You probably have not noticed, but this site was offline for twelve days. And so was I.

This is because the glass fiber link that leads to our home in the forest was broken in connection with some work further down the road. Then the usual fuckups of privatized and distributed responsibilities ensued. Meaning that I had to lean hard on our network provider (ISP) to finally refer the issue to the network operator after 5 days. And then another week to get the technician to diagnose, and talk to the other company that caused the fault.

This is the kind of thing that would have easily annoyed the hell out of younger me - things not working as they should! The world is mean to me!!

This time, though, I was quite fine with it. I am on holidays anyway and can in fact build a new shed for firewood without internet access (pics will follow!). The notifications for emails had been turned off anyway and for urgent stuff we still had the 4G of our phones - so there really only remained the inconvenience that we imagined ourselves.

Still, it's good to be back online.

Happy Midsummer, y'all!

Sometimes I wonder whether I made the wrong choice to get into academia. Now that I have been spending a few days planting trees instead, I get reminded once more that there is a sense of satisfaction after a long day of physical work that has no real equivalent in a desk job. The getting into a rhythm of repetition, the sense of visible progress, and the feeling of relaxed exhaustion in the evening. Something to be appreciated, for sure!

Then again, it might well be the case that the positive valence comes purely from the contrast to everyday life. Probably I would quickly get fed up, if I had to do boring physical work day in and day out.

I don't write the posts for this blog in advance. Sure, there are a few files with an idea or a link that I want to write about eventually. But nothing finished that I can release if I don't feel like blogging today, but don't want to break the streak. So I have to come up with something, right now.

As you might remember from previous posts, I live somewhat isolated in the forest. The town is only 20 minutes away, but still. There are no direct neighbours and in times like now, working from home, and because of the abysmal weather this week with another two days of snow in late April, it just so happened that I did not get out to meet anybody, or see anything new for quite a while. Except through the screen, of course.

This morning I therefore got in the car and drove downtown. Not to go shopping, I can resist that particular urge and like being frugal. But to take a long walk at a decent pace, like a small hike of ~7km, just to see something different. Towns-folk likes to take hikes in the woods, I do the reverse. At least today I did. Maybe that's part of how people get a bit weird after a few years living in the forest.

When I came by the cathedral,I went in. The early Saturday morning meant I was alone inside. It's been years since I've been inside. Gothic cathedrals are always uplifting, if you let them get to you. For me this means ignoring the religious veneer and see the whole as a cultural and aesthetic achievement. Plus, it is historically significant, with Gustav Vasa's pompous grave, among other things.

I hope I won't forget this once everything gets back to normal, the right now very appealing idea to visit all museums in town. I've never even been to the one for natural history during all the years I've been living here.