Category Archives: Hobby

Tamagotchi

Posted on by

Alan used to have a little crab as a pet. He kept it in his room in a nice crab environment with crab toys, water, plants, and some dirt so she could dig a nice hole. Sadly she kept getting older and older, and when we returned from our last trip she had passed away. To bad. Alan was in favor of getting a new pet, en we started to investigate. A walking stick seemed like a good idea, or maybe a new crab. Maybe even a hamster. The crab was nice but it spend most of its life inside its little hole in the ground. Only to come out to quickly get some food. The care for the little animal was also quickly allocated with Alan’s dad. That needed to change.

Searching for a new animal I also passed for a toy store. I hoped to find maybe a robotic fish, or something similar. Then I noticed the tamagotchi eggs. Maybe this could be interesting. The technology is from the last century, but if it’s fun, it’s fun. For Alan is was the perfect gift. He was so happy. His thoughts of any live animal disappeared immediately, as he started feeding and training the little digital animal. The animal also had a small game, and could be disciplined. The best part was that Alan could take it wherever he went. A great gift for sure.

March 25th – Piano day 2023

Posted on by


Today it’s piano day. Not really very interesting, except that Alex will be performing! On the street! We are really proud of him. We will try and make a movie of Alex’ mini concert, similar to some youtubers we subscribe to like daniele vitale (sax) and karolina protsenko (violin) we now have our very own Alex taking his very first steps into the world of entertainment and art.

Tides

Posted on by

Tides!High or low tide? I really don’t have a clue, and because it changes every couple of hours, and is influenced by the moon and even the sun (I think) it is very difficult for lots of people to know if it is low or high tide. Luckily there is an app for that. It has the fitting name ‘Tides‘ and it will show the current water level as well as the past and future levels. Great information to review before heading to the beach.

The app itself costs around two euros. Actually, the app is free, but removing the advertisements costs the mentioned two euros. This is one of the few app’s where I did not even think about it. Two euros for such a good and useful app is a bargain.

With low tide the kids directly know the drill. We will head to ‘la Laja’ and search/explore the tide pools. If it is high tide there are more options. The woods, a park or hiking a track.

Too good to go

Posted on by

Too good to go!Too good to throw out. Toogoodtogo is an app that makes an effort to reduce waste. When a product is still pretty good a company can decide to toss it in the trash, or sell it with a big discount (or give it away, but that sometimes conflicts with the business interests). I installed the app and we have tried it twice!

Chinese foodFirst experience (4.99)
There were some left-overs available at a local Chinese restaurant. This felt like quite a risk, because what are you going to get? The left-overs from the buffet? Still we took a gamble, and what we got was unexpected. Four containers with freshly made Chinese food. Nothing to good to go, just normal Chinese food, with the only exception that we could not chose the menu. What we got was pretty good. White rice, rice with chicken, noodles with chicken and croquet’s. All very tasty, but not something that was at risk of being thrown away.

Meat!Second experience (3.99)
The second time we rescued a package from the trash from a big supermarket. This time we got lots of meat. Bacon, bacon pieces, sausages, yogurt (8x), and three apples. All the meat was from a pig. The best-before dates were all on the current date. Not bad, the products all looked pretty good, and we received a big amount of food. I spend the evening frying the meat and even though I would normally avoid pig-meat out of personal preference it looks like the next couple of days I’ll be having pig for lunch.

Conclusion
It is really a gamble. You don’t know what you will get, and you don’t know what state it will be in. I don’t think we will use this app a lot more. The food you get is cheap, and it can be a lot of food, but it is still a gamble. It is unusual to get something you really need. In our case it is much easier to simply pay a little more and get exactly what we want/need. As a game/gamble/surprise it might be fun to get something with friends.

For the company it is an easy way to achieve something. In the case of the Chines restaurant I think they used as a new way to advertise. A random menu for a low price, to maybe get some new customers. In this case I think there is a high probability I would try this Chinese place again, just to see what I will get next time. In case of the supermarkt the app clearly achieved its goal. Avoid throwing away food that was perfectly fine.

Companies that can really benefit from this app are companies that deal with perishable foods. Fruit, vegetables, bread, meat, fish, etc. These shops can avoid throwing away things and get some new potential customers at the same time. For the customer there is the potential for cheap food, but with a risk in not knowing what you are going to get.

From plant to oil

Posted on by

Yet again! A little marihuana plant!I grew two small marihuana plants and it looks like they are already done growing. Their bigger leaves are starting to dehydrate, so I will turn these plants into oil. The theory is that the active ingredients of the marihuana plant will dissolve in oil, and will repel water, so all we need to do is break open all the plants cells (with hot water) so the active ingredients can get out of the plant material and into the oil. I will follow the next steps:

Step 1: (optional) Dry your plant. This is normally the first step, and for smoking the plant it is required, but for extracting the active ingredients to oil it is not needed.
Step 2: Cut the plant into small pieces. Remove big leaves and the stem. Mix these pieces with water and oil and put this mix including the container in a big pan with hot water (bain-marie). Stir every now and then. Keep the water hot, but avoid boiling it. Leave the plant material in the hot water for a couple of hours. The hot water will destroy the plants cells so the active ingredients can dissolve into the oil.
Step 3: Filter the mix to remove all the plant material. Clean the solid residues with some additional hot water.
Step 4: You should now have a container with oil and water. Let it rest for while so the liquids can separate. Put the container in the freezer until the next day
Step 5: The water is frozen, so you can simply pour the oil off. The water is not needed anymore. All the active ingredients are in the oil.
Step 6: Try it! It might be a very strong mix, so first try it with a tiny drop below your tongue, before going to sleep. If the oil works you should notice in your dreams, or by changes in your sleep patterns. If you notice/feel the effects are too strong you can dilute the mix with more oil, until you reach the desired strength. If the effects are to weak you can simply use a higher dosage.

I sometimes use a drop of oil because I noticed my dreams get a lot more interesting. Some people use it sleep better or to help with chronic pain.

This is a 100% natural product but you still need to be careful and use your mind. Don’t take to much. Be patient for the effects to appear, sometimes it will take a few hours. Don’t drive, don’t do anything dangerous. Don’t start cleaning with all kinds of chemicals, don’t go into the kitchen to cut unions with a sharp knife or to boil hot water. Avoid fire. Do not combine with alcohol, drugs or medicines. Really use your mind and avoid any problems.

Optional: If you hate the texture of the oil you can mix it with some honey
Optional: Use (part of) the oil for baking a cake!

Super-easy cake recipe

Posted on by

Ingredient and measuring cup!A couple of days ago I made another cake and I wanted to share this extremely easy recipe. You use one yogurt cup for all the measurements, so there are almost no dishes to clean!

Ingredients:
– One small cup with yogurt (lemon or vanilla taste, or whatever taste you like)
– 2 eggs
Use the empty yogurt cup (no need to clean it) to measure the next items:
– about one cup of sugar
– about 3 cups of flour
– about half a cup of olive oil

Steps:
Throw everything together and mix with a spoon until it is a somewhat smooth mass. Afterwards you can optionally add some extra ingredients like:
– extra pieces of apple
– extra pieces of chocolate
– extra pieces of walnut
– extra pieces of banana
– extra pieces of rasped lemon peel

Put everything in the desired shape. Put in a preheated oven around 180 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cool, and you’re done.

Insect hotel

Posted on by

Our birdhouse showed us we that we had set our goals way to high. Our objectives were unobtainable. Maybe it was caused by the heat, or the general lack of birds in our area. We don’t know, but it is clear that after more than half a year we haven’t seen a single bird getting near the birdhouse we placed outside of Alex’ room.
We needed to refocus to something a bit more realistic. There are lots of insects, so why not make them a home, and see if we can get some results here. An insect home should be easier to make, and insects are probably less picky compared to birds.

Step one: With a couple of pieces of wood we made the basic frame
Step two: We pained the basic frame the same color as the wall, so it will not stick out so much
Step three: We collected a couple of sticks and some bamboo, which we cut in lots of pieces of 3 centimeters
Step four: All the pieces were glued inside the frame.
Step five: Leave to dry, and hang outside.

Now we only need to be patient. Maybe some insect will find the hotel and visit it for a while. We shall see.

Another Alex film

Posted on by

Alex made another movie. This time it is not a stopmotion but a scary movie. Alex was the camera man, and the actors are myself and Alex’ little brother Alan who plays the main part. The plot is straightforward and leaves you with a catchy open end. A scream is heard in the living room and the protagonist sets out to investigate. During the following investigation he finds writing on the wall… blood stains, and a corpse on the floor. Then he is relieved find himself together with his little brother, but things are not as they seem. A short film shot as a home movie which will leave you thinking. What happened? What is going to happen? Is everybody OK (except for the corpse)? Who did the killing?

If you want more then subscribe to the channel and leave a like.

iPhone SE 2020

Posted on by

I recently bought a new iPhone. I still remember my first one. It was the old phone my brother gave me when he got a new one. With his old phone I made the big step from dumb phone to smart phone. I liked the change. In the beginning it was easy to have a chat function that worked easily and my email. After this first iPhone I got the first SE and a few weeks ago I got the SE 2020. It is clean that the smart era is here to stay. I use my phone for everything. Chat, email, photo camera, banking, paying, checking on the tides, keeping my passwords, route navigation, keeping running statistics, reading the news, music, games. The strange things is that the only thing I don’t use my phone for is calling people, which I still hardly ever do.