A week that ended with both relaxation and stress. It started with a power outage due to a small distribution station near us catching fire.

This week I

• Wrote a short proposal for a client to extend an ongoing project for a few weeks, until their procurement process for a proper follow-up runs its course.
• Made a matrix of all the received responses to the impact analysis for the implementation of the EU High Value Data publication requirement, comparing them on how they approach the different scoping, governance and technology choices involved that we previously listed for the Ministry in charge of the implementation.
• Reviewed a chapter for a client that will be part of multi-year plan to be discussed in the Dutch strategic geo-information council next month, and was pleased to see several passages lifted wholesale from previous presentations and texts I had created for them.
• With colleague F finished and submitted the annual survey by the EC’s data portal team about the state of open data policy in the Netherlands. The responsible Ministry had asked us to do the survey for them as they wouldn’t be able to it themselves before the due date.
• Spent a day at the office in Utrecht, for our all-hands monthly meet-up. We did the meeting in a different office space in the building we’re located in. That space will be vacated by the current users, and we are considering moving into it.
• On my way to the office picked up a 40 year old Playmobil ‘medieval city hall’ (set 3347) from a private seller. Y and I have several medieval Playmobil sets, and this is the one I wanted to have as a kid myself, because it had 3 levels, but never succeeded in acquiring (In the late 70s I bought most of my big Playmobil sets myself from the money I earned from bringing in old paper for recycling). Some pieces were missing or broken, so with Y I found and ordered spare parts online.
• Discussed the intricacies of re-use of the national database for flora and fauna with them. I’m an on-call adviser to the organisation running that database. Their role is shifting as is their governance structure, as is the legal framework that applies to them. This leads to new questions on how to share data and make re-use possible. For next week I will close read a plan they wrote, to be discussed later that week with key stakeholders.
• Thursday was a national holiday, which I used to remove all the growth from the waterside terrace, to make it usable again for us in the coming months. During the weekend I did the same for the living room terrace. I also searched out a builder that can redo the tiling of the terrace for us to ensure plants can’t settle in the existing cracks anymore.
• Got stressed by a request for proposal I received for a project that we anticipated and would be lots of fun to do, but the way the procurement conditions were phrased unintentionally made it impossible to qualify. So, after discussing it with our team, reached out the procuring entity to find a way to solve it. Interacting with government procurement platforms is always a hassle.
• Y suggested she wanted to go to the beach, so that’s what we did Sunday at Zandvoort. It was sunny but with a very chilly wind, but still we got to build a sand castle. And watched a seagull pick up a plaice washing up in the waves. In the afternoon on the way back we briefly visited E’s brother S and his family. Briefly as they are in the process of moving house and we didn’t want to interfere in all the logistical stuff that entails.

Built a sandcastle with Y at Zandvoort beach