I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2023 will be remembered in our family as a terrible year because in early September, we lost my Aunt Mary Elizabeth after a brief illness. To say we are all still in shock and recovering from this unexpected turn of events is probably an understatement, but overall we are doing okay considering the circumstances – but we still miss her a lot. I actually made a “secret” week-long trip to Berlin in October for a goodbye party and the funeral which I haven’t mentioned online at all yet – but I made the best out of it, meeting some extended family members for the first time and doing some photography. The rest of the year still felt surreal even before August and September, with Corona still looming – but thankfully staying away from me – and the whole world situation making everything uncertain. Just having a roof over your head and not being broke or hungry is maybe something we all can be thankful for.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2022 ? I’m not sure I can even describe this year anymore. Corona year three would have been manageable, but then the world literally caught on fire with a war right on Europe’s doorsteps. Since February, everything feels slightly surreal because nobody really thought it could get that bad. But with Russia invading Ukraine a massive uncertainty arrived for everyone not only in Germany but all over the world – the resulting energy crisis has been on everyone’s mind and has quite a few real life consequences even for those not directly affected by the war.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

Soooo. 2021. It started on a sour note, muddled along during Spring, got a little better during the Summer and then went completely to hell in the Autumn and Winter thanks to Corona. Even our extended family got hit by the virus in time for the holidays thanks to the still not closed down schools. Still, we’re all double, if not triple vaccinated except the kids and we’re all as careful as possible. We’re not even in a proper lockdown like last year, just a muddle of 2G and 3G restrictions with vague promises of further ones along after the Christmas holidays, which could be too late to prevent it getting much worse. What will happen in 2022 with Omicron gearing up is anyone’s guess, but it will be neither fun nor pretty. The only thing we can do is be careful, get vaccinated and not take any risks.

There were still a few good things happening for me in 2021, but they mostly all can be filed under self-care to stay as happy and healthy as possible in a bad situation. I actually acquired two new guitars this year which I always wanted to get but was never able to afford before – I’ve actually got a blog post about my various guitar adventures in my drafts which I will probably complete soon. And I already wrote about the fun I’ve had with the Lego Space Shuttle this summer, the building I even documented in a series of Youtube videos. There were also the surprisingly successful CosmoQuest Con and Hangoutathon, with me even appearing on screen in the second one! Of course I still had a lot of fun with my photography  and even though I haven’t taken as many photos this year as before, I still have enough to post my usual couple of shots over on the Photography Blog – and the Camera Store I work for part-time is also still very much alive.

Fortunately, I was once again able to make it safely to my family in Berlin thanks to an inexpensive first-class train ticket. But as mentioned above, due to one of my cousin’s kids catching Covid in school, visiting the extended family has been made almost impossible, but keeping us all safe from Corona is more important.  The weather is cold, partly grey with some occasional sun and a threat of snow – not good for taking photos, but I already took a quick round of photos I’ve already started to post. And there will also be an attempt of analog photography too if I really get around to it – at least I brought my late mom’s trusty Praktica.

While it’s going to be quiet here on this blog now for at least mid-January, of course I’m always posting my usual round of daily photos over on my Photography Blog and you can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook and of course Instagram – although I have abandoned MeWe because there was just nothing going on there.

Have a nice end-of-year holiday, everyone – and thank you especially to everyone who helped me to get through this difficult year! You know who you are and it would have been much more difficult without all of you!

MERRY NEWTONMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I haven’t had much energy or time to write here lately and I apologize in advance because I’m only writing about Corona… which happened because 2020 has really managed to take the fun out of almost everything and 2021 has continued the same way. After a relatively hopeful summer and early autumn the situation had turned so bad that two weeks before Christmas Germany was staring into the face of a complete lockdown again – which is still going on right now three months lare. All because people are idiots and politicians are too corrupt and squabble too much to make rational decisions.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2020 was… crazy beyond belief, and that’s perhaps still an understatement. How to describe it? The year started quiet and nice in January, began to get strange in February and in March literally all hell broke loose! I don’t think anyone had the Corona Virus on their 2020 bingo cards, but that’s what’s been dominating this year all the way non-stop. Back in February, which now seems like a lifetime ago, everyone was still joking about that new virus, but then it all became quite literally deadly serious – and now we’re back in the second ‘hard’ lockdown right in time for the Christmas season!

The strangest thing is that for myself 2020 turned out quite well, with a good new job that came around despite the pandemic and everyone in my family still healthy. I even made it safely and carefully to Berlin over the holidays – we’ve taken every precaution and the train ride was not even remotely crowded, so there was no chance of cross-infection from Mülheim to Berlin. Of course the weather is rainy and grey instead of snowy and bright so there’s no reason to go out, but I’m sure I’ll e able to do at least a little photography around here soon. Maybe I’ll even get around to write something for this blog as well, who knows?

But as always, I’m still posting my usual round of daily photos over on my Photography Blog and you can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook and of course Instagram abd I’m also still crossposting my usual things on MeWe these days.

Have a nice end-of-year holiday, everyone – I’ll see you all around the Internets at some point or other! :-)

MERRY NEWTONMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’ve had a few questions what happened to me after I wrote the previous post from April 15 and the answer is – I was just too busy for a followup! After over a Month of almost complete lockdown, Germany has allowed to open smaller and now bigger stores and businesses to open again and most restrictions have been lifted – save for wearing masks and keeping a distance of two meters. Sadly even those comparatively mild restrictions seem to be too much for the majority of people, because now the Corona cases are rising again after three Months of falling.

There’s an old curse that goes ‘May you live in Interesting Times’ and it seems this curse has struck the world with full force. It has certainly been very interesting in the last couple of weeks with the Coronavirus Pandemic. Originally, I wanted to put up a little Happy Easter post, but it somehow didn’t seem appropriate anymore considering the world has been completely upside down now. Since I haven’t written much here for a while, maybe it’s time to start again and talk about what’s been going lately and what we can do about it.

From joking about that strange new virus in February leading into an almost complete shutdown of public life only weeks later, the developments have been frighteningly fast and it still feels like a badly written b-movie. You can’t help but laugh at the almost absurd situation, even though hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions are seriously ill. Not being able to do some of the most basic things in life is strange to a point where it feels crazy. After over a month of all this strangeness people are getting understandably nervous, or in quite a few cases just completely bonkers.

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

Once again, 2019 turned out to be pretty crazy and full of highs and lows, but I really should not complain too much. As usual, I was really busy with a lot of things and didn’t really have time or energy to write much here on this blog, but perhaps that may change soon, even though I say that every year and evidently can’t really keep my own promises. I’ll skip the end-of-year roundup again, because there is just nothing much to report right now except the unfortunate demise of Google+ earlier this year – which actually put a dampener on my enthusiasm and partly caused the silence here.

Like the last two years, I’m not actually home right now but with my family in Berlin – this year’s christmas tree photo was taken the day before I left – and I’m still posting my usual round of daily photos over on my Photography Blog. As always, you can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook and of course Instagram abd I’m also crossposting my usual things on MeWe nowadays.

Have a nice end-of-year holiday, everyone – I’ll see you all around the Internets at some point or other! :-)

MERRY NEWTONMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’d like to wish all family, friends, regular readers, commenters and all other visitors Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year or any other Holiday Greetings you prefer! As usual, I prefer Happy Newtonmas because Isaac Newton was born on December 25th, but I’m very democratic in that respect and let everyone celebrate the the holiday they like.

2018 was one crazy year full of highs and lows for me, but overall a huge improvement over the last couple of years, more than I could ever have expected! But it has also been extraordinarily busy and I haven’t really had as much time to work on the websites as I wanted, even though the creative energy was there. There might not even be an end-of-year roundup because there’s not that much to talk about, but perhaps I’ll get around to do it when I get back home.

Like last year, I’m not actually home right now but with my family in Berlin – and that means the only fresh content from me will be my photos over on the Photography Blog, where I’m still posting every day. As always, you can also follow me on Google+ (until April at least), Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to get everything from me in one place.

Have a nice end-of-year holiday, everyone – I’ll see you all around the Internets at some point or other! :-)

MERRY NEWTONMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, this happened yesterday… it was actually even a little bit hotter. I can’t remember when we last went over 35°C, but the 36 to 37 were really a surprise. Fortunately it was still dry and later last night we got a much needed thunderstorm which cooled things down considerably. Today it’s “only” about 30°C which feels comparatively cool to yesterday, but for tomorrow the forecasts say somethingf about 36°C again.  So I’m taking thinks veeeeeeeery slowly at the moment and thanks to having both a solid new tablet (more about that later!) and a smartphone at hand, I really have no reason to even think of switching on a computer in this sort of temperature.

I also managed to figure out how to get a smartphone photo right into the blog without having to go through the computer, so making quick article thumbmails like this one are not a problem anymore even though the quality is not the best and I obviously can’t do the round edges I usually do with a pictue frame mask in PSP. Photo processing except for quick smartphone shots is also not really comfortable (yet?) under Android because getting the photos off my camera is somewhat difficult and there are simply no mobile photo editors that really fit my needs. But since I have a LOT of already finished photos ready to post and I’m not in any danger of running out, that doesn’t really matter and the photo posting will continue as usual over on the Photography Blog – and I even might have a movie/dvd-review coming soon over on DVDLog later when the temperatures are a bit more normal again.

So stay tuned, keep as cool as possible and I hope everyone can beat the second mid-European heatwave of this summer!