The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
As I love movies with a good story and historical stories, it was not a difficult choice to go and watch The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It might be a title that doesn't roll of the tongue easily, but the movie more than makes up for it!
Source https://whsmith.com.au/blog/books/guernsey-literary-potato-peel-pie-society/
**The Film**
Just after WW II Juliet Ashton, a writer from London, finds herself encountering a story from the island of Guernsey which draws her to the island. She hears of a group, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society that have gotten together during the German occupation of Guernsey.
When she arrives on the island her life in London, including her fiancé become further and further removed from her. And she seems to find a spot on the island, with its odd inhabitants and many secrets.
Source https://cinemagazine.nl/the-guernsey-literary-society-the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society-2018-recensie/
Juliet finds herself drawn to a farmer, Dawsey and the child he lives with Kit. All mysteries lead her to this mysterious woman: Elizabeth who was arrested and taken off island during the occupation.
**The History**
As a historian, I was quite surprised to learn of the occupation of Guernsey by the Nazi's during the war. Though all the characters of the movie are invented, the backdrop of the story is quite real.
There was a story of a woman on the island, Marie Ozanne, who stood up against the German invaders. She was imprisoned for her actions and died in 1943. There are also stories of two farmers who tried to save as many animals as they could, as the Germans used them to feed the troops.
Source https://www.visitguernsey.com/magazine/is-the-guernsey-movie-a-true-story/
I have really enjoyed learning more about this piece of history, while at the same time watching a very nice movie. I would recommend all of you to watch it.
Have any of you seen it yet? What did you think?
Halloween and Pie: Great Weekend Combo
I just had my experience this weekend at a first attempt at Halloween. I say attempt because that was really all it was! In the Netherlands, we do not have a tradition of Halloween, but as all things Americans it is catching on slowly now!
As I am a bit too old to trick or treat and as my pneumonia still hasn't left me capable of partying I decided to do the thing I deemed myself capable of: some pumpkin art!
It took all of my patience and I made some errors (cut through his poor eyebrow) but I am pretty pleased with the result!
In the Netherlands we do have a trick or treat like festivity. Ours is called Sint-Marten and in celebrated only in the northern parts of the country. Kids go by the doors, but instead of dressing up they bring their self made lanterns (usually you make them at school) and instead of saying trick or treat the kids sing a song for candy. This event will be on the 11th of November, so coming up soon!
Picture source:https://ditisassen.nl/sint-maarten-in-assen-2019-de-tips-van-dit-jaar/)
The Pie
Saturday we were meeting with our group of friends to see the new house of one of us. She bought a lovely house with a garden and a massive kitchen. To top it all off she had also made a feast for us! We had eggplant parmesan with a lovely salad. But I need to tell you about the pie, as it was divine!
She made from scratch this amazing passionfruit cheese cake. The bottom was made up of crushed cookies. It may well be one of the best desserts I have ever had. I need to get the recipe off her and see if I can replicate it.
Then on Sunday I had an easy day, doing things still take a lot of energy, but I did find the time for a nice long walk in the park in the fall colors. We walked for over an hour. I love it when it is nice and light, but November is not really know for its abundance of sunlight.
And with this lovely autumn pictures I wish you all a happy week and hope you had a great weekend!
October Earnings of a Small Fish
If you ever wonder what common people without huge piles of money make in passive income? Well this is the place to be!! I, teacher, currently not investing any of my own money in crypto will show you what I manage to make each month to enlarge my pile of crypto currencies.
I currently have about $1500 in crypto, about $500 of which is my money put into crypto, the rest I got for free!
Last month in September I had a decent month, but my earnings had dropped from August my highest earning month with $340. In October I did have some setbacks, as I suffered from pneumonia and was offline for almost a week.
October Earnings:
**Noise.Cash: $68.36** Noise cash jumped up to be my most profitable site and this despite the rewards going down in the last week, which everyone on noise seems to suffer from... If you are not yet using Noise, you are missing out on free money, you can use my referral here https://noise.cash/u/plints
**Reddit moons: $59.73** I made a big decision to sell my moons, token gotten for interaction on subreddit r/cryptocurrency. The subreddit is full of spam and I am getting sick of it, so I decided to pull my funds out.
**Read.Cash: $42** Read cash did pretty decent, especially with my absence from being ill. Again, if you're not on this you are missing out on free money. You can use my referral here https://read.cash/r/Plint
**Hive: $37,52** Hive has been on a decline for a while. This month it has been mostly lack of interaction on my part. But I have also used some funds to put in Splinterlands, so I substracted those from the profits. Hive is still my favorite place, despite less profit coming from there now. Referral link here https://ecency.com/signup?referral=plint
**Coinbase Earn: $7.50** Again, free money from Coinbase, its been a steady earner for me every month. Referral: https://www.coinbase.com/join/smolde_q8?src=android-share
**Pancake.Swap: $6.85** Took some profits from my cake syrup pool.
**Celsius: $2.75** I love Celsius and hold most my coins there for staking rewards. Referral here: https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/1196075cd9
**Cake Defi: $2.10** Now you can get $30 worth of DFI when signing up with a referral code: 348795 is mine if you are interested you can go here:https://app.cakedefi.com/ and enter the code when you sign up!
**PublishOx: $2.04** I might sounds sarcastic, but things are picking up here, despite me being absent for a week. If you want to get started with it go here: https://www.publish0x.com?a=4QbYvl5ndz
Then I made a couple of cents doing some other things, coming to a grand total of....
Total for October: $229.46
This is pretty close to September and if I can keep this up I will be pretty happy!
Looking Forward to November
I am super super stoked about Splinterlands, a play2earn blockchain game that I finally got started on. I think it has amazing potential to make money! It requires a $10 investment to get started, but I believe it will get me quite a lot as it is making quite some people quite a lot of money! Want to try? Go here:https://splinterlands.com?ref=plints
I hope you all had a great month! And bring on November!
My Season Rewards in Bronze III
Hi everyone! New season has started and so the rewards from last season have come in!
I wrote earlier this week that for beginners like myself it has become a lot harder to get around as DEC rewards don't start until Bronze II and I do not have the collection power to get there yet. But not to worry because I have decided to keep playing and to invest some of the tokens I make on Hive in this project! More about this in a bit!
My Season Rewards
So I had a struggle season, the rewards went down a lot! And I think it's no surprise the rewards were as disappointing as the season itself. Here is what I got:
I was really hoping for some cards to increase my collection power, but it was not to be...
Looking Forward to Next Season
As I mentioned I have decided to stick around, despite the new rules. Firstly because I like the game, but also because I believe it is the blockchain game with the most potential for profit! So I have decided to make some investments. I used the staking rewards from some other coins of this month to buy around 800 DEC, so that should help and I have been blogging more here, to increase the SPS amount I receive, all little bits help right?
My main question for this season is: **Is it smarter to rent my way to Bronze II or to buy my way there?** Hopefully some of you can help me with this question.
I hope you all had nice rewards and hope you have a very successful season ahead!
Climate Change Conference Glasgow: Significant but Unlikely for Change
As you undoubtedly know the great of the earth are gathering in Glasgow tomorrow to meet for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). The faith of climate change, and thereby of our planet is to be discussed and it is said this will be the most important meeting since the Paris Agreement.
Why Glasgow is Important
In Paris the countries agreed that the warming up of the earth should stay below 2 degrees centigrade and preferably below 1.5 centigrade. However, already in Paris is became clear that all the commitments of the different countries put together would not achieve that goal. Therefore they agreed on a mechanism: the NDC in which countries are supposed to make even more committed goals every 5 years.
As you may have guessed already, if we count up all the NDC goals we still do not get to keeping below 1.5 degrees centigrade. This is called the Emissions Gap. The purpose of the conference in Glasgow is to figure out how to close that Emissions Gap.
Why it is Unlikely to Save the Planet
Though some countries are making real strides, we are all still short of keeping up our promises, there are some real obstacles to achieving what we have agreed in Paris.
The Absent Countries: China and Russia.
Though many leaders are gathering in Glasgow that is not the case for Mr Jinping of China or Mr Putin of Russia. This is significant as China causes the biggest emissions in the world, and they are still growing. At the same time, Russia is a big exporter of natural gas, also a big part in emissions. The two of them being absent means a big dent in the plans.
The Developing World
One of the problems is that of the developing world, where emissions logically are still on the rise. The idea of Paris was that richer countries could gift away some of their emissions to poorer countries, meaning they don't pollute more and chances are divided more equally. However, time has shown that this is not an option many rich countries use. Only 80 billion has been promised for energy transition in poor countries and the current plan only runs until 2025.
The IPCC report
The IPCC report showed that not only are we failing to reach our goals, the warming of the climate has only accelerated. It showed a picture of extreme weather if we do not make drastic changes now. And that even if we do, the consequences will still be huge.
Closing Remarks
It remains to be seen if this meeting in Glasgow will make a difference, it has become clear however that it is a very important meeting. Let's hope some of the leaders of the world can rally together to save the planet we all live on.
I would love to hear your vision on this, feel free to leave your comments.
Best Death Deck for Absolute Beginners
After Water and Fire I have decided to look at what I could do with the Death Splinter. This is made for absolute beginners, so only uses the basic cards we all have.
The Deck
As Summoner: Zintar Mortalis, he takes -1 of enemy melee
Tank: Haunted Spirit: restores a portion of the monster's health each turn. The key is of course to keep the tank alive as long as possible.
Rest of the line-up:
I like to use: Undead Priest, very handy to reduce the enemies health.
Twisted Jester: has the snipe ability
Skeleton Assassin: sneak attack is very useful
Dark Astronomer
Undead Badger
They work best all together, but also do well in small mana costs battles were you pick some of them.
In Battle
You can find a link to a battle to see how it works. I believe for Bronze III it is about the best deck around right now at no extra cost for you.
Link to battle: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_1729f95f41500087205dbe68e502a715&ref=plints
Hope you enoy and let me know what you think!
Share Your Battle: Elven Cutthroat
This week's challenge is on using the Elven Cutthroat card. I was happy when I saw this because the Elven Cutthroat is a card I have been using a lot. It wasn't too difficult for me to make a battle with this card.
This card is particularly good in quick battles I find, as the Elven has good damage and speed, but doesn't have a lot of hit points. It has the stealth ability so it targets the last of the opponents monster, instead of the first one. A very useful ability as it can save you quite some damage when you kill the final monsters of the opponent.
My Battle
I decided to combine this weekly battle with my earth quest.
My line-up:
Summoner: Lyanna Natura
Tank: Unicorn Mustang, best tank for earth splinter for beginners
2nd: Goblin Thief, always good to have stealth
3rd: Child of the Forest, super fast with 5 speed and has snipe
4th: Elven Cutthroat, I put it here because it is not the last one and at this position less at danger of getting attacked.
5th and final: Mantoid, love the snipe ability and high health on this card.
You can see my battle here: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_518fcf023b51ba8af6afbeee725688e9&ref=plints
Elven Cutthroat
I chose the Elven for my battle here because it adds speed and kill to my battle. I like the stealth ability as well and in the place where I have put it it is not too much at risk itself. I find the Earth splinter pretty hard to work with at the basic level, but the Elven makes it better.
I hope you have enjoyed my battle. This is my first time participating in the share your battle weekly challenge. Would love to hear your feedback!
The Effect of Splinterland Changes on Newcomers
So with the latest changes in Splinterlands there are no longer rewards in DEC for players in the Novice and Bronze III tier.
This was meant to make it harder for bots to use Splinterlands as a way to farm rewards. Which is understandable of course.
**But what about genuine new players?**
So I started playing a couple of weeks ago, my collection power is not big enough to get out of Bronze III and now I also don't have enough DEC to keep buying or renting cards, since I will run out of DEC before reaching Bronze II...
I also don't have enough credits or a voucher to buy cards...
This means genuine new players get caught between a rock and a hard place. I now have a choice to:
grind on for a ridiculously long time to get enough credits to get myself out of here.
Put more money into this game to grow my collection to get out of here.
Quit.
To be honest I'm not sure what I will do. I enjoy playing Splinterlands, but this has been a big setback for new players like myself.
Any thoughts or ideas are more than welcome! Let me know in the comments.
It's been a while since I have posted anything! Sorry for my absence, I have been batteling pneumonia. Still ill, but feeling a bit better every day so hoping to be more active here again!
My First Steps on Alien Worlds
In my ever expanding repertoire of trying new things on the blockchain- and hopefully trying to make some profit on the way - I decided to try out alienworlds.
What Is Alienworlds?
Alienworlds is a mining game where you set out to mine alien planets. The tools you have and the spot you mine on determine what you will find on your search through the depths of the world.
The options are to find NFTs, cards that will help your mining rig by increasing the chance to find goodies. These NFT's can also be sold if you already have them or hard cash is what you're after. For the NFTs you need a WAX account so in order to log into alienworlds you need a WAX.
I've written an article on how to get on that here: https://www.publish0x.com/understandable-crypto/my-first-steps-in-the-waxey-world-of-nfts-xdgqpyg
The other option is that the mining gives you TLM, the in-game currency. This is in fact far more likely than getting an NFT. How much Trillium (TLM) you receive depends on the rig you use to dig and on the type of land you dig on.
My Review
I've been trying this out for a while now and unlike most thing I try out I would say that if you plan to get started now and don't want to invest your own funds in it, don't bother. It is a lot of grind and work for very little profit. The website is also pretty glitchy, though the last update improved things a bit.
Unless you have a mean mining rig (which costs money) you will take days to grind even 1 TLM together, worth cents. I think people who started early and are now running a profitable rig were fortunate, those of us who start now though will not be.
My Second Season on Splinterlands
My Second Season Rewards
As I have started playing Splinterlands a mere 17 days ago I just had my second season rewards!
I am still in the bottom of Bronze, mostly because of a lack of collection power, we'll get there I guess. Slow and steady wins the race right?
So I opened my 5 precious chests and this is what I got:
To be honest I am still not really sure what these potions can do for me, so getting them has been a bit frustrating haha. I am happy with any card I can get though to increase the power of my collection, no matter how small the difference might be!
So for this season I will be grinding on, doing battles, investing the DEC slowly into making my collection and getting to the end of the season. It seems that if you don't want to put money into it at the beginning, the grind is the only way to go. But that's ok, I can be patient!
I think one of the plans I have is to use some Hive that I have to buy some DEC so I can advance a little bit here because this is not the best place to be stuck in... See what kind of cards I would buy though, I want it to be useful for my play but also help me to power up so I can get out of Bronze III, not the place to be!
Hope you all had a nice season and good rewards!
Milestone Weekend
I hope you all had a great weekend! I sure did and it was a milestone weekend, but not for me but for my dad. He turned 60 this weekend and we had a party to celebrate!
Both my parents turned 60 this year and it does feel different! They seem to be heading for a new phase, thinking ahead of retirement and comfortable life. But before that we had to party!
So my parents decided go big or go home. They rented a tent (October can be pretty cold), got a big bbq and plenty of booze. We got there early on the Saturday to help them set up. It turned out to be a lovely day, but still having a tent was nice. I spent most of the morning blowing up balloons and making the tent a bit more cozy
A True Dutch Birthday
Then in true Dutch style the family had made a song for the birthday boy. In the Netherlands it is very common to write songs for special occasions. First up were my fathers siblings, dressed up for it too:
Then it was the turn of my and my two sisters, luckily I don't have pictures of that haha and I will save you the video. Turns out we have other qualities than singing.
Lighting the Fire
After some singing it was time to throw meat on the BBQ. Two cousins were happy to work the grill and did really well as the rest of us ate, drank and was merry.
Later on in the eve it was time to light a nice campfire as well in the garden. Nothing beats a nice fire to sit by, stare in to the flames and have some drinks.
We also decided to roast some marshmallows and make 'smores with the kids. They are getting to that age now where this is fun to do, they can follow directions and have a bit more patience now. We sat outside until about 1 am when we ran out of wood for the fire and this was a good sign to tell us to go to bed. Woke up with a slight headache the next day, but all worth it!
What was the last milestone you celebrated?
Fantasy Premier League: Week 7
Hi everyone! Another week in Fantasy Premier League and it was a week full of surprises! For those of you not familiar with Fantasy Football: you make your own team consisting of players in the Premier League. You are on a budget of course and so you must make smart choices. You then get points based on how well those players do that week in real life!
So gameweek 6 was not my best, but I had high hopes as I made some changes for gameweek 7, like finally getting Antonio! I also got Ajer in the defense, but he then went ahead and got injured haha.
Gameweek 7
So it still wasn't a great week. Hojberg, usually one of my worst performers, was my best performer because he scored, but honestly I think it says more about the sorry state of my squad then about him haha.
So this was my weeks results:
I should have made Hojberg captain! I earned 33 points, just below the average of 38.
So who did it best?
I always love looking at the best team for inspiration, so here it is:
I really should get Salah, but I don't know where to get the funds! Other than that the duo of forwards was very surprising this week!
Looking Forward to Gameweek 8
I don't think I will change that much and give this squad of mine another chance. I feel like they could be dynamite, but just had an off week.... Let's hope so at least!
How did you fare this gameweek?
A Neolithic Weekend
I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a good weekend, with some friends coming by, good food and a Neolithic theme to my weekend.
A New Game
So we had a friend over on Saturday and we decided to try a new board game that we bought last week, but hadn't got round to playing yet. Since it had been raining for two days straight it was the perfect time to sit inside and play some games!
So the game was lots of fun! It is a cooperative game, meaning you work together, which is good because I can get pretty competitive otherwise haha.
So the game is called Paleo: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/300531/paleo and you play with 2-4 people and together you are a Stone Age tribe with different characters like hunters, gatherers, watchers etc. Together you have to make sure you survive, if you collect 5 skulls you die, but if you manage together to make a cave drawing you win the game.
At first it took us quite some time to work out the rules, the rule book is huuuge and we got a bit overwhelmed.. But after two rounds we got the hang of it and finally got our lovely Neolithic friends win! Cool thing is you can play different scenarios of varying difficulty, that was really nice. We'll be playing it again
Talk and Food
Besides the game we just had a really good catch up with our friend, since we have moved we are a bit further from our friends so these times are precious.
The boys decided to cook up a good meal as well! This made me very happy as I am not a kitchen princess at all. They spend hours in the kitchen making a butter chicken curry from scratch and man that was good, so good in fact that we ate it all before I realized we should have taken a picture haha.
Our friend stayed over for the night and the next morning we had a blueberry pancake feast before he left. It was really nice to spend good time, good game and good food with each other. I always love spending time with friends, you feel really recharged after a weekend like that!
Hope you all had a good weekend too! What were you up to?
My Road to Fitness: Week 4
Another week has flown by and I sit here typing this while feeling a lot of aches in my muscles haha, so starting to feel the burn!
I find that sharing this with you on the blockchain helps me to keep motivated and I hope it motivates other people as well!
The Numbers
Alright let's dive straight into it as the numbers don't lie...
I did my fair share of cycling again, it was a lot harder going this week because of horrible weather and wind! All rides are to and from work.
I did 3 workouts: 2 strength and 1 cardio
And I did 2 walks
I weighed in this morning at **95.6 kg** saying goodbye to 0.6kg, hopefully for good! Total weightloss is 1.4 kg now!
What went well this week
I am really happy I did 3 workouts this week in the gym!
My gym gave me this nice badge for it haha. But I am really happy with it, I am starting to feel better when I go to the gym, no longer feel like I am dying every time haha. I even did deadlifts and benchpresses again for the first time in years!
I'm also happy with the weightloss, after 2 weeks of stuck at 0.4kg I now increased it a bit, so yay!
What I want to improve for next week
I really need to walk more. It is difficult to go outside for walks now that fall is here with the cold and the rain but I just need to get over myself and do it! I would also like to move a bit more in the weekend, my sundays are usually just very lazy haha so they can be improved upon.
I'll let you know next week how I fared! What about you? You happy with your progress this week?
September Earnings of a Small Fish
If you ever wonder what common people without huge piles of money make in passive income? Well this is the place to be!! I, teacher, currently not investing any of my own money in crypto will show you what I manage to make each month to enlarge my pile of crypto currencies.
I currently have about $1000 in crypto, about $500 of which is my money put into crypto, the rest is earned for free....
August was a crazy good month with an earning of $340. Not sure if I did quite as well this September....
**Hive: $63.50** Hive remains my biggest source of income, but it has gone down quite a bit! I feel like I haven't changed that much but I need to invest more time and effort into making this better because the income is dwindling and that is no good!
**Read.Cash $54** Yay things are going much better on read.cash! I am finding my way on it and the reward robot is finding my content! With things going the way they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Read overtakes my Hive income. If you want to try ReadCash you can do that here: https://read.cash/r/Plint
**Noise.Cash $41** Read Cash's little brother Noise is also working very well for me, with income increasing quite a bit the second half of the month! Now making about $3-$4 a day. If you want to give it a go, feel free to use my referral: https://noise.cash/u/plints
**Cake DFI $12.40** I got $10 referral bonus this month and the rest is staking rewards. Now you can get $30 worth of DFI when signing up with a referral code: 348795 is mine if you are interested you can go here:https://app.cakedefi.com/ and enter the code when you sign up!
**Pancake Swap $7.87** I took some profits from my LP Farm and my Cake Pool
**Coinbase Earn $6** Coinbase Earn is like the gift that keeps on giving! No effort and free money. Feel free to use my referral here https://www.coinbase.com/join/smolde_q8?src=android-share
**Reddit Moons: $5.40** The Reddit Community is not really a place to be at the moment, full of spam and what not, so I haven't been that active, but as I don't sell my moons I still get new ones every month.
**Celsius $2.23** Got my staking rewards, they are slowly growing... If you want to try it for yourself you can use my referral https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/1196075cd9
**PublishOx: $1.81** I got more active the last couple of days on PublishOx and it is paying off! Gotta stick with it now and expand on this! If you're interested this is my blog: https://www.publish0x.com/understandable-crypto
**Nexo $0.27** Don't have a lot on here, but got some staking rewards!
**Torum: $0.23** And finally I wanted to include this as I have just started out, but I think it has a lot of potential, also to make money with! It's a social media platform that rewards in XTM, Torum Token. You get 15 XTM for signing up! Here is my referral: https://www.torum.com/signup?referral_code=plints
Total for September: $202.58
Not as great as in August, but still a decent amount! I hope to increase my participation on Hive again, get that going. For the rest I am pretty happy.
Looking Forward to October
I just started out on the WAX blockchain, started playing Alien Worlds and Splinterlands, so hopefully that will get me places as well! I will keep you up to date.
How was your September?
Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 6
Hi everyone! Another week in Fantasy Premier League and it was a week full of surprises! For those of you not familiar with Fantasy Football: you make your own team consisting of players in the Premier League. You are on a budget of course and so you must make smart choices. You then get points based on how well those players do that week in real life!
So last week I was a bit of a dummy as I got so busy I forgot to change my squad haha and I had a rather disappointing week. I made some changes through transfers, getting a new defender in
My Gameweek 6
Well I didn't do great, got 32 points, below the average of 43. My usual players did not perform great, I'm looking at you Vergil and Fernandes! So this was my set up for the week:
I need to change Vestergaard who has been doing nothing and Fernandes was very disappointing as well. I made Lukaku captain because I expected a lot, but I did not get a lot...
So Who Did it Best?
I always like looking at what the best set up would have been (thank you captain hindsight) and here we go:
I love how every week a completely different team was best. This week it clearly paid off if you went heavy on the mid-field and Sa could get you a whopping 15 points, not bad for a goalie!
Looking Forward to Week 7
So I made two transfers. I got Ajer in the defense instead of Vestergaard, as he was hardly playing. And I buckled and got Antonio in the offense, he has been performing like crazy and he teamed up with Lukaku in the front should be able to do some amazing things I think! I've had to sacrifice Richarlison, which hurts my football heart a bit, but I will get over it!
How did you fare this gameweek?
My First Steps in the WAXey world of NFT's
So I hear a lot of crypto peeps talking about NFT's and what they are doing on the WAX blockchain. And I would nod and smile I have absolutely no clue what these people were talking about. But as I am a big girl and independent woman, I decided to figure it out and get started!
What is WAX?
So WAX is a blockchain for NFTs, so you can send and receive Non-Fungible Tokens there. It also hosts a plethora of dApps or different interfaces and sites where you can do things: games, marketplaces etc.
The blockchain has its native token WAXP (WAX).
I was interested because people are making money on it, and I love making money!
Getting Started
You don't need much to get started: a WAX wallet and some WAX and you are ready to go. At wallet.wax.io you can easily make a wallet.
When you have done that it looks like this! You see what NFT's you have, can select to use different dApps and stake WAX tokens to get staking rewards. You are now on the right path!
Getting it to Work
So I was ready to work some magic, but then I got a lot of error codes. Turns out, you need to put some WAX in, or get some from your prince charming, to get started. Three things are important on the WAX blockchain: CPU, NET and RAM, don't worry these have nothing to do with your computer performance, but relate to the blockchain themselves. In order to buy things and have the power to actually store them and process them, you need these things. If you click on resources on the right hand side you will see what you have:
In order to increase these you need to stake some WAX. RAM is the most important, but doesn't require a big amount to function. But without RAM most dApps are unavailable.
Getting WAX
So this turned out to be the hardest of all! You can buy WAX on multiple exchanges and send it over. Sounds easy? Well, since lots of exchanges have a minimum and I am only a small crypto player it was a bit of a search. I ended up getting $50 worth from Binance and sending that over (horrible binance experience btw, to purchase with euro was a nightmare). Anyway, the WAX will end up on the left top and you can stake some to increase your RAM, CPU and NET. You will get staking rewards for that that will go back into the staking pool, yay!
Now What?
So now it is time to have some fun! I would recommend going to https://wax.atomichub.io/ where you can buy and trade NFTs and often pick up some free ones. https://neftyblocks.com/ is also a good one to pick up some free NFTs. I also tried Alien Worlds, will write another post on that soon!
You are now one of the cool kids involved with NFTs, enjoy it! Let me know how you fare and I will post some more WAX blockchain fun to come!
Oldschool Weekend
Hi all weekenders!
I had a weekend that reminded me of the old days, and it was pretty great! So here in the Netherlands we have said goodbye to most of the pandemic rules, meaning for the first time things almost felt 'normal' (let's pretend I was ever normal)
Out in the Town
So as the rules were relaxed we decided to visit some friends in Utrecht on Saturday. We were not the only ones as it was busy on the streets and in the restaurants, creating a great atmosphere again!
It was also great weather, 23 degrees at the end of September, very un-Dutch haha. So we decided to sit outside next to the canal.
We had lots of fun, ate cheese fondue and drank beers. It got pretty busy with people, but it felt pretty safe with the everyone having to show that they were either vaccinated or tested. We went home around midnight as that is now the new closing time, and it was nice to see so many happy people out and about that had a fun evening. I cannot imagine a bigger difference then when we all had curfew and were cooped up inside the house.
Sunday Chillday
Sunday we woke up without hangover, the miracles haven't left the world yet! We had a pretty chill day, finally put up the new art print we bought:
We love it! Made by an American artist and as we love mountains and we needed a nice piece in our house this was perfect.
I then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get started on WAX and the world of NFTs. Man that is pretty complicated! But managed to install the wallet, get some WAX, get some NFTs and make a first start on AlienWorlds. Anyone else doing things with WAX?
To end the day we found this cutie when we went shopping haha, couldn't leave her in the shop.
Hope you all had a great weekend as well, look forward to seeing what you did here on the blockchain!
My Road to Fitness: Week 3
So this has been my second full week of me trying to get healthier, fitter and thinner! I would like to share how it is going and to keep me motivated!
The Numbers
As you know, numbers don't lie so here are mine for the week:
I did 8 rides (all to and from work), went to 2 classes in the gym and did 1 walk this week.
I weighed in this morning at **96.2 kg** so a loss of 0.4kg. Funny enough, I also lost 0.4kg last week! Total weight loss is 0.8kg now.
What went well this week
I was happy with my two gym classes, the classes are nails: I go to a core workout class and this woman destroys me in a matter of 45 mins, but I can start noticing the difference: I can keep up better and do the exercises with better form, so I am sticking with this class!
The cycling also went pretty well this week, I got a new record on my route to work: getting there in 28 minutes!
What I want to improve for next week
I need to walk more. I really do, I am hitting half the steps I want to hit a week and the week before I did quite some walks and it was great, so I needed to keep up with that.
I also felt quite tired last week because I had horrible headwind twice coming back from work and it just drained me from doing anything after that. 12 km is a long way to cycle with headwind after a long day of work haha. But next week, headwind or not I shall drag myself outside for at least a walk!
I'm also hoping to accelerate the weight loss a bit, 0.8 kg in two weeks is nice, but I wouldn't mind a bit more!
Anyway, thanks for dropping by and your support. I find it really makes a difference that I report weekly to you all, it keeps me motivated!
Torum: Social Media for Crypto Enthusiasts
This weekend on Noise somebody was talking about Torum and I had no idea what it was. When I went to research I was surprised that there was this social media platform based on crypto that I had missed entirely! I can't imagine I am the only one that missed it, so I wrote this introduction to Torum!
What is Torum?
Torum is a social platform, not unlike facebook, but then focussed solely on crypto. You have a profile with a newsfeed and you can join clans to talk or read about topics that interest you. The platform uses its own token XTM (Torum) to reward participants for creating interesting and high quality content. Torum is still being developed but let me tell you it looks amazing!
#### What If I Want to Join?
You can use the referral link: https://www.torum.com/signup?referral_code=plints to receive 15 XTM when you start or just sign up yourself: https://www.torum.com/ to start from scratch.
After you sign up you will have to verify your email and your phone number, this is to prevent abuse from spammers. After doing that you will find yourself being able to do Daily Missions. Only when you have reached 100 points in the Daily Missions, will the other missions open up for you, also to prevent spammers. I found it pretty easy to figure out and met a great mod, who helped me when I was dumb enough to forget a digit in my phone number.
What Can I Do on Torum?
As you can see the home page is not too unlike Facebook, you can see your newsfeed, but you can also hit discover to see what people wrote that you are not following. You can create a post, follow interesting people etc.
On the top you also see Companies and Clans, where you can follow the groups that you are interested in.
Here you can see some of the clans that I have joined. If you want to start a new discussion/give information/ do a poll or whatever you want to do you can post a thread in a clan and interact with people.
If you go to the missions tab you will get an overview of your missions:
So here you see my daily missions, good girl that I am I have done them all. When you have acquired 100 power-ups you can also get weekly, one-time and special missions. I started last night and managed to power up to almost 25% so it's not too hard.
Wallet and Tokens
So on the platform you get rewarded in XTM and this basically happens in two ways:
First of all you earn XTM through your missions. The first time you have to get 500 XTM before you can move those off the platform, hence that those tokens are not in my exchange wallet at the moment.
The second way to get tokens is through gifts, people can send you XTM if they really like your content and this goes straight to your exchange wallet. Currently XTM is tradable on Uniswap, but as the site is still in beta you cannot withdraw to an external wallet yet, they promise this will be available soon.
Finally, you can collect shards and dust, like you see here:
Shards and dust can both be used as power up for your staking multiplier. Shards are based on the amount of XTM you have (1 XTM is 1 shard) and dust can be gained by gifting to other users. So giving away 1 XTM = 1 dust.
Final Words
Torum is still in Beta, but I have to say I find it pretty sophisticated already! It works nice and the visual is great! Only time will tell if XTM is here to stay, but the project seems solid.
Have any of you tried Torum yet?
Life is a Beach
Hi everyone, I hope you had a great weekend! Mine inspired me to use the quote ' life is a beach' because well, life can be a lot of fun!
The Beach
So I have just started a new job a month ago and this past Friday it was time for the work party! So nice that we can finally do this again, getting together and having fun, instead of trying to teach from behind a computer screen. So we went to the beach near Schoorl. If you are ever in the Netherlands, go there! It is a beautiful dune area.
We got together and had a game organized for us. We had to get into groups of 6 and compete against each other in all sorts of fun puzzles and games in the sand. For example: we had to build a big catapult and shoot footballs with it to each other, we had to make origami puzzles, build a fire and transport water in bamboo sticks. It was a lot of fun, despite us not winning. I will have to show you guys more pictures later when I get them, didn't want to have my phone in the sand.
After we had a BBQ and got treated to this beauty of a sunset:
It was super nice to get to know everyone and have some beers and chill. I think my partner also didn't mind the evening to himself as he sent me this pic:
I think the boys at home were having fun too haha.
Beach and Chill
After my beach evening we decided to keep the beach theme going and we went cycling around the dunes the next day.
I have to say that living near the beach is turning out to be a real treat! I don't like swimming in the sea at all, but biking and walking here is amazing!
After all this beachiness we decided to take it easy the rest of the day and we went to the second hand shop on Sunday, where I picked up more books (yay books!) and Matt picked up wood and paint for a diy project.
How was your weekend? Was it a beach as well?
Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 5
After I had a good week last week, we are back for gameweek 5! For those of you not familiar with Fantasy Football: you make your own team consisting of players in the Premier League. You are on a budget of course and so you must make smart choices. You then get points based on how well those players do that week in real life!
So I finally had a good week last week, putting in Lukaku and Richarlison and they were my prize possessions. But as usual, my luck was on short-lived. I had to work two insanely long days at work on Thursday and Friday, missing all the football news and not making any changes to my squad. A decision that would cost me dearly....
My Gameweek 5
So as I said I forgot to change my squad and because of that completely missed an injured Richarlison (who will be out for a while...) and a sick Alexander-Arnold, goodbye points! I made Fernandes my captain and that didn't do me any good either...
Anyway these were my 11 for this week:
This squad got me to the disappointing score of 31 points, well below the average of 43...
I did get 2 transfers again so I can go back to the drawing board this week..
Who Did it Best?
So the ultimate team this week was this:
Scoring a whopping 129 points, it left me in the dust! We do have one player in common haha that makes me feel somewhat better! Every week I am learning more this season!
Looking Forward to Next Gameweek
So I do have some issues to solve, find a replacement for Richliarson for one, and having a look at my defense, van Dijk obviously is great, but the rest really needs to pick up, so I might have to make some changes!
How did you do this week? Hope you fared better than I did!
My Road to Fitness: Week 2
So I told you guys last week I am starting my journey to become healthier, fitter and lighter and I would like to share how my first week has been!
The Numbers
It's all in the numbers as numbers don't lie! So this is what I have been up to this week:
So managed to do 9 bike rides (mostly for work), had 4 walks and did 2 workouts in the gym of about an hour each.
When it comes to weight I started at 97kg last week and this morning weighed in again at: **96.6kg** so I have lost 0,4kg in week 1.
What went well this week
I am pretty happy with the amount of exercise. I had a cold and was in bed for two days this week and managed to make up for it in the other days with getting enough exercise. I am a bit sore now though haha, might take a rest day tomorrow.
I'm also pretty happy with the weight, it was even less during the week, but no cheating the numbers, I am writing down what it said this morning and a loss of 0.4kg is pretty close to my goal of losing 0.5-1 kg a week, so for a first week it's not too bad!
What I want to improve on for next week
I want to try and do some more steps, I really need to walk more! Also I want to improve my diet next week. I had dinner at work 2 days last week and they were not the healthiest and I had some beers on Friday that made me feel hungover today. So mind my food more and take in the healthy stuff!
So the story will continue, I am happy to still be on the bandwagon to a healthier life. How was your week in terms of your health and fitness?
Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 4
After a break for international football we are back this week! For those of you not familiar with Fantasy Football: you make your own team consisting of players in the Premier League. You are on a budget of course and so you must make smart choices. You then get points based on how well those players do that week in real life!
So I had two bad weeks in a row (gameweek 2 and 3) and I decided to make some changes to my squad putting Lukaku in for Kane and Richarlison in for Adams. And it worked! Results were much better this week!
My Gameweek 4
For this week I am very pleased as I managed to score 80 points, above the average of 57 points. And this meant I went up in my league as well, though I am still at a very sad 44th place in the crypto league, but up 5 places!
This was my squad this week and getting Lukaku has really paid off this week, as well as making Fernandes captain. I'm pretty happy with the defense as well, but not completely pleased with the midfield. Hojberg hasn't really been scoring very well for me lately
Who did it best?
I always like to look at who did it best. And the gameking of this week scored 132 points! And this was his team:
I have to say I am pretty jealous that this guy has both Lukaku and Ronaldo in his team because they are not cheap! It's also funny how Arsenal players have disappeared from most people's teams as they are performing so poorly.
Looking forward to next week
Looking ahead, I am pretty pleased with my team. I might tweak a bit, see how everybody returns from the Champions League. I am not planning on using my transfer yet, I think I'll wait till I have two so I can put things the way I want them (Hojberg's time in my team might be ending soon...)
How did you do this past game week?
A Weekend of Silence
Usually I start these kind of posts with ah what a weekend it's been or telling about all the stuff that I did. I like to keep my weekends active, doing things with friends or experiencing things. This weekend was a bit different...
Off to a good start
On Saturday I decided to tackle something I have been meaning to start for a while but haven't. As I have gained many corona lockdown kilo's that have been rather reluctant to fall off my body liked I asked them to, I joined the local gym Saturday! All the details you can read here: https://read.cash/@Plint/my-road-to-fitness-week-1-5244e6e5 but its not for this post
I felt pretty good about getting started, came home all happy with myself. But then....
Enter the silence...
At the end of Saturday my throat started to hurt... a lot.... My first reaction was to kill the bug with a glass of wine (alcohol kills bacteria right?) but this bug was not to be deterred... I woke up after a night of weird weird dreams in a fever. And when I say weird I mean weird. I dreamt that I first got stuck in an elevator and then when I got out decided to walk the stairs, even though I lived super high in a skyscraper. Then I dreamt that have way through I lost track, started hallucinating and stepped back in the same elevator. Fever dreams are weird... I then woke up with my voice reduced to almost nothing... Let the silence commence.
Anyway I managed to get booked in for a Corona test the next morning and got my tonsils tickled there. I felt grim. The lady that did the test told me to go back to bed. I was starting to fear the Rones had finally caught up with me...
Pajama on the couch was the only option... I think my partner had a great day, he played some computer game all day and since I could barely speak he had a super quiet day haha. I was not so pleased...
Finding my voice
The next morning after another weird weird dream (this one involved suffocating on too much licorice and going on a school trip with a maniacally driving bus driver) I had some of my voice back! I can speak! I also got the super good news that whatever nasty throat bug I got, it wasn't the Rones. Rona Free since '93!
I was feeling a bit better as well so decided to use my time well...
By installing the Sims 3! What an amazing idea! Man I have had fun today, got myself a little Sim family, been having lots of affairs my wife doesn't know about. Have a child that loves books (who has that!). Honestly though, playing games from your youth is a lot of fun. Would recommend!
I am feeling much better, so unfortunately it looks like once again my illness is contained to the weekend (I don't work on Mondays) So I can go straight back to work...
How was your weekend?
An Extremely Unlikely Encounter
Sitting on the couch with my partner playing computer games 3 meters away from me, I sometimes think back about how we met and how incredibly unlikely our meeting really was. I would love to take you along on this unlikely love story of ours.
A Girl and a Boy
In the winter of 2018 I was single and living my life when I was unfortunate enough to have a really bad climbing accident that left me with an ankle broken in 6 bits, all tendons torn off and a calf muscle completely torn off. I became house-bound and bored pretty quickly. One of my good friends from the climbing group said he had a uni friend from the UK coming to visit him in the Netherlands. He asked if I wanted to join them in the bar next to my house. Jumping on the opportunity to meet someone I hobbled my way on crutches the 10 meters between my door and the door of the pub. As soon as I met Matt, he made me laugh!
Not wanting the good fun to end I asked what they were up to the next day. When they said they didn't have any plans I asked if they would be interested in watching some olympics at my place and eating magic mushrooms. They instantly said yes.
Visit the Vortex
It might seem a bit odd to invite someone you don't know for a magic mushroom trip while you are crippled, but I am a firm believer in going with the flow.
Well we had a blast! I was sitting next to Matt the whole time and we just laughed and laughed. My first instinct was to cuddle him, but thought that would be a bit weird with our friend being there as well haha. The next day Matt went for an explore in Utrecht and seeing that I could hardly walk that was our time together.... or maybe not?
The First Date
I found Matt on facebook and added him and we got chatting and Matt asked me out on a date. In the UK. Camping. For 5 days. I didn't even have to think and booked!
So I took the train to Yorkshire and then for the first time I thought: I have only seen this guy once, if this turns out awkward it will be next level awkward. Like camping for 5 days together awkward...
But it never was. As soon as I saw him when he picked me up from the station I knew I made the right decision. I just felt at ease with him. We went to the lakes, camped, walked (I had just gotten off the crutches) and after 5 days I took the train back and thought... Shiiiit I think I really like this guy...
What Happened After
We did long distance for 2 years. First UK-Netherlands where we spent as much time together as we could. Always with active vacations, climbing, caving, hiking, mountains.
After a wile Matt got a job in Oman so we did Oman-Netherlands, it was harder because there was a time difference and it was far, but we made it work.
Matt moved back from Oman to the UK and we made plans for me to move to the UK, I got my English teaching licence so I could work, quit my job and then... Corona. The minute I realized this was getting serious and we might be seperated by closed borders. I got on the last ferry before the borders closed, packed up the most important things and left to the UK. After a week, Matt lost his job in the lockdown. After 12 weeks of bliss living together for the first time even though there was a pandemic, we decided to move to the Netherlands together as I could pick up my old job.
So here we are, we've been living in the Netherlands for a year now. Matt is finding his way with the language and a new job. I am so happy, we did all the hard things and we made it through and I could not be happier for it. I guess the main thing is: trust your gut, follow your heart and go completely for it if you think it's right. It's been hard but I cannot imagine being with anyone else.
Here we are now, Matt, me and Ed, the friend that brought us together!
My Road to Fitness- Week 1!!
I am finally doing it! I am embarking on this journey to loose some weight (corona kilo's), get fitter, healthier and happier! And I would love to share it with you all on the blockchain of course for some much needed support and advice!
Why am I doing this?
I've been pretty fit until about 1.5 years ago, love climbing, walking, cycling and mostly being outdoors. When the pandemic hit everything changed and I became a couch potato... I gained over 20 kgs and lost pretty much all my fitness. But I have decided to get on with it and change things!
The Goal
We all need goals, keep ourselves accountable and keep focused. So here they are, some a big goals, but big goals can be difficult, so I need some smaller goals as well.
I want to go back to my original weight, which was around 75 kilos. I am currently 97 kilos... The goal would be to loose between 0,5-1 kg a week, we have to keep it feasible.
I want to get in shape. I feel like an old lady, never before in the history of me have I been this out of shape. So instead of starving myself to thinness, I am going to work out to get fit!
I need to eat healthier. I slashed my alcohol consumption down to 1 or 2 beers a week and that has already made a big difference! I want to lay off most candy and savory snacks and have healthy meals with lots of veg and protein!
How Will I Achieve this?
I got a gym membership today (no more waiting around!) and plan to go 2-3 times a week for at least an hour every time
I got a new job and luckily I will be cycling so that is 24 km of cycling 4 days a week. I don't have another option as I don't have a car haha so no getting out from underneath it!
Now the food will be my weak spot (I love cheese). I don't want to starve myself, since I want to be fit and need my energy. So I will stick to around 2000 calories a day, decrease the amount of fat and sugar I eat and increase the protein and fibers I eat...
I will let you know each week how I get on, also if I didn't do too well, I hope with having to report every week and with your support I will achieve my goal!
The Best Excuse I Ever Made
You may be familiar with this situation. You are about to have to do something you really don't want to do... And you're looking for a way out... You need an excuse!
We have all been in that situation and this is the one that stuck with me the most: how I came up with the best excuse I ever made....
Setting the scene
So we have to start from the beginning. We decided to take a long weekend trip to Fontainebleau (France) to go bouldering there. Most of use already knew each other for quite some time and we were super excited to go!
This was the group we went with. Since I was one of the people that had a car it was agreed that I would drive my car and bring three more people with me. It was quite a drive, about 700 km, but I like driving so fine. I didn't really bother with who would be in my car since I would be driving anyways so who cares right? WRONG!!!
I ended up with two people in my car who were a couple, we thought.... turns out they had broken up the week before. Let me tell you, that was the most awkward drive of my life... They were constantly bickering and one of them was obviously very sad while the other was not... We got to the campsite, but it was honestly the worst ride ever.
Here we are chilling at the campsite (before 'Rona hit so look at us all chilling close together). To make matters worse, during this weekend at the campsite they had a huge fight when the girl ended up flirting with one of the other guys and the ex had a meltdown....
The Excuse
You may understand that the last thing I wanted to do was drive another 700km with them two in the back of my car. But every other driver was pretty happy with their passengers and did not want to switch... So I would need to be smart about it.
I approached on of the other girls and asked her wouldn't she like to be in my car on the way back? And she was in! I then made up the excuse that she was horribly carsick and because my car was not only the most spacious and comfortable, it also had a lot more windows (it was a Citroen Berlingo) so she would surely feel better in my car....
And it worked! We switched the two girl around and the atmosphere improved by like 10000000 times in my car. Only months later did someone in the group figure out that I made it all up and got away with my excuse. I told him to keep his mouth shut haha. I have no regrets!
What was your best excuse ever? I would love to hear!
Puerto Rico: More to This Island Than Meets The Eye
When I was studying in Canada on exchange we had fall break and when you are already on the other side of the globe, why not choose a destination that would otherwise be too far? We wanted to get out of the Canadian cold and go somewhere warm and as poor students the destination also had to be affordable: Puerto Rico it was!
Though we did not do a lot of research before we left, this island left me amazed! It is a gorgeous place with amazing people!
San Juan
Everyone's journey to Puerto Rico starts here in the capital. When we got there it was pretty devoid of tourists as we arrived during the hurricane season (which explained why it was so cheap) After dumping our bags in the hostel we decided to go explore straight away! We decided to go to El Morro: a fortress with amazing defense for anyone coming from the Atlantic ocean. As a history student this was a must and it was huuuuge! We walked around for over an hour.
The fort also offered beautiful views of the coastline
Vieques
After a night of partying in San Juan we decided more of this beautiful island awaited us so we rented a car and headed towards Fajardo to get to the island of Vieques the next day. Most tourist don't end up taking a ferry to Vieques, a pretty small island to the east of Puerto Rico. But they should! It is crazy beautiful there and the people were incredibly nice. We ended up dining at some locals neighborhood barbeque with great people who attempted to teach us how to dance salsa and failed miserably haha
You have to take a ferry to get to Vieques which offers beautiful views, though the people in this boat didn't think so...
We also got treated to what I can only describe as the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Magical... After that sunset it would only get better as we headed of at night for a kayak trip in the Mosquito Bay. Now you wonder who wants to go kayak in the dark in a place with mosquito in the name? Well, everyone, because they have bioluminescent shrimp there. Or when you move your kayak the shrimp in the water give off light. It was magical, but did not have any camera with me (because kayak).
El Yunque
Still reeling from all the beauty we saw we headed to the mainland again and went to the forest of El Yunque where you can see amazing tropical rainforest. You also have great views from the rainforest as you climb steadily up while you hike.
We got back to the car completely soaked, not because of rain but because of the humidity in the tropical rainforest!
We decided to drive the Ruta Panoramica that runs across the middle of the island through the central mountains from east to west. If you have a car (and you should on this island!) I would recommend this route. It was beautiful though the roads were not great everywhere.
We also got some rain, but sitting in the car with Raggaeton blasting from the speakers and being in a tropical country make up for everything.
The goal of our drive on the Ruta Panoramica was Rincon: surfers paradise in Puerto Rico. Neither of us could surf, but it's always good to watch people who know what they are doing.
After a night of party in Rincon we headed back to San Juan, did a final day at the beach and flew back to icy cold Canada...
I would tell everyone to go to Puerto Rico, rent a car, get out of the capital, see some amazing scenery and meet some amazing people!
@Plint
