I don’t think this was a particular productive week, but it was both a busy and a relaxed one, and ultimately, writing this early evening in the garden makes me feel content. By the end of this week it became clear that despite increased travel restrictions by the Danish and German authorities for Dutch travelers in the face of rapidly rising numbers of positive tests, we’ll still be able to go to Denmark this summer for two weeks.

This week I

• Read up on the European Gaia-X infrastructure project, and the Dutch hub that launched last week
• Participated in a Kickstarter, getting something for everyone in our team
• Had the car serviced and checked for the mandatory yearly tech and safety check-up
• Had the weekly client meetings
• Prepared and moderated a session between a client and a European agency on the green deal dataspace, exploring joint activities and next steps
• Worked on a review of the first phase of our air quality citizen science project and a plan for the next phases
• Submitted contract changes of two of our team to the salary admin service, one of which is a fixed contract that I’m pleased with we can do.
• Arranged the right SSL certificates and DNS settings for a project of the Open Nederland association (which brings together makers that use Creative Commons licenses). In the context of upload filters and faulty automated copyright violation detections, we’re building a tool that adds better CC metadata and uses the faceted privacy platform Irma in the background to assure that the uploader is the originator they claim to be. The SSL certificates and DNS settings are to ensure the right interfacing between Irma, an intermediary and our tool.
• Had a pleasant extended conversation over coffee with a colleague of a client, about energy transition, the Green Deal, the data needs involved, and the data governance and infrastructure currently used in the energy sector in the Netherlands
• Had a more or less all-hands meet-up of my company, in the form of a vegan bbq, enjoying the nice weather after all the rain in the garden of my colleague F. A pleasant way to chat with our team before everyone takes time off at different moments the coming weeks.
• Picked up Y from school on Friday before lunch, which marked the offical end of her first full year in school! She’ll go to group 2 after the summer holidays, which is the same group she now is in as it is a combined year 1-2 group. During dinner she spontaneously read a few simple words, cat, fish, chicken, bee, without help, quite amazing to see and hear.
• The weekend was above all a lazy one. We went to Utrecht for E to get her second jab, and Y and I meanwhile walked along the canal from the vaccination center to the house of Y’s great aunt and uncle to say hi, while enjoying the various rowers passing by on the water. Afterwards we had coffee together outside in the sun, and drove home.
• During dinner today Henriette sent a message reminding us of how 7 years ago today we visited bringing a 3d printer for her daughter P to experiment with, as an extension of our ‘Make Stuff That Matters‘ unconference that they couldn’t attend. We hope to be in Denmark again this summer, and it would be great to also go meet Henriette and catch up.

Reminded by Henriette’s message of our fun visit to Helsingør 7 years ago today. Elsinore harbour and castle, image by Ton Zijlstra, license CC BY NC SA

3D printing at Henriette’s home with their then 10 yr old daughter, today in 2014. Image by Ton Zijlstra, license CC BY NC SA