Alex – Casa de caracoles
Corona
The corona virus is here. An actual pandemic. The entire world seems infected. It seems like the virus is everywhere. Such a small bug with such a big effect. Yesterday we got the announcement that the schools will all be closed for two weeks. The hospital where Ana works in suddenly a place of stress. At my work the option to work from home suddenly seems to be valid. Supermarkets are partly empty and people are hamstering. It is a strange time.
Arm
Oh no, Alex had music classes today. We are very happy with his progress. He is able to play a couple of songs perfectly on his keyboard. After music Alex went to play in a park nearby. Running around on a wooden boat suddenly made all our days a lot worse. He had some very bad luck and his leg got stuck behind something while running. He took a tumble towards the floor, around two meters lower. The result was a broken arm. We went to the hospital immediately and there they put his arm in a cast. It was not a very nice break, so we hope it will all turn out okay. In 10 days they will check the result. Fingers crossed.
Heavy fog made by sand
Last weekend was spend inside because the entire island was covered by a strange yellow thick fog. The fog was not made out of water, but existed out of sand. The sand came all the way from the Sahara desert and was/is being blown over the island. Slowly everything here is being covered by a thin layer of yellow/orange sand. It looks pretty nice, but the same layer of sant in our lungs is probably not the best thing, so we spend the weekend inside with all the doors and windows closed. The one time we were outside it was like being in a ghost town. No cars, almost no people and the people that were outside were wearing mouthcaps.
Relationship improvement – Pizza
Lets go out to eat some times to have some time to get closer together.
That was the idea. Once a month we wanted to go out to get to know each other again. Leave the kids at home and enjoy life like we did before the hectic of family life took over. We were discussing this idea in the car one day, with the kids in the back semi-fighting. We thought that the kids were not paying any attention to us, but suddenly Alex claimed that he thought it a good idea to go out to dinner once in a while, and that he also preferred to go without Alan.
Finally the day came, but because of a heavy calima we decided to stay close to our home. The streets were literally covered with a fine layer of reddish sand, o for the lungs it did not look very healthy. We went to a pizza place very near by and had a nice dinner. Hopefully next month will be less eventful.
Ollie Ongeluk
“Ollie Ongeluk” is on of the main characters in the Dutch animated series “Helden van de stad”, Heroes of the city. Alan is a big fan and he especially likes the character Ollie. Ollie is a very unlucky character. He walks around with his leg in a cast, his arm in a cast and his beak has a big bandaid. Almost every episode het gets into trouble and he accumelates more harm. He will fall over banana peels, fall into fountains, cause fires and just generally cause lots of trouble.
Alan is a fan, and it looks like Ollies bad luck is rubbing off on Alan. Suddenly Alan is going through a period of increased unluckiness. He fell on the street and needed two stitches on his forehead and during playtime at school he fell and bit his tongue. Now he is walking around with a blue inflated tongue. Poor guy. Lets hope his unluckiness is over.
Dremel
Getting a new toy is always great. This time it is not only a toy, it is a new hobby at the same time. Sinterklaas/santa claus/the three kings/myself gave me a micro tool. A Dremel that can be used for drilling, filing, cutting and sanding. Just good simple fun, messing about with a small powerfull motor. My first project will probably be an egg. Blowing out a normal chicken egg and using the drill to make it into a piece of art.
DatePad Mobile
There is a new DatePad!
DatePad was a great tool for Windows, but sadly the software did not survive the update from 32bit to 64bit. The software did not work anymore and I never made a new version. I simply did not have the time for it.
Recently I got involved with a new development environment and got to build a small app to see how everything works. It did not take long for me to decide to rebuild the old DatePad but now for a mobile platform.
The result is a super simple and easy app for Android. You can find the new DatePad Mobile in the Google play store.
Months and months
It has been silent for a couple of months. Not so very strange with two kids and the holidays. We went from one activity to another and it left me little time for my hobbies, like this blog. A shame really, but it is what it is.
Since the beginning of out holidays I’ve stopped writing. We first visited Holland for a few weeks, and had a really great time. During our time in the Netherlands the kids even spoke a little Dutch together, which made me very happy and even a bit proud. In Holland we did all the regular stuff. Spend time with family and friends, eat some smoked eel, visit the beach, the lake and my city, Leiden. All in all a good time.
After Holland we went to Torrevieja. Almost a month of beach, swimming pool, sun and relaxation. The nights were spend with our kids playing with a huge group of other kids, all in the closed area with the holiday houses. Alex also celebrated his birthday here with lots of activities and lots of presents.
Now we are again home, for quite some time already and we have gotten back in our normal routines. Boring and easy, and that is also quite good.