---
title: "Week 10, Friday: Journalling!"
date: 2024-10-04T21:55:00+02:00
---

{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/bala-02.png" alt="Credit: Bala DNB, YouTube" >}}

Ah, geez, this whole week has gone by so quickly. With Tim around, I've really been maximally active
in and around Br&uuml;ttisellen. There's so much more to do, but he has to get back home to his
loved ones, and thanks for letting him go out on this advenTOUR with me! I join the gang fashionably
late, as I have had a fabulous sleep that ended only at 11:00 or so. Tim and Marina are downstairs
hanging out and chatting. The nice thing about getting up at 11am is that I can immediately think of
what to eat for lunch. Winner!

I have most of the ingredients for a noodle soup, but we happen to have stolen my mushrooms, so off
to the _Denner_ I go. Of course I commandeer Tim to go with me. He obliges and we grab the shopping
list. There's only one thing on it that we can't find: we find a whole assortment of beans, but
there not being black beans, I find, is somewhat racialist of _Denner_. So, we buy everything but
that.

At home, I pair down the veggies and start making my beef udon soup. It smells great, but somehow
Marina is not a fan of it. She thinks it's too sour (but she's wrong). She is also not a fan of fish
sauce, I think. But, at lunch TIm eats a medium sized bowl, and I eat a giant sized trough of the
stuff. Because he'll be on a train, I offer to make it "not so spicy", and we toy around a little
bit on what a linear scale of one to ten, what spicy means: Sambal Oelek would be a three or so,
Tabasco might be a two. I'll make it a three by adding just a touch of hot chillies. This way, Tim
doesn't have to find in the middle of the night that there is an .. ehh .. exit burn. How
considerate of me! I, howwever, have no respect for my bowel, so I add a bit of _Last Dab_, as I
have to practice for tomorrow, when my buddy Brad and I are going to eat a _Hot Ones_ episode.

After lunch, I carefully ask for a review. Tim gives it an 8.5 out of 10, so I have found yet
another datapoint that Marina is being overly harsh on the ingredient list of my Udon :) Then, I go
to the basement and Tim finds me there shortly after. I really need to write my journal, so I
carefully backtrack what we did this week and start writing [[Tuesday]({{< ref wk10day2.md >}})].
Tim pretty quickly tempts me with small side quests, but I tell him to knock it off: his FrysIX
IPv4/IPv6 addresses will be assigned _after_ Tuesday is written. Shut up, and let me write!

Tuesday is quickly written and pictures annotated. In the meanwhile, the good news arrives that
Tim's better half is enjoying the writing. Thanks for that! I quickly assign Tim his FrysIX
addresses as a treat, and move on to [[Wednesday]({{< ref wk10day3.md >}})] and [[Thursday]({{< ref
wk10day4.md >}})].  In the mean time, Tim rummages a little bit on his fancy
[[AS214380.net](https://as214380.net/)] website and we listen to liquid Drum and Bass all over the
place. Marina at some point comes to ask if Tim is already going crazy with my choice of music. Ha!
Joke's on her, it's **his choice in music**!

Tonight we'll be eating some home made pita and kebap. Marina is already Marina-ting the meat (I
apologize, but Dad jokers gotta Dad-joke) and I yeet some milk, herbs, yeast and flour into a
pot and mix/kneed it together for a flatbread, which will be ready to bake at around 18:30.

Evening quickly arrives, but before dinner, we still have an important task. We drive over to _Glatt
Zentrum_, walk straight past the LEGO store this time, and get some gifts for the home front. While
we're in the mall, we see some break dancers with slick music and a DJ spinning. At some point, some
dude slides a good two meters on his noggin - it's really cool to see!

The gifts in hand, we make our way back home to prepare dinner. Having something as simple as kebap
with flat bread really does float my boat. It was super tasty and well seasoned. I can tell that Tim
enjoyed it, because he finished out the whole pan. Happy times, because when I make the flatbread
normally a few units are left over because there's only three in our household, which is a pita
(ba-dum-tish). Balance was brought to our input/output food chain.

After dinner, we also receive a treat! Tim has brought _Luxemburgerli_ from a place called
[[Spr&uuml;ngli](https://spruengli.ch/)], so we sample a few while drinking our evening coffee. We
have hazelnut, vanilla, strawberry and pistaccio. A lively debate ensues which one is best, and we
agree to disagree. But then, our time together comes to an end and Tim has to get to Zurich main
station to catch the night jet back to Amsterdam. Of course, his _sleeper_ traincar is not
available, again, and it is a _couchette_ instead. We drive to Zurich and his track is right at the
drop-off point. As I drive away, the train pulls in: perfect Tim-ing! (Oh snap, I did it again,
didn't I?)

Back home, Marina and I hang on the couch and watch episode two of a documentary series about Arnold
Schwarzenegger. The first episode is about his body building years, and this one about his acting
career. The third and final one will be about his political career, which is inspired very much by
his marriage with Maria Kennedy, a little factoid that I had not yet known!

Marina turns in at 23:00 because she'll be going to Zurich Comic-con tomorrow. Me, I'm not much into
_furries_ and fake _Katana_ swords, so I decide to play with my brand new Flight Simulator. There's
a legit flight instructor course with basic handling, things like taxiing, level flight, a few
exercises like climbing while in a turn, keeping altitude while reducing speed, and controlled
landings both with yoke as well as with power only. It's fun to learn this stuff and I'm so so
grateful that this project turned from a dust-gathering heap of electronics into an actually
working and fully tricked out simulator.

After the flightsim time, which I limited to ninety minutes or so, I write my journal for today
(Friday), and this is the first day in weeks that I've finished on the same day. Along the way, I
also read and reply to a bunch of e-mail, and find one cool thread from Neil McKee from
[[inmon](https://inmon.com/)] as he is ready for his `sFlow` plugin to be reviewed by the VPP
community. I boot up the LAB but it'll be on Brad's patio tomorrow, that I do these last loadtests.

Tomorrow, I get to practice _Heatonism_ with Brad and I intend to as well bring a sizable _Limousin_
steak. Brad has hiked _Kungsleden_ in Sweden this Summer and will have lots of stories to tell.
Myself, I have lots to catch up on with him as well and tell him all about my sabbatical, which is
the best thing I've done this year, by far.

## Pictures of the Day

{{< gallery-category >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1805.JPG" caption="Denner has all sorts of beans, but no black beans. This is arguably racionalism..." >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1806.JPG" caption="The beef udon has a healthy addition of Last Dab, which allows me to practice for tomorrow" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1808.JPG" caption="I'm making pita bread for the kebap tonight. Yeast, Flour, Milk, Water, Salt and Herbs" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1809.JPG" caption="I write many journal entries (Tues, Weds, Thu and Fri) behind my desk today. I'm finally caught up, and my smile says it all!" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1810.JPG" caption="At Glatt Zentrum, a breakdance demonstration is provided, and it's pretty cool to watch" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1811.JPG" caption="The kebap are completely overloading the pita bread, but my lord is this stuff tasty" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1812.JPG" caption="Marina and I cheers with a set of Luxemburgerli, provided by Tim!" >}}
{{< /gallery-category >}}

{{< gallery-modal >}}
{{< gallery-script >}}
