her a ration, 21 grams of chunks, and the evening pill ¾ 12.5 grams Phenoral pill with chicken flavor.

Now I am on my way to the train station by car. I will try the road that has been on the reconstruction for a week. I am approaching the junction that has been closed for a week. I am so curious about what road construction was all about. The road workers have done nothing. Nothing changed. Perhaps they repaired the cabling for the street lights in the junction. You can see that the ground has been dug out and filled up again. Nothing with the road changed. I am a little bit disappointed.

DD came from the train, and we drove home. On the way home, we bought pizza. We had a lovely evening, chatting with DD and viewing a short movie she made. She had attended a course in filmmaking. Perhaps she will start a YouTube channel?

Saturday 12 October

It was 6°C outside and 22°C inside this morning at 9 AM. The first task this morning was to get the hay from the farmer. So he is selling hay bales, which were more extensive this year. We bought 12 bales from him, went home with the bales on the large trailer, and loaded the bales into the hay shed that I moved last week.

 

Then we had lunch, and DW and DD harvested beans after lunch. I went behind the house on the north side and cleared the area to build the shed and the stable.

At this point, Merida was also doing hard work; she got a mouse! I noticed that she is looking for mice when we are out working. She does that a couple of meters away. Meride threw the mouse into the air and caught it. It was already dead and could not play by itself. Mouse malfunction, according to Merida. She had to do it as if the mouse was still operational, but that was not fun anymore after a while.

I had to move our stack of building fence parts. They were moved to lean on to the temporary hay shed. While doing that, I listened to the podcast from yesterday on Ukraine-The-latest. The podcast ended with a recording of David Knowles being brought to the cemetery on an island in Scotland. They were walking accompanied by bagpipes, and it was very nice. Sad to listen to. It's so enormously unfair. David died so young. Some die young. I sat down, resting from moving the building fence parts, and welled up at the thought of no longer hearing this journalist's voice.

We had a bike tour. DD, DW, and I went biking around the area. We passed the green cathedral and stopped at a café in the forest. It was excellent in the café.

After the café visit, we biked home. I made a movie of DW and DD biking before me. It is a bit intimidating to bike among the cows.

In the evening, I was tired and did not do much. I blogged, though. That is good.

We had dinner, and DS came to eat with us.

Sunday 13 October

This was a slow morning. I blogged, and DW knitted a new design from an Estonian knitting book she bought when DD and DW went to Tallinn last time. I inserted pictures from the last week into the blog.

At 9 AM, it was 10°C outside and 21°C inside. It was a rainy morning. The weather forecast promised dry weather today. We laughed about it when we were caught in the rain; we called it dry rain.

But first, we had breakfast together with DD. She had slept well, that was nice. Yesterday, she did not sleep that well. After breakfast, she went home. DW brought her to the train station. At that time, I worked on moving the last building fence parts attached to the scaffold of the rain roof.

	This was before starting to move the rain roof. 11:43 AM.
	11:43 AM.
	1143 AM.
	11:58 AM. The building fences removed.
	1:25 PM. The tarp was removed.
	1:24 PM. All but the feet were removed.
	3:41 PM, the scaffold was moved.
	4:51 PM, the fencing was rearranged as well.
	5:38 PM, I had repaired a weak spot in the tarp.
	6 PM, DW had moved tiles from the platform.
	6:20 PM, I had moved the tiles to the fence.

We were busy the whole day. It was great weather. A couple of times, it rained, but it was short showers.

Next week, we can put the tiles below the new location of the rain roof. You can imagine I was tired in the evening. It took some time to recover; at that time, it was time to go to bed.

This week, I wrote 4143 words. That is amazing. Welcome back next week!