I had a vague idea of how to start this post about the past week: my short trip to Paris. Two days at an inspiring work conference after. Another long day at work. Lots of chilling out on the weekend.
When I sat down at my computer this afternoon I decided to move the ton of photos from my cameras SD card to my computer, before I started typing up my thoughts. While moving those Paris files I somehow managed to shred the SD card they were on. I don’t know if it would have worked better, had I only copied instead of moved the files. I’ll never know. But the many many Paris photos were and remain lost! Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, some bridges and monuments, the Louvre and Tuileries Gardens at dusk… all gone! I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried hot, angry tears over that for a bit this afternoon. But… it’s just photos. Yes, it would have been nice to have them to remember the trip by. To share some of them here and on Instagram. To show off a bit, I admit that as well. I try my hardest to not be too hard on myself for messing this up. No amount of being pissed at myself over it, will restore these files. “Be More Kind” starts with oneself, right?
Here are the few not as high-quality photos I took with my phone.
I had a good time all in all and that’s what matters, right?
At the start of the year I had considered taking a week or two off in July to just relax and recharge. Or maybe even use the time to start working on stuff that needs to be done around the family home, which I still plan to move into at some point. The nearer to July I got I realized neither would be feasible for a variety of reasons. One of them was that it became clear that my work load / deadlines and such would not allow for me to take two weeks off in July. So I decided to make the most of this mini break of time away from the office (vacation time and conference time) to at least get some distance from everything. I used the time in Paris to unplug for a bit or at least I tried. I had thought about doing another “Charlie in…” Insta stories installation, but that would have been the opposite of unplugging. So I rarely took photos with him. Here is one though. Like I said I had a good time in Paris.
It rained more than I had liked, but I used that time in my rented apartment to just catch up on my reading. Newspapers. Online articles. Novels. Two around 400 pages each in the span of 4 days. Lots of rain and long train journeys make that possible and I loved that.
The main reason for me to travel to Paris was the Brandi Carlile gig on Monday evening. It was her first time proper touring in Europe and she did not disappoint. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of her as such, but I like a lot of her songs and I had wanted to see her live for a long time. It was so nice to be be able to experience the energy in the room with a bit of emotional distance, but of course it also swept me away. Think of hard core music fans being able to hear the songs live for the first time in no idea how many years. It was a loud crowd and I loved it. The concert took place in theatre with great acoustics. Here are two clips from that night (not filmed by me, obviously).
“The Story” – Brandi Carlile in Paris, July 2025
“Cannonball” – Brandi Carlile in Paris, July 2025 (totally unplugged)
I took my small point and shoot camera with me to the show (and didn’t mess up moving those files from the SD card, obviously).
More on the conference and other stuff later this week. Maybe.
