Played at De Koepel golf course today in preparation of next week's big senior championship. About a two hour drive to get there, but it was worth it.
I think that I am finally starting to play better again. Shot an okay 37 + 41 = 78 with one birdie and two stupid double bogies. The back nine is much more difficult. Wish me luck next week.
Whenever we visit my elderly relative in the care home, and the weather being suitable enough, we take her downstairs to have a nice cup of coffee out on the patio which has a pleasant view of the garden. She enjoys the sounds of birds and the beautifully colored flowers and plants.
There are a number of older folk living there with various levels of one or the other ailment. A large majority have to be pushed around in wheelchairs, and sometimes you see someone walking along slowly using a wheeled walker.
On this occasion, there was an older man scuffling along the garden path which is made of gravel and is circular in shape. The path takes you along the perimeter of the garden with a total length of some thirty meters.
For whatever reason, this older man kept moving faster and faster. As he picked up sufficient pace, his legs seems to go out of control, propelling him at a pretty significant running speed. Indeed, his body had acquired youthful energy, and he was jogging along like someone half of his age.
At first I just thought that he was exercising extra hard, after being cooped up all day inside of his room. But it soon became apparent that he could not keep up with his quickly shuffling legs, and he launched himself onto the patio about to hit a table. Fortunately there was another person sitting there and she caught him by the arm just in time. Whew, that was a close one. His right right arm was bleeding slightly due to his brushing violently along the bushes during the final lap.
I learned later that this behavior is a common syndrome of people suffering from Parkinson's disease. The trembling of extremities sometimes gets triggered and turns into more violent synchronized motions. In the case of the old man, his shaking legs went into turbo mode and sped him along like a unmanned projectile. Getting faster and faster until disaster was ready to strike.
Let's not forget to be thankful for our good health now. Appreciate life to its utmost while you can.
How often in the past have ignorant ivory tower government officials tried to impose supposedly inane IT security measures, which on closer inspection are completely infeasible in terms of the existing technologies? Going overboard along a single front line of defense is not the right answer and is plainly insane. As even more draconian measures are imposed, following a just-in-case mentality, there remain much easier and less obvious means to hack into a given corporation. Remember the Maginot line which was simply bypassed by the Germans during the first world war? We should learn from our mistakes in the past and just get along with our work without unnecessary barbed wire, trenches and imaginary Maginot lines.
Despite the huge hype about ChatGPT these days, I still entertain a negative feeling towards all of the so-called amazing promises that this wonderful new technology has to offer us.
However, before I go too far sticking my neck out spewing negativities, I figured it would be better if I first learn more details about what this new technology is under the hood and what it has really to offer. For me, for my surroundings and for the rest of society.
That's why I have signed up for for a course and am following it now.
ChatGPT - The Complete Guide to ChatGPT & OpenAI APIs
What a great privilege it was for me to be the captain of such a fantastic team. Ending up second place is a great achievement, and I congratulate all our golfing heroes who made it happen. We will have to wait until next year to decide how to proceed further, but no matter what happens, the fun memories will last.
For the third year in a row I get to be the captain of our great golf team. So far this season, we have won the first two matches, but unfortunately got beaten pretty badly in the third match. We have one match to go where you can get revenge and prove that we are the best team this year.
It is with honor and privilege that I don my new radio paradise cap (also have a matching tee shirt).
I received the following very nice email this morning, and it has touched me deeply.
Hello, I apologize for bothering you,
but I'm not sure how to get out of the difficult situation I'm in.
Maybe you could help me. I need an urgent liver transplantation,
and the surgery costs a lot of money for me.
To be precise, I need 36,414 USD.
I would greatly appreciate any amount you can contribute.
If you're unable to help, I apologize once again
My bitcoin wallet: ...
You can buy bitcoin here ...
or choose another payment service (google search phrase "buy bitcoin")
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this,
and please take care of yourself and your loved ones, especially your family...
I feel very sorry for this person, and since this sounds like a perfectly reasonable request, I have decided to donate the money for her desperately needed surgery.
Today I had a terrible time on the golf course, and despite a piling up of inner frustrations ready to explode, I somehow managed to keep my cool.
You'd think that getting a par on the first hole and managing two nice birdies (one was almost a hole-in-one within six inches of the hole) would guarantee a successful round of stellar golf.
That was not to be the case. Three double bogies on the front nine and two triple bogies and a double bogie on the back nine. No less than fourteen unnecessary additional strokes. That's a 44 + 44 = 88, pretty awful round.
For someone of my golfing caliber, you'd expect me to be shooting in the medium to high seventies, but that's the gam of golf for you, very unpredictable and unforgiving somethings.
We had an amazing two weeks travelling around Costa Rica.
Decided to splurge again on golf and sign up as a member of the golf club called Golfbaan Bentwoud stichting (foundation).
It's only a twenty minute drive from my house, and it offers very nice training facilities. I can also play on the golf course for a big discount, and in the afternoons it is never busy there. This is really nice for me, because much of the time my home course is booked solid, and I cannot play on late notice.
I want to workout three times a week, practice golf and play more often, and take part in as many (senior) tournaments as possible. My goal this year is to get my handicap down below five and to win at least one tournament (maybe three).
Ten years ago to this very day I gave up drinking. Since then I have not had a single drop of alcohol. That day way back then when I stopped drinking for good was a defining moment in my life. I am very thankful that since then, I have had the courage and perseverance to successfully resist the many evils of that malicious and conniving substance.
Back then excessive drinking was ruining my life, and I had to do something about it or else.
Now I am a much better person without it. Being liberated is a wonderful blessing and I am able to enjoy the present, just live day by day. I plan to be this way for the rest of my life.
First time this year I played golf, from the back tees. Climate was a bit cold and wet, and just finished the front nine before it got too dark. Actually on the last hole I could barely see the ball.
Bogey, bogey, par, par, bogey, par, bogey, par, bogey for a 41.
Not bad for the first time in almost two months. Hit the ball pretty well, had no penalty shots, and I made a couple of long putts. I am really looking forward to a fun and exciting new year of golf.
After having had a great year working at KPN Rotterdam as a frontend developer Angular on the QCarbon Team, I feel honored and privileged that my contract there has been extended. Time to dive back in and make the product even better.
Seems like the older you get the more famous people are passing away. So many great folks who will not have the opportunity to partake of the year 2023.
I hope I make it, fingers crossed.
Time for a new goal in life. Learning Haxe just for the heck of it. Looks like something interesting and worthwhile to tackle. Like I always say, you are never too old to learn more stuff.
The next time you have a match with your son on the squash court and feel overly confident that you can pocket an easy win, think twice before you take on the challenge.
Being overly confident, I brandished my squash racket like a sword going into battle, and the match started out well. However, after two minutes I ran into the wall and banged my head. My son warned me that the walls are as hard as concrete so be careful.
However, being the stubborn older man past his prime, I failed to heed his warning, believing that I was unbeatable.
So just around the five minute mark, I dove for a low ball my son had skillfully bounced into the corner. I bashed my left shoulder into the wall and felt a snap, either it was a rib, my shoulder blade or some cartilage.
So much pain, I couldn't believe it!
The first thing I thought was that I would never be able to play golf again.
Now it is three weeks later and I am still suffering a sharp pain and am unable to raise my arm very high. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make an appointment with the doctor and get it checked just in case.
Number theory is is one of the oldest branches of mathematics, dating way back four thousand years to when the Pythagorean triples were discovered by the Babylonians. Since it is so important, it is time to refresh my undergraduate mind and give it all another go.
This book seemed to be the best step by step introduction and it contains many historical references and interesting tidbits of relevant details about the who and when of it all.
Who knows, maybe I can even develop some advanced algorithm on the computer in order to discover new stuff, or better yet prove one or more conjectures.
Just for fun, I created an example Angular application which converts a CSV file to a Material Table dynamically. Guess I was a little bored, but nonetheless it was a fun quickie break from an otherwise uneventful day.
https://github.com/kgish/angular-csv-to-material-table
Got up early and it's been a long day of hard work. So it's high time for me to finish up and go home, before they accidentally lock me up for the night.
"I came to The Netherlands from sunny California way back in 1981, and I have never regretted my decision to stay here. The quality of life here is a hundred times better, and as you explained very well, the government takes good care of you if you need proper healthcare. For some reason, my fellow Americans have an aversion to so-called socialized medical care. This is illogical when one compares the obvious advantages. Whenever I visit the States, I do feel comfortable with the familiar culture and using my mother tongue is a nice relief. However, too much has changed since the good old days of childhood. I feel like a stranger to the extremist mindset, having to be proud all the time and acting successful (whatever that means). The accelerated world of working too hard at the expense of enjoying the important things in life is not for me. Life in Holland is where I prefer to be. It is the best of the two worlds by a long shot."
Jovie's Home: What I tell Europeans about moving to USA!
There are a number of important life changes that affect who we are and who we try to act like we are. That means that it is time to select a new avatar for my various rampaging adventures in the virtual world. Therefore, I hereby
introduce you to my new and improved avatar. As I have observed on the Internet, a proper avatar should reflect your essence, distinguish itself from the crowd such that people will remember you, protect you from abuse and defend you
from attacks from others (note my helmet by the way), and finally the proper avatar should provide you with some magical qualities that will make you a winner wherever your virtual soul shall travel. Taking all of that into consideration,
I am very pleased with my new avatar and look forward to embalming myself in its essence as my life goes on. While perusing all these strange thoughts, I spotted the innocent trash can over there under my desk, and that is when it hit me.
Wish me luck.
One major issue I had with my nice new laptop was that for some weird reason I could not hook up an external monitor via HDMI. After searching around everywhere for a solution, this is what worked for me:
$ sudo fwupdmgr get-updates $ sudo fwupdmgr update
During the BIOS update, your computer will be rebooted twice. In total it takes about ten minutes to complete. Be patient, the wait is worth it. Enjoy!
Lenovo forum: Thinkpad T14 Gen 3 has no available HDMI ports under Linux.
I had a really great time visiting my old buddy Kevin in Austria again. Hard to believe that it has been thirty-six years since I had been there the previous time. This picture was taken during one of our long philosophical strolls along the beautiful countryside and colorful yellowish vineyards. Much has changed since the good old days, and it is fine to see that we are both healthy, wealthy and wise. Sure we have gotten a bit older, but for the grand old age of sixty-five life is good. Thanks Kevin for the fun-packed weekend of reminiscing and inspiring activities.
Sorry, I could not resist. What a beautifully crafted golf weapon. Makes the perfect pair with the driver I recently purchased.
A special thanks goes to the fine folks at Dormy Golf where I found it for a great price.
In case you were wondering, it's a TSi3 fairway wood 4. Isn't it georgeous?
We had a really fly and drive vacation on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria. We could just hang around on the beach or drive around and visit interesting towns and national parks up in the mountains.
See for yourself here: Photo album.
While rummaging through my old stuff, I came across a pair of old hiking boots. These are the very same hiking boots that I wore more than forty-two years ago when I first came over to Europe as a travelling backpacker.
For more than three months of travel, these old hiking boots were the only footwear I owned. Very useful for walking long distance and climbing in the Alps, but fairly awkward walking in the hot southern countries along the beach or wherever.
My wife wants to get rid of them, she is not one to save old junk longer than absolutely necessary, and at first I was shocked. Being the sentimental person I insist on keeping everything to my dying day.
In the end, I decided that it was very logical to throw them away even though emotionally it feels very painful. That is why I first had to take this picture in order to keep some semblance around of my old hiking boots.
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