During the South African winter, we took some time as a family to enjoy the beautiful coastal region known as the Garden Route. In July, the canola field are beautiful yellow, and the sun on the way made for a great road trip to Plettenberg. We went to the Wolf Sanctuary — the kids were … Read more
Earlier this year, I went on a work trip to Washington, D.C. About a week after the inauguration, the city was really quiet and felt quite small and cozy somehow. It’s definitely one of the more walkable U.S. cities to get around, and upon arriving I went on a long touristy run to see all … Read more
Last July, I visited Strasbourg for the first time in the context of a work trip. While the weather wasn’t great, Strasbourg was the perfect context for a meetup with my team: very walkable, great food options, and a hotel that had the coziness of a bnb with the advantages of a hotel. The city … Read more
Contrary to last year, where I had a free range to make a unicorn cake topper, this year the theme of her birthday party was “Moana”. This was by far the most complex topper I’ve ever made, but I’m glad with how it turned out. And so was Mila, which of course is the most … Read more
For many texts I write, the voice and ideas need to be clearly mine. Not just for the credibility aspect, but also because I want to convey my own ideas and thoughts. If I rely too heavily on AI for the actual writing, my voice would be flattened and the impact of my writing would … Read more
In October, Kim had to present the first stage of her doctoral research at the KU Leuven. We all joined on the trip so we could spend some time with my family. The highlight was definitely our family weekend away in Kemmel, the place where I grew up as a kindergartner. I also ran up … Read more
In May 2007, I wanted to share my M.Sc. thesis. Last week, WordPress.com turned 20. I signed up in May 2007, when WordPress.com was about 1.5 years old, before I joined Facebook and Twitter later that year (I think). I signed up because I was looking for an easy way to share my M.Sc. thesis. … Read more
The mobile performance score for this website is 99, my desktop performance score is 100. Nearly perfect. So how did this happen? My website has always been quite smoothly running. A big part of that is the smoothness of the Twenty Twenty-Five theme and the block editor. There is not a single bit of custom … Read more
Kim and I form a team for our kids’ birthdays. Kim bakes the most amazing tasting cakes, and I make something with fondant to decorate the cake. Luca has loved Tom Fletcher’s There’s a Monster in Your Book from when we first started reading it to him, so for his second birthday, I wanted to … Read more
About once per year, I tweak the design of my website. This typically coincides with the release of a new WordPress core theme towards the end of the year, since there was no Twenty Twenty-Six theme this year, I tried to push my usage of blocks and full-site editing in WordPress to its edge, or … Read more