thingsThisWeek

Mar 21, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #93

Still had a busy couple of days, and now back to doing almost nothing, work wise. This is what normal feels like. Sleeping a lot.

👸🏻 Best part of the week is that I’m finally back to our routine. I’m home when tinyMovieStar wakes up, I can prepare breakfast for her, play a little while she eats it, take her to kindergarten, and back home when she’s done for the day. We stop at the park, maybe have an ice-cream after that, and chat all the way over. Love these days.
✊🏼 Journalists had their first general strike in over 40 years, in this country. It was impressive. The rally was, in all fairness, and despite everything, very very fun. Meeting SO many people, drinking so much beer. A joint might have been smoked as well. First one in a LOOOOONG time. There is a lot to change in the media landscape here, and times are hard for a huge percentage of people working in media. As elsewhere.
🏃🏻‍♀️ It was also Marathon weekend. That means waking up early, and shooting a few events for one of the sponsors. Good fun. tinyMovieStar’s godmother, our dear friend, came over from London for the run, and we got to meet her again. Always happy when that happens.
💸 I should make payments, small ones, every month, to our Social Security. I don’t. Every couple of years I get an email letting me know I’m in debt. This was that week. A portion of my savings was transferred to them. Done.
🌐 sticker spotter moved. Yes, again. Still dealing with what’s broken. It will be a while before everything is settled. It is now hosted at the lovely Scribbles platform.
😊 I gave an interview to foofaraw.press. It’s on their Consumption Gumption section. I have forgotten a few things while replying, but I suppose that will always be the case. Hope you enjoy it.
📺 Shōgun. Tokyo Vice. The Gentlemen. All great shows, we are truly spoiled these days.
🥘 Giving FastMinder a go, for the intermittent fasting thing. The old app (Simple) was just too bloated for my needs. The free tier was fine for me, but it keeps nagging me to upgrade. A bit too aggressively, and too often. Let’s see how this handles things, in the end I just require little more than a timer.
👻 Started working on the next post for Boo! We’re going to Malaysia, when it’s finally done. Have a couple of photos that might do, and a story to go with it.
🧧 One a Month Club update: three people are now supporters of my shenanigans, and I really appreciate it. Please visit the site, browse through the members' sites, and pick one to support. If you can, of course. All of them are great.

Mar 14, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #92

Back to real life week, with plenty of rest, and some leftover disease.

🗳 That was an intense month! Ended on Sunday on a very sad note, as the far-right got a lot more votes than I expected, and the socialists are no longer the ruling party. We’re a month away from the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April Revolution, and we now have close to 50 fascists in the parliament. Fuck that!
📷 It felt like I was actually working again, and not just shooting the things that have become my normal. It felt great to meet the old colleagues, and laugh and bitch, as we did before. I missed them, and I do miss this life more than I care to admit most of the time. I did enjoy having the camera on me all the time, and shooting with it whenever I felt a photo was there.
⚖️ Lost 3kg in a month, even with all the beer, and food we had. Maybe we should have an election every couple of months, after all.
🍰 Had a birthday. The 53rd! It was the worst birthday ever. Working, with a cold, and pretty shitty altogether.
🥰 tinyMovieStar is walking around town with her school buddies and teachers. Going to museums, and the theater. On foot. Just a year ago they were going on a bus, to places closer than they walk to now. Also, her fashion sense, her three-year-old fashion sense, dictating clothing changes because the “hat would look better with overalls”. She’s awesome. I know I’ve said this before, but I have to contain myself, or I’d be putting this on every single weekly update.
🏃‍♂️ Starting a new, short, assignment. The Marathon Weekend is upon us, so it’s time to go shoot that for one of the sponsors. Photos will surely make their way to the blog.
📺 Tokyo Vice, drip drip drip. Shōgun, great!
🌈 One a Month Club, a really cool idea from Jarrod. Not expecting a lot, as the past years have shown me I should keep my expectations very low, but it is a really nice idea. Feel free to visit the page, and pick one of the members to sponsor. €1 a month. It’s not a lot.

Mar 7, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #91

Too tired to post daily, most updates ended up here. Exhausted.

💖 The girls are back!!! movieStar’s flight home took a slight detour and made a pit stop in Accra, adding a bit of time to an already long route. She made it, though, with just enough time to allow me to get to work, after dropping her off at her parents' place. This was one of the hardest weeks in my life. I used to do this a lot when I was younger (meaning work from dusk to dawn), but I’d get some rest days. And I wasn’t married, and was not a daddy. This time I’m doing it non-stop for a month, and not having the girls close by just adds to the exhaustion. Saying I miss them is an understatement. I did get later starts on a couple of days this week, and we could all spend extra time in bed, just cuddling, laughing, and hugging. And I dropped her off at school three days this week! Felt great!
🗳 Still going. Now with rain. Some events were canceled, since it’s no use to have them when no one is outside. We did get to the beach one day, after another visit to a market. Visited a few more places where people actually work, others where they did. Fancier ones. Folksier ones. The PM candidate joined us a couple of days (no photos, too messy). Assignment ends tomorrow, Friday. I couldn’t find the will to shoot personal photos most of the week, too tired to do it already. Close to 700GB shot, I’ll get over that number on the final day.
🚬 Campaign Trail/Smoking: I’m happy that I went in with a few months smoke-free already, it made staying off the cigs a lot easier. If I had started this assignment closer to the date when I stopped smoking, it would have been a lot harder. Everyone smokes, a lot. There is a lot of driving alone involved. And a lot of waiting. All situations that would push me back into it.
🚚 Campaign Trail/Driving: I love driving. I do. But, after a whole month on the road, it turns out I like driving in my own terms. Not during rush hour. Not sharing the road with people who are checking their phones (SO MANY are doing it). Not having to drive in group rides. Not having to find a parking spot ten times a day, in places where they do not exist.
🗺 I used Apple Maps a LOT, since I always show up early (allowing for navigation errors). It’s not so bad outside the city, if I’m being fair. I don’t really know if there were better ways to get to the venues sometimes, but the choices made by Apple’s app seemed pretty good. The UI/UX is much better than everyone else’s apps. I missed radar/police warnings from Waze, but it was a good month anyway. I complain a lot about the app trying to kill me, turns out it only tries to do that in the capital.
🍷 People drink a lot here. At 9AM! Yes, they do. Not everyone, of course, not even most people, but enough of them for me to notice the pattern. And not all of them are in the “I’ve been working all night, so it’s evening for me” crowd. Not at all. This is a reality I don’t see often, but it happens. Saw it multiple times this month. You go into a cafe, looking for a caffeine boost to wake you up, and the guy next to you is having a brandy!
🖼 Back on Glass, @pratik to blame. I love the profile page on the web, it’s a great way to show a portfolio on the laptop. In fact, I like a lot more on the laptop, the whole Glass experience feels nicer there. I suppose I’ll struggle with posting to this one too. But I’ll try, I will.
🎸 Hermanos Gutiérrez. Find of the week. I’m addicted, watched a ton of videos on YouTube (really nice concerts), and many hours listening to them in the car. They are great. One of the perks of listening to the radio when I’m driving is finding new music. I missed it.
🎙 I listened to fewer podcasts, again. Ruminate is climbing my must-listen list.

Feb 29, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #90

Not a lot to report. Lonely, busy, tired. That’s about it.

😭 Tired of being away from the girls. This is the worst. It hurts.
🥰 In tinyMovieStar news, not so great visit on Sunday. Drove in the rain for a couple of hours, spent an hour looking at her sleep (awesome), and then got very poorly treated by my own little daughter. Drove back in the rain. Tried video-calling on Tuesday, and the little one screamed at me, while telling me she didn’t want to speak to me. Did the same to movieStar. I was able to try another sleepover on Wednesday, and she welcomed me with open arms! She missed me, I missed her. She has, naturally, a hard time processing these feelings. It’s the first time she goes through this. She’s never been away from both of us, and I had spent one night away from her only until now. Never two.
🚘 Still on the road as official occupation. Every day. Saw a very funky car, the coolest market we visited so far, went south, to the district’s capital city again, Baixa da Banheira (usually the most depressing day of the whole campaign), and Barreiro. Still having fun. Very long days, but a lot of fun. As my car broke down, and it’s not getting younger, I added an ACP (think AAA) subscription. It will be handy if/when something happens again.
🎙️ The End of Vice. Interesting episode. Offers a glimpse into the world of online journalism. Also odd to hear so many “Fuck” on an episode of Cyber. The last one.
📺 Keeping up with Tokyo Vice, saw two episodes in a week. Not really an accomplishment, but I’m so tired everyday when I finally make it home, I’ll just crash.

Feb 24, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #89

One more week of on the road. This update was very rushed.

🐔 We are back, thankfully, to the markets! These first couple of weeks on the campaign trail aren’t, officially, campaign. So a few things are banned. Candidates have to figure out what they can do, while staying on the right side of the law. The kind of things the candidates do are, for that reason, not the part I love: with people attending, visiting markets, having meals with dozens of people. More toned down events, visits to factories, firemen, endless meetings. Those days are, finally, mostly gone!! Once in a while it turns out to be very cool, but mostly they are not. This week was better for photos.
🇸🇹 movieStar is gone, to the islands. tinyMovieStar is gone too. This was a very dark cloud, looming over the whole week, worst now that it’s here.
🚗 Car broke down. No time to figure out what’s wrong with it, just dumped it, got another one, and keep on driving. Will take care of it when this job is done.
☂️ New Boo! post. This time about a visit to Macau. Hope you like this one.
🦠 Virus still here. Still coughing. Nose still stuffy.
📺 Tokyo Vice. One episode. That was it, that how much TV I managed to watch this week.
🌐 Kagi’s Small Web is fun.
⭐️ Manton announced the new pricing plans on M.b, and I just upgraded. No idea what I’ll use the extra blogs for, or bookmarks, or notes for that matter, but it felt like the right thing to do. It’s not a perfect service, but it’s not too far either. It’s a great deal.

Feb 15, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #88

Another week spent mostly on the road. Not a lot to add to that.

🗳️ Still going on the campaign trail. Plenty of photos have been shared. Feb 8, Feb 9, Feb 10, Feb 11, Feb 12, none from Feb 13 (day off, carnival day), Feb 14. We had an event in Lisbon (on the 11th), but the rest of the time was spent in the district, with visits to a few of the cities there. Still pre-campaigning, so mostly private visits to companies, warehouses, factories, no public events, except the visits to the Carnival parties.
👸🏻 Day Off on Tuesday. Girls went to the theater. movieStar’s actress friend got them, again, invites for the show (this time Sleeping Beauty, the musical), and that included pizza at the director’s office, with his granddaughters. How happy can a little girl be? This happy.
🦠 I’ve been battling a cold for most of the week. It has been a while since I’ve had one, but it’s not surprising I’m feeling this way. We spend a lot of time outside, in the cold, and another lot inside, stuffier, with large groups of people. Easy to get a virus handed over by someone.
🌐 Driving all over the place. I like it. This was also the week when I finally got my car’s side view mirror replaced. It took a while to find one and, in the end, a slightly different one was sourced. Don’t really care, and wasn’t expecting to find one for a 98 car anymore. Feels good to be able to properly see again.
📺 A lot less tv this week. I have episodes of a few shows waiting in line, patiently. Managed a couple of mr&mrs smith episodes, to get to the end of it. A bit disappointed with this one.
🎙️ It’s Podcast Season! Many hours in the car = many hours of podcasts consumed. I’ve listened to the usual ones, tried a couple others, and even turned Broadcasts on! Listening to my RADAR radio, and some news. I don’t have the habit of news via radio anymore, but being on the campaign trail makes that almost mandatory.
⌨️ I now have a tilde.pt. Yes. A ~ account. And a ~ blog!
🦄 Guezota has an omg.lol account, and a page now. Yeah, that too. My online properties are endless! Still have to figure out what I’m doing with it though.
📖 Another trial of Reader, by Readwise. And I’m trying GoodLinks again, instead of Omnivore. The Reader part is just for fun, as I’m sure as hell not paying that much for it. GoodLinks has been promising highlights for a while, and they never arrive. On the other hand I’m not using them that much in Omnivore anyway. I wish I could still run GoodLinks on the laptop, as that is one of the reasons why I use Omnivore. I save stuff to it on the Air.
📝 Speaking of trials, M.b has a new feature: notes. I wanted to try it, but gave up after a (little) while. Tried upgrading to test the new notes feature, and apps. Was charged a strange amount (around $30), and got an email with the whole math. It was not clear for how long I subscribed, but never mind, let’s test the app. Had issues with dark mode, notebook renaming, and notebook deleting. There’s always one Notebook, it seems, one that keeps respawning. If I renamed it, another one would show up and become default. Silly. Annoying. So I got a couple of screenshots, and wrote a post. When I tried to publish it, I got a warning saying my hosted blog has been canceled, I needed to subscribe. But I just upgraded! Or didn’t I? Wasn’t I charged? Check, I was! I found this all incredibly odd, and decided to just forget it, and “downgrade” by signing up again for a single blog. Got charged another $13, and another email arrived with the math. I don’t get the math again. It’s all too strange, but I’m not too bright either. Again I’m not sure until when I’m subscribed. My account was set to renew in May, I was charged almost $40, so I guess I’m good for another year? My blog seems to be ok again, but already a photo failed to show up on the timeline. It did everywhere else (blog, Mastodon, Bluesky), but not on the timeline. Notes felt very much like a 1.0, as it probably should. And not worth the extra $50 I’d have to pay. Others seem very excited, I’m happy for them.

Feb 8, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #87

Busy week. Missed that feeling. Short updates this time, and a day early. I can post it today, not sure about tomorrow.

📷 Last part of the portraits session past Friday, and a new gig on Saturday. A respected gallery in town had two shows opening on the same day (Saturday), celebrating their 60th anniversary, and I was tasked with documenting the event. Again, not my favorite thing, but it’s a job. Can’t complain. Not complaining.
🐠 Dinner for everyone! Full house! The Italians were back, and there’s always a lot of people showing up along with them. We were the ones hosting this time. Fun!
🍛 Another meal worth mentioning is the one we had for lunch, on Sunday. At brother-in-law’s wife’s parents (is there a name for that?). So nice. We stayed the whole afternoon. They are the sweetest, and are super excited their grandson is coming soon. They thought it would be nice to throw another lunch party for my in-laws, and of course close family is invited as well.
🦄 tinyMovieStar broke a snow globe unicorn, and was really sad, sweet thing. But then the Grannies arrived, so all is good. I thought she might not remember it anymore, but the memory on this one is strong. She still mentioned the unicorn a few days later. Also said she missed Chouriço, the one that stayed behind in Istanbul. She gets REALLY attached to them.
🥵 editing,
Editing,
EDITING!
🗳️ And back on the campaign trail, with my usual gang of politicians. I like them, and have a lot of fun doing this. Sadly we don’t have an election every year. It’s going to be a busy month, and the election happens on my birthday. I’m sure I’ll post a ton of photos from the road, you’ve been warned. It started already.
📺 mr.&mrs. smith. The end of The Crown. Sad there will be no more. But just got a notification about the new Tokyo Vice season, so there’s that…
🍿 The Greatest Night in Pop. Saw it last week, but forgot to add it. It was great.
📤 Subscribed to Smash again. Still love it to send large files, it’s one I pay for on and off. Whenever I have a big assignment, I’ll throw some money their way, and log back in.

Feb 2, 2024 ∞

It was what I’d call a pretty regular week. Meaning I had some work, some worries, some fun. Not as much free time as I had gotten used to, so this edition of thingsThisWeek feels kinda rushed to me.

🍇 Friday found me still working, waking up in the Algarve, shooting a couple more vineyards before calling it a day, and driving all the way back home. If felt really nice, being able to shoot these with time, not rushing things. Also sweet to do it with a new colleague, daughter of someone who used to work at the paper. We have dozens of friends in common, of course, it’s odd our paths never crossed before.
🥰 Missed the little one so much while I was away though, and she felt even worse. Cried when she got to school, telling the teacher I wasn’t home, and couldn’t take her to school. I had to take a selfie, and send it over. It’s not easy being away. In a couple of weeks we’re doomed, when movieStar travels to the islands. We’re trying not to overthink it, but it will not be pretty. It will be a rough month for all of us, the election is upon us, there’s a month to go, and I’ll probably spend that on the road.
👨‍👩‍👧 Weekend and Monday kinda glued together, with the trip to the in-laws, and mother-in-law’s birthday on Monday. We drove to Cascais for the celebration, right after picking tinyMovieStar from ballet. The dinner was at a nice restaurant in Cascais, at the marina, and involved a lot of meat, and a generous amount of beer as well.
✊🏼 The remaining days went by, pretty much unnoticed, until Thursday came along and I had to drive to Setúbal for some portraits. Basic, very basic, ones, but a good chance to meet my favorite group of politicians again. Had some issues with the strobes, but managed in the end. Soon we’ll be on the campaign trail again. I like that.
👵🏼 The Grannies adventure has finally reached a satisfactory ending, with the help of a friend who spotted a returned item on Amazon. This week was big for tinyMovieStar, as she also got her second ever haircut. We had to drive to a ghastly mall, but that’s where they have the carousel hairdresser. She loved it. We won’t complain when that happens.
👨🏻‍💻 Signed up for another social network, because why not? I’m not even going to use it, but like to know what the kids are up to these days. Daftsocial, and felt kinda slow when I tried it. Probably the result of many people signing up after it was shared everywhere. One thing that bothers me with this one: it does not work in mobile as well as it does on the laptop. Photos turn up in black and white on the iPhone, and show their full color version when you hover. Hover does not work on the iPhone. Sad.
📺 Criminal Record, still amazing. Tried Masters of the Air, but it felt SO fake, so badly acted, so poorly shot, so over the top, it looked like they were joking. And The Crown. Boy, oh boy, did I cry with this one. Episode 7 of this last season did it, it destroyed me.
💖 There is another post on Boo!, Marrakesh loveProject. Hope you enjoy this one as well. Next one is being written, we’re going back to Asia. Care to guess the country? I’m having a ball with this site!
🧻 Working on a decent blogroll. Still a lot to do.
🌐 Arc Mobile for IOS is out. Liking it. A few more updates, and it will be even better. Not ready to replace Safari as default, not yet. Not for me.
🕵🏻‍♂️ Kagi is back for me. Took me long enough, but it’s on for a year. No turning back this time.
⚙️ Installed Upptime, an uptime monitor that runs on GitHub. A repository, a GitHub Pages site, and some GitHub Actions. Another one of those easy puzzles I like to play with. Easy to install, probably useful to some. Unnecessary to me at this point (updown and Tinylytics are great), but good enough to kill a few minutes, and find out how these work. You can see it working here.

Jan 26, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #85

New online project started. Not a lot else to rave about. Short edition, I’m afraid.

🛼 Of course my bedridden day had to go off course, and it happened because one of tinyMovieStar’s friends goes to roller skate classes. Obviously she wanted to try that as well! It’s, as usual, not far from home, but the heavy rain made it impossible to walk there. I drove the girls, with pleasure. She tried it, and loved it. Maybe we’ll have to add this to the ballet and swimming activities. Soon we’ll have one of these every day of the week!
🇸🇹 movieStar has a trip to the islands scheduled for the end of February. We’re staying behind this time. She used to do it a lot when we first met, she’d go every couple of months, and we’re all glad she does not have to travel so often at this point in time. The little one will miss her dearly, as will I, she has never spent so long away from mom. It’s going to be interesting.
🎉 Saturday plans were back on track, and we had another birthday party to attend. Two cousins, sisters, celebrated their 76 and 78 birthdays together. It was huge. We arrived shortly after lunch, and went on until well past dinner time.
🐌 The week slowly moved forward. I quite enjoy this routine, but like to have work days sprinkled throughout the week. January is, I’ve said it before, usually a slow month. But not this slow!
📷 Work! Finally! Two days, but it’s better than none! Nice trip too. Spending time away from the girls is no fun, though, and neither is seeing tinyMovieStar crying on the video call we did when she was going to sleep.
📺 Criminal Record. YouTube (Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, hours long LoFi videos)
📓 Boo! launched. Really happy with how it’s turning out, Ghost really is awesome for this format, and there are three posts already up: Walking Meditation, The River Girl, and The Popcorn Stand. Hope you like them, and feel free to suggest photos you’d like to know about.
✏️ notes.maique.eu is also getting some love. Impossible not to do it, when Vincent keeps adding to this wonderful service.

Jan 18, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #84

Messy week, yet again. Not sure what to make of it, but everything seems a bit off balance.

🏊‍♀️ Saturday was a full day, that started with our return to swimming classes, after a couple of months away. tinyMovieStar is a little behind now, but did an incredible thing too. She went full underwater, and that was the thing keeping her away from the pool. The teacher was asked to give her a pass when that moment arrived, and he did. She still dove in at the end of the class. Amazing little girl, I’m proud of her every day.
🥘 In the evening we had dinner at my brother-in-law’s place, and the in-laws decided to join in, after telling us they wouldn’t drive into the city. It’s not a long drive, we do it every weekend, sometimes more than once. But they always make a big thing out of coming into the city. It should not be like that. 2024 might be the year when something changes in this relationship. Not thrilled, but it is what it is. We still need to figure this one out.
😝 Sunday, party day. One of tinyMovieStar’s little friends had a birthday, so we drove to Cascais for the celebration. Funny thing, and lucky too, my lovely mildly dyslexic wife misread the time of the appointment, so we slowly (very much so) drove there, in a very roundabout way, only to discover that we were in fact two hours late by the time we finally made it. A few of the school’s little buddies had been invited, so that was another chance for us parents to have a couple of beers. More on that later.
🩰 Ballet Monday, but that was only after two (as in twice, 2) drives to IKEA. Yes. I went to IKEA twice in a day! Shouldn’t I be getting some kind of award? A giant meatball, at least? Anyway, I love ballet Monday, and how much the little one seems to enjoy it.
🥰 Taking care of myself. I’m back to intermittent fasting, and cutting down on beer. Maybe I’ll even do a “dry some month”, now that January is half behind us, and I’m late for that one. Also walking a bit more again. Not as fun in the rain, but I must get back to it regularly. The Christmas season left it’s mark, and I must get fitter.
🦠 Shots were taken this well, both Covid and Flu. We should be thankful for our SNS (National Health Service). It took me two minutes to book both shots, for free, for two hours later, in a pharmacy on the next street over. Pretty nice, if you ask me. Also, the person getting the shots before I got in was an old friend, so we waited and talked for a while. Cool. A day later (when I’m publishing this), I’m in bed, with my joints aching, and my upper arms in some pain. Not terrible, but enough to give me a monster headache.
📷 No work whatsoever.
📺 The Brothers Sun ended. It was good. Will enjoy the next season, whenever it shows up.
🍿 Lift. Boy, oh boy, is this a shitty one! Predictable, feels-like-I’ve-seen-it-a-thousand-times, soooooo bad. I was recovering from the flu/covid shots combo, and it made me feel worse!
⭐️ Last Friday was, it turns out, Micro.blog appreciation day, even with all the complaining. The post did not start as such, but the service handles some things right. Hope the rest gets fixed. Also, used Scribbles for this, it’s a nice one.
👻 True to my Self-Hosting Woes, I launched another Ghost blog (Boo!) on PikaPods, and it’s still going. Not sure I’ll use it for something, but it’s fun to tinker. Mailgun has been set too, so I can use it to send the weekly thingsThisWeek, since this is as close to a newsletter as I’m likely to get. Sign up, or don’t, really. Not sure if it will make to next week.
🐳 Tried Beluga as well. There’s a profile, but I don’t think it will get a lot more than the initial post. Cool one, though.
📝 Also Gibberish, but I’ll leave that for next week.

{maique}