Back To Shore

A post on a Thursday, what a surprise. And it’s not even that I have a lot to say or share. Maybe it’s time to re-think what I want to do with this online space? At various moments these past few days ideas popped up, but then when I was done with regular (paid for) work, I either couldn’t be bothered to sit down in front of a screen again to write something. Many thoughts also weren’t really that thought out, which also kept me from writing anything. And then there is the whole how much personal stuff do I really want to share here issue as well. So…. no proper posts this week so far.

I miss the good old days of Twitter, where I could / would just randomly share thoughts with “the world”. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a healthy thing, but at least I wasn’t second guessing everything I’m putting out. But maybe it’s a good thing that I do. And yes there are other social media apps these days and yes I’ve signed up for most of them, but it’s not the same and I just can’t be bothered with a lot of these anymore to be honest. Instagram is the one I’m using (at least following if not posting as much) the most. But sometimes my thoughts need more words than I my self enjoy reading in a several slides in a tiny font on an Insta Story.

There is no real reason to this post. Obviously! One of the “mmh, maybe you’ll write about that” ideas made me upload and an image from one of my many Scotland trips a few years ago, because I probably will visit that particular place again in September. I had originally planned to drop off my rental car in Dundee and spend a few days there, take the bus up and down the coast. I already booked an apartment on booking.com and all that.

Then Frank announced three “The Road to Lost Evenings” shows, one of them in Aberdeen, which is about 1:20 h north of Dundee (by train or car). It’s a tiny venue, so of course I’m going! Duh, fangirl and all. At first I thought I’d keep the apartment booking and just spend a night in a hotel in Aberdeen. But then I checked the latest reviews of the apartment and quite a few of he more recent ones complained about the mattress on the bed. Red flag! I need a good night’s sleep. Yesterday I had a look around and checked hotel room prices (Travelodge for the win, because I can be reasonably sure they have decent beds), even though I had planned to stay in a self-catering apartment. But… as I wouldn’t be in it for two days basically, that might be a waste of money. So the plan now is to stay in Dundee for two nights, store my suitcase for two nights, while I travel to Aberdeen with my big backpack. Then stay three more nights in Dundee before I move on to Edinburgh for Lost Evenings. I haven’t changed any bookings yet, I’ve still got enough time to cancel on booking.com, but will probably do all of that on the weekend.

What has this all got to do with the photo I mentioned? I checked what I could visit on my way back from Aberdeen to Dundee and the bus stops near here.

So I’ll be back and I’m sure it will be lovely. As long as it’s not raining. I plan to be there on 22 September and this photo was taken on 19 September in 2017, so I remain hopeful.

To get myself in the right mood for Scotland I’ve finally started watching “Department Q” on Netflix and 3,5 episodes in I’m enjoying it so far. The villian(s) we see so far (there might be more, as the the plot goes on) are a bit creepy, psychological torture and all that, but I like to see Matthew Goode all grumpy and messed up. And still charming in his way.

Originally I had planned to keep watching “Departure”, but the first episode of season 2 didn’t really get me hooked. Why is she working in Canada all of a sudden? London was one of the main reasons I tuned in for season 1.

Oh well, a grumpy Englishman in Edinburgh on Department Q make up for it.

“More on the conference and other stuff later this week. Maybe.”

That was the end of my post a week ago. Oh well. Maybe a Sunday recap is all I’m able and ready to do these days.

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This past week my mental capacity mostly was used up with work, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I feel like we’re getting somewhere with our main project and the next phase for it. Lots of good meetings with different people. A nice lunch break with a few colleagues – we often don’t manage that with our different work from home / at office schedule. A budget meeting that didn’t go as I had liked, but I have to deal with that anyway. At least it didn’t keep worrying about that all weekend, which is such progress from me a few years ago.

My current role in civic engagement also took up some of my time and I’m very much looking forward to stepping back a bit from it later this year. The social interaction of it takes most of the toll on me these days I think. I sometimes wonder if it’s the other people or me, but I guess it’s a combination of both and how we have changed over the years.

Whenever I felt it was all getting “too much” I also managed to not always seek distraction on my phone / TV / with books, but take a few moments to work on my recent “Doodling” it’s what I still call these:

But I also did fun stuff this week.

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Yesterday I went to see two basketball games as part of the FISU – World University Games 2025, which take place in our metropolitan area that the moment. You not often have the chance to watch professional sports (and uni /college sport already feels quite professional) for just a few Euros. The US women and men basketball teams both had a game nearby so I went and it was enjoyable. I don’t know how the player / team selection usually takes place, but according to the info online this year the USA decided to not put together a team of various students from different university, but select one team to represent the US. For the women it is the Red Raiders from Texas Tech and for the men it’s the Baylor’s Bears for Baylor University.

It was fun to watch, even though I don’t really know much about basketball rules. Like how many steps are allowed while dribbling and such. For the men’s game I had people behind me who clearly did and who almost called the infraction before the referees did. But the general concept of the game I know so it was easy to follow.

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I also made good of my Unlimited Card at the local multiplex and on Friday afternoon watched “Jurassic World – Rebirth”. I don’t remember how many of the Chris Pratt Jurassic movies I’ve watched; some I guess, but not all, I’m sure. I enjoyed this one though, because Jonathan Bailey makes a fine nerdy museum guy and there were nice heartwarming family moments with the sailboat family. With these kind of movies I know not to get attached to any of the secondary crew, because they are most likely to be killed in the genre specific disaster: here eaten by a dinosaur. So I didn’t care too much about all those ship crew, cheered early on when the rude annoying guy got culled, was indifferent about the other two. None of the good (nice, regular) people gets killed in this genrer anyway. So yeah, fun summer blockbuster movie.

The same goes for “Superman”, which I saw last weekend. Typical superhero genre movie, fun to watch if you don’t take it all too seriously. Because if you would seriously consider the death toll of that rift in the earth and everything else? But it’s a fictional superhero story, so you better not.

I realize I haven’t mentioned that the week before last, I also saw “F1” with Brad Pitt. That was a trip down memory lane. I liked him to look at and as an actor since the mid-90s. Not all his movies and all his looks, but he’s aged well and has still got “it”. The movie as such was quite interesting as well.

With going to the movies every week (sort of) I’ve seen the same trailers over and over again. I need some of those movies to come out already so I can watch them. Movie trailers I saw in descending order of my interest_

Fantastic Four – First Steps
I’m generally not a fan of the whole superhero genre (I only vaguely remembered the Justice League connection for Superman), but this 1950’s vibe has got me interested and I’ve also had a tiny girl crush on Vanessa Kirby, back when she was on “The Crown”.

Project Hail Mary
I like Ryan Gosling in general. Not all of his movie choices, but this looks like an interesting enough one. Not coming out before Spring 2026 though.

One Battle After Another
The same thing I say about Ryan Gosling goes for Leo diCaprio. I don’t watch all of his movies and with this one I’m afraid it might turn a bit too violent at some point, but all in all the setup seems interesting enough. And… it’s Leo diCaprio.

Materialists
I’m on the fence about this rom-com. Yes it has Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal competing for a woman’s affection, but the whole posh marriage matchmaker world it’s set in turns me off a bit. I still might see it, because of the Unlimited Card.

I Know What You Did Last Summer
I guess it’s not a direct remake of the 90’s slasher movie, but seems like a similar setup and plot. The characters (and actors) from the 90s all seem to make an appearance. I haven’t watched the one in the 90s, won’t watch now.

The Long Walk
Based on a Stephen King novel and it’s too dystopian and too gruesome for me from the trailer alone. Nope!

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After the busy Friday afternoon (haircut, movies) and Saturday (civic engagement work, basketball) I knew today I had to decompress at home. On my own. Not talking to anyone. Instead I binge watched “Departure” Season 1 on Netflix.One more episode left to go, which is where I’m heading after publishing this.

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?

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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. 

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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).

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More on the conference and other stuff later this week. Maybe.