Tag: Upshot

The time flies like an arrow. Quite unexpectedly, it’s an upshot moment again!

War in Ukraine

This last year it’s become clear the war is the new normal now. With regular shellings of Ukrainian cities and repressions on the rise inside Russia. We call it the “negative natural selection,” when the meanest, the dumbest are in power, oppressing and punishing any dissent.

To an outsider’s eye it doesn’t make a shred of sense, that what the Russians are doing to Ukraine — or to their own folk for that matter. There’s, however, a strong, sinister feeling there’s a mighty good chance the situation will simply collapse into total chaos at some point.

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A while ago I was happy 2020 came to an end. Two years on, in the hindsight I must admit I shouldn’t have been complaining at all.

That said, all things eventually come to an end, even those appearing eternal. So it’s time for a traditional upshot post.

There are quite a few pictures under the cut, as a compensation for my lack of activity in this blog throughout the past year.

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It’s time for a traditional upshot post again; we’ve all had a crazy year with all that pandemic bustle. And as the year nears its end I realise one gets imminently used even to crazy.

When it comes to my blog I haven’t been particularly active, so here is my year’s roundup.

COVID-19 (20, 21, …)

I need to begin with a sad recent event: on December 15^th my older brother Serge Kann passed away. It happened exactly a year after my dad died, and from the same cause: due to post-COVID complications.

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I would usually write an upshot post about the past year on the 31^st of December, but this time the cadence was upset by the tragic events happened right before.

One wants to believe 2021 will be better than the last one, simply as it’s hard to imagine how it can prove worse, yet there’s no improvement in sight just yet.

Anyway, there’s this tradition and I want to focus on positive things, which in fact dominated my past year, save for the one mentioned above.

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The time flies by so fast, it’s hard to believe so much has happened during the last year!

Looks like it’s time for yet another upshot post?

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Tjongejonge, this year ended as suddenly as it began, I couldn’t even find time to blog. This post is the tenth and the last one in 2018 (but I’m seriously considering improving on that matter).

On the positive side, this year has been so eventful that it’s a challenge to recap all things of importance.

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It’s been exactly ten years since I’ve moved to the Netherlands. And it’s been an eventful time!

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The fact this year has come to an end was a bit of a surprise for me. I remember myself in July and then—bang—it’s Christmas and Sinterklaas is on his way. There’s some explanation for that though, more on which below.

And now it’s time for the traditional annual round-up!

The last has brought major changes for the better for me, in contrast with the gloomy 2016. I’ll remember the following.

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The turbulent two thousand sixteen has come to an end. The year that has brought so much grief to our world. The year in which Sun Caged and Stream of Passion ceased to exist. I’m inclined to think it’s good that it’s over.

Happy 2017 to all the readers of this blog! I wish you lots of optimism, persistence and luck!

Following the tradition I’d like to look back on the last year—which has been quite positive on my part. So, in 2016 I managed to:

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The year is coming to an end again, with so much left to run. I can’t repeat my 2013’s record of 800 km this year—in 2015 I’ve only run some 600 km. Not because I’m lazy, but due to being more active in aikido.

Houten’s “bike avenues” are great to run on, also because there are not so many bikes using them at the time when I’m running, that is in the evening and during the weekend.

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