The Good

🧑‍💻 A giant relief was that I was able to close everything related to my old client's project. I did a good Handover and completed all my last tasks. I can't really say something bad about the last client, but you feel it, when you are not honestly welcome there but need to get some work done. At least I can say I've learned some new things about people's behavior in the last 1,5 years.

🏡 Constant progress in the garden and on the house. I was able to flatten some sand to prepare the ground for new lawn. Got some new information's how I could make better use of lawn tractor to save some muscle work.

🐰 There were some relaxing days over the Easter holidays, which helped a lot to gain some new energy.

🏗️ I finally had time to work on my side project and completed a good chunk of tasks. I hope a can now work more on it and open it for tests.

🍿 I've rewatched Pacific Rim and for me, it is a masterpiece, one of those movies I can watch over and over again. Still visually stunning after more than 10 years. I turn into a kid again with these kinds of movies. 😍

The Bad

🧑‍💻 Starting on my new client projects feels very slow because I have to do courses, which is not bad, but the courses are not very helpful. I don't have a real working environment at the moment (working on citrix). And I don't have access to environments I need to work on some tickets and code. I get why that environment is so locked, but it is difficult to get started. Even worse, when the responsible people are sick and everything takes even more time.

The Ugly

🤨 The last week was quite hard, ending one project while starting a new one while having the little one at home to take care of while my wife was working onsite on her project.

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21/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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It feels that most of my post are related to music and concerts. Yes, currently I write a lot about it, but in the last 3 Months, I was on more concerts than in the past 5 years. 😅 My original plan for this blog was to write about me, development and freelance stuff. But It's fine for me to write about other topics, as long as I can practice writing. 👍

One reason was/is time. In the past 5 years, we've got 2 kids and there was not much time to go to concerts. Another reason was Covid, which I don't need to explain.

Especially the march was a concert heavy month with 5 concerts. It was a hard month, also because of other stuff going on, but the concerts were worth the effort. :)

One reason I got back into concerts was a good friend who dragged me a bit into it again. And I'm happy about it.

Something like this concert-march was a bit too much. I will continue to go to concerts, but not as often anymore.

The next planned concerts will be: – Asinhell on June 18 – Better Lovers on July 5 – Sepultura on November 22 – Kreator, Anthrax and Testament on December 8

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20/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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Today, again a summary of 2 weeks. This time there is a bit more to say. :)

The Good

🤘 I was at 3 concerts in 1 week, Botch and Heavysaurus, The Halo Effect and Meshuggah. Quite an endeavor, but it made a lot of fun. The Heavysaurus concert was also the second together with my oldest child.

🏡 We made good progress in and around our house. In the following weeks we will get heaters in the Cellar. ~50% of the walls a painted and the rest is waiting to get plastered. Outside the house, we finally got rid of our sand heap, which was there for around 4 years. After getting rid of all our hedges, there was room to fill in the sand.

🏗️ In Week 11 I've signed a new contract for my next development project. In Week 12 I started with a soft onboarding because there were colleagues on vacation.

📈 Some weeks ago, I've opened a depot and bought some ETFs (ISHSIII-CORE MSCI WLD DLA) to get familiar with this topic. I bought them at the right time, where they had a high. 😅 I need to take some more time and explore this topic more to get the best out of it.

The Bad

👶 The Kita rejected our blind child after promising they will take care of him from August on. When I heard it, I was paralyzed and speechless. This made my furious. We did all we can to support them with it. We got one-to-one support and had support from all the authorities, and still, they rejected him.

🧑‍💻 Currently, with all the stuff ongoing on our house and with the kids, there is not much time for me to program on my side projects. Let's see what eastern would bring. Maybe some time. 😂

🤖 I've fucked up my paperless-ngx installation again. And again, I didn't make a backup. After I re-added my documents and tags, I need to force me to make a backup and think about a periodic solution. ☝️

🪟 I haven't used Windows since XP. Sometimes in a VM to Test webpages with Internet Explorer, but I never installed it on a physical machine. So I thought I will never get a Project which completely is tied to Microsoft and Windows. Sure, in the past, you had Teams and all the office and Azure stuff, but Windows? I thought this was a thing of the past. Let's see how this is going, after 9–10 years of Linux and 1 year of Mac as a Freelancer.

The Ugly

😠 I'm furious and feel a lot of hate for the Kita people responsible for rejecting our blind child. I don't want to feel like this, it makes me sad, but at them moment I don't know how I should handle this. Especially when you have to go to the Kita every day and leave your oldest child there. For him, you have to pretend that everything is fine, but inside you could scream at these people. It's hard because they put you in this spot out of egoism and maybe fear of changing their daily life for no reason… But I think we have to get used to this because this will not be the last time we are confronted with something similar. It makes me so sad because he is such a lovely child with a lot of joy to live.

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18/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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Since I didn't find the time to complete the post for Week 9, it will be covering the last 2 weeks.

The Good

First things first, I was on Hackernews. 😲 Thanks to “jethronethro” for posting. This was quite unexpected and makes me happy.

Here is a Screenshot.

I got a new Project. 🥳 The current project fades out in March, and I'm happy that I can continue with my work for another client in mid-March.

Finally, I saw Wormrot while they Played with Napalm Death: https://bruegge.dev/campaign-for-musical-destruction-tour-2024-factory-magdeburg

The Bad

This should be written in “The Good” Part, but somehow, I'm not feeling it, putting it there. On March 10, we saw Dune Part 2, and I'm not as happy I thought I would be, after watching the Movie. Maybe I write a Post about it later.

The Ugly

Nothing. The last 2 Weeks were good, and I'm happy. 😊

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14/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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🪣 I've decided to create a link dump series. I don't know how often I will do it, I'll just create a draft #2 and add links to it, until I find, it is postable. And after it, with #3 and #4 etc. 😄

Kettlebell Workout: lately I trimmed down my workout to a 15 min kettlebell only workout.

Alternative Reddit Frontend: for me, as someone who only reads on Reddit, I like this approach a lot. I don't need to log in and have a fast interface. :) https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib

The Story of Final Fantasy 7 explained (German): Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was released, and I thought about, getting the game, but then I was too lazy to buy it. And currently, I have no time to play it. So, I didn't buy it. 😅 As someone who played the original a lot, I found this Video a good refresher and also a good summary of the whole story. Everyone interested in the Final Fantasy lore should watch this. And sorry that it is in German. Just got it from a friend who shared it with me.

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13/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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The idea of writing this post is inspired from the post of Geoff Graham: “Hey, will you build me a website?”.

Every once in a while, I get a request from friends. They want to buy, for example, a new computer or tablet.

I give them my standard questions:

• 🛠️ what will it be used for?
• 🫰 how much money do you want to spend?
• ⭐ do you already have some favorites as an example?

If this is a normal request, I'm fine with it. But the friends came to me, and they actually already made up their mind. Some odd requirements with a minimal budget. My problem here is, if you already decided what you want to buy, don't ask me. Because I have to take the time and research on this topic. But if you need to verify that your decision is ok, then tell me and I can focus on that.

Because I work every day on a computer doesn't mean I have the knowledge or the experience of what the best hardware for your budget is. Every 4–5 years, I'll buy a new notebook and mobile phone (I don't have a tablet because I have no use case for it). And usually, I try to get the best of what is currently on the market. In the past years, it was a maximized ThinkPad with a higher budget because I use it more than 10hrs each day and need it for my freelance and private work. On the current iteration, I bought a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. Because don't care anymore about hardware specs. I just want something good that works in my environment.

So I don't have to waste time on hardware spec research anymore. I didn't care in the past, and I don't care now. I don't know which Intel or AMD is the best. Or if you require more memory. For example, more than 10 years ago, I heard, with a Windows Installation, you need as much memory as you can get. So I assume, when you buy a budget notebook with 8 GB memory and windows is installed on it, I would assume that I wouldn't have fun with it, while working. Some are also used to the pain, working with slow machines. That's something I can't tolerate. It needs to be snappy and direct. 🏎️

I don't like to give recommendations. I'm used to different stuff than you, and I have a bad feeling when you buy something I recommended, and you are not happy with it. When you have a tight budget, I would rather not be the person responsible for this.

Sounds more like a rant at the moment. 😅 That was not planned, but it is fine for me. I don't plan my posts, if I have a Topic I want to write about, I just write down everything that is in my head. That's also a reason why the #100DaysToOffload is so appealing to me.

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11/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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This is my tenth post for #100DaysToOffload. I have written not as many posts as I planned, but I got a small steady stream of posts. The important part is, that it is not feeling like work. I need to force myself a bit to start writing, but when I'm in, it makes a lot of fun. 😍

The Good

We made some progress on our house, or more in the backyard. By getting some help with a tiny excavator to cut and get rid of the roots from our hedge. Now the backyard looks cleaner and is prepared for the coming fence. 🏡

Last week there was some positive news from the Kita. They are now, after some long discussions, willing to take our blind child. Unfortunately, not until August, so we have to wait 5 more months.

On Saturday was my birthday and I got one year older. I'm now 36. When I look back, the last year was very exciting, both positively and negatively. Let's see how this year will be. 🥳

Yesterday is published my first development related post. My domain now, fits more with my content.

The Bad

In the past 2 weeks, I've got the idea of moving my desk to another place in my office. I've created a small plan and then moved the desk. It turned out that is not a suitable solution. The path to my desk got unnecessary complicated and tight. The acoustic got worse and also the lighting. After a day, I moved all back to its old place. Besides one shelf, this one I changed to get more space. Currently, my office is also by 50% a storeroom as long as our basement is not ready, and I need to live with that for now.

The Ugly

There was nothing so bad in the past week, that I have to mention it in the ugly section. Which is a good sign for me. 👍

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10/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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I thought about starting with 1, but we are already in week 8 of 2024 and this is a small recap of week 7. Or should I start with 1 and increase without the pressure of writing this every week? I’ll decide at the end of this post. Or maybe I need another number? #7-1? It looks confusing. #1-w7? 🤔

Strange soliloquies I'm having here. 😂

The Good

I finally found a setup for my office, where I can put my desk without having the door or the window in the back. :)

The Bad

It's challenging to get a new freelance project at the moment. I hoped that the market has healed in the last few months. Yes, I got some request, but the hourly rate was way under the usual price and was nearly as high when I started freelancing, ~10 years ago.

The Ugly

It is harder than I thought, getting our blind child into the local Kita. :/ I appreciate the effort and concerns of the team from the Kita, but their arguments can be easily refuted.

The Title

I've decided to go with “#1 of Week 7”. With this writing, it should be clear what is what. 😂

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8/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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Today I did an update of my paperless-ngx installation. Unplanned. 😅

I logged into my Synology DSM and saw that there was an update for the Redis image. Like always, I started the update and went on. Later that Day, I wanted to upload some files, but I got an 500: Error. I've searched the web and found that there could be an error with Redis.

First, I thought that this could be an issue with file permissions. Because I tried, for the first time, uploading an PDF via the share button on my Phone. But then it also failed while uploading a normal image of a Document. So I started my investigation.

First, I found this error message in the Redis logs: WARNING Memory overcommit must be enabled! Without it, a background save or replication may fail under low memory condition.. Did a small search and found some shell command for sysctl which didn't help. Because in this Redis image, there is no sysctl installed. This was one of the commands:

sudo sysctl -w vm.overcommit_memory=1

If set to 1, it is enabled. Mine was set to 0. Without sysctl installed, it looked that there was no way to set it. So I searched again. With no luck.

Then I thought maybe I could just restart the Redis container, but this also leaded into nothing.

So maybe I just could re-use the instructions (Link to a German Synology Forum), I've used to install paperless-ngx.

There were 4 commands I simply run again.

cd /volume1/docker/paperlessngx/config
sudo docker-compose pull
sudo docker-compose run --rm webserver createsuperuser
sudo docker-compose up -d

This helped. In some way. The downside was, that it reinstalled everything and also deleted the database. Luckily, I could restore all my files from the File system. The only thing I needed to add again were tags. For the next time, I should make a real backup with the document_exporter from paperless-ngx. (Second time I need to do this. https://bruegge.dev/paperless-ngx, maybe I should not postpone it for too long. 😅)

In the End, I have no solution to the initial problem. Just solved it accidentally by updating my installation and lost my database.

This post is also more or less a documentation for future-me, if I come to this point again. 👍

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7/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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https://100daystooffload.com/

To get a better start with my blog, I will try the #100DaysToOffload challenge. I see it as a doable challenge because of the loose restrictions. But I need to force me to not overthink it. Just write when I feel to.

An example of overthinking is: I need 100 Posts in 365 Days, his will be around 2 Posts a week. Which raises questions like “do I have so much to say that it will last for 100 Days?”.

Currently, I'm not used to writing at all. Which triggers a bit of fear in me. This sets my moot into something I don't like. It will be better to think about it like there are days when I will write more posts and days when I don't need to think of writing at all. I need to keep the pressure low. I also don't want to plan posts in advance, just to fill the gaps.

My goal with this challenge is to build a habit of putting my thoughts into text, so anybody can read, and we can talk about them. I've tried writing in silence by writing a dev log and a diary, but I got demotivated quite fast, and I stopped writing. My learning here was, that I enjoyed writing itself, but not in silence.

This thinking is working so far perfect for my mastodon posts. I enjoy just posting when I feel to. I hope this will work for this blog too.

Furthermore, I like the fact, when you think about a topic and have no idea how to write more than a sentence about it. And when you start writing, it grows more and more. Like this post. Initially, I thought about writing just one paragraph, and now I keep adding more because I have new ideas of what I can say about it. I had the same experience while writing my dev log and diary. Each day the posts getting longer and longer.

Let's see where this goes and if I can keep the motivation for this challenge.

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3/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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