Have to find the time to get back to the 100daysToOffload, even though I’m not doing it as it’s supposed to.

Miss sitting down and thinking a longer post through.

A while back I tried to do the 100DaysToOffload challenge, and failed miserably. I got to Day030 and haven’t had the time and mind to write another one.

I consider the project paused, not stopped, and I’m willing to keep going, until I get to Day100. I’m not doing it on the timeframe that it was meant to, but I don’t really care. I’ll have my 100 days, and I’ll be done when I get to the end of those 100 days. Even if it takes me 100 years!

Anyway, I was posting them at Write.as, and then linking to them from Micro.blog. I now see no point in keeping these two going, and decided to import the posts to {micro maique}. The next ones will be published here.

They now have their own category, so they’re easier to find, and are available on the navigation menu as well.

I have some ideas lined up for a couple of new ones, just need to find the time to get them written.

Radio

I mostly listen to the same music. I have a handful of playlists, with a few hundred songs, and usually I’m listening to them on shuffle, and don’t deviate a lot from those. A few of the playlists have been downloaded to the iPhone, and I listen to them when riding motorcycles, or when I’m abroad, as well as when we’re home and, basically, whenever we need a little music on our lives. As one does.

Once a year I try the “You might like this” feature on the streaming service, and enjoy it, but soon I’m back to the same familiar tunes.

The only time I do something different is when I’m driving. I listen to radio. Always the same station, the only one I listen to. It’s been like this for ever.

I used to drive a lot, and this was the station I listened when I did. A lot of the music on those playlists comes from Shazaming songs they play.

I can’t stand any other station. This one is unique, the others all sound alike.

It’s the last thing I do whenever I’m ready to drive away on a car, any car: tune that station, and hit the road.

That station is Radar. 97.8.

I can listen to it when I’m home, but I never do.

I can listen to it on the phone, with Triode or something else, but I never do.

I can listen to it on the browser, but I never do.

I only listen to it while driving. But I can’t drive without it (*).

There’s a streaming link on their site, if you’d like to give it a go.

(*) not 100% true, because the reception gets really spotty far from Lisbon, and I drive in a ton of other places… but you get the point.

This is day 030 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Moving

I don’t like moving. I love moving around, but the place I call home has been the same for 20 years (has it been that long ??)

I kept thinking I’ve been here for 15 years, but time does go by, and it’s been 20 already!

Soon after changing newspapers I bought this place, and have never moved. I’d been a regular in the neighborhood by then, some friends lived here, but the place welcomed me, and soon I was feeling at home.

I’ve said it before, but this place feels like a small village inside a city. We have a fish place, a butcher, cafes, grocery shop, pharmacy, restaurants,… all in a small area.

Every time I had to go up the street to the nearest big one, it felt like I was going into town.

And, obviously, we get to know the people, and after a while start to appreciate knowing their names, greeting them every day, the postal workers know you already, the shopkeepers know your preferences, … the list of things I love here is endless.

I thought I’d never leave.

I lived here for most of my years at the paper, going away on assignments and, on the later years, having a regular desk job, but always had this place to end up at. My safe haven.

Then movieStar moved in.

We traveled quite a bit, and spent months away in Príncipe, but always came back to the same place, the same people, and the same cosy feeling.

tinyMovieStar was born, pandemic struck, we moved with my in-laws for a little while. Ended up staying there for half a year. It felt good having all that space, along with the amazing support they provided, but when we got home again, we both felt we were home at last.

The apartment is on the smaller side, soon enough it was feeling tiny, and there’s no pause button on this. The baby will keep getting bigger, and the place that was perfect for two is not big enough for three. Turns out babies are quite small, but take up an incredible amount of space!

We were looking for a unicorn place: in the same area, bigger, but within our price range. This year has not been a great one regarding work, so that price range was more limited than we’d hoped.

Also, the area where we live has seen housing prices skyrocket. Airbnb to blame, tourists are more profitable than locals, and most landlords and home owners aren’t in it to help people. Money is their motivation.

In the end, thanks to movieStar’s relentless search for the right apartment, we found one that is as close to perfect as we could hope for. Still overpriced, but close to home.

We’ll be paying rent from now on, also a strange feeling for me, since we own our place. It’s odd and taking a while for that part to sink in.

It’s only an eight minute walk from the new house to the old one, but it still feels like a world apart. We’ll be closer to the big supermarket, closer to the subway station, closer to a few other things, but in my mind it’s far from everything we love about living here.

I’ll get over it, I’m sure, and we’ll still spend our free time in the same square and garden. But…

I really hate moving.

This is day 029 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

I blame my parents.

movieStar thought it would be a good idea to get the show on the road, and introduce her tiny version to the beach.

We picked the Algarve, a decent hotel with the amenities we believed would make our excursion easier (it worked) and off we went.

We needed a car for the ride, one that’s a bit more practical than our own, so we borrowed one from my parents. When I went to pick it up, my mom said I was the same exact age as tinyMovieStar when we went to Spain. Four months old, first trip.

I have a lot to be thankful, a LOT! Mom & Dad are amazing, and this is one of the things I’ll always be thankful for, and one I’ll try to pass along.

Every year, when summer came, they would get my brother and me into the car, and off we’d go. We traveled a lot in country, but I can still remember the trips abroad. Spain, Andorra, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, … heck, we went to Yugoslavia, that’s not even a thing anymore!

Always camping, traveling on country roads, pre-Air Con, pre-GPS, pre-entertainment systems. Two kids. How did they manage that ??

I was tasked with the navigation. Yes, at the time I actually thought I was. My love of maps started there. Holding a huge Europe atlas on my tiny lap, I would trace the route with my finger, memorizing the cities along the way. I would help pick the camping site, with another big book, looking for places with pools. That was our thing, pools. We were swimmers (there’s another post in there).

I learned how to ride a bike in a camping site in France, and ate delicious apples from an orchard in another one in Germany. We had yummy ice cream in Venice, and swam freely in the ocean in Nice. We visited castles that were nothing like the ones back home, and tried to decode signs in languages we would never speak.

I will never be able to thank them enough.

Every August was an adventure, and a big one at that. And it stuck! I found a job that would allow me to keep going to new places, and later on an amazing woman found me and helped keep that alive.

Hopefully tinyMovieStar will get that from us.

This is day 028 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Tested

An empty parking lot, a huge one, and two tents, like the ones you’ll find at a wedding reception, if it’s that kind of wedding.

A ton of policemen, a couple of lab technicians, dressed in full hazmat suits.

You have to show up in a car, mask on, windows rolled all the way up.

It’s 08:30AM and there are a few cars already, maybe seven. A van from a tv production company, with three people about to be tested, probably actors, and a driver. Me, another person from a different tv company, and a few non-tv related people. Half the people work in entertainment.

When my turn comes, one policeman motions me forward, there’s a course I have to navigate, like the ones in Drivers Ed, ending in another policeman and a STOP sign. I have to wait until the technicians say it’s ok to go.

I pull up into the tent, turn the engine off, the first technician points to a phone number, written in huge characters. I call that number and speak to her on the phone. She’s sitting two meters away, at a computer, holding a Bluetooth speaker. I can hear my voice coming out of the speaker. Loudly.

Full name, date of birth, SS number, email and phone.

I check that all the details have been properly understood on a sheet of paper she presses against the car window.

I then get my ID card and pull the mask down, she checks it’s me.

All is fine, turn on the car and move three meters forward, where I turn it off again and get ready for the actual test.

The second technician asks for the window to be rolled down half way and the same with the mask, halfway down, exposing my nose.

The swab seems to be two meters long. She inserts the thing into my nose and pushes. And pushes some more. And a little more. I feel it in my throat, all the way down, already gagging and she still has a meter to go. A little extra push.

And it’s done.

Turn the car on, and move away.

I’m tested.

This is day 027 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Back to Work

Happy and not happy. Or not happy, but has to be done.

Getting back to work was taking some time, but I was quite happy without working.

Being a freelancer in this field is not easy during a pandemic, as most tv productions were halted, and other things (portraits, events) also stopped.

I’ve had no work since March, half a year is gone anyway, why not make it to New Year’s Eve ?

I embraced the being-at-home lifestyle, and was just getting used to the (a lot) less-money-for-silly-things routine, when the call came.

Would I be available to do some set photography on this and that dates ? I knew my schedule was clear for those dates, almost for sure, but in my mind those dates were very far.

Turns out they were not, I’m starting in two days, with the mandatory COVID test taking place tomorrow!

I don’t even have enough time to get accustomed to the idea that I’ll be working, what with all the gear I must check, and batteries that need charging.

And tinyMovieStar? How will she survive without me ?

And how will I survive without her ??

It’s going to be a hard week.

This is day 026 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Back to old places.

“O bom filho a casa torna.”

Today I went back to my old barber.

Years ago I used to go to a barbershop close to home. He was an amazing barber, top of his game, a photography aficionado, skater, motorcycle rider, tattoo connoisseur,…

His place was recommended to me by another photographer, and I started going there all the time, whenever my hair needed a trim. I loved it.

His business grew, I was thrilled for him, it’s always a great feeling when you see your friends succeeding. A lot of tourists dropping by as well, as in a lot of businesses around town. He stated using an online scheduling app, and I was fine with that. At the time I had a staff job, so I could plan ahead. Bookings with him now had to be made two months in advance!

When I gave up the job and started freelancing it became harder to always show up on the booked dates, sometimes I wasn’t free, others out of town. I hated failing him, and every time I had to phone in and say I wouldn’t be able to make it my heart was broken. I knew he’d have a ton of tourists waiting for a walk-in, but I wasn’t comfortable with the situation.

Then we started traveling for months, and I didn’t even had the opportunity to book. I would always make a point of finding a decent barbershop in the cities we visited. I enjoyed the experience of getting a haircut in Chiang Mai, or Hue, or Príncipe, or wherever we might be, but still missed him.

When we were back in town I couldn’t wait the two months for the appointment, so I found a new place near a studio I spent a lot of time at, and started getting my cut there.

Pandemic struck, I did what everyone else seems to have done, got my hair done at home.

Yesterday, during our walk, we were close to the barbershop, I asked my wife if she would mind if we dropped by, and check how they were doing. They had a huge drop in business with the lack of tourists, and forced closure for a couple of months. She did not, said we should, and we did.

It was so nice seeing him again. Like old friends we picked the conversation where we had left it years ago, he was thrilled to see tinyMovieStar, and he’s one of the few who uses ‘Miguelito’ to address me. His name is also Miguel, by the way.

I made an appointment for today. We talked about fatherhood, motorcycles and photography. I was happy.

I was back.

This is day 025 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Nothing.

I feel I’ve been doing nothing lately. Nothing besides taking care of movieStar and tinyMovieStar, the two most important people in my life.

Someone told me on Micro.blog that that is not doing nothing, that it’s doing something, maybe a lot.

And I guess it is. There is nothing I’d rather be doing, truth be told, and it is something. Probably, if I succeed, even a lot.

But it’s a change in pace, and I’m still getting used how big a change this is.

Getting used to not leaving for work, or to having no work, getting used to not being up to date on the news, not knowing what shows I’m missing, not having my time in front of the computer trying to figure out how to do this or that, not being able to read the books that keep piling up on my virtual bookshelf, not going out to dinner with our friends, not…

I knew, and accepted, that a change was coming. And a big one.

And I know, hope, that all those things will come back later on.

But I was that person, and that person is no more. I’m a different one now.

Now I’m Clara’s dad.

Even when some of those return, I will still be Clara’s dad.

Yes, I guess that’s something.

This is day 024 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Walking.

I have always walked a lot. I’d walk alone, for hours, taking photos along the way, lazily smoking my cigarettes.

I met movieStar and she loved walking. We walked all over the world, discovering things together. Our pace matched, and I remember thinking it was one of the most important things to have: a compatible walking pace. If it’s not easy to walk along with a photographer when you’re one, it can be even harder when you’re not. Photographers can be very annoying walking buddies. But we did it perfectly together.

I was not walking alone anymore.

We walked all over, day and night, on cities and country roads, we were cold sometimes and endured hellish heat on others. And it was always fun, or we remember it as such after the hard part was done.

Covid and tinyMovieStar arrived and the only complaint my wife had was that she missed walking. We were stuck inside, for months, and she missed the walks. And so did I.

We came home a couple of weeks ago and I’m happy to say walking has resumed.
Lisbon is a very walkable city, and we’re doing one or two walks a day. It feels great. Sometimes friends join us, most times we do it on our own.

There’s three of us now.

This is day 023 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

It’s been days since I’ve had time and the right mindset to write one of the 100daysToOffload posts. Usually I’d do it after the girls were asleep, but now I’m too tired to stay up after that, and just crash.

Still here.

I actually have some ideas on my mind, but have no time to sit down and write them.

I’m too exhausted when night falls and the girls are asleep. I would use that time to get my head together and try to make sense of things for a post, but nowadays I’m just too tired and crash as well.

Being home means a lot more work, and a lot less time.

I’m here, but just half of me. I promise I’ll be back to my old self in no time. No later than 2033.

This is day 022 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

No time.

We moved back to our own place and I have close to no free time.

We’re now graduated to Full Parent status, with no help from the in-laws. This is when the going gets though(er).

We are now responsible for everything that we so happily enjoyed during these first months of tinyMovieStar’s life, and that means less time for all else. Cooking and cleaning and washing and shopping are now part of our duties, as they should, and I’m back to feeling exhausted, much like when she was born. And now there’s no grandma around to keep an eye on her while we take a quick nap after lunch.

I expect we’ll get things under control in a few days.

I’m still trying to keep the 100 days on track, but fear the worst.

As I said on my last post, social media usage is going down, and it will probably keep that trajectory going forward. Thankfully there’s Micro.blog, the safe haven, where things feel normal.

This is day 021 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Social media.

Five months, going on six, and social media usage has changed a fair bit for me.

Using a lot less:

• Instagram
• Reddit
• Twitter

A lot more:

• Micro.blog
• Mastodon

Flickr is still sitting there, waiting for our return home and having the laptop available on a desk, not having to balance it on my legs.

For the past month or so I haven’t even turned on the laptop, everything is done on the iPhone, or not at all.

Organizing Flickr without a desktop browser is just too much of a pain, so I’m uploading photos with PhotoSync and I’ll deal with the tagging and stuff when we’re back home.

Reddit seems to have slipped into oblivion for me, it was mostly used to spend time that was left, and there’s not a lot of that now.

I still visit Twitter daily, but spending almost no time there. Thankfully Twitterrific has a cool Muffle feature, the only accounts left un-muffled are a bunch of local people, the ones I interact with the most.

Instagram is a different beast altogether, and it’s hard to get away. I used to spend a LOT of my online time on the platform, but it’s down to a couple of minutes a day. On one had I was in a group that had no ads shown, and loved the way that allowed me to enjoy the service, but that ended a few months back and I can’t really stand the ads. On the other hand we’ve been stuck at home, and there’s only so much you can do, photographically speaking. Photos of tinyMovieStar and movieStar, but that’s it. Also used for business purposes, but business has been slow since March.

I have the feeling I’m missing out on a lot over there, as most of my friends share a lot, but it’s been hard with the ads.

But Micro.blog has been a godsend, and I’m enjoying my instance on Mastodon. Still makes zero sense for me to my own instance up and running, but Masto.host makes it so easy, I’ll keep at it while the money lasts.

This is day 020 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

On sleep.

Before the baby came along, I was a light sleeper. I would wake up with every little sound. My wife, on the other hand, wouldn’t wake up if the house was on fire (figuratively, as we never got to the bottom of that one). She would sleep for 10-12 hours easily.

These days our roles have changed. As soon as I fall asleep, I’m dead. Nothing will wake me up. She gets up multiple times during the night, breastfeeding sessions, and I have no idea when that’s happening, I’ll just wake up in the morning, when the tinyMovieStar starts asking for breakfast.

This is day 019 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

I’m sure I’ll manage…

Reading a post from Gabz reminded me of one thing that happened to me a while back. A long while back.

At that time I was just getting started at my dream job, the newspaper where I would stay for 20 years.

Assignments abroad were distributed according to the next in line, regardless of what the actual assignment was. Everyone got a chance to do every kind of assignment that way, it’s a practice that we kept up to today.

My time came, and I was assigned to a story that would become one of the most important I would cover on the 20 years I spent there.

This was way before digital came along, we were shooting film. It was a pain, enough for another story, but the thing here is I had only developed B&W up until then, color was always processed in a lab, by someone else.

My editor at the time started briefing me on the assignment, something so over my head by then, like nothing I had ever done. I would obviously be required to develop the film myself, there was only one lab on the island, on the other side of the world, and you could not trust they would do a good job.

He asked me if I felt confident I could pull the assignment off, if I would be able to handle this, and that, small details, big issues, and never once crossed his mind to ask I had ever done the processing bit in color. I did not say a word.

Went home, packed my bags, many of them, and the only thing I kept thinking about was the developing of the film. Not the trip across the world with many many kilos of gear, not the hotels I would have to find on my own because no travel agency worked with that particular country, the airplane tickets I would have to get once there.

“I hope the processing kits come with a damn manual!”

They did. And I did just fine. Turns out it was not that different.

And we both laughed a lot when I came back after a month and told him about the first time I developed color film on my own.

This is day 018 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Barefoot.

Short one today, but I had a flashback. Back in the day I worked at a laidback place, and spent six months out of the year barefoot at the office. I know, I know, some might feel icky about it, but that’s how things worked. I was not the only one.

It was hot, the floors were cleaned daily, and I spent most of the time sitting at my desk.

I also love driving barefoot, and somehow I feel better when I have no shoes on.

Today I was walking tinyMovieStar around the house and garden and it hit me: I’ve been mostly barefoot since March. It’s one of my favorite things of the lockdown, and it took me this long to realize that.

This is day 017 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

I love driving. Cars, not so much. Except my own.

Over two decades ago I got new job, a nice one, the dream job.
Along with it, came the need for a car. I would need a car to perform my job. I had never thought about owning a car, never been a car fan, knew (and know) next to nothing about cars, but my editor at the time had a car I liked, so why not get one just like it ? Money wasn’t really an issue then, so I quickly became the happy owner of a brand new Land Rover. The year was 1998.

I drove that car up and down the country, and in the city, down country roads, backroads, dirt roads and all other kind of roads, and places where roads were nowhere to be seen.

I took the car to it’s natural habitat, Morocco, a few times, where it eventually broke down and was fixed by a mechanic that was also the muezzin, in a little town that barely made it to the map.

We’ve grown accustomed to each other, and I didn’t get angry when some lights on the dashboard stopped working, and the car didn’t say a word when i left it for a few months and came back much later, to a dead battery. This would become our thing.

I left the car in a garage for four years, when I became an editor myself, and walked to and from the office from home. When the time came to get it out of the lockup, I just got a new battery and it started right away, happy to see me. I was also glad to drive it again.

Parking at our place is hell on a good day, so the aging car was parked near my parents place for a while, enough to be towed into the impound, as if it was abandoned. It was thrilled when I showed up and told the cops they were crazy. Again it just started on the first try, and we got the hell out of there.

I got a motorcycle. Then another one. Then another one. The car said nothing.

I drove it to my in-laws, where it is now, living on the countryside and doing the occasional trip.

My wife loves the car. We took it on a couple of road trips already. You can tell the car is as happy as we are on those. Even though it’s a bit more expensive to take him then other cars, we just do it. For us, but also to keep him going, happy.

He always goes to the same mechanic, who praises the clock-like engine, and says he will never die.

Today I had an appointment at the dentist and my brother-in-law’s car was not available. So I drove my own.

The air-con needs fixing, there’s no CarPlay, the radio is as low-fi as they come, cruising speed much lower than usual, but I was as happy as a kid. Every time I drive that car, it feels like I’m going on an adventure. An adventure where you’re sitting on a very comfortable sofa. Even if it’s just across the river.

I love driving, but I really love driving this one. Slow and heavy. Higher than other cars by a bit, enough to see down the road even when traffic is hectic.

tinyMovieStar will have a blast, as much as we do. I hope he never dies.

This is day 016 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Be My Eyes.

Taking a couple of minutes out of your life to help someone is always a great idea, and this app enables just that. Be My Eyes is a great concept, and it works amazingly well.

Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance through a live video call.

You get the app, available for iOS and Android, pick the languages you can help with, and wait.

One day the phone will ring, and you’ll get your chance to help someone who can really use your eyes. I’ve found the number of volunteers to be so high that you won’t have to help so often, but my day is always better when I’m able to answer one of their calls.

I got the chance to help pick pizza for lunch, out of same sized boxes with no cues for blind people, and sort out bank notes for a nice lady in Brazil…

It will take no longer than a few minutes most of the times, and I promise your heart will be filled with love for a day. How many times can you get a feeling like that for so little work ?

Don’t know about you, but I know I have dozens of apps installed on my phone that are supposed to help me, or make me feel better, but this one is the one that gets the award. It never fails.

Why ? Because you’re making someone else’s day better. Not yours.

This is day 015 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Street Art.

I love street art. Ever since I can remember I liked graffiti, and loved how it has evolved into something so fantastic over the years. It’s one thing I find myself (along with thousands of others) shooting along the way, wherever I might find myself.

My own city has great examples of this art form, as most cities do these days, and when we travel we like to look for it as well (I’m looking at you, Georgetown!).

With little time for computer things these days, I do however have a phone in my hands most of the time. And on it close to 90000 photos. Some, obviously, are photos of street art. So I thought why not get some of them together and post them at Micro.blog, under its own page ?

Done. There is now a street art page at {micro maique}.

👾

This is day 014 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Being on time.

Since I can remember I’ve always been a bit of a fanatic with being on time.

This whole country takes the fashionably late to a new level, and it always makes me mad. I like to be on time, I strive to be on time, I hate it when people are late.

You have to get used to waiting when you live here, as most people are not as punctual, and that takes some time (pun intended) to get used to, or you never do.

It was one thing I tried to pass on, with variable success, to my interns over the years. Once I had a class where I waited for 15 minutes past the hour, none of the pupils made it, so I left. No teacher had ever done that, but the students were never late again for my class.

It’s one quality I’d love my daughter to have. For me being late is a sign of disrespect, of poor education, but I’m aware I’m in the minority here. I wish she will be too.

But I’ll have to wait a bit longer, for now we’re always failing. It’s the first time in my life I’m not in control, she is. She has her feeding times, and I cannot control those. Most of the times we still make it close enough, and people are more than willing to cut us some slack, the appointed times are now a bit more flexible. But today we have an important event, one that involves civil servants, and it’s going to be hard.

Getting everything ready to go is the easy part. Getting her ready… not so much. These appointments were usually on a first come, first served basis, you’d stand in line until your turn came, but Covid changed that and it’s now by appointment only, with a set time. They wait for no one, not even a baby. If you’re not there, you miss your slot.

I would love this system to stick around, it’s easier for people like me, unless they have babies 😊

This is day 013 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

Missing our home.

We moved here in March, three days after my birthday.

A little over a month later the baby was born, and we had moved because of that. At the time we had no idea how things would work with the whole pandemic situation, and felt safer moving out of the city and into the big house in the suburbs, with more people to help out during the first months of her life.

We have enjoyed, very much, the extra room, the garden, and specially the help. We don’t have to worry about laundry, or cooking, we can take care of the baby 100% of the time.

But maybe it’s time to go. We went to town this week, visited our place, and felt a bit homesick.

And both of us talked about the quietness we felt, even though it’s a lot less quiet downtown when compared to the place we are now.

Maybe another week, but moving time is close. We will be on our own, but that’s what this is all about. And, truthfully, help is never far, should we need it.

We’re lucky and feel very thankful.

This is day 012 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

I miss walking.

There’s not a lot of things I miss at the moment. As I’ve said before, I’m in a position that I’m enjoying, being locked at home with the baby and my wife. This happened to be the perfect time to have a baby, as the time we’re spending together would have been hard to get without the pandemic.

I do miss traveling, some (very few) people, and the sort of freedom we enjoyed before, of deciding where and what and how and when we did stuff. That would change with the baby anyway, so that’s that.

I do miss walking.

We used to walk a lot, while on the road and at home. Living in town is great, as it’s a very walkable town. We were used to walking, we’d walk everywhere. We’d walk to the supermarket, we’d walk to the restaurants, we’d walk to a friend’s place. Sure, you need a car for a few things, but we don’t even have a car in town anymore. We use the apps, for both cars and electric motorcycles. And we walk.

Since we moved out of town for the pandemic, we don’t walk. A trip to the supermarket is only possible with a car, the pharmacy is far, the cafes are far, everything is too far to walk.

When we think about moving back home, and decide to stick here a bit longer, that’s the thing I miss the most: walking everywhere.

This is day 011 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

HOT

It’s too hot. I have a few ideas going on around my head for a couple of posts, but the long one is (still) on the works, and the heat that we’re having for the past few days makes baby duty a little harder. Not difficult, just a bit more work, and that leaves me with less time to think.

I would love to be able to finish that long one, but it’s hard to get all those years, and emotions, and stories, down on the editor, when I have to stop so often. It’s coming along, but slooooowly.

There’s not a lot to add, I’m afraid, as life goes on. Taking care of the baby, taking care of the wife, taking care of (parts) of the house, getting some well deserved downtime with a TV show (done with The Great, loved it), checking Micro.blog and Mastodon in between, getting some food, that’s all there is to it, I’m afraid.

See you in a bit. Hopefully with a more exciting post.

This is day 010 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.

An Instance

With some extra time on my hands, and not enough time at the same time, I’m looking for things to do when I’m allowed a break from baby duty.

An idea crossed my mind, stayed there for a couple of days. I couldn’t scratch that itch in any other way, so I caved in. I went to mastohost and got myself a Mastodon instance.

I don’t need an instance, not by a long shot, but I really wanted to see one the way the administrators see it, and thought it would be cool to have a domain name I own on my Mastodon username.

My relationship with instances is an odd one. I have an account, my main account, at the mothership, Mastodon.Social, the one I created ages ago. I wanted to move to Fosstodon, or Writing.Exchange, but couldn’t take my old toots with me, so I stayed at M.s, but still have accounts at the other ones. Some instances fade out after a while, but I’m not scared M.s will meet the same faith, hopefully this would be the last instance to go, so I don’t have that excuse either.

I’m still posting mainly at @maique@mastodon.social, as I’m afraid I’ll just give up on my own, can’t justify paying for this toy, money would be better spent elsewhere. But I couldn’t NOT do it.

Feel free to say hi, if you’d like, you can find my at my brand new place, @maique@maique.xyz.

This is day 009 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. You can find out all about this project at 100daystooffload.com.