dammIT

A rantbox by Michiel Scholten

#family Articles


Have an uneventful 2024

Today was the first day of a new year. 2023 is behind us, but we are not done with the things we started during it. It was a year of both struggles and good times. Sometimes simultaneously. 2024 should be a year of improvements. Improving the situation at home, improving …
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Have a very nominal 2023

The year 2022 has been an interesting one for me personally. At work, we had a lot of interesting developments, most of which I'm pretty happy with. On a personal level, we had some breakthroughs with matters we have been struggling with for quite some years now. I think I'll …

Hilary Hahn is such a gem

Last Friday my better half and me went to a concert. The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was playing a contemporary piece (Con Brio, surprisingly nice with musicians using their instruments as percussion and such), the Violin Concerto by Dvořák and the First Symphony of Brahms. The very reason we went there …
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Have a normal 2022

With a whole load of things being the new 'normal', wishing y'all a 'normal 2022' might not sound like how I intend it to. What I mean is, lets hope we get more of the normal that we were used to before that little virus found its way across the …

Happy 18th birthday, dear diary

Today is a good day. We had some (well-spaced) fun at the office, our new TV arrived to allow us to spend some good times together oggling at inky blacks, and this sweet little website of mine turned eighteen, meaning it's now officially legal. Or doesn't it work that way …


In need of recharging

It's easy to have the blues and be out of energy in these times. Being confined to our homes, changing our ways and lives; not all bad, but a challenge to juggle young kids, work from home and other things. On the other hand, one might find more free time …
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Hello 2021

The plague year 2020 has passed. It has been a wild ride, and not all of it bad. Working from home want pretty well, I upgraded my nerdcave quite a bit in the progress, cleaning up a lot of the mess of stuff I assembled there, and even started a …

Seventeen years of dammIT

Well, that experiment obviously didn't work out as planned. I'm not even going to pretend I posted something in between the Wintergatan link and this post1, but I am going to celebrate this little platform of mine. It has been serving me for seventeen years now, and my use …

Goodbye grandma

Today the sad news of the passing of my second grandma didn't quite hit me like a brick - she already wasn't going well - but it brought home the reality of this plague year again. Her husband - grandpa - passed away around the start of this whole circus in February of this …

Tired, or not enough time

So I'm chronically tired for a while now. It is mainly my own fault, not going to bed early enough. This has a whole spectrum of reasons, some of which hobby-related (evenings are for doing stuff, right?), others kids-related ("go to sleep already"), and there are work emergencies that occur …


Uncluttering my wife's brain

I am digitally pretty well organised. I keep notes in places I can actually find them back, I use proper ways of keeping the codebases and projects I work on maintainable not only for myself, but for others (quite a fascinating thought), photo archives are sorted by date, subject, I …


Christmas 2019

While I'm taking some down time from work - which is rather a bunch on my mind lately, which is both a good and less good thing - I will be spending a lot of time with my loved ones. My intention is to almost not touch computers in the upcoming few …
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Sweet Sixteen

Today this little web corner has existed for sixteen years. Funny thing is that 'sixteen years' does not even sound that long anymore in my ears, while it is enough for a newborn to grow into a person nearing maturity. While I would not say this weblog is really mature …
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The end of 2017

The end is near. Well, at least the end of 2017, as this roller-coaster of a year is counting its last days. In less than two days, it will be Christmas, and these days mean a general slowing down of life and making time to enjoy each other for us …
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Hello 2017

The year 2017 has barely begun, but somehow it is already looking up. At least in my personal bubble. Son is suddenly confident enough to try a lot of new words, with mixed success in pronunciation or even correctness, but he is leaping forward amazingly. I am really happy with …
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Goodbye 2016

2016 was... interesting. Globally, it was overshadowed by some almost-disastrous events, and a lot of great and/or famous people left us (I won't even speak about the political... issues the world is having). Personally, the year was challenging. Having a second kid eliminates all chances of getting some decent …

Happy 13th birthday, dear diary

Er, weblog. Lots happened this year, lots of good and some less good things. We enjoyed our little girl growing from baby to toddler. We less enjoyed the continuing broken nights. The world is a weird, scary, but also a wonderful place. Let's make 2017 great.