I read a lot last year about how amazing it is to build your website with a static-site-generator. Meaning you can have all your posts in Markdown and you just commit it with Git to a repository and a few commands to publish it online.

⊕ Tufte CSS is in my opinion the best layout there is for blogging, writing, …

The main reason is that I wanted to have a site that has the Tufte CSS implemented. And I was a bit too lazy to make something for WordPress (’cause there wasn’t).

So I started with Jekyll. Found a good Tufte theme and started implementing. But once you imported 1000+ posts from the old WordPress site, you start noticing how slow the building of the site becomes. So, after some searching I ended up with Hugo. Again, same procedure of finding a theme and learning how to set up everything. This time is was ay faster to build and I decided to run with it.

But…. eventually I realised it really didn’t fit my workflow. Since most of what I present here is photo-based material, it gets a bit difficult to publish wherever and whenever I want because I only have the hugo software on my work machine (Linux based). And all the photos (from all the iPhones and camera) are imported to the home machine where we have Lightroom installed. ⊕ Sometimes I just want to edit in VSCO on the iPhone and publish. So somehow it has to get transferred to my work machine to get published. And that is just a too big of a bottleneck for me.

So I just went back to good old WordPress. I just put the time in to make a themebased on Tufte CSS. And now I just have to get all the old content back. Luckily there is a Lightroom plugin to export photos directly to WordPress…

Yip, as COVID-19 makes it’s tour around the world, yours truly is locked down to his own bed as well. The usual suspects are there: headache, aching muscles, body temperature playing yoyo. But my lungs are fine. And… I was in Milan before COVID-19 got there.

I mean, a fever and a headache, fine. But a stomach bug ??? Can’t hold down food or drinks. Spending most of the night on the toilet. I hope I will skip this for another …. eternity!!

This is a totally new site. No more WordPress!! Just plain old HTML and some CSS to make it look nice.

The reason was that WordPress was getting more and more complex to play around with. I wanted to change the theme for my site, but with all the latest upgrades, it wasn’t so easy anymore. Then I saw a lot of
talk about “good old static sites” that load super fast (because there is no database behind it). The other big advantage is that I write blog-posts in markdown now!!!! It makes life so much easier.

So first I tried Jekyll. Quick and easy installation. Even found a plugin that can transfer all your WordPress posts to Jekyll posts with all the tags and categories, … But, with over 1000 posts on the old wordpress, it took ages to reload and rebuilt the site with Jekyll as soon as you made a change somewhere.

Looking for a solution I stumbled across Hugo. Built on Go and super fast. So I found a Tufte theme for it and 5 minutes later I was working with a new site. Easy peasy….

But what will take some time now is importing all the old stuff. I still want it here, but with a better layout and some correct data about the photos taken. Slowly but surely.

Happy New Year I would say. But that was for yesterday. We had a day off. No hangover recuperation. Just lay low and enjoy life.

t’s been a long time since I posted something about the stuff I am listening to. But I heard this one last evening on StuBru when I was grocery shopping:

Editors with Papillon. One of the most beautiful songs I have heard lately !!!

There is a lot more to listen to here at Stubru. Favorites:

1. MUMFORD & SONS – Little lion man
2. STORNOWAY – Zorbing
3. THE TEMPER TRAP – Sweet Disposition
4. I BLAME COCO – Self machine

Discovered this one a while ago. And I have to admit I never really payed any attention to it. Reason? I had seen most of them at the time of discovery. But I recently started checking it again and there are some gems.

Link here.

Yesterday I was at home with the kids. Zeb got a fever (39º) the night before, so we decided to keep him and Milla at home.

The morning was filled with moving some boxes and other stuff out of the way, hanging up a some frames safely (so they don’t fall down with the slightest touch). Going outside was out of the question because it looked like it would rain any minute. And Zeb wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway.

Eventually he fell asleep, slept for3 hours and woke up a new person. Even the weather looked good all of the sudden. So we ate and packed a few things to head outside. Off to the lake just by the edge of our area.

Doesn’t it look wonderful ? Behind me kids were jumping in the water. I think Milla and Zeb wanted as well, but I didn’t bring towels. We walked around the whole lake, looked for places where we could swim. Which means almost everywhere. Maybe next weekend or so, because the water is still warm there.

Eventually, the weather turned on us.  But a forest means loads of trees to hide under. And it cleared again before we left it. I think the kids loved it. Loads of exploring to do in the future. It just feels fantastic to have a place like this within walking distance from the house.

See for yourself: View Larger Map

There has been a lot of talk about El Bulli lately. Not all of you know, but it’s a Spanish restaurant north of Barcelona, and has won the title of the best restaurant in the world a few times.

The talk now is that they are closing the doors for 2 years and will open again in 2014. Very radical if you ask me, but if that is what it takes to rediscover yourself and the food you serve, then please, just go ahead. Not everybody will get the luxury to do that kind of stuff.

So, I just want to link an article of how Grant Achatz experienced a few weeks working at El Bulli in 2000.

I found this article this morning in my RSS Reader and I have to say it’s pretty accurate. Even if I only have about 12 or 13 years in this business, I can say that all of them apply. Belgium or Sweden doesn’t matter where you are.