YOU CAN FOLLOW ME HERE

I am trying to focus all my blogs into just one... follow me there!

HUMAN FOUNDATION

Na een lang traject van verbeelden en verhaal zoeken is de site voor de "HUMAN FOUNDATION" nu eindelijk als beta in de lucht. De site is volgens een after-hours concept samengekomen en daarna erg mooi in elkaar gezet door Rene de Jong van Prospective media.

check het verhaal op www.humanfoundation.nl

ELSA=1

VIDEOGIOCO

VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.

A Clue... visualized politics

For all those who do not read dutch... The above click-able article is a first sign that the use of more visual material to illustrate, elaborate or just make your point, is making its way into the political system. Make signs not war!

OPRAH FLASH MOB

MASTERMUNDO09

Mastermundo 2009: call for participants from Marcel Kampman on Vimeo.

MASTERMUNDO Great event organized by Marcel Kampman and record breaking "vocal domino" at The Hague ARTSTODAY festival.
My pictures of the talks and conducting sessions of Itay Talgam are online at flickr

PICNIC_heart... a good character 4 a story?

PICNIC'09

Today is the second day of picnic and I am glad to have received the time and the space to actually blog something about this cross-medial event (www.picnicnetwork.org) which I have been graciously given access to by Kitty Lering (one of the organizers) to examine what JAM would be able to do at this conference next year.

Yesterday (the 23rd) JAM was supporting the efforts of waag society in the Augmented city and the moneylab workshops. A great learning, because the results were difficult to present to a large conference audience at the end of a long day, without the cooperation of the stage director team handling the cameras. No added value during the picnicbites whatsoever...good lesson.

The money workshop did have an alluring visual problem in the fact that the information which was dropped by Bernard Lietaer and others talking about alternative monetary systems was undersold by a lot of textually oriented powerslides but a damn good verbal story. If this story needs to be told and remembered...it will need better visual representation. A job for JAM I would say...

The second day of picnic imprinted more on the soul... mainly because the people who were talking were marketeers or playful designers. My notes of the talks that I was able to join are on flickr.

Today it has been nice to talk with people about realtime content and combine it with silly sun filled moments outside and inspiring explorations with Martien inside.

I am getting my clues together and after tomorrow I will know how to go on... towards that bigger picture!

d.

Wind of Change - kodak momentum

BAGAGE

just start...

It is the third week after we came back from sweden and live is starting up again. Everyone is hard at work and the evening luckily are a much needed extention of the daily experience. This is why I shall start blogging more consistently for those who are interested and a little shorter and more visual to make my entries less of an obstacle to get through. This means more pictures... more written word...

...

CONSISTENT & PERSISTENT

Time has a strange hold over you when you are on holiday in sweden. It found me and placed me in a context that absolutely had no connection to whatever I was doing in Holland. 3 weeks of perfect carelessness combined with a heavy dose of "No-purpose!". When you find yourself in a place like that, you start (after a while) to pay more attention to the little things and find you have suddenly pinpointed that piece of welll needed perspective. This is a little bit what happend (and happends every year) on Landsort.

When you arrive on the isle of öja, the Lighthouse (which is called LANDSORT) is an automatic pacifier switch, which de-activates as soon as you leave from one of its ports. The island combined with the early morning tide (listening to the name of Elsa) is a way of living I could see myself having if I had no sense of purpose in my life.

The island exposes the smallest little detail or whopping big natural encounter... just the right time. It is like it feels what you need to relax and then gives itto you in bite size chunks that can be enjoyed in the wake of a perfect flow. Sometimes it leaves you alone to bake in the sun or read a book. Then there are instances which have to do with daily house ordnance. Eating-cleaning-eating-cleaning-baking-eating-cleaning etc.... And finally there is general maintenance like landscape architecture and surface impregnation (mowing the lawn and painting doors). A day is like a week and a week like an hour... there is no concept of time, just light or dark and everything that happens in between.

You start looking at your surroundings from other angles and through different eyes which have have no connecting to importance or urgency whatsoever. A day on Landsort is a day with yourself and familiarities.

This year was special in the sence that it was Elsa's debut on the Island Getaway. Next year will be a handfull... by then our little crawler will have worked her way up in the world and will be able to wonder off or pull on anything as high as a table.
The moments just kept on revealing themselves. You can check them out on Flickr

Trying to describe that LANDSORT feeling is a challenge but futile nonetheless.
Hope yoiu can see it in the pictures...
d.

waarom een alumni vereniging voor io?

Martijn op het Gesprek

Voor iedereen die ik ken die martijn Aslander ook kent... check dit gesprek even... Hier legt hij rustig uit wat hij wil, bedoelt en berijkt met zijn Lifehacking skills (onder anderen...).

Ik vind het erg de moeite waard om even te checken.

D.

http://www.hetgesprek.nl/archief/2377/

Click Finger

the visual philosopher

Like many other who have the unexplainable urge to answer some questions which might in the end give you some peace of mind, I have this blog as a gathering of thoughts. Like any other venture you have to come into your role by DOING it. So the blogs you will find in the archive of the visual philosopher are changing over time. I still have to practice what I preach a bit better... because there is still too much text and too little VISUAL.

check it out on: VISUAL PHILOSOPHER

Biscuit tin

Click on this link Biscuit TIN and fill in my name...luijer. Then check it out!

cheers!

The visual philosopher

Suddenly...it is not the blind urge but the question that starts to keep me up at night. I am experiencing a lot of MATRIX moments in the sense that I have found the question and am now seeing how deep the rabbit hole really goes. To get some sort of an idea of what this means...check out my visual philosopher blog made on my iWeb Apple wonder...

visual philosopher

FLICKR pictures

70 in het park!

Het sarphatipark is achter de plek waar wij eerst woonde... bij dat beeld van hazes. Als je met de auto komt parkeer dan lekker bij ons en loop naar het park (ongeveer 10 minuten) en als je met de tram komt, neem dan 3 of 25. Die stoppen allebei direct voor het park op de ceintuurbaan.

View Larger Map

Tot in het park! We hebben een oranje partytent!

Queensday 2009 - double vision

If good times and good weather could make bad things go away...it should have happened today. An attempt on the lives of the royal family has claimed 5 souls and left 12 heavily wounded. This is why reflecting on today is resulting in my double vision... On the one hand Anna and Elsa have been the perfect companions in an amazingly relaxing promenade in an orange amsterdam. We got our picture taken with prins Bernhard and I got my portrait drawn by the amazing Stanley!


The day was going fine, until I started to hear from people that something bad had happened with the royal bus around noon. My mother filled in the blanks by mobile. The weird thing is that we were so drawn into the great vibe of the orange party that we chose not to react to the news. Once we were home the news really hit me straight between the eyes...right into the heart. My thoughts go out to the victms of this Freakishly Weird event. My vision will be double for a while....

NEW GLASSEZ

Hopefully I get them before our party!

the visual philosopher

I am trying to find the right way to get some thoughts out into the world (be it wide and webby...) and have found that my website at www.ripple.nl can easily be converted into more then just a springboard for tools and other links. My recent leap into the APPLE faith has lead me to try out iWEB and oh my G*D!!! this is the tool I have been waiting for! If you click on the visual philosopher bit on my website you will find snippets, chunks and other puzzle pieces which I need to share! No use leaving it all in my head or on a standalone computer. So RSS that page...because it will fill up in the coming months!

Aloha Ohana!

Dennis

BARKA

Because sometimes an elaborate "DOOPVONT" operation is not enough, we took OMA Lous to something starting with a B. It took a while but determination lead to the answer... BARCALONA! The trip can be seen on Flickr in the BARKA2009 set.

We had an amazing preview of summer and a great time strolling down the RAMBLAS and gliding up escalators to see Gaudi's park Güell. Tapas, Coffee, breastmilk, designstops and SUN!!!

The end of Days with Daddy...

It is sad to realize that a month with you seems like a couple of hours. This of course stands in dim comparison to the wonderful experiences we shared during your days with daddy...but time seems to move faster when I am with you. This could prove usefull in the future when I need to get through something I do not want to do. Putting you next to me would speed things up! I wonder how long this effect will last. I hope forever!
These exceptional days found an abrupt end with the coming of Karin (your MorMor), who had her own short Days with Elsa experience. Out of nowhere your father was able to start work again and [totally within character] fell into a whole lot of 2Do's & just stuff. The first couple of days I staid home and worked in "my CAVE", but today daddy found his way back to the JAM offices.




I guess my days with you were most fittingly concluded with Daddy D taking Daughter E to Daycare... This was the first time you actually got to interact in a real life baby situation! Your first experience was a short adjustment period of about 2 hours...during which you sat next to a boy named Bikkel in a real chair at a real table! Your parents really need to provide those essentials at home... Your father found it all very moving and tried to stay out of the way of the care-ladies, who did a great job by the way!



You seemed to find the whole experience ok, because you fell asleep right away when Marri (one of those ladies) put you in a rocking chair.
Seeing you lying there (see photo) in between 2 boys (one asleep and one very much awake...begging for your attention...) I realized that there are a lot of people that you are going to meet. You are now about 4 and a half months and this is where our simple lives become more complex. Human interaction, friendships, love, hurt and all other kinds of emotional experiences will be up to you to enjoy. I will get to watch and record. Sometimes guide and correct, hopefully not judging too much. By the time you get to read this I will be in my 60-ies...looking back on a great life filled with love and hapiness.
This is the last entry I will make for the days with daddy blog. in the coming years I will keep recording so you might see where you came from. Thank you for a magical month my dearest Elsa Victoria. I love you from the bottom of my hart to the crown of my believes! Enjoy Life! I will be right there next to you!

Daddy D.

day 18 - a wish came true

click here for the flickr results

day 17 - times flies...under construction

time flies when you laugh!

day 16 - nothing special day

we woke up
we ate
You slept, I cleaned
We ate
we played
we went out with the monkey carrier system
you slept, I organized
we ate
I had coffee
We went upstairs
you slept, I organized
Your mom came
we ate at mike & jori


all in all your daddy got a lot done today... hung a belly, hung knife rack, organized workshack, organized your room, cleaned and washed... and called some people!

day 15 - splish splash

Dear elsa,
today we had a very eventful day!
We had some "dukes" come by the house today. Young Duuk is the proud owner of a father who Your father knows well. Because Tuesdays are his daddy-days we just had to combine calenders to make a shared event happen, where you and Duuk could meet and Merijn (his father) and your daddy could compare children while sharing war stories about the 3 P's (POOP/PUKE & PEE). Your father was given a sneak-preview of the immense cuteness and pride that comes with the development of your infant communication skills. Simple words like Ape, car & bal become events in themselves...expressions to be cherished every time they are uttered without hesitation or doubt. It was good seeing them! Promises were made to go and check out real live monkeys at the ZOO...HIHIHI HAHAHAHA!

After the Dukes carried on with their routine, we headed of into town. We actually got a lot done, which is the reason why it is easier for your father to take a long(er) walk. If something has a goal or a point, your father has an easier time distributing his mental space to accomplish his goals. If the point is just to get some fresh air, your father would most likely just open a window ... But today was a good day to get some fresh air and some apple products so of we went.

When we got home three things happend:
* a roll-in-your-own-poop incident...
* needing a bath... you found out that water splashing can be fun!
* You caught your feet while drying...which made your mother very happy ( something to do with cuteness and flexibility I guess)

The rest of our day was spend with drooling and dancing... one of which you do really welll!

day 14 - the road that leads to creative baptism

So... the weekend has come and gone. A new weeks starts with the realization that we have past the half way point of our shared father daughter experience. I must say that looking back on today, I worked on something with your grandfather, while your grandmother took care of you. This side track investment of time ( not spend directly with you) was a step in all kinds of good directions (too complex to get into).

This 14th day with daddy D fulfilled a wish your grandmother has had ever since people started talking about the fact that our church [now vacant] was going to be sold as a result of parish reinforcement. I guess the idea of having that particular baptism block in our garden reminds us of the times we had in that ol' church.
Combining physical effort with this idea resulted in the manifestation of that thought.

check out some of the pictures on flickr

By doing this today we have created a path that will lead to a summer ritual. That ritual will be about you and today was the first step!

kiss... slpeey daddy

saturday | valentine...sunday | rest

go check out the flickr page... just elsa collection

day 14 - friday the 13th consultation

today we were consulted...on several little things:

* your weight is now 6210 grams and you measure a cool 63,5 centimeters
(both values are directly on curve... only you seem to have a small head... what these people don't know is that Luijer heads are very dens, making it perfectly alright for you to have a petit head.)
* you are a very good roller...the experts were impressed!
* you may not yet start to eat solid foods, even though I bought you a small jar of squashed banana. This is a sales tactic according to the consultant and her lovely supervisor... which of course worked on your silly dad. At six months... so I shall save your jar for another 2 months.
* It is save to swim! So next Tuesday we'll go check this out!
* Your Leg-Shots were no real problem. your father thought the needles were a bit intimidating for such a little body...
* on the whole the experts thought you were adorable... and you did not even pee over their weighing equipment!

So coming out of this consultation session we take with us a
1.) a new appointment,
2.) a clear sense of your growing greatness
3.) the actual first experience and proof of what "everyone" says about time and growth going fast... Compared to a 4 week old neighbor who was lying next to you while I was putting your clothes back on, your father actually felt the hand of time. This made him very much aware of the fact that we need to enjoy this time.

Today is also your 4th month of existence... meaningless in itself, but a great milestone in Luijer/Glaumann-time and family experience. A third of a year... my my!

oh yeah... after your consult and some grossery shopping we went by the JAM office... you were in a good mood right up until the shots kicked in. Having you at the office feels good... except when you start crying in that base-pitch. Life goes fast when you are at the JAM offices! Luckely we escaped, which made time slow down a bit...

day 13 - elsa talk

day 11 & 12 - time 2...

time 2 receive : all those presents that you got when you were born
time 2 perfect : the routine of your and my life intertwined...
time 2 find : balance in the force... it is strong in you!
time 2 see : that your way of testing things out is to bite on it...
time 2 cook : that stew I've been wanting to cook for about 10 years, while warming your milk...
time 2 feel : like a proud and grateful father
time 2 sing : all kinds of songs that were never sung before you were here...
time 2 listen : to the wise and unbiased dribble that comes from your mouth
time 2 report : on my feelings...feeling them even stronger
time 2 picture : what you are going to be
time 2 wonder : if you will be parallel or perpendicular to who I am
time 2 love : all the little things about you

time 2 realize : that we have an ocean of time, but now just a puddle to play in...

time 2 go to sleep

DD

THANK YOU JAM!!!

Macro Borsato - dochters

oma lous...klik even op macro borsato... hele mooie clip... daar gaat dit stuk een beetje over. Dank je Mark... fantastisch omschreven gevoel...

Every day I am seeing more of the intricate wonder that makes up the co-dependancy between a father and his daughter. You need me to take care of your basic needs (...like safety,hygiene,food, toys and laughter) and in return you create for me a feeling of usefulness and pride. It is no small thing how nature/kosmos/god figured out how to match these things up! What I do realize is that the time that we are sharing is extremely valuable! Especially because it is not normal within the mental and professional frame of the hard working dutch father-figure. Taking time of work to get to know your firstborn (or any new addition for that matter) is a gift... a gift that somebody (or need I say some uncles) gave you.

You must understand that we can enjoy this time together because of my unconditional partnership with the guys at JAM...your lifelong uncles (I hope). You are not only my firstborn, but also the premier case for the future fathers of JAM... They are all proud and understanding uncles who in the near future will all go through their own father child experience. All supported by the ever growing JAM family! So you see... you are already a big part of the lives of other people outside of your next of kin.
My personal gratitude mixed up with growing feelings of flow go out to these guys. I hope they realize the gift that they are giving me... thank you my band of brothers... your trust and love means the world to me and to my little one! [ zou dit eigenlijk ook gewoon moeten zeggen tegen jullie maar ik vraag me gewoon af wie dit als eerste leest...die krijgt van LZA een roze pentel met tekening!]

ROUND - a sunday background story on tuesday

Weekends are for LZA and her parents.
This is why I am not counting those days as part of the days with daddy xperience. The reason for this entry is that the family fell into a small adventure last Sunday which lead to these rounded pictures you see above this text. Because you are trying out your new "level of leisure" as we speak I feel the need to explain the story for later use.

We went out on Saturday to get you a BOX at a baby stuff store... [these things look a bit like baby prisons, but will only feel like that once you are actually ready to climb out of one]. When we finally got round to ask a store attendant, it turned out that a new BOX would have to be back-ordered; taking about 4 to 6 weeks. Your parents (in 2009) were not patient enough to wait for such a long time, so decided against buying one at that particular moment. We did however reach an agreement about the BOX shape and feel...The good thing about going out shopping is that it helps you to make mental steps because of the confrontation with actual dimension. We decided that you would most likely look the prettiest in a round box instead of a square on. [This is what people like to call thinking outside the box...in this case taken to the circular level.] When we arrived home that day we were left with a feeling of failure. Failure to provide you with the most important part of your horizontally challenged existence. So we did what your mother always does in situations like this...look on the internets. In this case marktplaats, which in today is the best place to buy and sell STUFF. Looking for the right BOX-model for the right price, we arrived at an address in a small town on our way to grandmother in the Hague. So the next day we set of on a tour of the country to get you a ROUND BOX. We did not think that this trip would take that long and that it would reveal the flatlands of Holland in such a way that we also realized that village life is not for us. We did discuss the possibility but I guess you can call yourself a lucky part of a living-in-or-near-the-city---family. The previous dwellers of the BOX were 2 blond little girls. The only small sneezy drawback was the fact that they owned a cat... which your we felt on the way back home.
After a good clean and some square sized improvisation... you were the proud new inhabitant of a ROUND ISLAND...

I hope it will have a rounded effect on your development... lets see if it gives you another perspective on the concept of enclosed protective surroundings...or box for those who chose to live their life within it.... Just yell if you want to get out... I will always come get you out of your BOX.

Day of rest - so just a picture

good night my dear...sorry for the dip

Day Ten - Road trip to baptism

A big part of growing up is feeling that you are a part of something. When your daddy grew up your grandparents made the decision to join the roman-catholic faith, which in the 70/80-ies was a safe and wholesome group to join. The social interaction that occurred during your daddies growing years was centered around a place of learning (which would be school) and a place of faith (which would be church). On the tenth day of our daddy-daughter adventures I took you to the second place. The place of faith. The deeper explanations surrounding that time will be put to (e-)paper before you can read(...I promise), but today we went to my old church to see how we are going to transport and lift the "cradle of baptism" to the backyard of your grandparents.

With respect to the story and to the effort which will be made to realize this event... I will pause here and just show you a picture of a very special place were your father took a picture of you. This is just the beginning of a bigger story an d because these blogs are just small entries, my short version will not to the story justice. So here you have a picture of you on the spot where there used to be a statue... to be continued...

Day nine-Tante IRIS

Your Auntie Iris, my three year younger sister, dropped by today! After she had not seen you for a while, she felt the urge to check how you are and what progress you are making in your young fresh life. This urge is a special feeling that this family (LUIJER) is experiencing up close for the first ! You are the first born into the Luijer Clan (of the rudolf-lous side) which gives rise to a whole new set of emotional and hereditary responsibilities. The urge to check up on you because you are family will always be there no matter what or how long you haven't seen someone. That is why some say family is everything.

Tante Iris will hopefully check up on you on a more regular basis then birthdays or anniversaries. You will like her my little LZA..not necessarily because she is family, but because she is a creative force from whom you can learn a thing or two! By the time you are old enough to write, send her a letter to ask about things you might not want to ask your parents and if you can look at her dummies... She will always listen and give you the best advice she can give. But don't send an E-mail or a SMS!!! Send her real TEXT and she will send you real TEXT back!

Here is a close up stereo moment just send by your aunt...just in time to clip it into this entry!

kiss and sleep well!

DD

day eight - mommy sick

Ok...just a quick entry and a picture for today. The puke bug seems to be getting around... For some like my anna this is bad news, but for me this created an opening to do some things at the office. Sorry my dear daughter, today was a shared effort between your mother and father...I know you do not mind...
Today your father did something he has been wanting to do for about 10 years!!! Prepare a meal the day before and eat it the next day... You always get a much better tasting result!!! and in this instance we are talking about stewed meat..."draadjesvlees!", one of your daddies favorites! Tommorrow your Auntie Iris will come and Daddy will make meatballs! Oh how meat puts the joy in life. I hope you will grow up loving it as I do, but if you don't please know that I can life with that...kind of.;)

here is a picture of a problem which we are debating to attack, but with which we are having trouble ourselves... the TV..> You already seem obsessed in this picture.

day seven - noise and heat

Your mother and myself have been blessed with the golden tip given to us by our appointed helping hand, who was with us the first couple of days of your stay at the amsterdam estate. Instead of investing into an expensive heat system which you can only use above your "changingstation", she asked us if we owned a simple hairdryer. When this turned out to be the fact (because you were born into a family of collectors...and everyone owns a couple of old hairdryers don't they?) we were surprised by the low-tech solution to this fundamental infancy crisis issue. Simply said: THE HAIRDRYER PACIFIER SYSTEM ROCKS!

This little tip not only saved us from owning yet another large product, it gave us a simple way of mellowing you out when you are in your non-happiness state. I have not figured out yet what exactly makes the above mentioned equation true, but on the technology side of things I must choose between either noise or heat. Because it is already very late and we have lots to do tomorrow... I shall save this dillema for later.

NOISE AND HEAT chief DD

DAY SIX - rollin' by, by yourself

Let me start by saying that it makes me extremely proud that by age 3 and a half months you are able to hold your own bottle! Later on in life in might worry me, but for now I am glad to see that this is progress in the making! Before I know it you will be passing me the bottle...

Today was a day of learning for us both. For you a lesson in waiting and for me a lesson in tolerance and submission. It is hard to deny you your food, half an hour before you are supposed to get it. Your mother is not a cow, even though she sometimes feels she is, and her milk needs to get you through the day. It is especially challenging when you reach that special desperation pitch in your voice which is reserved for hunger and slight panics. Luckily you almost always smile when you are done, which makes every difficult moment worth it.

We rapped the day up with a successful rollover session. It escaped my interest at the time, but the simple fact that a baby turns to its belly by itself is kind of a first real milestone. Seeing that this moment has already passed (and enjoyed by your mother with much admiration I might add...) I am left with the routine task of letting you repeat this event over and over again so you will feel comfortable lying on your stomach (this being the threshold after which crawling starts to set in...). after a good hours worth of rolling you kind of looked unfocussed...

When your mother came rushing in today after a long training day you started spilling your previously ingested mothers finest out over the both of us... maybe we rolled to hard?

DD

Day five - Our first real walk with the stroller

day five... mellow start...your mother went out to give back... leaving us to go through our daily routines of feeding-burping-laughing-peeing-changing-sleeping and feeding. The big difference today was that we finally went out with the stroller! This was a strange but very present threshold I had to overcome, because it does not lie in my productive nature to go out and JUSTt walk. This is why I had to make a list first, which when finally outside, I could ignore...

* we walked to get some FOAM for mothers belly... fun walking into a hardware store with you in a little basket.
* Down the ceintuurbaan, through the Sarphati-park and to the AH Supermarket...
* Went into Blokker to buy a coffee filter and then home.
* ate, watched a movie and then your morther came and we had pancakes.

Now my stomach is acting up and I am farting a lot...time to go to bed.

Day five and a half

Well...my stomach was right to be acting up. The pancakes were given back to the world through the wrong hole... I have been emptying myself all night and am happy to report that while I am writing this my physical state is returning back to normal.
Luckely this happend today (a sunday). Otherwise it would have seriously bummed me out... weekend can be used for these kinds of physical situations... weekdays are for productive experiences.

Daddy D. ( who on day six will fill your mothers stomach with FAOM...)

Day Three and Four

With a Thursday anti-pause disrupting our first week we suddenly arrived at the day we call Friday. Our first week together has already flown by... showing once again that time is a passing constant on which your daddy has no grip... especially when he is spending it with his daughter. Today your mother was working from home, which was a good enough reason to go and get some walnut raisin bread and some croissants. I had to make it up to her because I left the house in a hurry yesterday and ate all the croissants she had gotten for a breakfast spread with JAM. You will learn that giving food is a solution to many arguments, but that is a lesson you will learn when you bring your daddy breakfast in bed, because you painted on the walls again...



After a planned visit of an old colleague of your mothers for whom your father made a caricature, which was meant for another one of your mothers old colleagues... we had to retreat upstairs so not to disturb her delicate working balance. This was fine because the sun was shining upstairs and I could do some small work related things on my laptop while you could practice your fixation on the heart-decorated-mobile you got from yet another old cookie partner of your mothers. I must say it is a privilege to be working next to you. It puts my work in perspective. Time spent on working is time not spent with you...

After a while we took our first amsterdam sling-walk to the apple store, zigzagging back home. I must say that with you in a sling around my neck, I am getting more positive looks then ever! Japanese people seem to be really impressed with your hang style transportation mode. I will try to take you out more often, but with the sling I feel the situation of every pregnant woman... you are pushing directly on my bladder! The rest of the day was pretty normal...except for the fact that you did not have a very good evening, which in turn made me feel kind of helpless.

here's a link to your pictures on flickr:
and a picture just to show everyone how cute you are when you are crying...

day three - hanging out at the office

There comes a time in every persons life that he or she comes back to the same place every day to perform a repeating task, set within a professional and social frame and hopefully within one or two talents. We call this situation Work and a lot of people do it at the office. Today was not your introduction into the workforce ( that will happen as soon as you are able to hold and manipulate a pen...) ... no today was your first day at daddies' office, checking up on your uncles and DOING LUNCH.

When we walked into the hallway that leads to our office, we were surprised by a picture we know well. But now it had been blown alllll out of proportion...

It seemed that your uncles had rented a machine that can reproduce pictures on a very large scale... a Plotter / Printer.
This made your daddy really really happy. You will see why once you are a bit older and when the PRODUCTION gene starts to kick in...

We had lunch and you were passed around from uncle 2 uncle until we realized that your daddy forgot to pack some diapers, which resulted in a shortened stay. Before lunch though..you were serenaded by Uncle Mike and Uncle Jan. I hope in the future your little book will have movie playback... just press play.


Tomorrow daddy has one more workday... so I will catch up with you on friday!

Daddy D.

DAY TWO: reading about the fabric of the universe

You know Elsa... today we found out that by accessing you gift-tree we can start to activate your curiosity and see if all your wonderful gifts can be used to explore the beginnings of your infinate imagination. The furry play book that we looked and “read” from today is a perfect place to start.



It is funny, but out of all the toys you received the little cuddly play book just jumped right out and got your fathers attention. I have been wondering all day who gave that to you, but writing about it sparked my memory. Then it got corrected again by your mother when I returned home …so we still have no idea who gave you this particular book.

It is only about 8 pages, but it is the start of an ongoing story about shapes and sounds that date back to the beginning of time. In this simple and childish looking book you will find the basic shapes that make up the fabric of our existence! Each page tells a story that has been reduced to such a basic form that everybody (!) will agree upon their definitions of dimension and meaning. You might even call this unsuspicious looking book of yours the most holy of bibles… the only book that summarizes all lines of thought and lines us up as equal before the universe…But then again, they might still just be shapes...

There is another thing which has your old man worried which sparked his attention to the fluffy book...I wonder if you will grow up having the same urge to collect... The same urge that keeps your mother and I busy in our mid thirties :”Does owning a book satisfy more then reading it… ?“
The reason for this thought is because of the western state of digitalization (2009). We are transferring almost everything which is precious to us to the digital realm (so not to lose our memory of it…) and my worry lies in the fact that you might grow up without an innate respect for the art of “the BOOK”.
My generation already reduced the definition of “book” to a “a stack of FAXES”… (just punch that into Wikipedia or for a real challenge… check a real life encyclopedia …you will laugh you little tooshy off!). But your generation might grow up missing the commercial and emotional need for owning books all together!? You might be focusing on a lean and flexible existence without possession... I can tell you now Elsa that you have been born into the wrong nest when it comes to such a life goal... A whole lot of family characteristics will be passed down on to you without you knowing or realizing it, but you will most definitely inherit all of our STUFF… including BOOKS.

The uprising of book-buying-websites like Amazon and bol.com are responsible for rekindling the passion for owning lots of books (the operative word being owning, because reading is sooo 90-ies…). The BOOK-BUYING phenomenon has been blossoming because of low pricing and well organized distribution channels (I think…)and will eventually result in a growing group of open source believers who will share these books with others. So they might also enhance their view and understanding of life and STUFF.



You interacted with your first BOOK-shape gave me great joy!…looking at you looking at shapes, that will become the foundation for your interpretation of meaning and comprehension of thought, is proof enough for me that we are going to be great explorational partners in your future! I am looking forward to you unique perspectives and hope in some way to contribute to forming them...hopefully we can figure out how to flow within the system...together!?

Thank you for a great 2nd day!

Daddy D.

DAY ONE - Elsa and daddy kick off

Ok elsa...
Today we woke up around nine... had breakfast and started our first day with a DVD. Not so much for you even though you seemed oddly interested. VICE magazine has a DVD out about all kinds of strange places in the world. Worth watching when you are older...(15 according to the dvd cover...)

Your day is centered around two main events, which rotate about every two to three hours...Food and Changing your diapers. These are the things which make you not cry and which keep you happy...and in turn make me feel like I am doing a good job!. After taking care of these primary actions we are free to do whatever we want! And because today can only be described as a beautiful and mainly bright and crisp winter day, we had to go out:


We toured around the museum park and doubled back, got some turkish bread...had lunch and tried to cope with the fact that our central heating is failing to do its job according to code. Disregarding the slight cold conditions, my first day with you had a great flow to it! Especially when I realized that you were more interesting then the pictures I was making of you and I hurried back to the actual reason for the pictures...YOU! Thank you for a great day. See you tomorrow!

Daddy D.


Daddy has got you back!

Daddy stays home

After three and a half months since Elsa's birth... the time has come for Anna to go back to work and give up care to the next best thing... DADDY! I have been looking forward to this coming month with great anticipation and a little nervousness, but in about 6 hours I will officially start my working and caring at home phase. The main thing I will have to tell myself is that I should take out Elsa for a walk every day, give her about 200ml of Anna Produce every three hours and bath her every other day. Outside of these basics there will be fun, bonding, sleeping and learning...and that is just for myself!

Through the writings on this blog I will try to post a picture or drawing every day! Determination and love will literally tell the story of Elsa and her days with PaPADennis.

Good luck to us both!

D.