Category: Month Review
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Of cars with batteries and homes with batteries
First and foremost: I hope you will have a magnificent, healthy, trouble-free, fruitful and generally happy 2026! For us, December was another month of no bucket-kicking in our circle of family and friends! Oh, how fondly I remember the time that this wasn’t even worth mentioning… December was, for us, the month that we got…
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November — Emergency response cats, cars, home batteries
First thing to get out of the way: nobody we know keeled over this month. That’s a nice change. It was close, though. A week ago, a brother in law dropped to the ground in the middle of the night with a cardiac arrest. Since everyone else was asleep, nobody would have noticed — if…
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October: Some forgotten stuff from September, and continued dust biting
Let’s get the dust biting stuff out of the way first. First, another member of the extended family passed away pretty unexpectedly — we just posted a get-well-card, but she never got to see it. Sjaak Voorn And then, on October 29, after having suffered from cancer since forever ago, Sjaak Voorn finally turned off…
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September — volunteer stuff, coding, and more dust biting
First: On September 29, we lost another member of the extended family. This should explain why this instalment is somewhat late — the ceremony was last Monday. So, what else transpired? As I said in the last instalment, I was working on a Windows service to automate the handling of subscription requests from the blog…
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August: a quest, and clouds on the horizon
August started off calmly. I did some overdue bike fixing (lost fairing bolt, slight but noticeable radiator leak), then gathered my stuff, and went on a four day motorcycle trip. My first vacation alone in over 35 years. The Protagonist’s Quest This went approximately as well as could be expected. On the first day, I…
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July: aaand we’re back!
Many good things happened, most of them caused by an increase in mental energy. The effect of the medication I stopped back in May is wearing off, and I really feel like doing stuff again! So, what did I do? First thing is, Janny wanted something to watch birds with, but also possibly planets and…
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The Hiatus — on backfiring auto-immune treatment, and more photog gear — March, April, May, June
Just when I felt I was gaining traction again, my meds decided to do a number on me. Or two, actually. As I wrote in January, I was put on a regime of Rituximab (2 drips, one on Dec. 16 and the followup on Dec. 30), in addition to the Prednisone and the Mycophenol acid.…
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Jazz cave re-lit, social media cleaned out – Peter’s February in review
My study annex music room annex studio (basically a renovated loft where too many things happen on not enough square metres), which I affectionally call the Jazz Cave, had received a new floor last November. But the lighting was still crappy — LED strips which were now 10 years old, and two of those were…
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Settling dust, a new camera, broken lenses — Peter’s January in review
When I retired in October 2024, I had not foreseen the events that would hit us. So, a bit of exposition first. Exposition It started with our washing machine coughing up its lunch and dying. Geting a new one was no trivial matter. Then, our house sprung a leak, causing rain water to enter the…