Life on Manuel Bernhardt

2018: year in review

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 17:52:53 +0100

I had intended to write a yearly review for a few years now but have not managed so far - 2018 is going to be the year that I finally get down to it. Looking back at the year is an interesting exercise and if I manage to keep this up for a few years (fingers crossed) it might provide a few interesting insights — and if not, it will have been fun anyway.

Subsequent thoughts on fatherhood

Thu, 16 Nov 2017 09:04:29 +0100

A bit over two years ago, I wrote about my initial thoughts on fatherhood a bit after our daughter was born. Our son ThÃ o is now 4 months old and I find it fitting to write a follow-up.

Life with one kid

Life with one kid is easy (in a couple). You’re two adults (well, more-or-less) against one child. Yes, the nights can be rough - in our case, ValÃ rie still hasn’t learned to sleep through the nights. There’s about a gazillion books, blog posts, video courses, self-proclaimed sleep gurus out there, and while some of the advice may apply to some kids, the reality of the matter is that each kid is wildly different (or should I say unique) and will have wildly different sleep patterns. And all that money spent on books and whatnot won’t change this. Judging from what we’ve heard from friends and acquaintances with children, the sleep pattern seems to be in large part hereditary - there seems to be a rather strong relationship between how the parents slept as kids (or still sleep as adults) and how the children sleep. In our case, we hit the double jackpot since neither I nor my wife is particularly sound sleepers. Perhaps, now is a good time to consider reliable options such as buying the best adjustable bed in Australia. Hopefully, that way, no matter what time we sleep, we can get a good night’s sleep.

The reality of writing a technical book

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 16:18:15 +0200

Two days ago I received my copies of Reactive Web Applications.

Stairways to Reactive

Needless to say, I had been waiting for this moment for some time. Even though the final PDF version had been out for a few weeks prior to this, nothing compares to holding in your hands an actual, physical, printed book (sites like Printivity could help out in this regard) and seeing the pages you’ve been working on in context with the possibility of turning them back and forth. Call me old-fashioned, but when it comes to reading a book with the purpose of learning new material I have the feeling that printed books have a better quality to it, with some form of tactile memory helping to remember the contents better.

Initial thoughts on fatherhood

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 12:30:34 +0200

Our daughter Valérie was born ~~two~~ three weeks ago. Our friends have all suggested we use someone similar to this newborn photographer El Dorado Hills to capture these special memories before they’re gone, but I’ve decided to write them down instead. We’ll definitely get photos soon though. This post is a collection of thoughts and first impressions that my tired brain will probably forget if I don’t write them down.

One week on Tenerife

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:10:08 +0200

We spent last week on vacations in Tenerife, enjoying the nice climate and all the hiking possibilities.

The highlight of this short stay was to climb on the Teide volcano, in two steps - first to the Altavista hut at 3200m, then to the top, the next morning at 5:45 AM, to catch the sunrise at 3700m.

At the top of the Teide at sunrise, with the shadow of the crater

Following through with dreams in rough times

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:57:45 +0100

For a while now I am following the Illuminated Mind blog and even purchased Reclaim your dreams (and also started reading it, though I still have something to do about the “finish reading it” part). The blog deals with how to get out of the trap of a job and life you don’t want, and raises challenging questions.

Today in the tramway back home I listened to Plan B, a recent episode of This American Life (which is great for a european listener like me since it communicates some of the culture of american life - or at least that’s the impression I got). This episode illustrates how many people live Plan B (or C, D, E…) of their life, because Plan A didn’t work out or didn’t turn out to be that good.