October ’26

Daily routines run at full speed again. School, work, the small habits that shape the weeks. Once again some unexpected stuff happened, like an enormous bank saldo (sadly only lasting very shortly). This little error gave me a little boost to investigate crypto and coins a little bit more, which resulted in my own cryptocurrency.

We went to Agualand during one of the weekends, where I spend hours walking/running up to all the slides and sliding down with mostly Alan, and a few times with Alex. Alex spend most of his time in the park with his friends. Ana spend most of her time talking to other girls from our group.

Alan had a winning streak in the start of this football season. They started with a couple of massive wins. A good start, and now we’ll see if they can keep the lead.

I’ve let MycoSweep rest for a while. Taking a break and focusing my thoughts elsewhere helps me return with a fresh perspective and continue in the right direction later on.

My in-between project was to give the old Pokerbingo game a bit of a refresh and publish it on my blog. A long time ago, I removed the game because of potential legal concerns, but thanks to AI, I now know I have nothing to worry about.

Another project closer to home was a bit of household rearranging. Alan swapped rooms with Ana and me. A month full of routine, but still with a few remarkable events.

Guiniguada – Batan

Last week Alan didn’t play. There are to many kids in his team, so for the offical games some kids will be excluded. We did enjoy the free weekend. This weekend Alan did get to play against an almost all girl team. It was a nice match which we won 3 – 2 with a nice assist by Alan.

Results

Date Home Result Visitors
24 Okt, 10:30 Guiniguada 2 – 3 Batan B
16 Okt, 18:00 Batan B
(without Alan)
we won no idea
9 Okt, 18:00 Batan B 14 – 2 Las Torres
3 Okt, 09:00 Alcotan 1 – 10 Batan B

Cleaning Up: Thomas and Valentine

ValentineA while ago, my blog was moved to a new location, and since then I’ve been fixing small issues here and there. Broken links, missing images, and similar problems. One of the content-related things I came across involved our little book, Thomas and Valentine. It was written together with Ana when Alex had just been born. Just a small hobby project.

For fun, I even created a small online shop for it. If I remember correctly, we actually sold one copy. Since then, however, the book has been available on my website as a free download. Yet there were still a few old posts where I’m trying to sell the book. That’s why I’m publishing this new post, with direct links to the different versions.

Thomas and Valentine.
English.
Paperback,
ISBN 978-1-4478-1373-6
ePub eBook PDF
Thomas en Valentijn.
Language: NL Dutch.
Paperback,
ISBN 978-1-4478-4261-3
ePub eBook PDF

PokerBingo.. Pingo!

Almost twenty years ago, I shared the game rules for a Spanish parlor game on my blog: Pokino. A few years later, however, I received a response from someone claiming to be the trademark owner. Although the game rules themselves are centuries old and belong to the public domain, I decided to play it safe back then and took the post offline.

But great fun never gets old. Because we still play it regularly at home and our prints were overdue for replacement, I sat down at the drawing board myself. The result: a modern, fresh edition featuring completely newly designed cards, clear game sheets, and crystal-clear instructions, entirely free of trademark conflicts and ready to print yourself. I even spend some time to make a version using a normal/international carddeck.

The new name is simply PokerBingo. That way, it’s immediately clear what the game is, a mix with a little bit of poker and a lot of bingo. The word to shout when you win is simply: ‘Pingo!’.

Curious about the new version? Check out and download the printable sheets for PokerBingo here. Now playable with Spanish or international cards.

Batan B – Las Torres

Thoughts before the match: The second match of the season. We play at home, so we might have a slight advantage. We’ll see.

Thoughts after the match: Wow, I did not expect this. A massive win, 14 – 2 for our team. Three assists by Alan. Great result and a great game.

Results

Datum Thuis Resultaat Bezoekers
9 Okt, 18:00 Batan B 14 – 2 Las Torres
3 Okt, 09:00 Alcotan 1 – 10 Batan B

September ’26

As I already expected, this was a month filled with routine. The holidays are (finally) over, school has started again. Similar days lead to similar weeks. Before you know it, the whole month has simply passed. After almost two months without running a single meter, I can finally start moving again on a weekly basis. It’s about time too, because during the holiday period I grew quite a bit in width.

Routine in Spain is still not as boring as it might sound. Life here simply happens and keeps introducing random strange events. This month we had to deal with a strange left shoe occurence.

When I take lots of steps back, and I look at the situation on the world stage, it is anything but routine. Canada almost seems to be on the verge of becoming part of Europe, while large parts of the world appear to be distancing themselves from the United States. Normally, geopolitical shifts like these unfold gradually, but now they are happening at a rapid pace, with new developments emerging almost daily. I’m very curious to see how this will continue to evolve, but one thing is certain: it will be interesting. We shall see.

Imael Angel – Bad times

Sometimes a song sounds fantastic, but the lyrics are impossible to decipher. That is certainly the case with this popular track by Imael. I sometimes look up the lyrics online so I can recognize what’s being sung the next time I hear it. This time, though, the official lyrics bore absolutely no resemblance to what I was hearing, so I took it upon myself to create my own transcription. Hopefully it will be useful if you ever decide to sing along.

Oeeeee…
hummmhmmmmmm haheheheee…

hmmmm nanananananananana na na nana nanaaaaa dadadadadadada
hmm dadada

hmmm dada dedededededede
dada dada dada dede dede dadada

he sja worc en a coss
he sja worc en a coss, hahahahaha
en he sja worc en a coss, hu
sja na dida dida dida de de de

sjo mate mate tetetetetetetete da
sjo mata mata tetetetetetetete da

neeeeheh, jaqueda quede quede dada hehehehehehe
jehhh, sjaquse manamba, tansjacome sjueneses
tell myself namenema, thesone mensega, got eny pleasa

a me nona mebesens
hah, gotta see embibesos
hah, no quiseque canon me besjes
enme whatoma toma toma dedede

whadoma dededede
dededededede dee

wa do ma
a no ne toque ne bounce de bouncen de bouncen de bouncen de bouncen, heeheehhehhehhe
tetetetetetetete da
tetetetetetetete da

sjeeee, i gotta sea meself, heh
i gotte livve miself, heh
i mo loveh miself i loveh miself
loveh miself agah

he sja worc en a coss
he sja worc en a coss, hahahaha
he sja worc en a coss
he sja worc en a coss, dadadadadadada

Ice experiment

I had to stop by IKEA anyway, so I took a few minutes to browse around and look at some products. One thing that caught my eye was a set of popsicle molds. We used to have these when I was a kid, and I thought it would be fun to experiment with a few homemade flavors again.

Idea: Everyone gets to taste each flavor and rank them from best to worst.

The flavors:

  • Orange juice
  • Apple Purée with a hint of Lemon
  • Kiwi
  • Cola
  • Aquarius
  • 0.0% Beer

The results:

Ranking Alan Alex Adrie
1 – Gold! Aquarius Aquarius Orange
2 – Silver Orange Orange Aquarius
3 – Bronze Apple Cola Cola
4 Cola Apple Apple
5 Kiwi Kiwi Beer
6 – Last Beer Beer Kiwi

Alan and Alex came up with some great ideas: a coffee popsicle for me, a vanilla yogurt popsicle, a stracciatella-flavored yogurt popsicle, and a chocolate milk popsicle. That will be our next experiment.

Quest for the right shoe

The quest to find the matching right shoe for our double-left-shoe football boots has already come to an end.

Not because we found the mysterious family with two right shoes, but because the store called us (yes, we are good clients) with unexpected news. Although the boots had been sitting in their box for more than two years, they graciously offered us a full refund.

It may not be the fairy-tale ending where two families unite their mismatched footwear, but it’s a happy ending nonetheless. We can now buy a new pair of boots for Alan, allowing him to finally become the star on the pitch as originally planned. As for us, we’ve gained a valuable life lesson: always check whether a shoebox contains one left shoe and one right shoe before storing it away for two years.