I moved from the Netherlands to Switzerland in August 2006, and I’ve been working at Google for
about 18 years now. I have had the most wonderful time so far! In the Summer of 2024, I decided to
take a little break. Thanks to the awesome support of my manager and the teams I work with, my
request for a Sabbatical was approved and the date set for the 29th of July through the 3rd of
November, just over three months of time off.
If you follow on any form of social, you’ll know that I like to write. My website
[IPng.ch] is full of nerdy stories. But this website serves a
different purpose. Because a sabbatical is something that not many people have the privilege to be
able to do, and because I plan on doing only one of these in my life, I’ve decided to mark my
travels with a little story and some pictures of every day of my time off.
Today is Hallowe’en! When we moved to Brüttisellen in 2006, it was not a thing. Over the
years, a few of us would decorate our houses, but most of the kids were not really with the program:
no trick or treating, no dressing up in scary costumes, nothing. But when we bought our place in
2015, we we decided to really decorate in the week of Hallowe’en. These days, kids will come round,
sometimes in small groups, sometimes in very large ones, parents and all. Many of them still don’t
really know what they are doing: ring doorbell –> get candy. The German way to say trick or treat
by the way is süsses oder saures (English: sweet or sour) which I find hilarious because if
you say “well I choose sour!”, the kid will look at you as if you’re crazy: “Sir, this is where you
hand over the candy?!”.
Today I did pretty much nothing :) I spent a bunch of time in the flight simulator flying circuits
and trying to keep my altitude. Also I did about twenty (flyby) approaches where I would try to have
a sink rate of 400ft/min and 60kts with flaps at 10 degrees. The airplane is sluggish at this speed,
so there’s a bit of a delay before the correct attitude is reached. Think of it as a really slow PID
controller. I’m still pretty terrible at it, but at least I am putting the airplane down in one
piece. Doing visual approach is really difficult by the way, because looking left and right is a bit
awkward. Seeing as my spiffy video card has four monitor outputs, I think I’ll try to get my hands
on some cheap screens that could serve as left and right windows.
This morning my buddy Arend sends me a message on Telegram - and asks me if I can check the port in
Qupra. Oh my deity, it’s finally happening! After the general assembly of Coloclue approved a
member’s petition to allow members to install cross connects at Qupra, a few months of “kastje, muur”
happened, and the networking committee and association board reached an agreement on how this would
happen.
I have to say I’m a little bit melancholic seeing that today, week fourteen of my sabbatical, has
started. My journal is going to be perhaps a bit of an anti climax because I have promised myself
that in the last week I would not do very many things, but just recompress after having been able to
let my mind roam free for so many days.
I woke up at 08:30 after a tremendous sleep. I love sleeping in my own bed, the difference between
its comfort is most apparent just after I return from a trip abroad. This morning I have a sportsing
date with Johhny and Mari. A while ago, maybe half a year by now, Johnny mentioned that he’s into
[Padel], a racket sport of Mexican origin, typically played
in doubles on an enclosed court slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court.
Ahhh what a wonderful few days in Barcelona. Yesterday when we went to bed, it started raining. Then
at 02:00 or so, we both got abruptly woken up by a thunderclap just overhead. There was a bright
flash of white and a very loud and immediate thunder. Wowza! I fell alseep pretty quickly after the
excitement, but Marina spent a bit longer before being able to fall asleep. Stupid weather!
A few months ago, on Mastodon one Eduardo Collado approached me and he was asking about the FrysIX
pins that I had made. If I could maybe send a couple to him, he’d gladgly distribute them at an
upcoming ESNOG event. Upcoming event you say? How’s about I come and bring them!? So I mailed the
program committee and suggested to bring a presentation on VPP’s ability to run Babel and OSPFv3
without the need for IPv4 or IPv6 transit networks. They accepted, and here I am :)
