Birthday issue - Issue #7
Birthday issue - Issue #7
Hey hey! It is my birthday issue! 🎉
I hit 35 today and it feels great. After the mark of thirty, I stopped worrying about my age so much and birthdays became more enjoyable. In my twenties I was always worried about my career, my achievements my "old age" but not anymore.
I think 30-es is the best time in my life. I don't have any obligations like university or living with my parents. I still have quite a lot of energy and ambitions. And I have more money than I had in my twenties.
Praise the thirties! 🎉
🧳 Travel
The following weeks should be travelinteresting! 🧳
I'm flying to Estonia on Friday and meeting my mom in Tallin. She will be in her car so I'm planning to drive her towards the center of Europe. It would be perfect if we manage to drive to Milan in Italy but I understand it could be difficult. My mom is not a young girl anymore so not sure how she feels about long road trips. We'll play it by ear.
The first short-term goal is to drive to Poland via Latvia and Lithuania. Maybe we can reach Czechia or Hungary from there as well. We didn't book any hotels except the first one in Tallinn.
Estonia already announced that they're closing the entrance for Russian citizens with Schengen visas on the 19th. So our timing couldn't be better. I'm looking forward to this trip because I haven't seen my mom for more than a year.
We also added more plans with my wife after this trip. We're ending the trip with mom on 27th then I have regular work days which I'll spend in Tallinn.
On the 29th I'll travel on a ferry to Helsinki to rejoin my wife. She's also meeting with her parents in Istanbul. Then on the weekend, we're flying to Stockholm. I haven't been to Scandinavia and am quite interested in these countries. Then we're flying back to Holland on the 2nd of October.
I'll be reporting about all the trips in the newsletter and I'm hoping to record a travel vlog out of the trip.
🇳🇱 Stuff I’m doing in The Netherlands
Despite all the trips we reached a milestone in our apartment as well. We finally assembled all the furniture from IKEA and threw away all the empty boxes. The house now looks more cozy and pleasant than with all the boxes hanging around the rooms.
It was quite an achievement because we started from scratch and we have zero furniture. In the end, I was sick of the assembling process but I'm happy we did it. We still have a few touches here and there we want to complete but the apartment looks lovely already.
I also finished my office/studio setup and I love it. I always wanted such a place but with traveling it was impossible. It still needs some cable management work though.
From the disappointing news, we still have issues with Internet installation. I was already telling the beginning of the story in the previous issues. How we waited for T-Mobile and eventually switch to the KPN network provider. But now we're waiting for KPN as well. Turns out they didn't install an optical to ethernet converter in our box. Now, it's impossible to tell when they manage to do this.
At least they sent us a little 4G modem so now the Wi-Fi connection is a bit more stable compared to pairing the phone. But it's still annoying that we have to request 2Gb every time we run out of data. There is no real unlimited data here in the Netherlands. All the providers limit you to 10Gb per day and then you have to request 2Gb via the app when they run out (for free). Technically it's unlimited but they also limit it 😂
💻 Cool purchase
This week I got my birthday present earlier and it's Mac Studio! I love my M1 MacBook Air but sometimes it's not enough for work and video editing. Even many Chrome tabs could easily crush its 8Gb of RAM.
But this new machine is an absolute beast. It has an Apple M1 Max chip with 10 core CPU and 24-core GPU, 32Gb of unified RAM.
I tried to overload it with everything I have in my workflow and even more but it didn't care a bit. FinalCut works perfectly and smoothly without any freezes. Exactly what I wanted. I'll continue using my laptop for the trips and it's still one of the best laptops I've ever had.
Another awesome thing in Mac Studio is the number of ports. It was always a downside of MacBooks and you have to jump around with a USB dongle to make it work.
📺 YouTube
This week I completed a new video for YouTube as well. I'll publish it on Friday. It's another vlog I recorded back in Georgia when we traveled from Batumi to Tbilisi through the whole country by car.
It was a cool trip so I hope the viewers will enjoy the video. My last vlog didn't have much attention so curious to see how this one performs.
I edited all my previous footage from Georgia so I'll be recording new videos from my studio now! I still have a few ideas for videos about Georgia and then I switch to The Netherlands topic.
Recently I started thinking more about the idea of starting a YouTube channel about video games. It's still an idea and I don't have time for that now. But it's something I would love to explore in the future. I was videogames nerd my whole life and I think I know the industry quite well. So it would be great to try this at some point. I would be interested in reporting video game news and occasional reviews. The last one is much harder if you don't get preview copies.
🎁 Content I’m consuming
We've finished The Boys TV series and it's a fine show. But I noticed that I'm not as impressed as before with their shocking scenes. Despite it feels like they're trying to add more of them I don't feel as amused. Maybe I am used to them or they aren't interesting as before.
I started reading Neuromancer by one of my favorite cyberpunk authors Philip K. Dick. The book is a bit hard to read in English for me but it still gripping right from the start.
We tried a board game back in Berlin called Terraforming Mars and we loved it. We purchased it right after we get back from the trip and already played 3 times. It's quite a few considering that each game lasts for about 4+ hours. The game is very interesting and perfectly suitable for 2 players.
-
Hit me with any questions/suggestions by clicking the reply button in your email client and have a great week!
-
Written in my mini office in The Hague, The Netherlands 🇳🇱