Sunday – run day and a birthday party
A friend messaged me whether I wanted to run again with him on Sunday. Sure I want. So we gave it a shot and ended up doing 12km before it was unbearable hot.
We took a few breaks as the dog of my friend had to take short baths in the lakes to cool off.
It was good to run a longer distance again. Need to do this more often during the summer vacation. And of course do more regularly swimming again.
In the evening we attended the birthday and anniversary of them being in Berlin for 10 years of some friend of ours. Despite the hot day it was a lovely evening meeting wonderful new people. I’m always amazed when meeting people from all over the world and people which have spent quite some time living and working in other countries.
To me this is always humbling to see that we’re just a tiny little spot on this large planet and that there is much more than Germany or Europe even.
Monday – Hertz Gymnasium Part 1
On Monday K2 had an appointment at the potential new school for his last 2 years. We applied at the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium, as this is one of the very few schools in Berlin offering computer science as a major course during the Abitur.
While theoretically more schools offer this, in fact only a handful in the whole of Berlin practically do. Because usually there either not enough pupil choosing this topic and/or the school doesn’t have enough staff to actually deliver it.
The head teacher for mathematics and computer science took full 90 mins to have thorough conversion and little exercises with the kid. Now let’s hope he sees enough potential in the kid to accept him for his final years.
Tuesday – hit the gym
After the “long run” on Sunday I went to the office gym with a friend on Tuesday. It was super hot and we only managed to do a few minutes on the cycles and rowing machines.
Did a few strength exercises on the machines with up to 110kg. Gonna field my tits tomorrow..
Later that day I tried out a cool project I saw on Mastodon: BirdnetPi. An software for newer RaspberryPis that analyses audio recordings for birds voices and classifies them. So you can have a record of which birds were heard at what time.
I’ve got it running on an RaspberryPi 3b although the recommended hardware is a RapsberryPi 4. it worked quite ok although the Web Interface was a little slow. It recognizes all the birds that we hear from our balcony and keeps sound samples. So you can listen to the voice and check whether that’s what you would expect in your area.
Unfortunately the little Pi was too weak to process all the sound bites in due time. So the recordings accumulated and the recognized birds were several hours behind. Eventually the SD card filled up and the Pi stopped.
I’m now trying to get this running on an old laptop to install it on the countryside. Over here it should be even more interesting to get a log of those birds.
Wednesday – schools out for summer
This was the last day of the 2022/2023 school year. All kids finished successfully and are now officially in vacation mode.
Friday – Hertz Gymnasium Part 2
On Thursday we received the long awaited email that the kid was accepted at the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium. On Friday we went there and picked up the paperwork for the new school year starting in August.
This hopefully marks the last leg of quite a school odyssey for him. Hope he’ll enjoy the school as much as it sounds like and he’ll get the input and inspiration he needs.
It will be definitely a tough switch moving in the 11th class. This school has an extended curriculum for the science subjects and he several years behind. But very eager to learn.
Saturday – Horde
The Horde is a local band which plays a wide variety of party music at local festivities live. Their repertoire ranges from heavy metal over punk rock to German Schlager evergreens.
This year is the second time I saw them perform in the nearby village and it was a fun evening again. Good conversations, ok food and drinks. The people (guests and band alike) had a lot of fun despite the hot temperatures.
