Inter Colonia – Muelle Grande

Lost! I was never a big fan of football. Even though both my parents were trainers, and my brother played pretty well, the only reason I visited the few games I did was to collect grass for my rabbit.

With Alan this changed. In the beginning the lost a couple of matches, some resulted in scores like 35 – 0, but now the team found their place in the competition, and the matches are more equal. Too bad, we did not win, but Alan did score a goal!

18 jan Inter Colonia B 2 – 4 Muelle Grande

After the Bestial race

Wow, the day of the Bestial race I was mentally disconnected while Alan was celebrating his birthday with his class mates. I remember they went to play with lasers in Hangar 37, but I don’t remember any specifics. I remember arriving home, going to bed and just sleeping. The next day my muscles hurt. They hurt while moving around, and while standing still. An annoying pain that simply was all over my body. I decided to simply take it easy. The next day was a Monday, so I had to head over to work. The pain I experienced yesterday had somehow doubled. Another day of suffering, hoping that the next day would be easier. Still wondering why I did it. I found out my time was 1:29:31, but it felt like the entire trial took a lot more time.

I made a couple of videos before and after the event, and Alex took some videos of me starting with the trails and when I arrived at the finish. so there was enough material for a new YouTube video!

Bestial race

Bestial race!With a colleague, I did the Bestial race today. He convinced me, and I actually assumed I would beat him easily, thus having a fun story for the coming months. The race took place in Arucas, a nearby town. 6 KM running and a few obstacles. At the start, it immediately became clear why my variant was called ‘hell’. Directly through pits and small hills, holes with mud, crawling under low bridges, jumping and diving, pushing tires while crawling, etc. Before the running started, I was already exhausted. The running afterward also turned out to be uphill, with wet shoes and socks, along a small path. There were also a few obstacles here: carrying a 20-kilo stone ball over an extra route, carrying a jerry can with 20 liters of water over yet another extra route, climbing over a two-meter wall, and several obstacles where you had to grab objects with your hands to avoid touching the ground and still ‘climb’ about 6 meters forward. Super difficult. Right before the end there were another two huge containers with water, and a lots of other obstacles, and then we finally arrived at the finish. What a relief. We did it!

After the race we rushed to another event, a birthday party for Alan. I was physically present, but I can’t remember much of it. I do remember being dead tired wondering why I never realised that ‘hell’-difficulty must be something pretty difficult and undesirable. I wondered why I ever signed up for this…

November ’24

We started this month with a couple of days all-in. Bad for my weight/waist, but good for morale. Once again it was a pretty standard month, with only a few notable events. We had a couple of barbecues. Alan enjoyed a few minutes of fame. We made some homemade yogurt (which I ended up eating myself because nobody liked it) and a couple of very tasty cakes with apple in it. All in all November was a nice and quiet month

Opinions matter!

Your opinion matters. My opinion also matters but in reality nobody is really interested in hearing how I think about things. However, people are interested in what Alan thinks! He had an interview with a local TV-channel. Alan was very observant and touched base on the subject of using technology in class. Something he is in favor of.

Collectible soccer trading card

Alans collectible soccer trading card!I remember that you used to be able to collect cards from famous players and teams. Fun for the fans, and something that could quickly turn expensive. To get all the cards you needed to buy lots of little bags and make an effort to exchange all your repeating cards. You could place all the cards in an album, and needed to keep collecting until it was complete.

At Alan’s soccer team (before Fomento, but now c.d. Inter Colonia) they thought of something new. They are going to make soccer cards of themselves. It feels like a good idea to take some money of the parents, and make a nice profit for the club. I made a quick concept card to see how Alan’s card might turn out, but for the actual cards I suspect we need to be patient.

Camping and filming – Lessons learned

Camping, llanos de la pez!Well, my first video that was basically centered around me got me quite a bit of comments. It also taught me quite a bit. First the lessons I learned myself:

– Batteries. Lots of video means you need some way to charge a battery, or have a replacement ready. In the two days camping I spend the battery of my good camera the first day. My phone was empty around noon the second day, and the two gopro clones I had did last a bit longer, but had a terrible image and sound quality.
– Interaction. It was difficult to film people I did not know. It felt like I would invade their privacy, so I did not film anything while I talked to others. People in our group also showed some restraint when appearing, so I also kept these interactions to a minimum. The result was a movie where I am almost the only person to appear.
– Clean. The video needs to be ‘cleaner’. I don’t know the correct word, but a lot of my sentences end in gibberish no-one can understand. I need to speak clearer. Some parts of the video show the ground, or my feet, or my shirt, and are not focused correctly. I needed to keep some of these parts to avoid breaking the monologue I was having.
– Information. I need a bit more of background information, so I have something to say when there is a dull moment.
– Editing. Cutting away boring parts is not so easy. I was talking a lot, and sometimes I had to leave bad parts to not cut my sentence in half. Sometimes I had to remove big clips, because I repeated things I had already said. Shorter sentences and a small pause before changing topic might help a lot to do the editing afterwards.

My family also had some comments. Quite a lot of comments actually, but most are covered my the issues I found myself.

– Focus. There is no clear goal for the movie. I was told nobody would be interested in seeing only me talk (and drink). It the focus is a family movie we see to little family. If the focus is transmitting interesting facts, I need to include more information.
– No interaction. The same as I already stated, but my family told me it was not all on me. The participants to the video should participate more, without being scared of the camera. This will probably be hard to achieve, because I told everyone I would be making a video, and everybody thought it was a good idea, but still almost nobody wanted to be filmed.

Conclusion: I liked filming and thought the video was not so bad, and maybe even a bit funny, but after all the criticism I have changed my mind. It is not a good video, and it would take a lot of effort to make it better. Will there be a next video… I´m not sure. We don’t normally go camping, so maybe I can make a video when we do something more often, and I need something to talk about. I’ll see, but for now my motivation is a bit low.

Camping – Coffee

I used to dislike it, such a bitter drink. I still take my coffee with milk and sweetener or sugar, but I’ve come to appreciate it more and more. A small pick-me-up that is welcome at times. It’s also a pleasant ritual that I enjoy. Even if it’s just popping a capsule into the machine, it remains a moment I find enjoyable.

Most of the time, when we’re in the forest or on a hike, I don’t think about having a cup of coffee. But when the opportunity does arise, it’s extra special, especially when all sorts of equipment come into play. Then, the value of the ritual increases enormously, and even if the coffee isn’t that great, the coffee-experience more than makes up for it.