phew week 21 is already almost 2 weeks ago. So I’m definitely late with this post. Again. And admittedly its hard to remember what happened. Because I’m old and because so much stuff is happening all the time.
I refreshed my nail polish
Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to make it proper. Since I’m working a lot with my hands, the normal nail polish wears off rather quickly.
Cooking
A very nice vegetarian dish I recently discovered: Zucchini/Aubergine lasagna. Dunno wether its actually called like that. But its relatively simply and very delicious:
Cut Zucchini and Aubergine into 3-4mm think slices along the long side. Put in a bowl and season with salt and let them rest for about 10 minutes. That will get some water out. Then fry them in a pan with oil until they show signs of brown frying marks.
In a bowl mix some canned tomatoes squash with salt, pepper and garlic (shredded, squeezed etc.). Now alternating layers of tomato sauce and fried veggie stripes in a cooking pan (must be good for oven use) like a lasagna.
Grate some cheese on top and put into the over at 200ºC for about 25min.
On Saturday we attended a short live concert of a queer-lesbian country-punk band in the next village. The venue was an old GDR restaurant that has been lovingly conserved by a artist Frank Suplie. He’s inviting every once in a while for an evening of dance music and drinks. Its just lovely and cool to meet so many diverse people from the village and beyond.
Friends
On Saturday we finally had good old friends over for lunch. Due to the illness of my wife we weren’t able to invite friends over to us for about 5 years now. But since her conditions are slightly improving we finally able to have people over and enjoyed a wonderful reunion with a couple from France/Turkey and her lovely kids. This was long needed 🙂
DIY
This week we had to take some blood samples for a lab test. Living on the rural countryside it’s quite a trip to the next town for a doctor. Also… you’d have to wait in a crowded room for a while. Not really something a patient with severe ME/CFS condition can do. While we have support from a care-taking company, their staff doesn’t have the proper training to take blood samples.
So eventually I do this kind of stuff on my own. Its not rocket surgery and just takes proper instructions (learned it from several ER nurses) and a bit practice.
Oak Blossoms
Ever wondered what oak blossoms look like? I did. As I couldn’t remember to have knowingly seen oaks blossom. This year I was lucky to see this period of the oak vegetation period and took a picture (slightly out of focus though). The blossoms are rather unspectacular brown feathered strings hanging down under the edge leaves.
On Saturday we celebrated the reunion with the Ukrainian families we helped to find accommodation in our village last year when Putin started a war on Ukraine. They have all found new places across Europe meanwhile, some went back to the Ukraine even. It was great to see them again and have good conversations over dinner and drinks.
We’re still amazed that the help for those four families basically sparked a whole bunch of new relationships in the villages. Beside meeting new friends in those people from Ukraine we also made new friends locally that we hadn’t met before. Despite living their alongside each other for several years already.
Helping those families helped bonding as a common cause and we enjoy the new company very much. Of course its sad that it took a war to start this.
Woodwork
a few weeks back I cut, split and stacked my wood. Was rather proud of my round stacks and how well they stood stable. Of course I was too lazy or busy to set up some stabilization around the stacks. And then the sunday before last sunday we heard a rumbling noise. One of the stacks collapsed as I had put a metal firepit on top to protect the stack from rain.
So I had to remove all the loose layers (almost to the ground) and restack the whole thing again. Took about 3 hrs. This time it put some fence around the stack right away to not touch that wood again this years …
Appliance failure
looks like this week was the week of appliance failure. Our fridge/freezer combination in Berlin doesn’t work anymore. So I had to order a new one. This is, beside the oven, probably the most important device in the kitchen as we need it store food and freeze the meals I’m preparing for my wife during the week for the next week.
Finally tuesday the new device was delivered and installed. So good to have chilled drinks again 😉
In our house in the #Uckermark the water heater broke finally after the 14 years. The magic smoke escaped and it has to be replaced now.
I hope this was the last bit of equipment that suddenly stops working…
Sunglasses
few weeks ago I lost my beloved sunglasses in the Baumarkt. Fortunately I found the same model on Kleinanzeigen and picked it up on Sunday evening. They ware dirty but fortunately in very good condition otherwise. A thorough cleaning and the look like new. No scratches anywhere.
And as the weather finally feels like spring or even summer, I could have lunch on the balkony and put them to good use right away 😉
Doppelhaushälfte
Started watching “Doppelhaushälfte” in the ZDF Mediathek upon recommendation from @klappstulli. This is brilliant TV once again. The stories are super funny and intelligent and the cast is really outstanding. We love it.
As mentioned in the last post, we were preparing a party for the night to May 1st. We decided to have pea soup for main course as we were expecting around 40 people. I tried the soup a week before and decided that it was good. But now the dimensions were much bigger. We scaled up the recipe and figured that we didn’t have pots large enough in size and quantity. Although we already had quite large pots with 10 and 7 litres each. Anyway… it was more than enough food and we had a lot of leftovers.
We lit the fire and had a wonderful evening with many friends. Some of whom we haven’t seen in person since about 6 years.
Although it was May 1st, the night still had frost. But the next day was beautiful and sunny so we could have a “Frühschoppen” with the leftovers 😉
I took some of the leftover pea soup to Berlin to converse it in the freezer. But I noticed that in the last couple of days the fridge didn’t seem to get really cold inside. I put a thermometer inside to confirm it’s not properly workin 🙁 Didn’t got the temperature below 13 ºC in the fridge part.
I’m all for repairing stuff, but this fridge/freezer is old and ugly. I think it had its time and its about time to get it replaced with a new one. That’ll hopefully arrive on next Tuesday so I can finally store some fresh produce again.
Beach cleanup
On May 1st the village society has the tradition to clean up the beach of the local lake. That is a fun event were we rake the beach area and clean it from the debris and junk that have accumulated over winter. We even clean the several meters into the lake and remove branches that have been fallen or thrown into the lake and remove reed thats growing too much into the entry.
Beer & Burger
On Thursday our local beer & burger “Selbsthilfegruppe” had it’s regular gathering again at Hirsch & Eber in Prenzlauer Berg. It didn’t disappoint.
As always – great conversations and fun, good food and good beer. best burger crew ever 😉
3D Printing
I saw something useful on Printables that I had to try out. The magnetic clips to hold together curtains. My curtains also don’t properly close and would leave a gap in the middle. With these clips I can hold them together easily.
I have to adjust the magnets a bit. Currently I’m using rather strong neodym magnets which are a bit too strong. When opening and not holder the clip fast to the curtain, one side would just slip off before the magnets would release.
I know this one is breaking my streak as we’re almost in week 19 already. But for me its more important eventually deliver the review than delivering it on time.
Sport
Finally got some running done again on Monday. Should really do this more regularly. And actually multiple times a week. But there is always something that drags me away. I’m but happy that my body still cooperates. Most of my friends around seem to have issues with their knees, feet , hips etc.
Second time we crossed the lake on Sunday. The other two guys joint me this time. I think thats quite an improvement as last year they’d probably not go all across the lake at around 10º C water temperature. Everyone returned safely and enjoyed freshly baked cake and tea afterwards.
Covid
The surprise of the week was presented by kid #2. He eventually got COVID. He was the only one still wearing his mask on school. At all occasions, even doing sport with the mask. But we said to him that eventually he’ll have to get back to not wearing a mask anymore. So he decided to give it a try … and prompt catched COVID …
Fortunately it was just like a normal cold for him. Thanks to full vaccination he only about 2 days of weakness and a runny nose. Tested negative after almost a week. He was even able to participate from his room in our bi-weekly private book club meeting that we hold via FaceTime.
Although he and his sister would usually fight with each other at every occasion she was super sweet and took good care of him. Prepared his meals every day very carefully and put them in front of his door.
K3 taking care of K2 during his COVID quarantinethe proper medicine is very important
That leaves me and my wife as the only ones in the family who haven’t got it yet. I’m still wearing masks outside in crowded areas like public transit and shopping etc. Occasionally I’m exposing myself when going to restaurants with friends and colleagues. Knocking on wood that I’m either lucky or possibly immune.
Party preparations
For the long weekend we planned to have the first on-site party since my wife fell sick with ME/CFS more than 5 years ago. She meanwhile recovered to an extend that allows her to participate partially in such events. And of course its a big deal for her to finally be able to meet friends again in person have good evening with them.
So we cleaned up the property as good as possible and prepared food and drinks and fire. As the night was supposed to be still rather cold according to the forecast.
Book Club
As mentioned above, we having a private book club every other week on sundays. We’d meet over FaceTime (for reasons) and everyone talks about the book she or he read in the last period. We’re still getting into it, but I quite like the discussions we have about the books we read. If only I had more time to read my books …
Dining out
On tuesday I met a friend which I haven’t seen in too long for dinner. We went to a vegan restaurant in Charlottenburg: Vaust. And it was very good. I especially liked that they didn’t try to just substitute meat with plant based products, but came up with original very delicious dishes.
And to add some serendipity – another friend which I had just met the week before in Charlottenburg happened to be in the same restaurant. What a funny coincident.
Most notable thing this week was probably the weather. Temperature went significantly above 10ºC during the day. On Friday it actually felt a lot like summer. Sun was shining, streets were buzzing with people and animals and a lot of trees finally decided to put out leaves.
Doggy ride
Thursday morning was still very grey and rainy. I was driving through the area east of Berlin towards the border of Poland and the very low hanging cloud formed a homogeneous wall of grey. Was thinking that people suffering from depressions must probably have a really bad day this morning.
On Tuesday morning I met with an old friend in Westberlin. Always a bit of a trip and visit to the many different worlds of Berlin.
When I was still in school (and after the Berlin Wall came down obviously) we used to take the train to Berlin on the weekends to go to Kurfürstendamm. That was the posh and trendy shopping mile back in the days. You’d find the trending fashion stores and and “WOM – World of Music” at the famous Ku’damm.
It surprisingly survived and revived as a shopping distination. Of course shops have partially changed. But over all it’s still rather lively and trendy.
Sport
Got at least some running done on Tuesday. Was scheduled to have another run with a friend on Wednesday morning. That was cancelled last minute. So planned to go to the office gym with a colleague. But that didn’t happen either due to forgotten towel. Peer pressure didn’t really work out this week then.
But at least on sunday I managed to cross the local lake in our village for the first time this year. Water had 7ºC and it took about 18 Minutes back and forth. Unfortunately the GPS recording isn’t very accurate as I had to swim a lot of breast stroke. At this temperature I can’t keep up the freestyle all the way. Its much too exhausting. The actual distance is ~560m
Crossing the lake for the first time this year
Links
some bookmarks I put during the last week:
Fedimeister – a Fediverse client aimed at writers and journalists. Makes it easier to write longer posts (automatically split into multiple posts)
I know I’m late again for my weekly review 🙄 but hey at least I’m not breaking my streak 😉
last week I still spent in the countryside due to kids holidays. But had to work from there. Which was certainly bearable. In general life in the countryside feels so much slower that the two weeks felt almost double as long as the same time in busy Berlin.
We managed to really get most of the work we had planned for the two weeks done. There is a tiny bit of wood stacking left, but thats OK for the next weekend.
The weather is really cold and wet this year. Its mid April and the temperatures during the day are still in the single digits. At least the nights don’t seem to be freezing anymore and we can consider leaving the tomatoes and chilly seedlings outside in the greenhouse.
Working
was working remotely this week from my trusty container. Spend way too much time debugging the network again. The container got a LAN cable thats plugged into a FritzBox Wifi Hotspot to provide WiFi in the container. While a windows laptop, my phone and iPad just happily use the WiFi, my laptop complaints a lot about. Wouldn’t want to connect, connection very flaky, stopped connecting at all. I ended up pulling out a LAN network adapter for my Laptop using the LAN cable directly. So annoying….
Sport
I considered the woodwork as sport as well 😉 Apart from that I only did the regular swimming. This week we took two turns – on Sunday and on Monday as this were holidays and most of the people in our swimming group were still around in the area.
There seems to be a little gear competition going on. I might have started it by having a hand paddles and a buoy for swimming. Now another guys got a buoy and hand paddles and a second guys said her ordered an buoy belt …
Hipstamatic
Boerge recently rediscovered his love for Hipstamatic. This was probably one of the first apps I had on my first iPhone and I’m using it ever since. I love the design of the app and the concept of combining films and lenses etc.
They recently did a bit of an overhaul of their app and introduced a new incarnation of their social network around Hipstamatic shots. Apparently the profiles can be seen from the web now and you can follow people on their social network. I’m not entirely (or actually at all) convinced this will get enough momentum to sustain … but hey, lets give it a try: https://hipstamatic.app/@maxheadroom
BeReal
I’ve also started to participate into the daily BeReal rounds again. Had the account for a while already, but didn’t got around using it as I didn’t (don’t ) like this forced time period of posting thingy. I get the idea, but find it bit of impractical for me.
But apparently people in friend sphere still sticking with it. So giving it another try.
since it’s school vacation in Berlin I took time off as well and we moved to our house in the #uckermark.
There was a lot of woodworking waiting for me. Last spring there was a big storm taking down many trees in the surrounding forests. So we’ve got a few cubic meters of wood for a very good price. But it has to be cut down and split to dry properly.
Spend all Monday cutting down the big pile of logs with my trusty chainsaw.
On Tuesday we got a hydraulic splitter from a friend. But somehow we managed to break it and blew one of the hydraulic hoses.
Turns out it’s not entirely trivial to replace such a hose. Apparently the fittings are not really standardised and you can’t just by them in a normal DIY shop. You have to find a specialised shop to custom make the hose with the proper fittings.
The first problem but was to get the hose off the splitter. Of course I first had to buy a proper wrench that size. From a agriculture hardware shop in the nearest town I’ve got the address of the closest hydraulic service company.
Living in the countryside this means a lot of driving and time. Had to go to the nearest city for the proper wrench and then to a smaller village about 50km from our place to have the new hose made. All in all about 4hrs and 150km later the machine was working again.
Wednesday to Saturday we spent parts of the day with splitting and stacking that wood.
This will last for a few years …
Stabat Mater
On Sunday we attended one of two sessions of “Worte, die die Welt bewegen“ – a choir concert in the “Maria Magdalenen Kirche” in Templin. This was a joint venture of the local choir, the “Filmorchester Babelsberg”, “Preußisches Kammerorchester” and several solo artists.
Quite an impressive concert
Sport
Of course we started the new week (counting Sunday as the start of the new week in this context) with swimming in the lake.
Decided to move the storage backend of my Object Storage at home from the local HDD to the NAS. That way I avoid the regular backup over the network. The linux machine is connected via wired network to the NAS system and I hope the NFSv4 connection is stable enough. At least the NAS with its RAID and Backup gives me a little more peace of mind that that single aging HDD.
Set up another Mastodon Instance for a friend on my machine.
3D Printing
in time for easter I printed another batch of egg cups:
And just for fun another instance of the Great Wave Off Kanagawa in the form of the Great Wave of Coffee
Sport
Back to almost full schedule this week. Two times running and at least one time indoor rowing in the gym.
Almost attempted to swim across the lake on Sunday as air temperature suggested spring. But water was still bit too low at 5ºC for a full roundtrip. But swam about 7 minutes.
looking forward to a week of vacation next week and working from the countryside the week after \o/
Reading
Still not finished with my current book „Die Illusion der Vernunft“. Was too tired and lazy to read the last two weeks. Need to pick this up again. The books isn‘t that bad that I want to rather quit it. I‘m actually interested in the topic. But apparently its not enticing enough to take the time.
For a reason I will reveal later I‘ve started reading a biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Very interesting so far.
Listening
No, not music. In general. Listening to understand. I noticed that the majority of people donn‘t listen to understand. If at all, they listen to catch the pause in the speakers flow of words to place their own words. Rarely anyone tries to listen to understand. That may include asking questions to clarify things that one doesn‘t understand.
I know this is rather late for the weekly review. The judges are paying attention:
should probably try to get this done on Saturday or even Friday, as Sundays are usually packed with getting back from the countryside to Berlin and getting everything ready for the new work/school week.
Nerd Stuff
Took a look at Logseq as a note taking tool as @moellus was advocating for it. He provided some articles where people described their use of the tool. Main selling point seem to be thats it open source, uses Markdown as text format, synchronises across devices via iCloud or Dropbox and others.
Sport
again a lazy week as I only got the weekly lake swimming done, but no running, rowing etc. 🙁
Fediverse
Was contemplating about Pixelfed. While I like the UI as it resembles mostly the old working Instagram UI I less and less get the point of running my own Pixelfed instance. The level of interaction on the instance is really low compared to the feedback/interaction I’m getting for stuff posted on my Mastodon instance. Since Pixelfed ist just another Fediverse Service that can be consumed with most Fediverse clients, most people might just consume a main Stream on Mastodon and don’t want to follow a separate stream on Pixelfed. One can perfectly follow people on Pixelfed from a Mastodon account. Thats the whole point of the Fediverse. I can also follow my Mastodon Followings on Pixelfed. But I’m honestly too lazy to re-follow all the people in Pixelfed again.
To me, the Pixelfed mobile app as a special interest Fediverse client would probably be enough. An Instagram-like user interface that would only display ActivityPub posts which contain Images and Videos (maybe even more specific). So one can have the Insta UI but using a Mastodon Account. I don’t need to run or have an account on a Pixelfed instance for this. Of course currently the Pixelfed mobile app isn’t compatible with a Mastodon feed.
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