Skip to main content

Weeknotes: 2022, week 6

· 2 min read

[7–13 Feb]

Stuff that broke last week: the washing machine. Moderate consternation ensued — we use it more than once every other day, because we're four at home and it's not one of those machines with large capacity. Fortunately we managed to get it working again on the same day by cleaning a water filter that was easy to remove without taking the whole thing apart.

Wife and I went to yet another car dealer to see the electric Volkswagen ID.4. It's kinda what we need in size, cargo volume, and range. But we still have to polish our spreadsheets to see if the gains in the long term are worth the “100% electric” price tag. (Spoiler alert: at the time of writing this, we've made some progress with those estimates, and it looks as if a ~€13,000 gap between the prices of an EV and the “equivalent” internal combustion car would cancel itself out after seven years of usage or so, given our consumption patterns, etc.)

It's nice seeing my monthly payslips while I'm still on parental leave, because they're tax-free (at least there's no automatic deduction). Hurrah for our welfare state.

This week I went for somewhat longer walks with Breaker of Horses, taking advantage of the mild winter we're having. I also very listened to a lot of much podcast ❤️.

On Friday I took public transit to Madrid city centre and walked with Breaker of Horses around Rubén Darío, Recoletos, Colón, Serrano. I also ran some errands near La Vaguada.

On Saturday, we joined neighbours in the birthday party of E., one of the girls. It was fun, and great amusement for all the kids. And on Sunday, we met part of my wife's family for lunch at a nice restaurant we know in another town nearby. For some reason, it was especially pleasurable; seeing each other, the food, the long table talk, the jokes.

I did my best to alienate close-minded bien-pensants and timid prospective employers of mine alike by criticising both male discrimination in (Swiss) law and the idea that girls and women have it worse in all of STEM across the board.

Toot of the week: