Bestial race

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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

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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!

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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.

Pump & Dump

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Pump and Dump!Step 1: Acquire an asset for yourself.
Step 2: Make the asset attractive to others.
Step 3: Wait for others to buy in, and the value goes up.
Step 4: Sell your holdings.
Step 5: Profit for you, losses for others.

It is unethical and illegal to make money through Pump and Dump schemes, but this does not stop the rich and famous from doing it. The world’s richest man has done it at least twice. He mentioned that ‘Dogecoins’ were a great investment, then sold his holdings a couple of weeks later. He also announced that Tesla would accept Bitcoin for car payments, causing the value to surge. He then sold his own coins and canceled the acceptance of crypto for payments. A lot of profit was gained by Musk, while the losses were borne by others.

Tips for Identifying Schemes:
– Be cautious of sudden, unexplained price increases. (Like now)
– Verify information from multiple reliable sources.
– Avoid investments that seem too good to be true. (Like now)

Musk seems to favor the ‘Pump and Dump’ approach because, with a large enough following, it is easy money. A lot of money. His now friend Trump has one defining characteristic: for Trump, money is the most important thing. Money is the only thing that matters. Together, they could be preparing the biggest pump and dump the world has ever seen. The richest person in the world, with the most powerful person. Together, they are now pumping crypto a lot. The value is going up like a SpaceX rocket. The question now is simple: when is the dump coming, and how much damage will it do?

Collectible soccer trading card

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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.

Comet spotting

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The Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)!Once again we travelled to the center of the island. This time we did not go camping, but we went for a once in a lifetime experience. See the comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) pass by. First we had a bbq, and then we want to a nice viewpoint to stare at the sky. It took a few hours but end the end we were all very happy. We found the comet.

I made a second video and I think it turned out a little bit better than the previous one. The only issue I had was still pretty massive, because the end of the video, and basically the entire purpose of the video was in the dark, and I could not film that correctly. A black screen was the result. Oh well, there is improvement visible, so I can only hope next time will be even better. As the night turned darker and darker we did all get to see the comet. First with binoculars, and later even with the naked eye, so that made the trip extra fun.

In addition to the main feature, the (sadly failed on video) quest for the comet, I also created a ‘behind the scenes’ with some very typical social events.

Leaking coconut

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smooth coco!One of the coconuts that I used as a pot for a miniature orchid had a leak! Every time I gave the orchid some water a part of the water would slowly drip out, leaving some stains on the cupboard. I decided to make a new pot, using a new coconut, but this time I did something different. I sanded the coconut to make it nice and smooth, and after sanding it I oiled it inside and out to give it a nice darker color, and to make it even more water proof. The effect was really nice, so I will pobably repeat the same sanding and oiling with the second coco mini orchid we have.

September ’24

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Alex and his first star!We had an easy start of the month. Alex went with his godfather on a city trip to explore Bilbao. A great adventure and a perfect opportunity for Alex and his godfather to strengthen their relationship. It also provided a couple of days of serenity at home. Spending time with only Alan meant there were no more daily/constant fights and it allowed us to get some quality time with Alan.

Alex had a blast with his godfather in Bilbao. They stayed at a very nice hotel, visited museums, the football stadium and even went to a restaurant (Ola) with a Michelin star!

Alan also had a good first week because he spend three days camping with his friends in the south of the island. They had a nice apartment with a pool, the beach nearby and they had lots of fun in the Holiday World attraction park.

Both kids should be ready and fully relaxed to start the new school season. With the new school year the ‘old’ routine also started working again. School days were all similar, weekends similar. Maybe it is boring, but at the same time it is a very easy routine to follow. Soccer, tennis, (still no) English, Bandama, La Laja, a weekend camping trip, birthdays, etc. Once again our routine where everything everyday is almost the same as always.

Camping and filming – Lessons learned

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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.