This “weekly” newsletter is almost a month behind. I’m sorry about that. Too much work, too much stuff to do, too many things to think about, it’s all just too much. I haven’t had a moment to sit with my thoughts in a good long while. Talking with others, I don’t think I’m alone with that problem these days. I am trying my best to not be a ball of stress, but it’s not easy. I am as always ever grateful for friends and family both near and far.

Feb 9 – Day 39

Monday was all day at work at the Archive having first a workshop with researchers from Amsterdam University about how they use the Wayback Machine and how and what they teach their graduate students. Jonathan wrote up a nice post over on our work blog.

In the evening, Jonathan gave a book talk about his work with Public Data. The book “Public Data Cultures” is a culmination of 15 years of work.

Feb 10 – Day 40

A while back David joined a friend at the local gym in the kids’ workout and he enjoyed it, so we all signed up. This day I went with him immediately after school and he showed me what he does and then I did a bit of my own thing.

Later that evening, when David and I got back from his karate lesson, Santi had made a lovely Taco Tuesday dinner for us all. Not only was it yummy, but it was beautiful.

Feb 11 – Day 41

I got a lovely photo from Bolinas of a cozy rainy evening at the farm. This filled me with love and happiness to know that everything was okay with family there.

We had gotten a request from the grandparents to have new potholders, so David got to work weaving new ones.

Feb 12 – Day 42

A friend let us borrow his guitar while he’s not using it so it won’t be lonely while he’s out of town. I brought it home on the metro which for some reason tickled my funny-bone and I snapped this pic.

Santi was happy to take it for a spin. It’s got steel strings instead of nylon, so it’s a bit more hardcore and sounds a bit different.

Feb 13 – Day 43

Santi invited some friends over for dinner and made a pretty much perfect fugzetta pizza for us all to share. It was truly delicious. The tulips on the dining room table started to droop in the beautiful way that they do after a week of standing straight to attention.

Feb 14 – Day 44

Some people call February 14th Valentine’s Day, but us geeks now celebrate “I Love Free Software Day” and in conjunction with the Free Software Foundation Europe, the Internet Archive Europe held an event at the Amsterdam HQ. Nico and I met at Amsterdam Centraal underneath the heart - a pretty wonderfully symbolic art installation if there ever was one.

We then met up with the ever enthusiastic and positive Tommi who brought together both orgs to work together for this afternoon’s event. There were readings in both Dutch and English of “Ada & Zangemaan” for kids and their parents. Then Tommi led a discussion with Mayel the maintainer of the Bonfire software project.

Later that afternoon Santi, David and I took the Eurostar to get to London for a week’s vacation staying at Granny & Grandpa’s place while they are in Bolinas.

Feb 15 – Day 45

Sunday morning we were all slow. I took this photo of Santi as he was washing and filling up my water bottle to ensure that I stayed hydrated. He is such a loving and thoughtful man, I truly do count my blessings to have him as my partner, husband, father of our son and my dear friend.

That afternoon we headed downtown to go shopping at The Gap. We all needed some new clothes and the Gap doesn’t exist in the Netherlands, so we took advantage of the free afternoon and got some new jeans and tops.

That afternoon and evening we spent with some friends and went to the Thames to have a look at the beautiful night riverbank skyline.

Santi shared this “unplugged” version of “Ciudad de la Furia” by the classic Argentine rock band Soda Stereo with me this week. This video is the whole concert, but the link is timed for that specific song. I encourage you to just let it play in the background and listen to the whole thing. It’s beautiful.